Schools Closed, Educators Connect

For my fellow Chicagoland friends, you have felt the frustration with the Snow & Cold days we've had this winter...

Apple Academy February 2013 Graduates

Berwyn South School District 100 hosts site visits every few weeks, and we had an exciting visit planned for Noblesville School District in Indiana today. I was particularly excited for this visit, because my fellow Apple Academy graduate +Andrew Swickheimer and I recently reconnected via Twitter to talk about our upcoming conferences we are planning, iEngage-Berwyn and iPadpalooza Indiana. Andy was hoping to bring his amazing 5th grade iPad pilot team out to some Apple Distinguished Schools/Programs in IL. So, they packed their bags and took the 4 hour trip to the Chicago Suburbs. They visited Gurnee School District 56 and Aptakisic School District yesterday; then they ventured closer to Berwyn and got a hotel room so they were close for their Berwyn visit today. At 6:00 last night I received the dreaded text... "School is closed tomorrow due to the extreme temperatures."

Nooooo.... I wanted to yell, we have a site visit! Hiawatha Elementary and Heritage Middle School were ready to host visitors and our IN group was already HERE! We thought quickly on our feet, and tried to get a small Berwyn group to join the Nobelsville team for at least an hour discussion since they drove all this way. Several texts and a few phone calls later, Superintendent Dr. Stan Fields, Instructional Coach +Jordan Garrett, Principal +Marilyn McManus and 4th grade teacher +Christina Betz committed to meeting, even though school was closed.

Before we could get through the introductions, we realized we were ALL on Twitter... Seconds later a Today's Meet was started to share our Twitter handles and other links we talked about during the discussions. (What like-minded educators!) We focused the conversations around the 5 categories of an Apple Distinguished Program- Visionary Leadership, Innovative Teaching and Learning, Compelling Evidence of Success, Ongoing Professional Learning, and Flexible Learning Environment. Teachers and coaches from both districts scurried down notes and kept asking, "Wait, what app was that? Oh, we're doing that too. My students are Appsmashing... we use Blendspace to help differentiate our classroom learning outcomes..."

An hour later, we wrapped up the discussion... everyone stood up and started chatting even more! What conferences are you going to next? What did you learn on your other site visits? How are you integrating instructional coaches? It was "district to district love at first site." (Ha, it's still February!)

Instructional Coaches from Nobelsville, IN and
Berwyn South, IL sharing ideas

The point that I'm trying to make is that no matter where we are located, or what our demographics look like (Nobelsville & Berwyn South couldn't be more different on paper), we are all in this teaching and learning world together. We are all trying to integrate the technology into our curriculums, differentiate our teaching, meet the needs of our students, engage our school communities, offer time for professional learning, mold our teaching to match the standards, etc. Let's do this together, let's connect, let's share. Whether you crawl out of your home on a -30 day, attend a conference, or connect with your PLN virtually, continue to learn from each other because your students, OUR students everywhere deserve it.
 

Nobelsville, IN & Berwyn South, IL teachers, coaches, and
admins connect on one of the coldest days this year

#bikewitmike #berwyn #apple

Freedom PE teacher Mike Belcaster is an inspiration. Words cannot describe the experience I had today, but I'm going to try my best so I can share Mike's story.

Last spring, Mike had an idea. He wanted to take his students on a bike ride through Berwyn, visit all 8 +South Berwyn 100 schools and +Morton West, record the whole trip on video, and put that video footage into an iMovie for his students to watch during PE class. Mike teaches a fitness based PE program where students learn more than just how to play a sport, he teaches them how to track their fitness, how to use weights and cardio equipment in a gym, and much more. His lucky enough to teach at +Freedom Middle School where they have access to such equipment, thanks to a grant from +OfficeMax and a partnership with +United Way.

He would have his students workout on the stationary bike and watch videos on YouTube of people riding through cites, pushing them to bike faster, up hill, etc. Mike thought to himself, I want my students to watch a video like this, but with video footage of Berwyn. He wanted the video to be more meaningful to his students, get them out into the community, and exercise outside of school too. He wanted to pursue his idea over the summer, but got locked up around logistics and a broken bike.

A few weeks ago, Apple showcased "Jason Hall, Organizing a Movement" in Detroit. The movement, sparked Mike's idea again and decided he was going to make this happen. Mike had exceptional support from his administration, +Jim Calabrese & +Lindsey Lahr, his Health & PE team +Lori Esser, +Celia Pravda, some colleagues +Lauren Krall, +Meagan Bushell, the Technology Director +James Kloss, and myself. This group, took out 5 students today after school on a bike ride. Mike prepped ahead of time using the Map My Ride App, and created a route for us to bike to 9 buildings. Meanwhile Assistant Principal Lindsey Lahr prepped the Go Pro, +James Kloss got the Drone ready, and we were off.

@SouthBerwyn100 @FreedomD100 And we're off w the Go Pro! #bikewithmike #bsd100
— Shannon Soger (@ShannonSoger) September 16, 2014

During our ride we saw the beautiful city of #Berwyn, we saw joggers, walkers, and (probably everyone's favorite) the fall athletics going on outside at +Morton West. "It was like a movie." Football players, cross country runners, tennis players, and more. The teachers saw old students; you could hear their excitement as they called out their names, "Ms. Lahr! Ms. Esser!" About an hour and 7 miles later, the 12 of us returned to Freedom School. Everyone had smiles on their faces. The students asked if they could do this again, and the ideas started pouring through our heads. Let's get others involved, let's do another ride with all staff, let's see if we can get the Mayor to record and introduction to our video we make...

Mike purchased a new bike just yesterday, so he could ride it for today's ride. He is an inspiration. This "idea" is going to go much further than a movie, I just know it.

1:1 5 Best Practices

Please enjoy my Apple Education Recognition Program Showcase reflection using the 5 Best Practices to sum up the 2 day event. 

Teaching and learning has truly been redefined in South Berwyn School District 100. After participating in the Apple Education Recognition Program Showcase, I was exhausted, but beaming with pride.

On March 6, 2014 I received an invitation from Apple asking South Berwyn to be a part of the 2-day event. (We are a recognized *Apple Distinguished Program 2012-2015.) Day 1 was for a district representative to share their story at Apple Inc. downtown Chicago.  On Day 2, schools/programs were asked to host a site visit in the morning and one in the afternoon. The majority of educators and administrators in attendance were those just starting a 1:1 initiative in their schools. 

Day 1 at Apple Inc. Panelists: Amy Warke from Flossmoor 161, Shannon Soger from South Berwyn 100, Carolyn Skibba from Burley Elementary, and Susan Sullivan from Sacred Heart School.

Visionary Leadership 
Within 2 hours of reaching out to our District Administrators, Principal +Mary Havis and Principal +Marilyn McManus responded that their buildings would be "happy to host" the site visitors.  iCoaches +Ramona Towner and +Todd Bittorf took the lead on helping the buildings prepare for the site visit. Assistant Principal Joe Collins and teachers Claire Martin, Kristin Kennedy, Alex Von Ebers and Amanda Zanchelli welcomed site visitors from Decatur #61, Freemont #79, Gurnee #56 and Single Path Technologies with a presentation. They collaborated using Google Presentation, spoke about Irving's demographics, their journey, and what the 5 best practices look like at their building. (Thank you +Michelle Thorne for the idea!)

Apple Education Recognition Presentation at Irving 

Further Pershing Principal Marilyn McManus, teachers Chrissy Lukasiewicz, Beth Zeller, and Social Worker Marty Stachura created the welcome presentation at Pershing for visitors from Palos Heights #128, Orland #135, Apple Inc., Hawthorn #73, and Wilmette #39.

Apple Distinguished Program Presentation at Pershing 

Innovative Teaching and Learning
Throughout the Irving and Pershing site visits we saw students working in independent centers while the teacher was giving guided instruction to a small group. Classrooms were completely differentiated; the teacher was a facilitator in the classroom. Students were using SMART Notebook for listening and recording vocabulary, Photo Booth for story telling "pre-write", Kid Blog for reading reflections and summaries, augmentative sites like IXL, Xtra Math, and Mathletics for skill and drill, QR codes for immediate feedback, Aurasma to show American Revolution iMovies, and student created CCSS Google Sites to name a few.
In South Berwyn, we are focused on teaching "above the line," and moving lessons up the SAMR ladder. It's important to note that it's not just about the tool students were using, it is about the learning objective. (Thanks +R.J. Gravel & TPACK!) The 3rd grade students were simply creating a Google Site, the objective was to teach next year's 3rd grade class about a specific CCSS. They had to include examples, explanations, etc.

                                    

Ongoing Professional Development
When I walked into Annie Cantafio's (@3c_pershing) 3rd grade classroom, she explained that her students were having "Passion Period." Passion Period is Annie's version of Passion Time because they don't have a full hour to commit to the projects. Annie learned about Passion Times from 2nd grade teacher Jonathan Palles (@JonathanPalles) who did an Ignite Session on Passion Time at our January iLearn Institute Day. Passion Period gives her students choice, choice in what they are learning and in what they are creating for an end piece.

Compelling Evidence of Success

To reflect on Compelling Evidence, I'm going to share a few quotes from the site visit evaluation. 

"I loved to see the students engaged and working independently on different tasks that was differentiated for the students learning!" -2nd grade teacher

"Students were highly engaged in their learning. Teachers were facilitators of learning." -Principal  

"Classroom visits were great. Kids knew expectations and were fully engaged." -Instructional Technology Coach

"The kids and teachers were amazing! Great job everyone!" -Superintendent 

Flexible Learning Environment
I had the pleasure of meeting Instructional Technology Coach +Christine Edwards from Decatur on 9/27/13 at our first site first this school year. We immediately connected on Twitter (@techiechrissie) and have been utilizing our PLN to learn from each other. The fabulous +Molly Miller (also Decatur Instructional Coach) and 6 others drove 3.5 hours to visit South Berwyn for a second time. They wanted more of their teachers to be able to attend the site visit without actually driving, so they brought along @Panganibot, the school's robot. The robot (being controlled from Chrissy in Decatur) traveled to 3 classrooms at Irving, spoke to students, and brought the site visit experience  to those who couldn't make the trip (or get a sub!).

@Panganibot reading the Dry Erase board in 5M at Irving!

Final Thoughts on 5 Best Practices

If you are in the middle of a 1:1 implementation, study the 5 best practices. What are your strengths? Where do you need improvement? The most important area (in my opinion) is Visionary Leadership. Without the vision from administrative staff, it will be extremely hard to "master" the remaining 4 best practices. What is your vision? South Berwyn has a vision of ranking in the top 25% of schools in IL, differentiation and extended learning will help us get there quicker. 

*To be recognized as an Apple Distinguished Program or School you need to demonstrate success in 5 best practices including Visionary Leadership, Innovative Teaching and Leaning, Ongoing Professional Development, Compelling Evidence of Success, and Flexible Learning Environment. The school or district submits a multi-touch iBook as an application. Apple shared with the crowd that successful 1:1 environments all had the above common themes. You can find our iBook in iTunes.

What's Next? Transforming the Future of Learning- SAMR Reflection

I had the lucky opportunity of attending Apple's What's Next? Transforming the Future of Learning event in Chicago these past 2 days. There were about 70 educators across 8 states, 20 Apple employees, and researchers Dr. Ruben Puentedura and Dr. Damien Bebell. The South Berwyn team included Superintendent Dr. Stan Fields, Elementary Principal Jeremy Majeski, Middle School Assistant Principal Lindsey Lahr, and Instructional Director Shannon Soger, myself.

SAMR Reflections:

I have been learning about Dr. Ruben Puentedura's SAMR model for almost 4 years. I've listened to presentations at Apple Academy in Cupertino, CA, during district hosted Apple Profesional Development, at conferences from various educators like +Sue Gorman, +Caroline Haebig, & +Jennifer Magiera, and from reading through a plethora of digital materials via bloggers & tweeters like +Lisa Johnson, +Susan Oxnevad, +Carl Hooker, and many more! I've taken +Mark Anderson's SAMR flow chart and integrated into assessing teachers' lessons to see where they land on the model. My colleagues would consider me "pretty well-rounded" or slightly obsessed when it comes to talking SAMR.

Shannon Soger, Dr. Ruben Puentedura, Lindsey Lahr

4/2/14, Apple Executive Briefing Center, Chicago, IL

HOWEVER, nothing can compare to hearing +Ruben Puentedura talk SAMR himself. Ruben is a brillant man; you can hear his intellectuality in just a few minutes of him speaking. He's very personable, cracks jokes during his presentation, and can really connect with educators. He walks you through his slides, and elaborates in an easy to understand manner. (Although my brain hurt from concentrating so hard, trying to soak up every bit of his knowledge.)

I'm going to summarize what I learned at each level. When we use the SAMR model, we can't forget about the technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge behind the task, or TPACK. (http://tpack.org) Often times you hear, "I'm blogging with my students, that's redefinition." It's not just about the technology; what is the pedagogy and content knowledge behind the task of blogging? Why did the teacher choose to use blogging? What are students blogging about?

Substitution- This is NOT a "bad" level to be at. I'm still making gains in my classroom if I'm having students read facts (the content) from a digital PDF (the technology), recording notes, and summarizing them in Pages (the pedagogy). This is setting the stage to further move above the line.

Augmentation- "I made an iBook that has the vocabulary words linked within the book from students' notes in Pages. That's augmentation." NOT. How have you set the stage for this? What directions were students given? By having the glossary available, students aren't naturally going to click each word to see its meaning.

Instead, set the stage by telling students, "As you read this class iBook, (the content) you will come across some glossary terms that each of you wrote. Be sure to tap the vocabulary word, read the definition, and look at the image to determine if the word makes sense in that context. (The pedagogy is to understand the meaning of the vocabulary.) Highlight each vocabulary word, and add a sticky note (within iBooks, the technology) explaining your thoughts."

Modification- After students read the class iBook (the content), allow them to choose their "favorite chapter," the chapter that sparked their interest. (The pedagogy is to have students retell a story in their own words.) Next, have students create a digital story using GarageBand (the technology) to record their voice, making edits where needed. Give them the option to add music or images by bringing their voice recordings into an iMovie. Finally, upload all digital stories to a website.

Redefinition- (Hopefully you didn't just skip to this section first, because a task at the redefinition level is one that comes out of all previous tasks in the SAMR ladder.) Choose a website (the technology) that allows for continuous feedback and have students listen to the digital stories (the content) and provide digital feedback. Be sure to model how to give feedback (the pedagogy). "Good job" doesn't cut it.

The site shouldn't remain stagnate after feedback is given and received in 1 post. Most likely, this continuous feedback will allow significant task redesign (redefinition). A student might say, "Jose wrote that my audio recording was hard to hear because my background music was too loud. Can I create a visual to enhance my digital story? I'd like to make a Wordle, so when you look at the picture you can tell my story was about the Siberian Tiger."  (The task has changed; students are now revising, evaluating, and creating new digital stories.)

Redefinition continued- It's common for you see social collaboration at the redefinition level, but it is NOT necessary in determining a lesson as redefinition. For help, ask these questions Ruben includes in his SAMR: A Leadership Perspective presentation slides.

What is the new task? (Revising/Editing digital stories)
Will any portion of the original task be retained? (The content from writing stories in the Pages document was retained)
How is the new task uniquely made possible by the new technology? (Students were able to revise/edit/create a new digital story because of the student feedback provided on the website.)
How does it contribute to my design? (Pieces of the new task all came from previous technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge.)

Finally, I learned about the "EdTech Quintet." I've seen the image in Ruben's slides, but can now make more meaning out it it. This will help in assessing SAMR ladders.

The quintet includes Social (twitter, wikis, discussions), Mobility (anytime, anyplace, resources in the cloud), Visualization (mapping, wordles, timelines), Storytelling (iMovie, Comic Life), and Gaming (continuous feedback). If your SAMR ladder includes the EdTech Quinet, most likely it'll be above the line.

I would love to hear feedback from my SAMR reflection. Thank you!

Apple Education Recognition Showcase

Showcase South Berwyn SD 100 Apple Distinguished Program