Modeling Classroom Management

Today was a professional day at our school. However, as with most meetings at school I am often stunned by the number of colleagues who are engrossed in other things.  Laptop screens were up and cell phones were being used to send text messages.  That said, I can only imagine how those individuals  would react if their students behaved in a similar manner while they were giving a presentation. 

Am I guilty of this behavior? Absolutely. But before I could start tapping away at the keyboard today, our MS Head, Phil Spears, did something that caught not only my attention but the attention of the entire division.  Prior to his presentation, he asked the faculty for some tech free time and he requested that we lower the lids of our laptops.  

That was it!  Phil modeled effective classroom management albeit with his teachers. He had our attention and we were all better for it. 

So is it the technology's fault? Hardly, it is an exercise in self control, restraint, and ultimately respect.

Ok class, lids down!

Leveraging your Student Information System

Four years ago, St. Christopher's School had over 10 databases that held every imaginable piece of information. To make matters worse, none of the DBs spoke to each other and in some instances the flat nature of the DB allowed only one user to view or edit information at a time.

In an effort to reduce the number of DBs and also allow for various members of the community to share information, we moved our data onto WhippleHill's combined website and student information solution. The move to their system could not have been a better move for us. And as a heavy user, having access to so much information has made it easier for our school to leverage other systems.

So what exactly am I doing with the information stored at WhippleHill?  We're using the userid which I'm pretty sure is serving as a primary key of sorts at WhippleHill as our student's ID for a variety of other applications.  For example, student ID's are now standardized for ERBs, the Library Check Out System, and DyKnow.  But as an AlertNow  and PickaTime subscriber, I fairly confident that those IDs are being used through their respective APIs as well.  As I look to the future, my hope is that we will start to use this number for Point of Sales transactions for our dining hall and bookstore..

Is this anything new?  Hardly! But there are still plenty of schools that miss out on how to leverage one of the most powerful DBs at their school.

Getting Back in the Saddle

My blog has been neglected for too many months.  It's not due to a lack of things to write about but more a time issue.  Fortunately, my PLN but more specifically @raventech wrote a piece on For Startes; Neglect is not an Option which for all intensive purposes has gotten me back in the saddle.

I have lots to share in the coming posts and I look forward to everyone's feedback and constructive criticisms.

Let's hear it for the 2010-2011 school year to prompt a fresh start.

Celebrating Our Faculty's Accomplishments

 A few months ago, our tech department launched a new technology blog-St. Christopher's Tech Central Got Tech?! Now a blog itself is not a new concept but rather than having posts written by the techies, we've been soliciting teachers to share their successes. In addition to those posts, we post information about training opportunities, tech tips, and controversial articles.

As a result, we have teachers from our lower, middle, and upper schools sharing and commenting on the blog posts.  The asynchronous discussions are taking place and our teachers have been expressing their opinions and applauding their colleagues' efforts.  But perhaps the best part about the blog is that it is written by the faculty and causing what I like to call positive peer pressure.

So if you have a few moments, please stop by and write a comment and show our faculty that they have an audience considerably larger than our school community.   

Reflecting on the Google Teacher Academy for Administrators

Having had some time to take in all the information from the GTAdmin, I still find my mind swimming with the  multitude of ideas and possibilities this forum has provided.  I was surrounded by fabulous educators from "venti sized" school districts to small public and private schools and every possible combination in between.  But the most impressive aspect of this group of educators was their passion and desire to enhance the learning process.  An enhancement that is not limited to students but one that is shared with all constituents connected to their respective schools.

That said, the amount of information we received was incredible.  There were practical solutions for mundane problems, creative solutions for assessing student performance, solutions for enhancing communication, solutions for giving student and teachers control over their learning environment and the list goes on and on.   Mark Wagner reminded us that we most likely felt as if we were drinking out of a fire hose but our group handled the volumes of information with grace.

Image Credit: http://www.funnysalescartoons.com/photo/funny-sales-cartoon-on-sales-4

Our collective and individual epiphanies at #gtadmin were emotional, inspiring, and perhaps can only be matched by a child's excitement having arrived at Disney World for the first time.  


Yes, this was a Google sponsored event and yes it focused on Google Apps, but the real take away from the academy is that it wasn't so much about the technology but it was about learning and building relationships.  The lead learners, by the way I love that description for the presenters, were as Sir Ken Robinson puts it, "In [their] Element".  They love what they do, they love what Google Apps provides for their school family, and they are transforming their schools.     


What am I looking forward to?  I am anticipating the ongoing conversations with this group of educators.  To me, it seemed like the dialog was just getting started when it ended.  We need to keep this momentum going.  We will need each other when things get difficult, we need to celebrate our schools' successes, and share our failures.   We need to discuss authentic assessment, differentiated instruction, the college process, and a multitude of other issues as the face of education continues to evolve.

Finally, a word of thanks to Google, WestEd, Cue, and all of the lead learners for sharing.

The World is Our Classroom, a flickr group

This year I decided to participate in a daily photo journal along with quite a large number of educators from around the world. As one can imagine the diversity and variety of photos is just spectacular, but recently, 2 photos caught my eye- Jo Fothergill's The Classroom and @Allanahk's Old School Room.  After seeing these photos, I decided to create a flickr group called: The World is Our Classroom.

So what am I after?

About The World is Our Classroom

The goal of this flickr group is to collect images of classrooms and or school buildings from around the world. By providing a global perspective we will be able to view the similarities and differences in the learning environments we provide our students.

Now I have yet to add a photo of my school, but I will do so soon.  Please join us as we look at the classrooms and schools from around the world.

image credit: http://www.subtletea.com/schoolhouse.JPG

A student's creative solution

Recently, our instructional technologist, Brian Zollinhofer, aka @zollinhofer, shared an email he received from a student.  He posted the email as a blog post on our school's tech blog, but I felt it needed to be shared here as well. Enjoy!

Last night, I got the following email from a student at home:

I need help with recording a photo story at home.

At the time, I wasn’t really sure what Billy meant, or how I could help.  I eventually figured that he needed a way to record his voice into his Photostory project.  Perhaps the program was having problems.  Perhaps he didn’t have a microphone to record his voice.  It just wasn’t clear from the email.

About an hour later, I received another email:

Never mind My Rock band mic [for the Xbox 360] works

I actually chuckled at Billy’s problem solving.  Instead of giving up, he thought of other ways he used his voice with technology.  The game Rockband came to mind and he realized that he was able to plug his microphone into his computer.  Good job thinking outside the box!  There’s proof that video games aren’t entirely bad.

Image credit: 

http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x68/CRAZYTONTA/creativity.gif