Tag Archives: ISTE Standards

Being A Learner

At the end of July, I gathered with a group of other educators to begin the journey to ISTE Educator certification. I’m still not sure why I signed up when the invitation showed up in my inbox. Maybe it’s the same reason I became a JoyLabz certified trainer this spring,  finally opened the box for the Micro-bit this summer, and ordered a pi-top laptop after checking one out at ISTE. I want to devote some time this year to my own learning and professional growth. And, I want to share my journey publicly through this blog.

Despite a busy schedule, I have been making time to tinker. The Pi-Top is the perfect answer to easily using a Raspberry Pi: no need for setting up a monitor and keyboard in limited space, easy to connect a breadboard and components and just kind of fun. Open the lid, press the button, and you are using a pi. In addition to doing the tutorials that came with the laptop, I am practicing my Python skills using the turtle to draw pictures, following along with John Rowland’s Learn Python 3: A Beginner’s Guide Using Turtle Interactive Graphics.

Here’s my answer to the hexagon challenge in the book: (sorry for the low quality: I took a picture of the pi-top screen. Figuring out screenshots on the pi-top will come later.)

hexagonal flower

 

 

 

 

 

Reviving the Blog

I have dabbled with blogging almost since blogging began but never started a regular practice the way others have. (Tim Stahmer has always been my blogging hero…he posted almost daily for a very long time.) Blogging regularly means more than just making time to write. It also means connecting with the larger community, committing to research and writing, and being willing to write publicly for comment.

This fall, as part of the certification process in support of the ISTE Learner Educator standard, I will make the commitment of strengthening my ties to my professional learning community. I will make regular blog posts that will reflect on the course I am teaching this fall, share my work around coding and making, and explore research topics related to ed tech. The collection of blog posts will be part of my portfolio for the ISTE course, representing my work around the Learner standard and indicators.

So…the last step: what’s the commitment? Every day? Every other day? For now, I’m going all in: at least 250 words every day. I think a daily practice gets the habit going. I’ve been doing 10,000 steps every day since May 1. I’m not sure I would have achieved that if I had taken a break on May 2.

Five Lessons from the Field: Using Social Media for Community Building

As I mentioned, yesterday I did a presentation as part of FantasTECH, a virtual conference offered by JR Reynolds Community College. They use the AvayaLive Engage platform, an easy-to-use virtual environment. It was fun to be part of a new environment for teaching and learning and am hoping to have a chance to explore further before next year’s conference. While it was easy to access, I know I didn’t get to really dig into the platform to figure out how to make it more interactive.

My presentation was focused on using social media in the higher ed classroom and I used the “five lessons” approach as a way to organize my thoughts. I have the sense that nothing I said was all that earth shattering but I hope I gave people a way to think about integrating social media in their courses in meaningful ways. For today, I’m covering Lessons One and Two: Consider Goals and Align Carefully.

Consider Goals and Align Carefully: If we feel pushed into using social media because “all the young people are doing it”, we are making a mistake. Just as with any resource, activity or project we use in our courses, we need to know WHY we are using and how it supports our learning goals and objectives.* For instance, in my ed tech for admins courses, one strong objective is to help my students connect to the larger world of education–that great big PLN in cyberspace–through Twitter, Feedly and Google Plus. The objective is tied to the ISTE Standards for Administrators, specifically Standard 3: Excellence in Professional Practice:

Educational Administrators promote an environment of professional learning and innovation that empowers educators to enhance student learning through the infusion of contemporary technologies and digital resources.

a. Allocate time, resources, and access to ensure ongoing professional growth in technology fluency and integration

b. Facilitate and participate in learning communities that stimulate, nurture and support administrators, faculty, and staff in the study and use of technology

c. Promote and model effective communication and collaboration among stakeholders using digital age tools

d. Stay abreast of educational research and emerging trends regarding effective use of technology and encourage evaluation of new technologies for their potential to improve student learning

I have a myriad of tools I could choose from to fulfill this goal, but I stick with what I see as the Big Three: Twitter, Feedly and Google Plus. I hope that, by giving my students the time and excuse they need to dig into the tools, I get them “hooked” so they continue on in the future. I haven’t done any follow up surveys to see if that was the case although I do see the occasional former student posting in my Twitter feed. What I really hope is that, once they take on leadership roles, they consider opening the time to their faculty as well as a way to provide access to just-in-time, individualized professional development.

But I don’t use those three tools in every class. For instance, this fall, I’m planning to use Pinterest as part of my instructional design course. With a very visual component, I think having students “pin” links to resources and, even more importantly, example both good and bad, would be a really powerful part of the collaboration. Even though they work on their own projects, they form a design team for the class. So, I have dual goals: use the platform to support the team but also create a gallery of instructional design that might help spark their own creativity.

I can only make these kinds of decisions after I have considered the goals. Then, I choose the best tools to meet those goals. Part of the reason I use Feedly AND Twitter is that Feedly helps connect students to current events and commentary that can then be great Twitter fodder. They can share their thoughts in the Tweet rather than just retweeting other links and resources.

Tomorrow’s Lesson: Integrate Tightly
I’ll describe my professional learning assignment and also discuss why I made Diigo optional.

*I know some teachers use social media as a course communications tool (ie, test and homework reminders) but I’m thinking specifically about how to use social as a learning tool that integrates with the content of the course.