Change...who me?

I previously blogged about the idea of change with respect to technology here:  See excerpt below:

According to the ISTE Standards for School Administrators: Standard # 2
Digital age learning culture
Educational Administrators create, promote, and sustain a dynamic, digital-age learning culture that provides a rigorous, relevant, and engaging education for all students.     

• Ensure instructional innovation focused on continuous improvement of digital-age learning 
• Model and promote the frequent and effective use of technology for learning
• Provide learner-centered environments equipped with technology and learning resources to meet the individual, diverse needs of all learners
• Ensure effective practice in the study of technology and its infusion across the curriculum 
• Promote and participate in local, national, and global learning communities that stimulate innovation, creativity, and digital age collaboration

While this standard is aimed at administrators, the same standards hold true for teachers.  Change is about culture as much as it is about an individual.  Culture within a school and district has an effect on the ability for its teachers and administrators to change.  A colleague of mine commented on the post, How to get from "I Can't" to "I will try" by asking me to question what is stopping someone from trying something new.  While most people may not easily admit, I think what is stopping them is fear.

We all have fears.  Some of us fear the unknown.  Others fear failure, loss, upsetting others, disappointment, and leaving their comfort zones.  With these fears comes anxiety and a lack of self confidence.  These can also cause us to avoid change like we avoid doing things that are difficult as we "procrastinate".   

What is the answer?  The answer is a challenge.  Challenge yourself to try new things without all the fears associated with it.  If you fail at it, try it again.  If you still fail at it, ask for help, or seek something else.  If you are a school administrator, embrace change, model it and support teachers who are willing to try new things without judgement. A culture needs to be in place that supports teachers and students willing to adapt what they currently do to make it better by changing.

We are a country that was built on the ability to adapt and change.  Inventions, scientific discoveries and the advancement of technology all came about because men and women had the ability and willingness to change.  They did and so can you.



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Why I use Twitter

I recently wrote a blog post on why I blog, and you can read it here.  However, over the past few weeks, many teachers and administrators have asked me why I use Twitter.  I decided that it would make a great post, so here is my answer.

I have identified the 3 most effective uses of Twitter for me.  Actually, it is the 3 most effective uses of any technology for me, not just social media.  Those 3 uses are:

1.  To learn and be informed.
2.  To connect to other like minded educators around the world.
3.  Share my passion, my knowledge and my experiences with others.

Twitter is my daily PLN (Professional Learning Network).  It is also my Personal Learning Network, as it is specific to me and my needs.  I use Twitter on a daily basis to learn and stay current on all things "education".  I follow teachers and school/district administrators from all around the world.  I follow their posts that include best practices, resources that I can share and links to their blogs so I can stay current with what they are doing in their schools.  I also follow educational twitter accounts that showcase the use of technology such as @Edutopia and @edudemic.  In this day an age where Public Education is in the proverbial crosshairs, I follow all the unions such as UFT, NYSUT, and AFT, as well as many of their leaders.  I also follow  @BAMradio and @BadassTeachersA because I was a teacher and will always be a teacher at heart.  This helps keep me in the loop so that I can make the best possible decisions for my school district, its teachers and its students. Of course, I also follow our government, including education policy makers such as the chancellor and the Commissioner of Education, both at the state level and the federal level.  In addition, I have tailored my PLN so that I follow the leaders in educational technology both in and out of the Twitter world.  There are too many to list here, but feel free to look at who I am following on my profile @brian_seligman.  By reading what is "tweeted", I can learn something new each and everyday.  My recommendation for that is to start small and follow a few at first...then when you get more comfortable, follow more, use lists and search with hashtags.  

I also use my PLN to connect to other like minded educators around the world.  I connect to them through online twitter chats, Direct messages, and through their tweets and retweets.  Even though I have not met any of those educators that I am following and who are following me, I have made a connection.  I once thought of teaching as being on an isolated and deserted island.  However, with Twitter, it is still like an isolated island, but with electricity, wifi, a cell phone and a working computer.  Twitter allows you to ask questions to your PLN, respond to others and get feedback that will allow you to grow as a teacher and school administrator.  There are so many teachers and administrators that are going through the same thing as I am, so connecting to them on Twitter gives me the opportunity to learn, share and grow.

Twitter also gives me a platform to share with others.  It is the main reason I became a teacher.  I love to share information, knowledge, and experiences with others.  Tweeting and Blogging gives me the tools to give away and share what I hold so dear.  When I was a teacher, I would read a short letter to my students on the last day of school.  My last line was always that I was thankful for the opportunity to give them something of myself each and every day.  My hope is that through my current work (Director of Technology and CIO), my twitter account, and my blog, I can still give something that will help other teachers, administrators and of course help students.

Thanks to +Alice Keeler Here is a great resource with 15 Tips for using Twitter.

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The Best thing I do...in my work

As part of the #EduStory, I am writing about "What is the best thing you do in your classroom/school/district/job? from @MsVictoriaOlson".

This is a very good question, but to be fair, I need to explain my job first.  I have a terrific job.  I am the CIO (Chief Information Officer), Director of Technology, and a district level administrator involved in many projects across the district, some pertaining to technology, some pertaining to instruction.  Each and every day is unique.  Some days, I work with teachers implementing new technology such as iPads, or Google Classroom, while on other days, I work with building administrators as they decipher and decode data from standardized assessments such as NWEA's MAP assessments

I recently blogged about the way to get from "I can't" to "I will try" and also here, as I experienced a group of teachers willing to try something new to solve a problem they were facing.  In that case, we used Google Classroom as a way to solve their publishing issues.  I went to their school several times last week to check on their progress.  The first day I went, each teacher spent time to show students how to log into their Google accounts, then to join their classrooms.  I enjoyed being there as the "tech support".  

I returned a couple of days later to see how much of their persuasive essays were completed and to see how things were going.  

I also look at this #Edustory a little bit differently than it is presented in the question.  I don't just do things at work.  I "get to" do things.  There is an important distinction in the mindset of how you think about the things that you do on a regular basis.  Here was a recent blog post on that distinction.

This became the best thing I get to do by far.  Before I became a school and district administrator, I was a classroom teacher.  Each and every day, I would be reminded of the amazing things that I got to do, most notably, share my passion for science with my students so that they left my class each day with a piece of me.  As a school and district administrator, those moments of satisfaction, knowing that you have made a difference in someone's life become more distant and less likely.  Working with the teachers and students on the Google Classroom, allowed me to walk away knowing that I was making a difference.

I know that each teacher now has a new skill and tool to use with their students.  I also know that the students can be engaged in their writing like never before.  It was a pleasure seeing them engaged in writing and so excited to use a tool like Google.  I left that building with a big smile.  I will return again this week to see how they have progressed.  This coming week, each student will share his/her writing with a partner.  They will then share comments, feedback and suggestions to each other.  I cannot wait to talk to them about this process.  

Next up...working with 7th grade teachers using Google Classroom in the same way.  I hope they will embrace it the same way...fingers crossed.


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We are Going Google Are you?

Yesterday, my colleague and I introduced Google Drive to the faculty of our middle school.  I know it will be a difficult hill to climb to get our teachers out of their comfort zone to use something that is so unfamiliar.  However, I started the introduction with 2 ideas.

The first idea was that using Google Drive is to their current structures as digital music is to 8 Track tapes.  The current model, probably common in many places includes logging into the network through a client (in our case it is Novell), then using network shares to access and store files with limited ability to share with colleagues across the district.  Going Google allows our teachers much more flexibility. (more about that below)

The second idea was that our teachers need some assistance and we will be there for them each step of the way.  I used the following video as a way to get them in a good mood:

I know that change is difficult, and is usually avoided. I wrote about that in 3 separate posts:  the Pessimist, the distracted, and the procrastinator.  I know deep down that teachers will embrace going Google, once they realize its potential.  I decided that I would speak to some of those potentials here:

1.  Going Google allows teachers access to their work anytime, from any device.  Whether they are a traveling teacher who teaches in 3 separate rooms, or the teacher like many people in the world that uses 4 different devices to access information such as a phone, tablet, laptop and desktop, going Google will help everyone access work from any device.

2.  Use of the "Drive" and a smartphone as a scanner to display work on their smartboards.  Every teacher in our district has a smartboard in their classroom.  They all want scanners.  Scanners can now be replaced with the technology they already have.  All they need to do is snap a picture of the document, and send it to their "Drive" and then display it on their smartboard.

3.  Collaboration has never been easier than with Google.  Sharing a Google doc with multiple colleagues as they work on a common assessment or curriculum plan is one click away.  They can even limit the collaboration to comments only.

4.   Auto Save.  No more "File Save as", "Ctrl-S" and certainly no more...."oh no! the computer crashed and I forgot to save"

5.  Google for Education gives them unlimited storage.  Wow...unlimited storage?  Yes, Unlimited storage.

6.  Google Classroom is a tremendous resource for teachers.  I just introduced it to our 4th grade teachers and posted a short blog on it here and here. 

There are many more reasons that going Google is the way of the future.  The more they use it, the more they are going to love it.  I am going to my first Google Summit the weekend of March 14, 15 in NJ.  I cannot wait to learn more and share it with my colleagues.


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How to get from "I Can't" to "I will try"

How to get from "I Can't" to "I will try"

In the world, there exists two groups of people...people that say, "I can't" and people that say, "I'll try".  Plain and simple, there is nothing else.  

Henry Ford famously said, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.”  Like other topics I have posted about, this is no different.  It all boils down to confidence and a belief in yourself.
My posts on being scared, being a non-believer, and  believing in yourself, all talk about a mindset.

New and different things are scary to people.  Technology is no different.  I hear excuses all the time:

• This just won't work.
• It is too hard.
• I'm not comfortable with change.
• I don't have time to learn something new.

It takes a tremendous amount of energy to make excuses and not try, but it only takes a small effort to try something new.  

Here is a nice approach to trying something new for 30 days, TED talk by Matt Cutts.  The approach is quite simple.  Try something out each day for 30 days.  At the end of 30 days, you can then make a decision about how useful that approach is.

Today, I watched teachers willing to try by using Google Classroom.  They had the right attitude.  They were willing to try, even though it was new and different.  They introduced it to their students, and modeled how to access a Google Doc and publish their writing.  In the next few days, they will introduce students to sharing their work, asking for feedback, providing feedback to a peer and communicating through the Google Doc with their teacher.  

Here is link to a nice resource on how you can try new things.  

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/happiness-in-world/201004/trying-new-things

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My favorite teacher...and how I was influenced

I came from a small town in a suburb of New York City.   It was the kind of small town where everyone knew your story.  They seemed to know everything about you, who you were, and who they thought you could be.  That in itself could be a whole blog post, but I will save that for another day.  Back to my story...I came from a small town.  The town was so small that the High School and the Junior High School were in the same building and many of the teachers taught all the way through.  It was a good thing, and it was a bad thing.  I had the same English teacher 4 times, the same math teacher 3 times and the same science teacher twice.

My favorite teacher was Mr. Reuth.  He was my Biology teacher in grade 9 and my AP Biology teacher in grade 12.  Thinking back on those years, I would imagine that he was a fairly young and inexperienced teacher when I was in 9th grade.  I can remember some of those "out of control" days when a few of my classmates would get him sidetracked and off topic and he would tell us weird, but funny stories.  I guess they connected to science, like the story of the cadaver that burped in the morgue.  I guess that was funny to a bunch of fourteen year olds.  I even used some of his stories in my early teaching days as a "hook" to engage my students.

Why was Mr. Reuth my favorite teacher?  That is a good question.  If you read a recent post, you would know that I did not have much confidence in myself growing up.  Mr. Reuth helped me gain my confidence.  He gave me my passion for science.  I should say, he unleashed it, since I believe that I always had the passion.  He never gave us the answers to our questions.  The best part about his class and his style of teaching was his ability to make me think.  I liked that.  It became a challenge every single day.  It encouraged me to study, to read, to question  the world and that continued from 9th grade through my senior year.  In my senior year, in AP Biology, I believed that I wanted to learn more about biological sciences, so much that it became my major in college.  I can remember almost every lesson, every dissection, every story...even the ones that made no sense like when he got his car stuck somewhere with his wife.  I remember that story because he had a Dodge Dart...not the cool one...the 1970's Dodge Dart.  We occasionally poked fun at him about it, but in a nice way, in a "cool" way.

His influence inspired me to later become a teacher, because I learned early on in my college days, that I was better suited to be a teacher, than a doctor.  (Another post - I better keep a list of future blog post ideas somewhere)  Mr. Reuth inspired me to share my passion for science as a teacher, because that is what he did.  When we entered his classroom, he had a smile on his face from ear to ear, because he had the privilege of inspiring our passion for science like his own.  He got it.  He wasn't the "sage on the stage".  I certainly knew that he loved talking about science, teaching science, asking questions and seeing the look in our eyes when we all "got it".  Those are the feelings that I tried to inspire when I was a teacher.  I wanted my students to share in the love of science.  I wanted them to find the awe in it like I did.  I wanted them to wonder about the world, and seek out the answers.  That was his legacy to me...inspire a new generation of students who want to learn about the world, not because there is a test, but because they just want to know.


This post was inspired by @AppEducationFox

  in the #YourEdustory Challenge 2015
  
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I believe in myself, do you?

It has taken over forty years, but I finally believe in myself.  In a nutshell, I have been told over and over, time and again, that I would not succeed, but in the end, the only thing that matters is that I now know I will succeed.

I wrote in a previous post about the "non-believer", the person who lacks the confidence to be successful.  What I forgot to discuss is how we get to that point.  I am a perfect example of someone who lacked confidence and I certainly lacked a belief in myself.  We aren't born that way.  We are born with a certain confidence, maybe even a cockiness, or perhaps it's a lack of fear.  In any event, children are born with trust and a desire for independence.  Independence in itself requires confidence, otherwise we all would be by our mother's side for our entire lives.

So here is my story...at least what I can remember...

When I was five I can remember being teased by kids in my school for the way I looked.  It made me feel bad, because I thought I was good looking...until that day.  I no longer believed in myself as a "looker", no matter how many times my grandmother squeezed my cheeks, "Oh how cute...my boobala!", she would exclaim as she squeezed my cheeks until they hurt.  No matter this expression of love from my grandmother, the words of my peers echoed.  I did not believe in myself.  Would you?

When I was eight, I remember singing in the class chorus.  The music teacher stopped the entire chorus and asked us each to sing the song as she listened really closely and walked around.  She then got close to me as we continued to sing.  What was I doing wrong, I thought to myself?  At that instant, she stopped the chorus, looked right at me, told me that I sounded really out of tune and placed me in the back of the chorus.  Now, this was over 30 years ago and I am sure the details are off a bit, but that was my perception.  I thought I was a great singer.  I loved to sing in the car with my mom, at the dinner table with family and friends and of course, in the shower...and up until now, nobody told me I was anything but good.  Now that my teacher told me I was bad, I believed it.  I never wanted to sing again.  Would you?

A few years later, as a 90 pound 9th grader, I tried out for the wrestling team. "You're not going to make the team!" someone said as I tried out at the first practice.  Well, I did make the team, but not because I was good.  I made the team because I was the only 90 pounder trying out and they needed a lightweight on Varsity.  It was good, but it was bad.  As I lost any belief in who I was, I lost almost every match.  I can remember my coach telling me, at least we didn't forfeit the weight class, as that was actually worse than me losing a match.  I didn't believe in myself.  Would you?

When I decided to apply for colleges, I went to my guidance counselor and told him that I wanted to apply to Columbia, Cornell and Northwestern.  Now, I had the grades.  I had a 97% unweighted average.  I was enrolled in 5 AP classes.  What he then told me, shocked me.  He told me that those schools were way out of my league, that I wouldn't get in.  I could apply there, but I better have some backups.  I didn't believe in myself.  Would you?

I did get in to Cornell, I was on the waiting list for Columbia and Northwestern, but I decided to go to Syracuse University.  There I studied to be a teacher, and graduated with Honors. Here is where my story turns.  I became a teacher.  As a teacher, I learned to hide my insecurities and my lack of confidence.  Actually, my confidence began to grow as I learned how to teach.  I no longer had to hide my insecurity, or my lack of confidence, because there were none.  I finally believed in myself.  I knew I had the skills to be a good teacher and that I could make a difference in someone's life.

So the story doesn't end there.  After teaching for 10 years, I wanted to be a school administrator.  I interviewed in 20 different districts and I consistently heard, "You just don't have what we are looking for."  That stung each and every time.  I resorted back to my younger life when I lacked confidence.  Again, I didn't believe in myself.  Would you?

I finally landed a job I was looking for as a department chairperson when someone took a chance because she believed in me.  I then moved on to be an Assistant Principal, when the Principal I met believed in me.  I then moved on to the position I currently have because there are many people around me that believed in me.  With everything I have been through in my forty years, I now fully believe in myself, but it didn't happen on its own.  It began to happen when I decided to believe in who I was and what I stood for.  It changed when I learned to have a passion and work hard to achieve goals for my students.  I no longer need the pat on the back, or the words of encouragement from my bosses.  I know I am successful.  I know I can be more successful.  I know I make a difference.  I believe in myself, so should you.

 
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