Hopscotch block codes for animation.

Recently my Geometry students were tasked with using Hopscotch, a basic "coding" app for iPad, to create a simple animation.


Objective: Use Hopscotch to understand Conditional Statements.
Instructions:  Create an entertaining and engaging animation for your classmates using multiple characters with multiple "If...." commands. Then create a ShowMe video that demonstrates your knowledge of "If...Then..." statements and your animation commands.

I had multiple reasons for assigning this task, some of which are listed here:
1. Expose students to coding structure.
2. Working with "IF...THEN..." conditional statements.
3. Use commands such as: rotation, change by x, and change by y.
4. Interpret movements in the coordinate plane, work with coordinates, and design something using math.
5. It is playful and open ended. It is a creative expression of math.

The final reason I tasked students with this project was to expose them to conditional statements. It seems Common Core has done away with the need to learn "IF....THEN..." statements as they relate to geometric proofs. To be honest I always struggled with teaching this concept really effectively and students always struggled to really grasp it, but then again there is probably a small percentage of us who really love mathematical proofs.

However, I do believe that conditional statements are very important for our logical development as well as for our future generations of computer programmers and software engineers. So to expose them to this type of language in a playful way seemed like a good idea.

Here is what I liked:
1. Kids got creative.
2. Kids asked questions about how to animate- they were genuinely interested in a math task.
3. It gives immediate feedback. Simply tap play to see how the changes in animation.
4. Kids tried things that I never thought of- such as adding emoji's as text objects.
5. Kids were proud of what they made and bragged about what their classmates made.
6. Prior to the bell ringing, kids coded in Hopscotch rather than played a game on the iPad...(alright there were still some that played games).
7. Kids were working with (and therefore learning) the basic ideas around translations and rotations in the coordinate plane without being told to learn about translations and rotation. By the way these transformations are our next unit of study.
8. It gave some students who may not do well on a traditional paper assignment the opportunity to demonstrate an understanding of content.
9. There were not many guidelines. Student work looked different based upon what they were interested in creating.

If you are on an iPad you can view this student sample by opening this file up in Hopscotch. http://hop.sc/1cm1muo.

Looking back on the assignment I realize it wasn't the perfect assignment. At least, it wasn't perfect in the way that all students aced the part of the chapter test on "If...Then..." statements and proofs.
But again, this raises another question on assessment- when using projects to create an understanding of concepts how realistic is it to expect our students to transfer that knowledge from a project to a traditional paper assessment?  Isn't my real end goal for our students to be able to transfer their knowledge from the traditional paper assessment to a real life application such as creating a computer animation?

Would love to hear your thoughts....as it appears I am still learning!

GR- iBooks Author Hackathon, photo via Steve Dickie

I can't tell you how often I get asked the question: "Why is this called the iBooks Author Hackathon? What does that mean?"  Let's break it down and tell you why.

What is a 'Hackathon'?

an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software development, including graphic designers, interface designers and project managers, collaborate intensively on software projects. Hackathons typically last between a day and a week in length. Some hackathons are intended simply for educational or social purposes, although in many cases the goal is to create usable software. 

I failed today.
It hurt.
It sucked, actually.
It knocked me down, left me spinning a bit, raised questions...
even worst, raised doubts.

I've come to find out over the past few years that failure is a part of the process. The process of making. The process of living. The process of teaching and learning.

I had written a proposal for a large grant that would greatly aid the efforts of my project. I spent days pouring over the application process and making sure the dozen page report I was submitting met all the criteria. Writing is a difficult task for a math teacher who is typically not so inclined grammatically  perhaps you've noticed by reading this.

I thought for sure the organization would see this proposal as a way to impact educational environments on a global scale. I thought for sure they would see how this money and their name could go towards opening up high quality educational resources for teachers around the world. After all, that is the way I was seeing this project. But instead this is the response I got from my work.

I am writing to inform you of the grant evaluation committee's decision to not fund your project at this time for reasons such as,

The proposal did not clearly identify specific ways in which the project would be an innovation in the use of the technology in education, or have a specific measurable impact on a target population.

After Failing.

I got it wrong.
My art was not valued in the eyes of others.

I could chose to be defeated. I could chose to walk the other way and hold on to my failures. I can keep looking for people who see things the way I see them. Those who will agree with me and see my creations as I see them.

Or.

I can chose to iterate. I can listen to my audience. The judge of my work. The beholder of my art. I can tune in to what they see as beautiful, acceptable, and honorable. I can wipe the canvas clean, if needed, or just had the missing strokes, colors, textures that are needed to make this work beautiful in the eyes of the beholder.

The doubt raised by this failure can not get the best of us. Doubt must lead us to seek. Seeking must lead us to a deeper understanding. This understanding must lead us to iteration and transformation.

This is what it means to live fully, exposing your work, risking your heart by creating your art. To keep that art locked up where no one can criticize it, admire it, or display it would be selfish of us and robbing ourselves and the world of something beautiful.

Keep seeking. Keep making. Keep transforming. You and the world will benefit.
 

In the Beginning

Towards the end of the 2010-2011 school year I started flipping my classroom by having students read for comprehension from the textbook and filling out a sheet of guided notes prior to coming to class.  Class time started with reviewing select problems from the section, then progressed to independent practice and group work.  Class concluded with a 4 question check for understanding students would complete on their own.

It struck me how poorly kids could read for comprehension.  Was this the fault of the textbook companies for writing content in such a boring and non engaging style?  Was this a result of our societal shift to more video and less reading?

Along came the iPad

click here from an iPad to see my first chapter

Despite being a newbie to all things Apple I jumped right into creating content for my students using pages and exporting to epub files.  I loved it and I truly thought it was great, there was text, images, videos, and links to websites.  The interactive of the ibooks was twice that of a regular textbook and I thought for sure this opened up multiple channels of communication for the learner.
However, students seemed to really struggle with reading for comprehension and knowing what the desired outcomes where for each section. Was there a breakdown in the ebook or was there a more deeply rooted issue that was ingrained in the learning philosophy of our students?  

There were multiple areas of change concurrently taking place.  First of all these students were freshman and coming into the high school environment was new to them.  The issue iPads was completely new to all students but to freshman equipped with trapper keepers for every subject the issue of digital organization was confusing.  These students wanted and needed a physical form of homework in front of them.  All this said I knew this year was going to be more than teaching about math.  I knew I would have to focus my students on unlearning their bad habits of sitting and getting information.  I knew it would be a fight to transform their belief that learning was passive and instill in them personal responsibility of their learning and taking an active role in their education.

Despite believing this and in the interest of easing students into these changes I cut back on text, images, and links, and focused solely on video.  I was convinced that students were struggling with the new style of learning, they weren't ready to be responsible for "learning" the material on their own.  They needed a more structured teacher directed lesson in which they were told exactly what to write down and where to write it.  Students were asked to view vodcast lectures at night, and to come to class prepared to talk about that content the following day. However, there were issues, just like when you assign a problem set with homework you'll have those students that don't do their homework.  Same was true here even though the homework was just to watch a video and fill in the notes.  All flip teachers have been here before.

Was this really flipped instruction?  Was this really benefiting students?  Was this at all removing the teacher from the role of the sage on the stage?  Or was this just re inventing the traditional classroom lecture on a nice shiny device?

Test run on Textbook App

Right before the end of our semester we decided to flip our class using only the free sample of the textbook app that our textbook company provided in the app store.  All other factors remained constant, the only difference there was no guided video notes from the teachers, only those videos that were done by the app creators.  Students were given instructions on how to navigate the app and how to interact with it then set free to move through the chapter. You can read my blog post found here but essentially this is what we found:

• using the app was equivalent to having the students use the online site and read the textbook
• students struggled to piece together the video examples with their guided notes
• the app took up huge amounts of space on the iPad (1+ GB for one chapter)
• students felt disconnected from their teacher due to the fact the videos featured a teacher they had no personal relationship with.
• Final thoughts were sealed after meeting with our textbook rep- it was going to cost $49 per app for students for a 6 year period if we purchased the app through them.  This would mean that student devices would need the app loaded onto their device in some way other than downloading from the app store.  Can you imagine connecting 2000 devices one at a time or even 30 at a time, multiple times a year to load the next chapter or semester of materials on?   This seemed all to unpractical.  There has to be a better solution, a better method of delivering and interacting with content,

iBooks Author and the Mastery Flipclass

In addition to making the shift to using iBooks Author to create more interactive content, I also moved to the Mastery Flipped class methodology.

Under this methodology students were no longer expected to be on the same page on the same day. They all received a unit roadmap with certain checkpoints along the way.  The checkpoints served as accountability for students.  The order of their learning took on the form of reading/viewing content in ibooks, practicing a problem set, self correcting this problem set, passing an online formative assessment with an 80% or better, then completing a 4 question paper and pencil quiz- this grade went into the grade book.  If they received less a 2.5/4 then students would complete a reteach worksheet provided by our textbook company.  Students were encouraged to work in groups of 2-3 they were encouraged to create Showme videos and post them to Edmodo for their classmates to view and review.

The beginning of class was a time to check in and connect the content students (majority of students) were working on to real life problems.  For example, during our unit on surface area and volume we took time to calculate the volume of plastic saved by bottling companies when they went to a smaller sized screw cap.  We took time to process why this was important and what our place and math's place was in this real world connection.  Often times we employed apps such as Socrative, Poll Everywhere, or Nearpod to gain student data.

Following a large group check in, students would break up and work on problem sets, projects, or quizzes and tests, while I (the teacher) went around to each student and group and checked in.  Some days were high demand teacher days and I found myself quickly adopting the "ask 3 then me" rule.  Other days students did not have a lot of questions, but overall I found myself spending more time with students working 1 on 1 or 1 on 3 way more than in the past when I would lecture and spend little time problem solving.

Some days class was loud and crazy and I fought my inclinations to quiet the crowd and keep things orderly.  Yes, some students need that peace and quiet to concentrate and focus, while others seem to thrive in the noise.  Other days I would have pockets of students taking quizzes and tests and therefore would need to keep the classroom environment quiet so as to not compromise that testing environment.  Anything that went in the grade book was done by the individual student in class on paper and pencil and was hand graded by me.  I really wanted to accurately measure my students understanding and felt that online assessments while great for formative evaluations and immediate feedback did not provide insight into a students thought process and problem solving techniques.

Students were shedding the layers of passive learning, sit and get philosophy, and starting to take responsibility of their learning.  Those motivated students were moving through the content at accelerated paces.  These students were given opportunities to extend their learning by completing non traditional content related projects. While those who needed extra time, had busy schedules, or just learned less quickly than others were supported in this and still moved through the materials.  Unfortunately, there were those students who chose to do absolutely nothing.  There were students who, no matter what you did or how you motivated them, they dug their heels in and refused to take on the responsibility, they chose to fail.  The good news in this is, out of the 95% of students who did chose to work in this setting all of them passed the course.

Daily I'm reminded of both the thrills and fears of going first. Mainly I see these extremes through the eyes of my children when they are either screaming "Me first!" or "Not me!" For example, when it's time to serve birthday cake and ice cream they're all too ready to receive the first piece ahead of their cousin whose birthday we're celebrating. However, when it comes to getting their haircut, fingernails clipped, or bath drawn they're all too willing to let their siblings go first. Funny how that works, but not unpredictable.

When reward or treat is bring offered we are all about it. At the same time when an event occurs that we don't see the immediate benefit in we are not so quick to sign up and will gladly let others go first to see what's in it for them, then make our decision to jump in. Likewise, when an opportunity presents itself that raises a bit of fear in us we're not creatures that readily select ourselves to go first, exposing our vulnerability and drawing upon our courage.

There is too much safety and comfort built in to remaining where we are. However, this may be the most dangerous of all places- to simply remain where you are. What if no one ever took that risk? What if no one ever led? What if no one ever chose to be vulnerable, courageous, the first?

Lead well today. Take risks today. Be first for selfless reasons today.



 photo via morguefile.com PD 

If you have read any of my other posts or pages on this blog you will know that I am a big proponent of teacher created (hacked) interactive books made for the iPad using iBooks Author. See our summer project here. 

So, in honor of attending the #NCTM conference this year in Denver and in hopes of inspiring creativity in others and generating feedback (kind critiques) of my own work I am posting two semi-polished interactive books. After downloading them to your iPad please revisit this blog and leave a comment giving feedback to the work in progress. Thanks!

About the Books

The Ball Story

The Ball Story Problem

Problem: Find the surface area and radius of the traditional size 5 soccer ball when given the side of the regular pentagonal panels is 4.2 cm. 

Persevering

bit.ly/ibahack

This was the event I was waiting for at #Macul13. Finally a chance for Steve Dickie (@falconphysics) and I (@anthonydilaura) to tell a wider audience about a large scale cooperative project that will bring educators together to create high quality, interactive content using iBooks Author.

This hour long presentation was an absolute high for me. This is where my passion lies: collaborating with highly motivated, creative educators to create and share digital content that will undoubtedly innovate the way iPad classrooms will function.

Working with Steve and co-presenting this project with him felt like we had been working with one another for years even though it was only our second time of being in the same room. Steve is an incredibly brilliant science teacher that approaches teaching and learning from a very artistic angle. What he brings to this project and to those hacking science content is invaluable.

About the Project

Why: There are literally 100's of reasons perhaps 1000's if you consider the amount of money a district can save and redistribute to support student learning by having teachers create and use these "digital textbooks." But first and foremost is the reason of student learning. What I have experienced and what research backs is that when a curriculum is more personalized and tailored to differentiate for student needs they are more likely to succeed and own the learning. Content delivered in this manner allows the teacher to re-purpose their face to face time. It allows class time to be spent on a deeper exploration and transfer of content.

Why this is so exciting?

Hello Michigan Secondary School Principals,

Many of us had the chance to chat at the iPad Summit held in East Lansing a few weeks ago. But for those of us who didn't I wanted to take a moment and inform/remind you about the iBooks Author Collaborative project going on this summer. If you're currently, or will be soon, educating in a 1 to 1 iPad environment at any grade level this project is a worthy investment of your money and your staff's time.

We all reach a point in our iPad initiatives when we must evaluate the technology, address how it is transforming our teaching and learning practice, and answer the question 'how will we sustain the program?' I deeply believe this project can help us address all of these concerns.

Collaborate - Create- Share

The iBooks Author collaborative is a project that will bring teachers together to create and share high quality, digital 'textbook' content. Teachers participating in this event will also have access to the content created by other teachers so that they can adopt their work and personalize it for their own students.

We know, and research shows, a personalized learning experience is a contributing factor to an engaging and successful learning experience. Teachers will have the ability to update and personalize these interactive ebooks which is unlike any other hard bound textbook.

The vast amount of digital content readily available online along with access to high end authoring tools like iBooks Author makes a great case for this project. However, to the average teacher, the task to create this digital content can seem daunting unless we work together. I have no doubt that by participating in a hackathon event this summer your staff will be well on its way to authoring authentic content, increasing their expertise in their field, stimulating their creativity, and leading your school into a deeper and more meaningful level of tech integration.

I want to ask you to encourage your creative and motivated staff members to get involved. The cost of the two day event is minimal ($30). I want to ask you to support their efforts, possibly offer participants $200 for creating shareable content. What could possibly cost the district $2000 this summer (sending 10 hackers) could possibly lead to saving tens of thousands of dollars in the coming years by not having to purchase textbooks.

In conclusion, we truly believe the better reason for getting involved is the benefit to student learning that will occur as a result of your teachers getting highly active in collaborating, creating, and sharing these resources.

Please feel free to ask further questions or direct teachers to our website and Google Community.

Last year my colleague, Shawn Jacob, and I had a fabulous time sharing our school's (Zeeland Public) 1 to 1 iPad journey at Macul12. We named our session "Create, Consume, Collaborate and Communicate- the high school iPad experience." It was awesome and we had a sold out crowd, it was literally standing room only. So we thought 'let's do the sequel.' People will want to know what we learned in year one, what we've changed in year two, what were talking about for year three, and how we are going to sustain the initiative in years to come.


We all know how sequels go, or better yet, don't go. It's not that we suck... at least, I don't think we do. We had our magic trick planned and ready to go (pulled due to lack of audience) who else does a magic trick to start their presentation?

Alright, for all you who "wanted-to-come-but-couldn't-make-it" here is a quick summary.

Year 2- What we're doing differently

Changed Practice- Shawn's example of teaching with an iPad

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. 

First of all if you have never been to an #Edcamp it is an absolute must. Passionate educators from all levels, tech directors, administrators, ISD folks, and of course awesome raffle prizes and food...all for free. I believe the popular saying goes something like "Edcamp-the way professional development should be done."