Archive for March 2013

Launching Kids

By NASA/Jeffrey Marino [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Over 4000 people from across the midwest will descend upon Cobo Hall in Detroit, MI over the next few days to attend Macul13. Undoubtedly they will hear dynamic keynotes, learn about cool apps, and get a peek into top edtech teachers classrooms. And, while there are a plethora of excellent sessions to attend, I want to recommend a few "must see" sessions for those of us in an iPad teaching and learning environment.

Your students next textbook is written by YOU.

The sessions highlighted below pertain to using iBooks Author to create interactive learning modules (think units of a textbook). All are put on by excellent trainers, most of which, will be apart of this summer's iBooks Author Hackathon--a collaborative effort to create K-12 interactive learning mods. Check these sessions out during Macul, they will get you motivated to hack your students next textbook.

Thursday March 21

Friday March 22

I've always wanted to be featured on iTunes...I'm just not musical

This past week a way cool thing happened to me. Apple listed my Open Geometry Course as one of the "8 Outstanding High School Courses" in the K-12 iTunesU space. I thought I would take a page to reflect on my iTunesU experience and offer some thoughts on how I went about creating my course.

The journey with iTunesU started last school year when a rep from Apple Education contacted me and invited a colleague of mine, Shawn Jacob, and myself out to Cupertino to work with dozens of other educators from around the nation to develop courses for the K-12 iTunesU site.

While there, we worked in content area teams to break up the work and start in on the process of curating content for our courses.  I had several distinct advantages. First, I had just spent a year teaching in a 1:1 iPad environment. Second, I was equipped with tons of great digital content that my colleagues and I had developed over the year. Third, I had flipped my class and was using my own videos, iBooks Author files, and my own online quizzes that were ready to be inserted into iTunesU. Finally, I was already using an LMS to distribute content to students so I had a good idea of how iTunesU could effectively be used, even though it is not a full blown learning management system.

Thoughts on creating your iTunesU course.

2. Create a descriptive course overview and well defined outline. In your course description settings be very clear about your course.  Use keywords that will lead searching students and teachers to you. List content standards, learning targets, guiding questions in the outline, and other descriptors that will give an in-depth understanding of what your course is about. There is nothing more frustrating than opening up a course and not seeing the course outline or having a very vague course description. Add a nice graphic to your course profile...you're on your way.

3. Start small with the idea that you will build your content over the year. Don't feel that you have to have a complete course ready to go at the beginning of the year. Choose to do a course in session as opposed to a self-paced course, this way there will be less pressure on you to post content ahead of schedule.

4. Curate and create. Remember this is a list of resources that you are pointing your subscribers to.  The digital content doesn't have to all be created by you. There is plenty of great content out there on the web already that is licensed under creative commons share-alike code. Be mindful of licensing because you are placing this in your course and if it is public anyone can access it. So, if you're wondering "can I place worksheets from my textbook publisher into my iTunesU course"? I would contact them first and ask. With that said, there are ways to make courses private to your students only and share the class subscription code with them.

5. Add tons of media-rich interactive learning modules. iTunesU course manager allows you to upload links from the web or iTunes/iBooks/App store, documents such as pdfs and keynote, and videos. Students can download video content for viewing offline.  So there are some advantages to uploading the video instead of just pointing at a YouTube link. Apple gives you 20GB's of space so I wouldn't worry too much about running out of room.

6. Create meaningful posts full of descriptive and action oriented words. These posts will show up on student iPads as assignments so it is best to be very clear about what you would like students to do with what you are sending them.  Assignments should start off with action words such as watch, summarize, read, etc. Think about the flow of your posts. Do they make sense for students? Are they organized in a way that is intuitive for students? Do students know what is expected from a particular post? iTunesU is a great place to host and distribute content, however there are no discussion board features for students to post questions and interact.

7. Leverage the note syncing features. Another nice feature of iTunesU is that if you are linking to any books or videos, iTunesU will sync notes from across all these types of posts into one place in iTunesU called the Notes. This makes it really handy for students to go back and review what they have been watching and reading.

Overall iTunesU, while not perfect,  can be a powerful space to help students organize and access their work. If I were to add features to iTunesU I would want to see the ability for teachers and students to communicate, the collaborative and interactive piece of this platform could certainly be developed. I would also like to see the ability to embed widgets (similar to iBooks Author). This would also allow for students to interact with content right from within iTunesU.  Finally, I would love to see the note taking feature support digital inking. While the notes are a great way for students to study, not all information can be captured via text input.

Accomplishments are rarely the effort of a sole individual. Even in individual olympic events such as running, swimming, or diving a successful athlete is typically surrounded and supported by a team, well positioned in life to take advantage of their circumstances, and equipped with certain traits to more easily accomplish the goals. This is no different for many of the non-sporting types who find success' in daily wins and accomplishments. We too are typically surrounded and supported by a cast of players; we find ourselves in an advantageous position and possessing the skills that make us right for the task.

A couple of weeks ago some real cool stuff started taking shape in my life.  Some really cool success, similar to winning a medal in the olympics- at least for me. I referred to these things in a previous post, so I will not mention them here but rather I want to take this space to acknowledge those who helped make this happen and say 'Thank You'

First of all, when anyone is dedicated to accomplishing a task there is usually a huge sacrifice that is paid by their immediate family.  No doubt this was the case for me. My wife and kids probably wondered why I was working extra hours sometimes, but never made me feel guilty for doing so. They backed my efforts and saw that I loved doing the things that I was doing and at the same time reminded me about balance and making time for them and myself. Thank you.

The second group of individuals is our IT department. If you've never gone into your IT department's office before make it a goal to do so, and use that time to say thank you. The one thing that we take for granted on a daily basis is the technology of our classrooms. When I arrived at school in the morning I expected everything to just work and 99.5% of the time it did. Not having the proper infrastructure and resources in place to accomplish daily work would have caused me to abandon my missions. Those guys behind the internet, switches, cables, etc. made it possible to achieve these goals. Thank you.

The third group is my administration. Administration is so crucial to having the feeling of being empowered to go for it. Building principals who release their staff to be creative and explore new and innovative ways to reach various learners are setting their teachers and students up for success. Thank you.

The last group is the community. This might sound cheesy in a way but without the community voting to increase the technology resources in our school district none of this personal growth would have occurred. Thank you.

I feel it is important to reflect and remember those who have helped put you where you are today. These are the same group of supporters who most likely will be there when things aren't going your way. In times of failure they will still be there cheering you on, supplying you with the tools you needs, the space of creativity to explore, and the resources to make it happen.

So keep tinkering. Keep tweaking. Keep thanking those around you.

The last two weeks of my life have been so surreal I have no choice but to get it out... here...and now.  Here is the short of it.

1. I was acknowledged as an Apple Distinguished Educator.
2. My iTunesU course got listed in the Outstanding High School section of iTunesU.
3. My project seems to be gaining support and interest from teachers, administrators, and colleges. 

First of all being accepted as an ADE is truly an honor and I am absolutely humbled to be acknowledged amongst this class of educators. However...

I struggle with how to handle all this- honestly. I am glad I have this blog to write on because I feel like it is between me and the page. Yet, I want to tell others. If I am truly honest with myself, I fight the tension between being humble and being recognized. If I am honest, the selfish person within me wants to be recognized by everyone, I want glory, yet I want to be the same. I know this changes nothing. I don't want to come across as having it all together, cause the truth is none of us do. And adding a label to my resume doesn't make me a different person today then I was yesterday. However, the question I must answer everyday, is how do I lead with me, who I am, what I believe in, how I care about kids, colleagues, and education; and not from the title Apple Distinguished Educator?

The simple truth is, that a label is just that, few words to categorize an object. Is it fair to say that labels  will create change? Bring leadership? Ignite creativity and innovation? I don't think so. Rather it is the heart of the individual connecting with heart of others that will bring about change, leadership, and innovation.

Wearing this label I must be intentional about leading from the standpoint of a servant. I can't afford to pull out my iPad, hide behind my MacBook, and say do as I do, and look what I know. Rather, I must strive to connect with the passions of others, seek their needs, and put relationships first. I must coach the heart and not the technology. I must see past the devices into the eyes of my students, colleagues, and others around me...I think this is true for all of us, despite the labels attached or positions we hold. However, the label ADE brings one under a finer microscope therefore:

• I promise never to use this label as way of ranking myself or thinking that I am right because I'm a...
• I promise to keep learning from anyone; kids, colleagues, ADE's, whoever it is. I must model the behavior of life long learning for others around me. 
• I promise to use this label for the betterment of education, teaching, learning, and relationships with students, and not for the sole betterment of ME.
• I promise to be me. I promise to keep sharing my failures. Keep taking risks. Keep seeking what is best for you, your class, and your students. 
• I promise to be a servant leader. To seek first your passions, needs, & desires. And let you be you.