You & Your Students Matter

After reading the article shown above (during my lunch hour), I find it readily apparent that the issues affecting education are much broader and far-reaching than the current situation we are facing in Oklahoma. (I'm sure this is not a surprise to anyone). This article does an excellent job to highlight the myriad issues facing educators today. Even when we have an educator (Arne Duncan) running the show from the Top, it seems that the situation continues to get worse.

So what are educators and education advocates to do? How do we change the system? What recourse do classroom teachers have? How can administrators encourage teachers to stay and keep up the good fight?

I certainly don't have the answers, but I want to send a note of encouragement to my educator friends:

• Keep working to build deep relationships with your students. That matters. That's counts. 
• You may be the only stable person in your students' lives. 
• Your classroom may be the only safe place students have right now.
• Your students are people. They are more than a number. More than a score. More than a statistic. 
• You are more than a formula
• You matter. 
• You have influence. 
• You can make a difference, even on the days when you feel like you aren't.

Often attributed to Albert Einstein, others credit noted psychologist William Bruce Cameron with the following quote:

Not everything that can be counted counts.Not everything that counts can be counted.

The love you show toward your students is literally immeasurable.

John 15:12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you…”

There's only one solution to fixing education in Oklahoma - VOTE!

As I read this article, I see a strong case against what our legislators here in Oklahoma are doing to education. If you look beyond the rhetoric and look into these issues on your own, you may find that there is some truth to what this article is trying to say. 

Our Oklahoma legislators are being led in the crusade by Sen. Clark Jolley (he's introduced more bills than any other sponsor in the Oklahoma legislature), Rep. Jason Nelson, & Rep. Jeffrey Hickman who are trying their best to change the face of education in OK. From where I sit, that new face of education looks like a system which can hire teachers with no certification, with no limit on how little teachers are paid, and containing no requirement on paying into teachers retirement. How does that draw highly-qualified teachers to (stay in) our state? How does education de-regulation benefit our students? This sounds a lot like a charter school. These are the same exact "benefits" which apply to charter schools.

The real question here is "Why are our legislators NOT considering what is best for students?" While I can't answer that, I do know that something must be done. It seems to me that the easiest way to fix the problem is to remove the factor(s) causing that problem. So we need some new leadership (this also applies to our national legislators. (**Don't even get me started the US Congress! The fact that the vast majority of senators and representatives have been able to make a career out of doing their job so ineffectively it borders on criminal, is absolutely baffling to me.) 

I hope that all of you will look into your candidates and consider their position on education. This is the single most important factor facing our state (and country) today. Without an education, voters are unable to critically think about how his/her vote affects who is elected and how who is elected affects him/her (the voter). Without an understanding of how one's vote affects society, why even vote? A lack of education leads to voter apathy and voter apathy leads to a lack of education, at least at least it seems to here in Oklahoma. 

The fact that many educators in Oklahoma have decided to run for office has been widely reported. Teachers in Oklahoma are tired of negligence on the part of our legislators to properly equip educators to do their job and are taking steps to make a change. It is absolutely ludicrous to think that some people run unopposed in elections. That makes my case for an apathetic electorate even stronger! 

Teachers, remind your high school juniors and seniors that they need to register to vote. Encourage them to look for resources containing candidates' information. Connect the kind of analysis you do in class to real life by applying it to issues. Give them a means to affect change AND practice the skills you teach in class. I know their children will thank you.

Imagine what could happen if everyone who has ever said, "Meh, my vote doesn't matter. I'm just one person; I'm just one vote!" took that civil responsibility seriously? People died for the right to vote; yet here we sit preferring to [insert ridiculous, mindless action verb here] rather than exercising our rights.

"Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting." - FDR

I think #Trump is GREAT, but great at what?

The man has no concrete plans for anything. It is the absolute MOST empty rhetoric that has ever existed (how's that for hyperbole?). Make America great. Knock out ISIS. We are gonna win. I can fix (insert every broken piece of government) here. Do you even SPECIFIC bro?

I suspect that my normal silence in the area of national politics may cause some of my friends some surprise at this rant. It was a comment to a discussion on FB and I started and couldn't stop myself. Sometimes things clear up and I've gotta get a few things written down. This was one of those times. All of the time periods listed are from memory, so please be gentle if I am off by a decade or three. 

I think Trump is great. Yep. He's great. Great at being vague and talking, while not really saying anything at all.

I will agree that change begins with Congress. I find that very few career politicians, who talk about a "restoration" of the (insert constitutional republic component here) is pretty much the opposite of what the slave-owning, bigoted, adulterer "Christians" aka the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the constitution and began what we they, and every generation since, have failed at creating - a constitutional republic. Rather, we have an oligarchy, run by the people with the most money. NOT the ones who can do the best job or even the once who say the can do the best job. Congress should be servant-leaders. They are not. Our system is broken and the only way to fix it is to do the one thing Oklahoma has done right: TERM LIMITS.

But back to the issue at hand: Trump is great at bringing a group of people together. He is full of a lot of language which makes people more afraid of the "others" whom they already think are "the problem". He's good at playing one side against another. Playing one class against another. Playing one viewpoint against another. Pandering to the extreme right who think he will Make America Great Again! The real question though is this: Just how far back does he want to take us in history? Pre-civil rights? Pre-civil war? Post-civil war aka anti-immigration? The 10s and 20s when we hated the Hun? The 40s when we hated the Japanese and the Germans? Any time in history when we hated the Jews? Between the World Wars when we hated Mexico? (Wait, isn't that now??)

I'm sensing a pattern here. A pattern of fear and hate. It's the same song every politician has been singing at one time or another post-9/11 (when we just hate anyone with brown-skin, no matter their religious views). There's a HUGE difference between Patriotism and Nationalism and I'm afraid too many in politics are pressing for the wrong one.

The case for the elimination of high-stakes testing

Our legislature in Oklahoma is considering eliminating the EOI Tests. To be clear, this would not get rid of ALL tests, just the end-of-instruction exams (EOI). Currently, there is SO MUCH legislation, i.e. Big Government, that teachers are not allowed to be professionals. By that I mean the government is telling teachers (like me) that the 4 years of educator preparation we did in college, does not qualify us to assess whether or not our students have learned the standards adequately. What if I have a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction? Nope. “We still don’t trust you to judge whether or not your students learned what they should in your class.” Okay. How about a doctorate? Nope. We, as legislators (NOT EDUCATORS) feel as though our system will be a better judge of your students’ learning. High-stakes testing is simply another way for the government to dictate what I can and can’t do (as a teacher). It always makes me laugh when the very people who are against big government are the same ones who want to legislate students and teachers to death with unfunded mandates for any number of issues in education.

Additionally, these tests effectively cease all instruction in Oklahoma schools by the first week of April. So we are using the last 8 weeks of school just for testing. While this may sound absurd (it is) and incomprehensible, when you have half of your class pulled out for 3 days in a row to test on an EOI for one subject (remember there are 7 of these exams for each student) and then they need to use your computers to administer those tests during the next week, and then the other half of your class is pulled out the following week, you have lost 3 weeks of instruction and that only accounts for 2 tests out of 7. Fortunately, I was able to work around that because I taught a non-testable subject, but the strategies I employed to continue instruction would not work for everyone, so what ends up happening is no instruction.

If we are testing for about 8 weeks, out of 180 instructional days in the school year, we are taking 40 of them (5 days x 8 weeks) - which accounts for almost 25 PERCENT of all the instructional days we have - to administer high stakes tests.

In Oklahoma, the mandate is that students must pass 4 of the 7 EOI tests to get a diploma, meaning if they only pass 3 tests, instead of a diploma, those students get a certificate of completion. This dooms that student to a minimum wage job. To be able to live and pay your bills in Oklahoma City, you must make approximately $13.00/hr. So these students will be making about ½ of what they need to make to just to live minimally. Where is that other ½, needed to augment their earned wage, going to come from? It comes from government assistance, e.g. food stamps, welfare, etc. If our education system fails these students - students who may already be predisposed to failure in education because of the low socio-economic level they have grown up in - what then is the choice for them to make a living? Get that minimum wage job and take government assistance, thereby placing their children in the same cycle of poverty? It is possible that could be the only option they have.

We are better than this. As someone who trains teachers, I remind teachers (and myself) that teaching practice can ALWAYS be improved. If we don't improve our schools (and I'm saying that ONE way to do that is to eliminate high-stakes testing), we are condemning ourselves to a continuation of generational poverty - meaning we spend more and more of our taxes to augment the income of people who live below the poverty line.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, “Those who can, teach. Those who can’t, pass laws about teaching.” That’s pretty much sums up my feeling about my state’s leaders.

#gafesummit Oklahoma 2015

I decided to spend some time at lunch today thinking about the things I thought about a conference this past weekend at which I was with the 'cream of the crop' of educators here in Oklahoma. It was a valuable conference and worth every penny spent on attendance. The conference was a Google Apps for Education Summit (#gafesummit)

I was privileged to attend the pre-summit which began the process of preparing me to become a certified Google Education Trainer. This was some very valuable training and helped to further conceptualize how you can integrate SO many different apps/programs/sites with GAFE.

I think initially when I thought about attending the pre-summit, I thought it would be good for some 'on-the-side' consulting work as more and more districts/schools will be moving to GAFE in the coming years. However, after attending, I realize that I have more than I can handle to get my own faculty ready to meet the coming challenges of the Digital Education Environment.

I learned some new things, such as croak.it and some more innovative uses of socrative.com. The pre-summit was a great time of thinking about the challenges we face in education with our students and how to overcome those challenges.

If you aren't a teacher, you may not know the wide variety of access many of our students (don't) have. Some students have some access at home (desktop, wireless internet, etc.), some have smartphone access only, some have both, while there are some students who have no access to the interwebs at all. One of the primary questions I have (as a teacher) is: "How do I get each of my students equal access?" (at least while they are in my classroom) As an instructional designer, that question changes slightly. Rather, how do I get my faculty to (1.) allow their students to have on-demand access? (2.) How do I help those faculty create a culture of trust for technology use in their classrooms, especially when we aren't modeling that culture of trust? (3.) What are the pre-requisite issues I need to solve/change with my faculty in order to empower them to innovate in their classrooms? In other words, just because I am not married to ANYTHING I do in the classroom, my faculty may not be quite so willing, so how do I sell innovative practice to them?

Often, when I attend conferences, I may not learn a ton of new things (beyond the new webapp or add-on for browsers), but I am pushed into thinking about my faculty and how we can move their student engagement up a notch, how to deepen their understanding of difficult concepts (through on-demand remediation) and/or how to push their students to be learners who (1) enjoy learning (2) are motivated to learn (3) and are able to see the relevancy of what they are learning. This conference really did that for me.

I had an opportunity to meet some great folks and expand my PLN, both here in Oklahoma and throughout the US. I heard some great keynotes by Holly Clark, Mark Hammons, and Lise Galuga. We thought about the adjacent possible, moved toward future-ready, and decided that an elephant is best eaten one bite at a time. Overall, the weekend was a total success.

Thanks @edtechteam for a great learning experience, thanks @bmchs1 for hosting, and thanks to @BekahHightower for your hard work in coordinating the entire thing.

One more thing, I did present a couple of sessions, but my favorite was the new presentation I did about the great work we are doing here at Canadian Valley Technology Center using Google Scripts. I had a full session so I broadcasted/recorded on YouTube so others could attend virtually.

Using Scripts with Google Drive to Track Student/Teacher Progress

I've been at a conference for the last couple of days and had an opportunity to share some of the great things we are doing at Canadian Valley Technology Center, specifically in using scripts to create calendar events (like a bus request), automated progress reports, professional development transcripts, and teacher evaluations (coming soon).

Background:

The first script I ever used was one which would send the results of a form to someone other than the person submitting it. I found it online, changed the email address, and made it work. That looks pretty simple now, but it started me on a journey which has led me to my current place in learning programming.

Gist:

We have started using scripts (which are bound to Google spreadsheets, calendar, forms, etc.) to take the results of a form (set up as a way for instructors to enter their professional development for the semester), create a copy of a template, replace all information in <<>> with information from the form, move it into a shared folder (one shared with the teacher's supervisor), share the document with the teacher (view rights only), and email a link to the document to the teacher. 

This was the first project we used to integrate the automation power of Google Scripts. We have since created an automated transportation request (auto-creates) an event on the bus/van/etc. calendar. We have also moved to a Google Sheets gradebook (from an Excel template), with automated progress reports. 

We are on about the 4th iteration of each of these as it has been a somewhat large learning curve for someone like me who had zero programming experience. I have done about 1/2 of the codecademy.com Javascript course which has enabled me to begin to conceptually understand Scripts within Google. 

But it takes so long!

Like every other kind of technology I have ever used in the classroom, yes, it takes a lot of time. However, all of the time you invest on the front side (development) you will get back probably two-fold on the backside. Time spent doing paperwork is reduced to nearly nothing. I remember the first school I worked at had a person who taught part time and the other part of her job was tracking professional development. This first script would have eliminated that entire part of her job. Not that I am in favor of people losing their jobs, but maybe that person could focus more on instruction? Or remediation? 

Next Steps:

If you are a Google District and you have someone who is willing to learn or already knows Javascript, I would highly recommend giving someone the autonomy to begin integrating something like this. There are scripts already written which people will/can share (I'm glad to share any I have done) and if you need help, some great resources are the Scripts documentation and stackoverflow.com. I do a lot of searching for help. 

If you would like to connect more about this topic, I'm happy to do so. You can connect through about.me/jbowie. If I can help you with anything, please let me know!

Google Summit

I registered for a Google Summit, which is happening in February, here in Oklahoma City. These events are held world-wide and one is coming to Oklahoma City??

Additionally, I submitted two different presentations. Here is the information for the first one and the second one. I have given the "Google Apps will Change Your Life" on many previous occasions, so I have many resources for that one. However, the "Use Google Scripts without being a Coding Expert" will be more of a challenge. I have only been using the program for about six months and am fairly new to programming. I will definitely learn something while I get ready for it, though. I usually do.

I will have to gather a significant number of resources for programming, such as stackoverflow.com, codecademy.com, and w3schools.com. I use those resources a lot when I am working on Javascript and they have helped me tremendously in the last several months.

I will also get to attend a bootcamp specifically for trainers of Google Apps. Here's what the website says about it:

Google Educator Trainer (GET) Train the Trainer (T3) Bootcamp serves two purposes: to raise awareness about how Google tools can be used in education to; ignite inquiry, promote collaboration, and allow for authentic publishing and sharing, (with students and among colleagues), and to prepare participants to pass the Google Educator Test and submit their certification application.

Become a Google Educator to be recognized for your mastery. Each session includes an interactive overview, top tips from the Google Educator Training Center, hands-on activities, and inspiring ideas for how to use Google for teaching, learning, and professional collaboration. The activities are flexible, designed to help new users quickly understand the "core magic" of each app - and to challenge veteran users by revealing features and innovative uses they never imagined. The experience is grounded in Google culture, complete with high-energy fast-paced demonstrations and challenging activities that can truly be called "hard fun." There is no better preparation for teaching and learning with Google Apps - or for passing the Google Educator tests.

So if you are reading this and need a trainer to consult with your district about integrating Google Apps for Education, consider contacting me and letting me work with you!

I love my job

While I try to remain positive in the face of negative circumstances, it sure is a lot easier to keep a positive outlook when you love coming to work each day.

I was thinking about my job this morning when I came in this morning and I thought I'd make a list of the things I enjoy about this job versus other I have had.

Here are my thoughts, in no particular order:

1. I feel fairly confident that this job will be a long-term gig. There is certainly a need for this position and the administration recognizes that need. 
2. It is fun. The people I work with enjoy having fun and we all have a pretty good rapport with one another. 
3. I am challenged. I have had the opportunity to try some new things. I'm getting a basic understanding of Javascript and I have formed a niche which will (hopefully) help keep me as a valuable resource to the campus.
4. I feel valued. I regularly get positive feedback from the administrators and faculty on the projects on which I am currently working.
5. I can see some change in methods being used by the faculty. The faculty I have been working with are implementing the suggestions I have given them. They like the changes and the students are responding positively, as well. 

Onward with Google Scripts

As I continue to work toward a useable gradebook in Google Sheets, I am tweaking the scripts along with it. One of the things I want this gradebook to do is to create progress reports or report cards based on 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th 9 weeks, with no coding from me. To facilitate that, I have created global variables for the entire cumulative gradebook sheet. Here is an example of the code for those global variables.

The numbers correspond to column numbers in the spreadsheet. For the global variables, there are about 125 lines of code. This includes the templates for the progress reports, i.e. 1st, 2nd, etc.

My favorite part of this script is the Custom Menu. I have created a function for each of the nine weeks progress reports. Then in the menu, I have submenus which allow you to run each of the functions (separate scripts). Here's what the menu looks like:

The customizability of this function means that as a coder (VERY novice), you can create functions in Google Docs which will allow "non-techie" users to feel comfortable using them. This gets me excited! As long as I am comfortable creating (or stealing) code for some function, I can do pretty much anything I want in Google Docs.

The Best Learning I’ve Ever Experienced

A key event in my personal learning/PLN was hearing Will Richardson speak at OTA back in February 2009. In his keynote, he talked a bit about blogging and connecting with others. Most of what he was talking about was in the context of students and being in my 2nd year of teaching I was VERY impressionable. I thought a lot about myself during that presentation and how I could impact my students in ways that would be meaningful, while using emergent technology. I left the conference with some validation on the things I was beginning and thinking about starting in my classes and on fire for technology integration. One quote which impacted me was, “Kids will never be knowledge navigators if we never allow them to navigate knowledge.” I took that to heart and started to put students in my class into the position of being required to use technology tools to navigate, locate, and synthesize knowledge. We started a class wiki, which blossomed into what I had hoped would become an online Open Source Textbook for high school physics (bear in mind every single page except the front page was student-created). However, I left the public education classroom before my students got very much on the site.

That was a seminal point in my educational technology journey. Currently, in that same journey, I am pursuing the PhD in Education with an educational technology focus. So, PLEASE, attend conferences! You just never know where a conference session will end up! I have presented at that conference a few times over the last 5 years and I consider OTA (now OTA-Encyclomedia) my ‘home’ conference. While it doesn’t typically draw ‘research’ presentations, it offers a ton of sessions in which people are successfully engaging students using new technologies.

At about that same time, I had recently discovered twitter and was beginning to meet many new people in the Oklahoma Education Community, specifically those who were early twitter adopters. Those connections led to job opportunities at the state level and some great friendships with people from all aspects of education and educational technology. Also, through those connections, I have been invited to speak at small district-level conferences. However, the learning goes far beyond the ‘exposure’ I got to others. I was trying new things in my classes, reflecting about it on my blog, and sharing experiences and learning from others through comments on blog posts and twitter interactions. This was even beyond the boundaries of Oklahoma. I have met people from all over the country (and some in other countries) through twitter and not met them face to face until attending the annual conference for the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE).

That said, the most important aspect of getting involved in a PLN, e.g. twitter, was the ability I had to connect with people who were trying the same things I was, or who had already tried it. I could learn from them and they learned from me. Twitter, as a PLN, made the education world MUCH smaller for me. The best part about it was this was free and I could personalize it to fit my needs and interests. It was (and still continues to be) an ‘a la carte’ professional development experience for me. Joining twitter for the express purpose of using it as a PLN was probably the best thing I have ever done as far as professional development goes, certainly in my first several years of teaching. I would highly recommend it. I have blogged about twitter previously here.

For those of you who are going into public education, you will have plenty of opportunities for professional development. Generally, there is enough built-in PD so that you do not even have to go to outside PD and you get your required hours. However, I can attest that the most meaningful development I have gotten over the last 8 years has been through conference, online communities, and informal learning that occurs when teachers collaborate together. I would advise anyone to get involved in some kind of community which interests you. Start a blog and reflect on what you do, start following some hashtags on twitter (e.g. #oklaed, #edtech, and/or #edchat), check with people you know who innovate. Don’t ask the teachers who are in their 30th time of teaching the exact same lesson, the exact same way. They likely won’t have much to share. Find the people who are trying new things. Those who are making mistakes. Those who fail at trying  something. (this is very different from people who constantly fail!) These are the people who will have experience to share which will be valuable.

Wednesday, Working on Curriculum

One of the things my instructional design partner in crime talked about is that we need to be keeping a record of our day. Just in case we ever have to justify our value to the school, I'll be keeping some records here.

We spent the last two days working on a LAP (learning activity packet) for HVAC. We created activities and planned what students need to do in class. It took 2 designers, working for about 2 days, to create one day's worth of work. That's a lot of time!

We were very pleased with our artifact, so hopefully the instructor will be, too!

So, we are talking about phenomenology in Qualitative Methods and it makes me think of this song. So enjoy.

Celebrating Success Part 2

I'm working on some positive self-speak so that I continue the trend of feeling better about the things that I am able to accomplish. So here we go:

As I have mentioned before, I am working to integrate scripts into my use of Google Docs. Today, I am going to share my transportation form.

We created a transportation form which is used by instructors. The instructor fills out the form, which emails their supervisor as soon as they submit. The email contains a link for their supervisor which takes them to the spreadsheet containing the responses from the form.

That spreadsheet contains a custom menu for administrators. The admin clicks on the row containing the request and selects "approve" from the custom menu. That, in turn, emails the campus supervisor AND creates an event on the calendar. The coolest part is that if the instructor chooses a bus, it makes the event on the bus calendar. If they need a van, it creates it on the van calendar. Additionally, if they need a van, it emails the person who coordinates the vans. However, she only gets emails if a van is needed.

I am quite excited about the way I could customize this form to do some very specific things. It took me quite a few days to get it just the way I wanted, but now it works quite well.

Qualitative Research is like...

Have you ever had been required to walk in an unknown area, over and over, and discern what is below the ground? Is there an underground river? Is there solid rock? Where is the water table? You can look under the surface, occasionally, but you can never truly see what is there. You can only use the evidence you have at hand and are able to gather to interpret the structure of what is below the surface.

That's what qualitative research feels like (to me).

Presenting

Today I spent all day in a training. I'm going to be a sysadmin on our new Student Information System. They were training Business and Industry people today from our district. That means that while the training wasn't specific to me, I got to hear a lot of how the campus is set up, the type of questions I will likely be getting, and think about tables, databases, and reports. Sounds like fun, right? I know, it isn't fun to everyone, but it sure is to me! 

I was multitasking, meaning listening and working on some other things at the same time. I got two proposals entered to present at the Google Apps for Education Summit, which is happening in Oklahoma City in February 2015. I'm pretty excited about it since these summits usually happen in much more exotic locations, like Singapore, South Korea, India, Thailand, & the UK, just to name a few.

As a part of that summit, I'll be attending a pre-conference workshop which will allow me to begin the journey of becoming a Google Apps for Education Trainer. At this moment, there are no Google Certified Trainers in Oklahoma. I expect that this will change after this summit, but right now if you wanted Google training, you'd have to know someone or call someone from Texas to come up. I've done a little Google Apps training when I was still a teacher, but I wasn't certified by Google. I've learned so much in the interim. 

More learning. More certifications. More ability to help and serve others. Those are my goals.

Celebrating Success #1 - Progress Reports

I've not ever been very good at celebrating my successes. In fact, it has only been recently that I have allowed myself to acknowledge any sort of success in my professional or academic life. I've only ever considered my immediate family in terms of success and that has not been very long that I have done that either! 

I consider today a very successful day at work. Not that it was spectacular in terms of productivity (although I did get some things done), but today was the culmination of a couple of weeks of working on a project. The project was one in which I created a progress report workflow and tested it out on the automotive service program. 

When I say I created a progress report, I mean I took what my Student Services Director created and made it into something that would be automatically created from a spreadsheet in GoogleSheets. If you aren't familiar with GoogleSheets, you can check out Google's Getting Started with Sheets here. 

Anyway, over the last couple of weeks, I've been working on learning Javascript over at Codecademy so I can leverage Google Scripts (within Google Apps for Education, aka Google Drive, Calendar, etc.) 

When I say leverage, I mean automate. The project I've been working on is one in which faculty enter grades into a spreadsheet (among other things - employability ratings, attendance, etc.) and then the script populates a template document and creates a progress report for the student. Here's an example: 

Image credit: Jody Bowie
Identifying information removed

Bear in mind this was created automatically. I like to think of it as my internet minions doing my work. Granted, could have typed up these 53 progress reports, but this is just a test. We have far more than 53 students. Once the teachers learn to use the spreadsheet, progress reports then become easy. It's a matter of clicking on the administration menu (which is created by the script) and selecting the function you want to run. Or these could run on a specific date. The triggers for scripts are customizable. 

This is a brief overview, hopefully at some point I'll have the opportunity to present on this in the future. I've been working on this project, but also on a transportation form which auto-crates calendar events on specific calendars, a professional development form which creates a yearly transcript for instructors, and a daily work log in which student enter what they have done for the day and the teacher goes in and enters a rating on several factors - the script then moves that grade to the students' own spreadsheet. Imagine putting the daily grade form and this progress report together. Basically you have a gradebook which will can create documents for individual students. Scripts can also send email (like the results of a test or even send the progress report to a parent's email). The possibilities aren't endless, but I sure haven't plumbed their depths yet. 

Hopefully, I'll be posting more successes as I learn more, but I'm sure glad today for this one!

More Google Scripts

I spent time today continuing to work on the Google Scripts that I worked on previously. I'm nearly done with a script which will aggregate information from a spreadsheet and create a document for each student from a template.

Basically, it's a progress report creator. This was built nearly from scratch. I will admit, I am pretty proud of it.

Let's Talk about Pics, Baby.

I spent some time this week at the OTA/EM Conference. It was really really good. Our keynote yesterday was by a guy named George Couros. One of the things he said that stood out to me was, "We get what we model." Meaning, whatever we model to our students, that's what they are going to give us back.

So, when we give presentations, shouldn't we cite our images? If we don't, should we be allowed to deduct points when students don't cite their images? If students cite their images with the words, "Google Images¹," should that be sufficient? I'm sorry if this sounds rude, but we've all had a course in which we have written. In which we have researched. In which we have used outside sources. In which we have been required to cite those sources.

So, should we (as professionals - who want to be TREATED like professionals) follow the rules of academia? If not, why not?

Image courtesy of quickmeme.com - used without permission

¹Citing something with Google Images is kind of like citing the library. "Why yes Mr. Bowie, I did get this from an outside source. I got it from the public library!" WHERE DID YOU GET THE IMAGE?

Starting a New Thing

I visited with my research instructor today and I feel so much better about my project in that class. I'm working on an auto-ethnography and this blog will be part of this. I will be using my blog as data to analyze. This will be quite interesting since I'll be working on thinking about what I used to think, what I thought in the middle of doing things, and what I think now. This will be a process. I've got lots to think about.

I will also be working on a private blog, as well. Some of the things I will be processing isn't going to be for public consumption.

I feel pretty good about my project. Or at least much better about it.

Starting a New Job

It's been nearly a year since I've written and much has changed in the last year.

I left SNU in July of this year to take a job at Canadian Valley Technology Center. I'm still doing instructional design, but much of what I do revolves around face to face technology integration in the classroom. We don't offer any sort of online courses, so things are a bit different than they used to be.

I'm enjoying it here so far and I've gotten to learn many new things. One of those is coding. I've been working on Javascript for the last month or so, mostly so we can streamline our work flow through Google Drive. It's a lot of fun. It involves a lot of troubleshooting, especially when you are as new at it as I am. Basically, I'm learning a new language. At least it's written in English!

The only other thing I'll mention is something I just did today. I registered a domain (oklahomaspeedshop.com) and I hope to start designing a few tshirts and selling them there. I plan to design using cars and bikes from the 40s, 50s and 60s, done in the advertising style of those decades.

I've still got a lot to learn before I can create anything, but I do love to learn new things!

My Adult Learning Style and A Tech Tool to Support It

Guiding Question: According to the ATLAS test, what is your learning strategy? Explain why you agree or disagree with the results of the assessment. With this week’s reading assignment in mind, identify a type of learning technology you think may work well for students who share your particular learning strategy and explain why the technology would be useful.

I went to take the ATLAS test to see what style of learner I am. I will admit right up front that I am very skeptical of the pre-supposition that using only two questions I can be grouped into a learning style. However, in the interest of good discussion for our class, I took the survey and was categorized as an Engager, Subgroup 2. Here is the information provided by the survey about my group and sub-group:

Description: Passionate learners who love to learn, learn with feeling, and learn best when actively engaged in a meaningful manner. Subgroup 1 likes to use human resources while Subgroup 2 favors reflecting upon the results of the learning and planning for the best way to learn.

Characteristics: Must have an internal sense of the importance of the learning to them personally before getting involved in the learning. Once confident of the value of the learning, likes to maintain a focus on the material to be learned. Operates out of the Affective Domain related to learning.

Instructor: Provide an atmosphere that creates a relationship between the learner, the task, and the teacher. Focus on learning rather than evaluation and encourage personal exploration for learning. Group work also helps to create a positive environment.

There are some pieces of this which resonate strongly with me and how I see myself as an instructor and learner; however, there are also somethings which seem to be a bit shallow to me (meaning that it seems that some of this is just ambiguous enough that I may have some confirmation bias kicking in).

First, I am passionate about learning and I do learn with feeling. I am definitely learning best when I engage in a meaningful manner. However, is this particular to my group of learners? Doesn’t everyone learn best when they are engaged in a meaningful manner? I would agree that I fall more in line with reflective practice, rather than “using human resources.” I definitely do need an internal sense of the importance of the material. But again, is that special to engagers? Maybe I’m being closed-minded, but that’s one of the pillars of my philosophy of teaching. I do tend to teach (and learn) in the affective domain regularly, which dovetails nicely with my reflective style of learning. The instructor strategies (I’m assuming these are how to “reach” my group of learners) speak right into who I am as an instructor. I encourage students to focus on learning rather than evaluation and definitely want students to engage in personal exploration. I LOVE group work in my classes and engage students in it regularly.

As an engager, I think blogging would be a great tool for students in this category. Maybe that’s why I love the “weekly reflection journal” I am in the habit of using each week in most of my classes. Blogging provides students a place to engage in the practice of reflection and I recommend prompting them each week (or some other time interval, e.g. bi-monthly, quarterly, etc.). The questions I usually use for students during their reflections follow:

1. Which significant idea or concept most engaged you this week? Why do you think that particular piece of our studies resonated with you so strongly? Please provide specific evidence of reading or classroom discussions to support your assertions.
2. How will that idea impact your life/learning/experiences/interactions with others from this point forward?
3. What did you do this week that enhanced or assisted your learning the most this week and why did it do so?
4. What did you do this week that inhibited your learning this week and why did it do so?
5. What significant questions remain about the concepts or ideas you have learned this week?

The expectation is the student would write a few paragraphs to address those questions. While this is best done as a two-way conversation, there is tremendous value in thinking about big ideas, what worked and what did not, and how you have been changed or impacted, even if no one comments or responds. Am I wrong? Does this only work for me?

In thinking about the ATLAS Survey, it is either really on point and does a great job of telling you who you are as a learner or it is just ambiguous enough to fit me. I will admit that I did go and look at the other adult learning styles. One is navigator and the other is problem-solver. I tend to think the survey results are a bit ambiguous enough to fit many people because I found several instances which fit me in the other two style, specifically organization of the material into meaningful patterns in the navigator and rely heavily on all the strategies in the area of critical thinking and gives examples of personal experience in the problem-solving style. I believe I shall remain a skeptic. The best piece of credibility I found was that the original researchers on this project were/are from Oklahoma State University (*said laughingly and not in too much seriousness*).