In Massachusetts educators are looking forward to the MassCUE  M.A.S.S. conference next week, held at Patriot Place – Gillette Stadium. I love the new online, interactive program and mobile app. You can search for topics, speakers, and breakout session times. You can create your own schedule using the program and can take it with you on your laptop or your mobile device.

I am very excited about the Keynote Speakers, too. On Wednesday we will hear from Mary Cullinane of Microsoft. On Thursday Yong Zhao, from University of Oregon, is the keynote speaker. I loved his book, Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization. Also, on Thursday, Rehema Ellis of NBC NEWS will be the lunchtime keynote speaker. NBC, through Education Nation, is bringing national attention to education in America.

Annamaria Schrimpf and I will be presenting on CoSN’s Framework of Essential Skills and will introduce participants to the upcoming CoSN certification for technology administrators. If you want more information on the topic, join us on Wednesday at 2:00 pm in Theater B.

Title: Who is the wizard behind the curtain?

Description: Who is the wizard behind the curtain and what skillset does he or she need to be effective? Technology is sometimes seen as a mysterious black box and technology administrators as alchemists or wizards. Well, come to this session to be demystified. During this session attendees will be introduced to the Framework of Essential Skills of the Chief Technology Officer K-12 published by CoSN. The framework deciphers the skills and knowledge that Technology Directors need to be effective, and does so using a clear and practical matrix. Superintendents will learn how this matrix can be used when hiring and evaluating this technology leader for your school system. Technology administrators can use the same taxonomy to plan their professional development and make themselves even more valuable to their districts. Schools and districts are striving to use data better, provide 21st century literacy curriculum, and to employ innovative, cutting edge practices. Technology leaders require a broad set of skills to advance the vision and to navigate through the ever-changing technological landscape. The framework provides a useful description of those skills.

Presenters:
Jean Tower
Director of Technology, Public Schools of Northborough and Southborough
MassCUE Board
METAA President

Annamaria Pisari Schrimpf
Director of Technology, Winchester Public Schools
MassCUE President
METAA Board

METAA will also be hosting a breakout session at the conference. Join us on Thursday, at 10:15, in room 13 (Blue Level)

Description: METAA, Massachusetts Educational Technology Administrators Association, is the state chapter of CoSN (Consortium for School Networking). CoSN is the lead School Technology Administrator association in the country. CoSN believes that to maximize the benefits of technology solutions the district technology leader should be part of the executive leadership team of the education organization. Come to this meeting to hear about the vast array of resources CoSN and METAA offer for the technology leader professional.

See you at Gillette Stadium next week!

The BLC 2011 conference was a couple of weeks ago already, and I find I am still processing. There were so many speakers who (happily) jostled my thinking that it is taking me a while to formulate some of my favorite take- aways.

Marco Torres was one of the keynote speakers and his insights about colleagues reflected how I think of colleagues. Marco said, “My colleagues are not necessarily the people who work at my school. I find my Yodas all over the world.”

I have fine colleagues in my school district. I am lucky to work in a district where educators work hard and care, are continually improving through professional learning and practice, and many of whom “get it” when it comes to good teaching with technology.

But I am the only Technology Director in my district. I count on colleagues across the state and even scattered around the world, to challenge me, help me, teach me, “get” me and the issues I face at school, share their latest finds and best vendors, collaborate with me, and learn with me. These people I call my colleagues are occasionally my “Yoda” and sometimes just make me laugh. I rely on this professional learning network (PLN) to help me improve in my profession and to be companions on the journey.

Thank you to all my colleagues!

I like to start professional development workshops and seminars with activities designed to “Prime the Pump.” In the past, I have done workshops teaching people how to use video to jump start reflection and discussions. I’ve used “Broken Escalator” for people to have a humorous entry into the topic of unlearning helplessness, and the clip of Lucy and Ethel stuffing chocolates into their mouths because the factory belt went too fast was a great conversation starter about management, leadership, paying attention, and common sense. In this post, I’d like to recommend the use of still images as catalysts for reflective professional writing.

For example, at the outset of a workshop on adopting the Common Core, I might start with two different images – handcuffs and the play structure.

And I would give the following instructions:
Choose one of these two images to spur your reflection and writing. When you look at the image, think about how it relates to your profession, your practice, your environment, or the Common Core. Spend a moment before you begin writing, to reflect and engage your mind with the image.

I keep these exercises brief, allotting 5 minutes for writing and then 5 minutes to allow for sharing. What I find is that beginning with an exercise like this improves the quality of the reflection and sharing throughout the workshop.

In the slide deck below are several images that would be suitable for reflective writing prompts. As you browse through the slides, think about which images you might select for specific professional development topics.

Sometimes, I might select a single image – kids learning to ride a bike at the beginning of the workshop in which educators will learn how to use Google apps – and for other workshops, I used to images and let people select – a full cornucopia and a desk overflowing with paper, if I want people to struggle with how they think about a “full plate.”

What would you do? What do you think might be a more effective practice for you? One image or more? When you try this out at your next professional development activity please come back here and comment about the experience. Did you use the activity to begin a workshop or is a break in the middle of an event? Were people receptive? Did you achieve the desired results? If you have other images that you use and you find are effective, I welcome you to leave a comment and share so that others may benefit from your experience.

I leave you with an image and ask you to think about how it reflects or doesn’t reflect your attitude toward blogging.

I attended the session, Leadership for Mobile Learning Initiative Launch.
Description:
Today’s rapidly expanding mobile market has more than 4 billion subscribers utilizing wireless technologies to communicate and collaborate. Implications are numerous for the education sector, and school leaders must be informed about the trends and potential of mobiles to transform teaching and learning. CoSN is pleased to announce its newest leadership initiative, which will explore the capacity of district leadership to overcome barriers and develop, plan, implement, and manage polices to effectively use mobile devices. Join industry and school leaders for a lively panel discussion as we outline goals for our initiative, explore current best practices, and contemplate the future of mobile learning.

Presenters:
Lucy Gray, CoSN Project Director
Keith Krueger, CEO, CoSN, Washington DC
Michael Flood, Education Specialist, AT&T, Lawrenceville GA
Marie Bjerde, Founder, e-Mergents, LLC, West Linn
Kathy Hurley, Sr. Vice President, Pearson
Becky Fisher, Ed Tech and PD, Albemarle County Public Schools, VA

Through the mobile learning initiative CoSN will explore and develop resources that will support school leaders in the use of mobile devices. This was an excellent session and participants engaged with lots of questions, both from in the room and through the back-channel.

All the panelists had so much of value to share, but here are a few ideas I managed to jot down.

Lucy Gray shared a few statistics to start the conversation.
From the Pew Study of Internet and American Life Project on Teens and Mobile Phones, 2010:
90% of adults have a cell phone
95% of millennials (ages 18 to 34) have a cell phone
75% of those in the 12 to 17 years group have a cell phone

Project Tomorrow, in their 2010 research, found that a majority of students in grades 6 to 12 want to use their own mobile device in school.

“Why mobile now?” Michael Flood, in answering this question, said thoughtfully, that this is really two questions – Why mobile? and Why now?
Why mobile? There is a drive in education for more individualized and mobile plays a huge role in that endeavor. The educational experience is enriched by the always on, always available access. Mobile extends the learning environment and adjusts it to the expectations of our students.

Why now? There are several factors that converge to make it more feasible now: the maturation of the hardware and software, the fact that it has already achieved mass adoption outside of schools, and the constantly improving coverage maps.

Someone reminded us that we need to take seriously the challenges around mobile devices at the same time that we are looking at the amazing potential.

Becky Fisher, when asked about the possible inequity of “bring your own device” said that teachers fill in with school-owned devices. She said it is much more effective for the teacher to supply a few devices every day than to reserve 30 devices once a week.

It is difficult to find time to blog while at the CoSN conference. There is so much to do and learn and there are so many peers from around the world to talk to and share ideas with.

So, here are a few notes (most were tweets) from CoSN conference March 15, masquerading as a coherent post.

Looking forward to hearing Aneesh Chopra in a few minutes here in New Orleans at #CoSN11

Up now: #OpeningPlenary on #MasteringtheMoment w/Aneesh Chopra, @keithkrueger, William Rankin, Diane Roussel #CoSN11

Ed Zaiontz – current funding crisis also presents opportunities for technology to be applied to problems #CoSN2011

Speaker: Diane Roussel -Schools are expected to deliver a 21st century education with a19th century budget #CoSN2011

A superintendent clears the way, finds the money & pushes from behind #CoSN2011

Curriculum redesign has to be with teachers’ work – not canned from a vendor #CoSN2011

It matters what your priorities are – New Orleans used all sources of money to rebuild schools with state of the art technology; partnership with Cisco #CoSN2011

results – New Orleans had largest gains in achievement in the last 2 yrs with focus on innovating learning with technology #CoSN2011

outside partnerships for New Orleans were key – Cisco, USGS, Smithsonian & more #CoSN2011

some people don’t have vision – you have to draw them a picture #CoSN2011

New Orleans schools describes themselves as the 1st digital school district #CoSN2011

Speaker: William Rankin, medievalist, Abilene -shows map and train – why Abilene exists is this connection (the train)- #CoSN2011

People exist to make connections with one another

William Rankin shared some stats:

80% of children from 0 to 5 yrs use internet at least 1X per week in 2010#CoSN2011

70% of children from 0 to 5 yrs use cell phone every day in 2010#CoSN2011

Internet and mobile technology will not be kept out of schools #CoSN2011

Changing technology does not just change the delivery method – it changes the culture #CoSN2011

a technology becomes successful because it solves a problem, the cycle is – innovation to building to solidifying to destabilizing #CoSN2011

three ages of technology – middle ages – hand is only tool to distribute information (book) #CoSN2011

lectures started in schools because books were rare – teacher read book and students copied it #CoSN2011

Model of teaching in the 1st age was that students lived & worked with teachers – apprentice, contextual learning, learn by doing #CoSN2011

great way to learn – really hard to scale; 2nd age- rely on book #CoSN2011

we changed teaching fundamentally when we changed tech-in 2nd age teachers serve as conduit of info w/students as receivers #CoSN2011

now in third age – the age of data- #CoSN2011

Rankin showed a great graphic of a google search – searched for education technology – the number of hits returned would take 86 yrs to evaluate, by looking at each page for only 1 second & working full-time #CoSN2011

3rd age – teachers must serve as guides & mentors, must teach to assess information, not find it #CoSN2011

Speaker:Keith Krueger-reimagining learning in times of crisis #CoSN2011

tough economy-finding resources requires innovative thinking #CoSN2011

to do: 21st C skills, transform classrooms, support PD and PLC, strengthen leadership, balanced assessments #CoSN2011

employers want critical thinking, problem solving, effective communication, collaboration, team building, creativity & innovation #CoSN2011

how to master the moment? 1) There is now an average of 1 tech device for every 4 kids- we can improve this by leveraging student owned devices #CoSN2011

2nd-software expensive, hard to maintain: solution is cloud computing #CoSN2011

3rd-need collaboration & teamwork: use web 2.0 collaborative tools to stimulate engagement #CoSN2011

Birdville TX uses twitter, FB, Skype & YouTube, Teachers communicate with parents on FB-not on web pages #CoSN2011

today CoSN will release 2 new initiatives – mobile devices & online community for ed leaders #CoSN2011

I found the opening plenary to be very engaging and quite effective to have 4 different speakers. The participants heard from four thought leaders in education technology and the differing points of view created an exciting mosaic of ideas.

A METAA-organized professional development day at Google Cambridge Headquarters was a great success today. We had a really good turnout of participants and the presentations were engaging, interesting, and full of information. Google presenters included Stephen Vinter, Jaime Casap, Dana Nguyen. A presentation about Google Books was also extremely interesting, but I can’t find the presenter’s name in my notes (sorry).

If you have deployed (or are thinking about deploying) Google Apps for Education, there are a few resources you should know about. The Google Apps Education Training Center is a fantastic resource – this is a richly hyperlinked tutorial to using Google Apps for Edu.

The Google Apps for Education Certification program offers online training modules and a series of exams to become a certified educator. Once you are a certified educator and have done extensive teacher training and Apps deployment support you can apply for individual Certified Trainer status. If your organization has 3 or more Certified Trainers and meets some additional requirements you can apply to have it listed as a Certified Trainer program.

To find out more about the book project:
http://books.google.com/googlebooks/library.html

To see an amazing 3D human body app:
http://bodybrowser.googlelabs.com/

from Microsoft:

Microsoft Live@edu Deployment Options and Best Practices Office Hours

Live Dec 14 10:00AM-11:30AM Pacific Time

Join Microsoft Live@edu Solution Specialists for a how to session on deployment of Live@edu. During this session we will share best practices and case studies of deployments, plus you will have the opportunity to ask questions and have conversations with our specialists to help you successfully deploy Live@edu. This session will suppose that you have a basic understanding of the service and have hopefully signed up for the service so we can help you get deployed in this session. Be ready for a really interactive session.
Speaker:
Erik Desbois

REGISTER

https://www.educationwebcasts.com/Webcast.aspx?i=5135

I have had several teachers ask if they could get money budgeted to buy iPads. In order to avoid buying any just for the bells and whistles and also to be able to advocate with appropriate funding sources, I created a one-page proposal. I would love some feedback on this proposal.
Am I asking too little? too much? are there questions I missed?

iPad Purchase Proposal

Goal(s)
Please provide an overview of the need for the iPad. Make sure your goals are aligned to frameworks, our instructional learning environment, and meet identified curriculum needs.

Background Information
Share relevant background information, including research or successful examples on the use of these devices for the purposes you have identified.

Content Area Focus
What is the content area focus for this initiative? Why was this selected?

Professional Learning
What is the plan to provide professional development and support to the staff involved? How will other staff in the building learn more about the pilot and the results?

Timeline
Provide a timeline for this purchase and the implementation of the project.

Evaluation
How will evaluation of the use of the iPads be accomplished?
What data will be collected, at what intervals, and how will it be collected?
What are the key indicators that will be reviewed to evaluate the success of the project?
Be sure to describe in terms of student learning.

<Full disclosure – I have been looking at proposals I could find on the web so I probably ended up using some categories that I found elsewhere – thanks for the help!>

Supporting Web 2.0 usage in your school district may seem like an insurmountable task – something Hercules would walk away from. After all, there are SO MANY Web 2.0 applications that schools could use! At GO2WEB20.net, the web applications index, there are 69 pages of web applications like the one below.

With over 3000 apps listed, and apps coming and going on an almost daily basis, it makes sense for school districts to make a plan to support Web 2.0 usage.

Planning should start with reviewing needs and goals. If you have instructional technology specialists and technology committees in your schools, as we do, I suggest that starting with them makes sense. These are the teachers in your district who are embracing technology tools to the extent that they voluntarily serve on a committee.

Once needs are established, review Web 2.0 tools to meet those needs. A small working committee of technology specialists and classroom teachers can weed down the list of promising apps to a “District Web 2.0 Toolkit.”

Limiting the use of Web 2.0 applications to this list is not one of my goals. Teachers are welcome to investigate and use other tools. My goal in creating the Web 2.0 Toolkit is to expand our use of Web 2.0 apps to meet core curriculum and 21st-century skill goals. We want a variety of Web 2.0 tools to be used to address a range of issues. I think we can do this by:

• developing communities of practice
• focusing training and support efforts
• creating “critical mass” groups

Certainly, we can’t offer training and support for the 3000+ Web 2.0 applications on the Internet. Concentrating on our select list means that not only can we better support the tools, but we can count on teachers becoming expert enough to support each other. Most teachers may use only a couple of the tools we choose, but no matter what tools interest someone, they will find collegial coaching and support.

The apps that make it into the Toolkit should enable the goals previously set. For example, there are likely going to be apps to facilitate and support collaboration, personal productivity, group authoring, podcasting, creating multimedia presentations, and blogging. In addition, you may include little apps like Wordle that are already used by educators and students in your district. The Web 2.0 Toolkit should not be considered static –  it isn’t “one and done.” It will evolve and perhaps grow as needs, educator expertise, and available apps change.

The next step is to create a centralized place on your district website to list and link to the apps in your Web 2.0 Toolkit. It makes sense to include a brief blurb about what each app does, and how to get started. If the application is available in only certain schools (for example Google Apps for Education might be set up for your high school but not for the pre-K – 1 school) then state that here as well. I suggest that the “how to get started” information include account setup and links to suggested projects or lessons, or exemplars in your own school district. If you have teachers who are “super users” of an app and are willing to serve as advisers, list their name and school. I find that a powerful way to spread the use of a new tool is teacher to teacher.

In my school district, we have been successfully using Wikispaces Private Label, Google Apps for Education, Doodle, Wordle, Glogster, and Animoto, so as we approach the task of developing our Web 2.0 Toolkit, we’ll start with this list.

How do you manage the glut of Web 2.0 apps in your district?

Google has created this really charming picture book, 20 Things I Learned about Browsers and the Web. The book explains, in a very accessible way, things like browser plug-ins, extensions, IP addresses and DNS. Google provides nice explanations of concepts like cloud computing and web apps.

You will want to share this e-book with your mother AND your students; with your administrators AND your community members. I can see using this as a pre-reading assignment for a professional development day.

Once you read it, please comment here with your suggestion for how educators can use this e-book.