My Educational Technology Christmas List

It's the time of year when children are adding their final items to their Christmas list and making the trek to the local mall to tell the Jolly Old Elf what tops their list for Christmas. Keeping in that spirit, here is my educational technology wish list, in no particular order:

• Apple to get their 'stuff' together to make iPads / iPods more compatible with school environments - we want to be able to volume license apps for classroom sets, we want iTunes to work better in an enterprise environment, we want true educational discounts, etc.
• more bandwidth - enough said!
• more new Google features - seems like there are always new things making life better for Google users in schools (my last discovery was Google CloudPrint).
• a stable Student Information System with clean data.
• lower prices for assistive technology - I know that it is a somewhat limited market, but come on, these are the students who need it the most!
• teachers to understand that mindless Internet games are a not a good use of divisional resources.
• devices for all students - for every student to have a personal device under their tree this Christmas and to be able to bring it to school.
• fewer computer labs in the schools - more use of wireless computers / devices when needed, in the classrooms.
• full time help desk - we can always use more help!
• video conferencing capabilities in all schools.
• quality Internet access at home for all students, allowing them to leverage the tools that they are using at school.
• more tech innovators who 'get it', when it comes to education.

What would you add to this list?

Shifting Roles in the 21st Century

The 2010 special report, A Vision for 21st Century Education, by the Premier's Technology Council of British Columbia highlights what is needed for school systems to transform in order to properly serve the citizens of today's knowledge-based society. Although there are a number of very interesting and thoughtful areas discussed in the report, the one that resonated with me the most was the section on shifting roles.

The report discussed the shift that is currently happening and what needs to further shift regarding the roles of the three main stakeholders in education: students, teachers and parents. It suggests that students need to continue to evolve from that of a passive student to an active learner, taking responsibility and ownership for much of their own learning.  This includes both formal and informal learning. Technology affords this in many ways for students, allowing them access to information at almost any time from almost anywhere. In fact, according to a 2007 Cisco study, school was the place where youth were the most disconnected from technology.

The argument is made that not only are these students capable of using the technology in their learning, but are likely eager to integrate it into their own learning.

The role of the teacher moving from a lecturer to a guide is well underway in many of today's classrooms. Unfortunately, this is more often the case in elementary classrooms than in secondary classrooms. There are a myriad of reasons for this, including the intensity of the curriculum, diploma examinations and university applications to name a few. In my opinion, these are just excuses and the reasons more often lie with the teachers' inabilities to adjust their own teaching. This isn't always a result of a poor teacher. Sometimes, a teacher may be passionate about the subject material and they feel that the best way to get that passion across to their students is to lecture them on the topics. Often, the curriculum itself is one of the main culprits. As new curricula is being developed and rolled out, there becomes less of a focus on specific knowledge and more focus on skills and understandings of concepts. Technology plays a part in this role transformation by providing teachers more tools to help students learn and to differentiate their learning to the benefit of all students. The role of the teacher focuses less on direction and instruction and more on the learning coach or guide.

However, the one that stood out as being a bit different from much of the other literature is that of the changing role of the parent. The Premier's Technology Council points out that parents are (and need to continue) moving from strictly supporters of their child's education to an active participant in it. Technology allows for greater access to information about their child's attendance, assignments, and progress. Whether this be through online portals of the school division's school information system (SIS) or simply through email contact with their child's teacher. When I was teaching in the classroom five years ago, I saw firsthand the impact that email contact with parents could have, as it is quick and non-intrusive. The role of parents outside of the school walls is also recognized, as students are only in school for a portion of the time and learning can occur anywhere and at anytime.

As leaders, we need to embrace these changing roles in our own systems and encourage and support our stakeholders so that they can begin to make this shift or move further to completing this shift.

Of these three shifting roles, which do you see as the most difficult one to make? Why?

Cisco Systems Inc. (2007). Equipping every learner for the 21st century. Retreived Oct. 8, 2011 from http://www.cisco.com/web/about/citizenship/socio-economic/docs/GlobalEdWP.pdf.

Premier's Technology Council. (2010). A vision for 21st century education. Vancouver, BC: Premier's Technology Council.

School Leadership in the 21st Century

The role of administration in schools is changing, as students and schools themselves are changing. It was not too long ago, that the role of school administrator was primarily a managerial job, in charge of the day to day business of the school. The principal was in charge of the school’s budget, discipline and the hiring of teachers an other staff. Although this is still a part of the position, it has become a small part, with a more important focus being that of an instructional leader. This alone is not entirely new, as Stonge wrote in 1993 about the role of administrator is that of an educational leader, a combination of manager and instructional leader. What is changing, however, is what an instructional leader looks like, in a 21st century school.


What is important to understand is that the majority of our schools, although they are all in the 21st century, have not adopted the principles of 21st century teaching, as outlined by Friesen & Lock (2010). A 21st century leader combines the skills and competencies of 21st century learning with digital technologies. Either of these alone is not effective to be an educational leader with today’s students. As a leader, administrators must model and encourage (for both their teachers and their students) such things as creativity, collaboration and ethical citizenship. They must foster and use effective assessment techniques. They must build and maintain structures (both physical and the way classes are set up) that not only allow for but encourage teaching and learning to follow 21st century competencies.


This is a difficult feat in the current situation in Alberta schools. The economic situation is causing teacher layoffs and larger class sizes, yet the demands are being put on the principal to give students greater access to digital technologies, often requiring heavy investments. Adding to this, is the mindshift that is required by teachers to change the way that they are teaching (or how their students are learning) and for parents to accept that this shift from the way that they were taught and are familiar with (“It worked for me, why change it?”) is okay and better for their children, as they learn differently than their parents.


Regardless of the obstacles that make this difficult, as school leaders, we owe it to our students to lead our schools in their transformations to 21st century schools.

Friesen, S., & Lock, J. (2010). High Performing Districts in the Application of 21st Century Learning Technologies. Edmonton, AB. College of Alberta School Superintendents.
Stronge, J.H. (1993). Defining the principalship: Instructional leader or middle manager?NASSP Bulletin, 77(553), 1-7

An Apology to My Former Students or What I've Learned About Assessment

Everyone experiences growth through their chosen profession. As teachers, we are constantly exposed to learning, both of our students and our own. I have been very fortunate to have given an enormous amount of professional learning opportunities in my career, especially over the past five years in my out-of-classroom positions. When I return to the classroom, whenever that may be, there will certainly be many changes in what I do, in all areas, including instruction and assessment. When I think back on some of my former practices, I realize that what I was doing was not the best for students. It was not done out of malice, simply just out of a lack of understanding. What I offer here is an apology to those students with whom I could have done a better job of assessment.

• I'm sorry for thinking that if I let you know what the outcome of the lesson was, it would 'ruin the surprise'. I now know that students can better learn if they know what they are learning about.
• I'm sorry for giving too many summative assesements each term - I now realize that I do not require so many marks, just to make 'the program' calculate the mark correctly.
• I'm sorry that I never really understood how my gradebook program calculated your marks. With a good understanding, rather than having it set up by task type, it would have much more to do with objectives.
• I'm sorry that I gave out punitive grades - zeros, deductions for handing assignments in late, not allowing rewrites or extra time on tests. Rather than using assessment to measure how much you understood (so that I could help you understand the parts that you didn't), I was focused on getting a mark on how prepared you were or for your behaviour.
• I'm sorry that I gave out bonus marks - it's not a true measurement of learning, when I ask you a random question as a bonus mark on an exam (even if we had fun with it).
• I'm sorry that my assessment practices made it difficult for you to improve your mark, if you had a few poor marks at the beginning of the year or semester. Your final mark should have been more indicative of what you actually knew and learned by the end of the year.
• I'm sorry that I ever had you fill in a bubble sheet multiple choice exam, even though I tried to write higher-level questions.
• I'm sorry that sometimes your behaviour was linked to your academic mark. What was a 'citizenship' mark and what did it have to do with your understanding of the program of studies and outcomes. How is 'effort' on assignments measured - what was I thinking?
• I'm sorry that in my efforts to maintain 'fair' grading processes, I was actually doing quite the opposite.

Please accept my apology and for those of you who are now teachers yourself, please learn from my mistakes.

Book of Awesome - Back to School

I've been a big fan of Neil Pasricha's 1000 Awesome Things and the accompanying Book of Awesome books for quite some time. Here in Canada, we are just getting back into the swing of things and the new school year is starting. While driving home from holidays, my wife (who is also a teacher) and I were discussing back to school and the excitement of it. Now that I have been out of the classroom for a few years, I really miss being a classroom teacher on the first day of school. However, I do get to experience this from a different angle, as a parent of children going into grades 2 & 5.

So, we developed this list of what is awesome about getting back to school:

• New Stuff - For many students, back to school means all kinds of new things - new clothes, new shoes, new backpack and new school supplies. For me, I remember very clearly being excited about getting to pick out my new lunch kit for the year. Some of my most memorable ones include Wayne Gretzky, NHL, Smurfs and PacMan. For those who like organizing, it's a great time, labeling those new supplies, finding homes for all of your new stuff, setting up your locker / desk (or classroom for those who become teachers).
• Catching Up With Friends - Summer is a busy time and despite having more time off, it can be difficult to catch up with friends (this is true for both students and teachers). That first day back may be the first time you have seen your classmates for close to two months. For myself, I grew up on a farm and my nearest friend lived about 10 miles away, which meant it was rare to get together in the summer.
• Classrooms - As a teacher, it is a lot of work, but once you have your room set up for that first day, you can step back, look at the bulletin boards, the configuration of desks / tables, the reading corner, etc. and be proud. When the students enter in the morning, take a look at their faces. It's worth the work - they think that it is awesome.
• Shiny School Floors - Walking into the school and seeing the glare of lights off of the newly waxed floors, one realizes the amount of work that custodians have put in over the summer and that once school starts, the floors will not look like that until the next summer. Just maybe, you might catch one of us teachers running and sliding down the hallway before the start of school.
• Smiles - Despite the nervousness and the fact that they are back in school, nothing beats the big smiles that greet you when students walk into your classroom for the first time.
• Stories - Every kid has a story to tell you about the summer. Some are good, some are bad and some are just plain strange, but regardless, they can't wait to tell their story. Kids have the most awesome stories.
• The End of Day 1 - Once the room empties out at the end of the first day of school, as you collapse into your chair from exhaustion, you are grinning from ear to ear, thinking about how awesome the first day is.

What makes the first day of school awesome for you?

Incremental vs Conceptual Change

I recently heard Mary Cullinane give a keynote address at the Learning Forward Summer Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. One of her key points that stuck with me was regarding change in the education system. She used the example of ATMs to illustrate the difference between incremental and conceptual innovation. The implementation of ATMs was a conceptual change from tellers, whereas the change to deposit a cheque without having to input information into the ATM is an incremental change. It is different, but it is more of a slight process change, it doesn’t require a whole different mindset. If you understand the solution, it is incremental. If you understand the problem, it is conceptual.

Most of the change that has occurred in education in the past few decades has been incremental, where there has been tweaking and other changes, but it more or less is the same as it was fifty years ago (at least as a generalization). Students are in desks, usually in rows and most of the learning is teacher directed, especially for upper elementary and higher. Although most of these changes have been good, they haven't really been enough, based on how different the students that we see in our classrooms today are. What we need to happen is conceptual change. For this, we need a better understanding of the problems in education. This is not an easy task, it is a huge undertaking, but if we want to make a real difference, that is what needs to be done.

Some of the necessary conditions that Cullinane outlined are:

·        People maintain a tight connection between new technology and education value.

·        People aren’t bound by the traditional constraints of their industry or market, encourage innovation.

·        People don’t face career destruction if an idea fails; it cannot be a punitive environment.

·        People should have clear and direct incentives for success.

What resonated with me the most was the idea that people should feel safe to make educated mistakes.  If we don’t allow this, people will not take responsible risks, which is how we can get further down the road to conceptual change in education.

Based on the keynote presentation at Learning Forward 2011, by Mary Cullinane - July 19, 2011 - Indianapolis, Indiana

Focus on Professional Learning

Many of us educators have been in a professional development session, either as a participant or a presenter, only to hear the comment from another participant that "we had this last year". As an system, educators are constantly looking for and expecting the latest and greatest idea in education, sometimes at the expense of other, current initiatives, programs or ideas. Why is this so often accepted in our profession, when it would be scoffed at in so many others? Can you imagine a professional athlete telling their coach that they did these drills / exercises the year before or a doctor saying that they learned about cataract surgeries two years ago, so they don't need any more about it? Despite the fact that we have the understanding that 'drill and kill' is a terrible thing for our students, it has been shown countless times that skills are developed with deliberate practice. Think of the  concert pianist, elite athlete or current music star and you can imagine the hours of practice that each of these individuals did to hone their skills.

I'm not advocating for drill and kill as a way for students to learn the curriculum, however, it is to illustrate the importance of focus for professional development. Ainsworth's (2003) work with teachers and administrators in improving assessments found that years of practice on the same area of focus in professional learning yielded vastly superior professional work and student results. The more focus, the better the results. If one's focus is spread over too many areas, the results are also diffused. I for one, can say that my classroom lessons and assessments, as well as discipline improved as I practiced more. In fact, I wish I could apologize to the students that I taught in my first few years of teaching, when I look back on how much I have improved as an educator.

Educators should not use this concept as a crutch to hold onto something that research shows as unsuccessful, but to grasp this concept for their own professional development or growth plans and understand that it is not only permitted, but should be encouraged to have the same focus from year to year.

Ainsworth, L. (2003). "Unwrapping" the standards: A simple process to make standards manageable. Englewood, CO. Advanced Learning Press.
Reeves, D. (2010). Transforming professional development into student results. Alexandria, VA. ASCD

21st Century Fluency Skills

Technology and information are changing society and how we operate, yet schools have had little change in their pedagogy, structure, operation curriculum and assessment models. This is an issue, as our students are neurologically different than the generation of students before them. What needs to happen is to move from literacy to fluency. This is illustrated by a study performed by the Bertelsman Foundation in 1998. Two groups of grade 8 social studies students were taught using differing pedagogy; one with a traditional manner (primarily lecture & traditional testing), the other learned through a process-based approach using collaboration, technology, group activities and a blend of teacher and peer assessment. Both classes wrote the state exam for the grade level and the results were virtually the same. However, when the same test was given a year later, the traditional class scored significantly lower than the class who learned through collaboration and project and process learning.

Ian Jukes suggests five fluencies that are essential for today's students for functioning in life:

1. Solution fluency - requires the ability to problem-solve in real time using the 6D system (define the problem, discover a solution, dream up a process, design the process, deliver the plan, debrief and evaluate the process.
2. Information fluency - the ability to unconsciously interpret the avalanche of data in order to extract the essential and perceive its significance. 
3. Creativity fluency - requires both hemispheres of the brain to work together to add meaning through design, art and storytelling.
4. Media fluency - has two components, input (listen actively and decode the communication) and output (leverage the most appropriate media for your message)
5. Collaboration fluency - the ability to successfully work and interact with virtual and real partners.

To move our students from graduating as highly educated people, but we need them to be able to do much more than to recall facts and information on provincial or state exams. We need to work with them to develop these five fluencies so that they move beyond literacy to be adequately prepared for life, their life, not ours.

Download a pdf version of the presentation at http://www.fluency21.com/perspectives/LNE_perspective.pdf.


Based on the Literacy is Not Enough keynote presentation at Learning Forward 2011, presented by Ian Jukes - July 18, 2011 - Indianapolis, Indiana

Blogging as Teacher Leadership

How can blogging serve as a form of professional development? Does it have an impact on student learning?

Although it is not always viewed as professional development, or even professional reading, the regular reading of professional blogs by others in our profession is a great way to do some professional development. Whatever your role in education is, teacher, principal, librarian, superintendent, etc, you can find others in similar roles who are blogging on topics of interest to you. One of the benefits of reading blogs, is that it allows for dialogue between yourself and the blogger. This affordance is something that one does not get when doing other forms of professional reading. In addition, it builds your personal learning network (PLN).

Another aspect of blogging as professional development that is often overlooked is that of the blogger themself. No matter the size of your audience, blogging gives you the opportunity for reflection that is not usually afforded in our daily work. Ideally, dialogue is created to expand your reflection, but regardless of the number of comments or questions that your blog creates, the process is very valuable.

There are many different times and situations that work for blogging. One of the best times to write is when you are angry about an issue, but the worst time to publish can be when you are angry. Write when you are passionate but don't hit the publish button. Other opportunities exist when you are attending professional development or have an interesting conversation with a colleague.

Does it affect student learning? In my opinion, anything that makes a teacher think about their teaching has the potential for impact on student learning. This metacognition can occur as a result of reading someone's blog or writing your own blog posts. Blogging gives you the opportunity to take your thoughts further, in breadth and depth as well as in audience.

Based on the Blogging as Teacher Leadership session at Learning Forward 2011, presented by Terese Emry, Kathy Wiebke, Mike Lee, & Tom White - July 19, 2011 - Indianapolis, Indiana

Professional Learning Teams

Education is full of catch phrases and new models and programs come and go. Still in vogue are Professional Learning Communities (PLC) and more recently, Professional Learning Teams (PLT). These models of professional collaboration are very useful for schools, but too often, they are not done properly and as Dufour states, "the term has been used so ubiquitously that it is in danger of losing all meaning."

There are many misconceptions regarding PLTs and what they are and are not. To provide some clarity:

PLTs are Not

• a program to be implemented
• a meeting
• step-by-step recipe for change
• another thing added to a cluttered agenda

If you are familiar with flash mobs, you have probably seen this video of the T-Mobile flash mob at the Liverpool Street Station.

This is a metaphor for what can be accomplished when your school is a professional learning community or team. However, when you are in a situation where your school members are of the mentality that PLCs and PLTs are something that you do, your experience may be more like that of the guy from this AT&T commercial - doing your own thing and if you aren't careful, it may make you look foolish.

PLTs are a process that will change a school's culture, but it must be given time and importance in order for it to first become a part of the school culture and then it will begin to change the rest of the culture of the school.

Based on the Journey to Reflective Conversations session at Learning Forward 2011, presented by Alexis Holstead, Kim Wedman and Danielle Spencer - July 18, 2011 - Indianapolis, Indiana



Dufour, R. (2004). What is a “professional learning community”? Educational Leadership, 61(8), 6–11.

Base Every Decision on Your Superstars

Todd Whitaker describes the superstar teachers that we have in our schools as those that parents often request, would not be replaceable, are respected by peers and are remembered by former students as one of their best teachers. These are the top five to ten percent of our teaching staff, making for only a few superstars in a typical school. Whitaker writes about the importance of these people to effective principals. When making any decision, principals should be considering what their best teachers would think. His studied showed that effective principals routinely consulted informal teacher leaders for input. These teachers are usually happy to share their opinion, can keep conversations confidential (otherwise they would not have the respect of their peers) and have a school or district-wide vision that extends beyond the walls of their own classroom. This doesn’t mean that effective principals do not involve other teachers in decision-making; this is still important to do and gives them the feeling that they are part of the decision. What it means is that the superstars should always be considered or consulted in decision-making that impacts change on the whole school.

Whitaker makes a very interesting and valid point regarding the difference between effective and other principals regarding the confidence to seek input, both in advance and after the fact, from their best teachers. Less effective principals tend to be reluctant to have the superstar teachers in their schools, as they are more conscious of the fact that these teacher leaders are watching. If we don’t have confidence in ourselves, we are uncomfortable having outstanding colleagues around. This applies for teachers as well as principals. However, when we have confidence in ourselves, we relish opportunities to work with outstanding colleagues and use these chances to improve our skills and practice.

Whitaker, T. (2003). What great principals do differently: Fifteen things that matter most. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

It's People, Not Programs

In his book, What Great Principals Do Differently: Fifteen Things That Matter Most, Todd Whitaker outlines a number of things that make great principals stand out from others. One of these is the concept of focusing on the people within the school and not the programs that are running. He bluntly states the two ways that he feels a principal can make significant improvements to a school are to get better teachers and improve the teachers you have. He continues to discuss the fact that programs can make a difference, but it requires good teachers to be in place using those programs. Any teacher who has been teaching for ten years or more, especially if they have been at the same school, has seen programs come and go. Some of these programs are curriculum based, such as reading programs, while others may be encouraging good citizenship. Whitaker states, that effective principals, "see programs as solutions only when the programs bring out the best in their teachers."

In the same chapter, Whitaker also discusses the importance of principals to focus on individual staff development. In his studies, ineffective principals were much more focused of whole-school goals and issues and very little on individual teacher needs and growth. For me, this strengthens the need for individual teacher growth plans that are focused and empowering and supporting teachers to meet their goals that they set out in these documents. Whole school goals are important and we must continue to work on them, but if you have struggling teachers, this will probably not make much of a difference in their classroom. Regardless of the programs that we implement, the biggest difference made is through the quality of our teachers. This needs to be our overall focus if we want to make significant improvement in our schools.

Whitaker, T. (2003). What great principals do differently: Fifteen things that matter most. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Mr. Bean on Educational Change

It's amazing the places that you can learn about educational change, especially if you look at things from a different perspective. At a recent conference, we were tasked with discussing how the clip of Mr. Bean at the swimming pool could be a metaphor for educational change.

At first, Mr. Bean attempts to use the small slide, scaffolding his 'learning' by starting small, only to be stymied by the lifeguard. Whitaker (2003) writes about how great principals influence change in their schools, "effective leaders don’t waste their time or energy trying to persuade everyone that the new system will work better than the old. Instead, they provide a scaffolding of procedures and techniques that helps the timid to feel secure. They structure the change so that the reluctant do not have the option to balk or turn back."The life guard would be an ineffective principal, for not allowing the scaffolding, or encouraging Bean to move to the smaller platform. After his lack of support, Bean feels that he is so far behind, that he must do something drastic such as the highest diving platform, in order to 'catch-up'. Sometimes we as teachers may feel this way, that the only way to make change is to do something fairly extreme. For some, it might look like an easy thing 'from the bottom of the ladder', which can be the cause for the drastic change.

As can be predicted by many of our own experiences and observations of educational change, Mr. Bean does not have much success with the diving platform. In fact, when the two boys reach the top behind him and he clearly is not capable of jumping on his own, he deals with it with bluff and bravado. The last thing he would want is for someone to think that he doesn't know what he is doing or is incapable of doing it. Too often, when educators are trying something new, they attempt it alone and are wary of letting anybody know that they are struggling and could use some help or support.

Another metaphor that was suggested is the fact that Bean continues to 'hang on', despite the fact that it clearly is not working. There are many educators who are 'hanging on' to something that needs to be released. For some, this is a certain text book or novel, for others it may be using an overhead projector or a certain reading program. Some of us teachers will 'let go' on our own, but others, like Bean, will need someone to push (or stomp) us to do it.

Finally, we all need to do a few belly flops along the way to making successful educational change.

There are many more metaphors that could be taken from this video clip and I encourage you to share any that you may make by commenting below.

Whitaker, T. (2003). What great principals do differently: Fifteen things that matter most. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Based on the presentation "The Keys to Being a Successful Principal" by Del Litke and Kurt Sacher at Leading for Learning, July 8, 2011 (Olds, Alberta)

Learning on Display

Traditionally, in most classrooms, when a student completes an assignment, the audience is only one person - the teacher. If the finished product is something colourful and visually appealing, such as a poster, it may be displayed on the bulletin board. Occasionally, the assignment might include presenting to the class or even to another class across the hallway. Unfortunately, too often the illustration of learning by the student is only between the teacher and student.

Okay, these classes are different, as they are performing arts classes, right? “In my language arts, math or science class, this is not possible.” This might be the case if your mindset is fixed in that students are learning from a textbook or worksheets (Dweck, 2007). With some simple changes in your teaching, you can give your students an authentic audience to showcase their learning to, motivating them in the process. I recently had the opportunity to be a guest in a grade 3 science class. Rather than have their students do a report on an animal, where they researched and reported on a number of facts, they were given the assignment of presenting to the board of directors of the Calgary Zoo, who were looking for a new animal to put on display. Students needed to know many facts about their animal, design an appropriate enclosure and present this to

the board of directors (which I was one of, along with our Superintendent and a former science teacher from the local high school). The students met many different learning outcomes in language arts, science and math. Through their presentations, it was obvious that they had done the necessary research, but where they were able to showcase that they had truly internalized their learning was when we began asking them questions. They gave passionate answers and truly wanted their animal to be the one that we chose for the new exhibit. They were able to take the ‘facts’ that would typically be as deep as they got and expand on these using critical thinking skills.

There are a few areas where this is not the norm in schools. Band and drama teachers usually put their students' learning on display for a large audience. Concerts and plays are an integral part of these classes. What these teachers are doing, although they may not realize it, is giving their students a genuine audience to showcase their learning to.

There are a plethora of other ways, using both high-tech and low-tech methods,of creating authentic audiences for students to showcase their learning. If students use a blog to share their writing with friends, families or strangers from around the country or world, and receive feedback, they are almost always motivated to write more or to use the feedback to improve their work. They might be writing (and sending) an actual letter to someone to learn about the proper format of friendly or business letters (you should see how excited they are when they receive a reply!). They could be presenting to their municipal council on something of concern to them, such as a local issue. All of these put student learning on display for a larger audience.

If your students were to display their learning for an authentic audience, how would you ensure that they have mastered it?

Dweck, C. S. (2007). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Ballantine Books

Based on the presentation "A Blueprint to Increase Academic Achievement" by Scott Morrison at Leading for Learning, July 7, 2011 (Olds, Alberta)

A Shared Vision of Exemplary Teaching

In Alberta, the Teaching Quality Standard (TQS) is laid out by the provincial government as the knowledge, skills and attributes that all teachers are expected to meet in their practice throughout their careers. The intent of this is to ensure that students throughout the province can expect quality teaching regardless of what school they are enrolled in. I would agree that for the most part, this is true. Most teachers that hold a permanent teaching certificate in Alberta are meeting this standard and those that are not, are typically being given support to get them to this standard or are being addressed from an evaluation perspective.

What is lacking in the TQS is something that this majority of teacher can strive for. The TQS is a minimum standard that teachers must meet. The development of a document that expands on the TQS gives educators guidelines for areas that they can improve their craft in. A great way to develop these guidelines is the creation of a Shared Vision of Exemplary Teaching, which is developed collaboratively by a number of stakeholders. This is a process that we started in Wild Rose Public Schools two years ago and continue to use. Volunteers were gathered into a committee which included teachers, school administrators, central office administrators, trustees and a representative for the Alberta Teachers’ Association. The TQS was used as a starting point for the vision, with six non-negotiable core beliefs identified by the committee. Affirmations were developed that were consistent with the identified beliefs. These affirmations are not intended to be an expectation of where all teachers are at, but rather, they are goals that teachers should be striving for. When developing their professional growth plans (PGP), teachers are encouraged to examine this document and their own teaching and determine one or two areas that they feel that they should focus their improvement on. This shared vision gives us a non-threatening focal point for our growth plans that should improve the learning of our students.

Wild Rose Public Schools' Shared Vision of Exemplary Teaching is available here.

Based on the presentation "Developing a Sustainable Culture of Outstanding Leadership, Exemplary Teaching and Excellence in Learning" by Lyle Lorenz at Leading for Learning, July 6, 2011 (Olds, Alberta)

Getting it Going

So, I've been meaning to get this blog going for awhile and just haven't taken the plunge. So what, if I only have two people reading this to start, I have to start somewhere! I have had a few opportunities lately to post on my blog, but because I didn't have it started, they weremissed opportunities. Too often, in education, or life in general, we let opportunities pass us by, simply because we don't think that it will make enough of a difference to make the 'work' worthwhile. If we don't start small, we don't start at all.

My intentions with this blog are many. One is to create some dialogue, with educators from anywhere, but hopefully with teachers that I work with on a daily basis. I hope that they will be able to hear my point of view on topics, both related to technology and to education in general. I really hope that this will not be a one-way medium and that it will also give me the opportunity to hear some other viewpoints.