A Ride on Our 21st Century Learning Wave: January 2010

As I reflect on our journey as 21st Century Learners, here are some of our highlights...you know, the ones that give me goose bumps because I love bragging about my staff!

Teacher teams created wiki pages so parents and students can easily access important information.
More and more, teachers are creating classroom blogs and/or other online discussion forums for their students.
With the help of technology experts on my staff, I created a staff wiki that replaced the hard copy of our staff handbook. The best part is that I can continue updating it with need-to-know information so it's never out of date!
Our Technology Leadership Team facilitates "Technology Tuesdays" - help sessions to offer differentiated support to teachers on topics such as blogging, wikis, ipods, etc.
We have a PLC of teachers focusing their learning on technology, primarily Moodle. How cool it's been to see this in the classrooms!
Our CSIP (Comprehensive School Improvement Plan) Leadership Team is dedicated to providing meaningful, relevant professional development opportunities to our staff. Driven by our district's 3 Guiding Questions (1. What do we want our students to know? 2. How will we know they have learned what we intended for them to learn? 3. What will we do if they did / did not learn it?) and Framework for Meeting the Needs of All Students, we drive much, if not all, of our work through our PLCs. We are busy identifying Essential Learnings (check out chapter 3 of DuFours' Learning by Doing), sharpening our application of KUD (Know-Understand-Do), digging deeper in differentiation, revising our grading practices (with Rick Wormeli's work as our guide), learning about project/inquiry-based learning, supporting our building/district-wide implementation of PBS (Positive Behavior Support), implementing building-wide teaching and learning strategies, and learning how to use technology as a tool in the instructional process.
Throughout the current 09-10 school year, our faculty members have become "Googledocs groupies."
We've created a PLC wiki for the staff where PLCs can post and share their work.
I accompanied a group of teachers to Angela Maiers' conference in June 2009. Our brains haven't stopped since! Our CSIP team continues to work with Angela, and we look forward to her expertise in helping us transform how we deliver instruction.
Panera chats.....I'll never forget the summer of 2009 at Panera! It started out as a voluntary 21st Century Learning chat on Tuesday mornings, where we discussed articles from ASCD's March 2009 issue of "Ed Leadership." Oh my...it turned in to longer learning opportunities where we were on our computers "playing" with our 21st century skills! I'll never forget the day we actually stayed so long that we ate 2 meals there! Needless to say, I can't wait for Panera, Summer 2010. It just keeps getting better and better!
A group of teachers stepped up to the plate and wanted to learn more about project/inquiry-based learning. This led to a partnership with the U.S. Center for Diplomacy and Des Moines Business Alliance, and we were able to offer a summer class on PBL through Heartland AEA. We're also fortunate to have our director of professional development in WCSD as an in-house expert on PBL!! The fact that teachers with whom I work initiated our work with PBL and gave up their personal time to take the summer class is evidence of the leadership capacity at WMS! Linda Lambert would be so proud if she came to WMS! Now, we're busy creating a 7th grade PBL unit on infectious diseases. And, hats off to all the teachers in both grades 6 and 7 who have stepped out of their comfort zones and tested the PBL waters. We're catchin' the wave of PBL!
Our Literacy Leadership Team meets regularly and engages in article reviews centered on 21st Century Literacy. My adrenaline gets pumping every time we meet because this group of amazing teachers, as busy as they are, have committed the time to shut out distractions and spend time learning together in a relaxed setting. There's no agenda when we meet; we just discuss our readings and identify ways to implement our learning in our classrooms.
Twitter....many of us are learning how to tweet! Last Tuesday brought a pleasant surprise. While we're experiencing the worst winter to my memory, we have missed 5 days of school and have had 2 late starts...so far. I have this feeling it's not over! With all of the phone calls we're making each time we run the staff phone tree, I've realized that it's time to do something different. Since we ARE 21st Century Learners, why not set up Twitter to send the staff a text on their cell phones instead? So, with the help of technology experts on staff, we moved ahead. I announced on the intercom, "If anyone is interested in piloting a way to receive a text instead of using the phone tree, you are invited to the conference room at this time." The conference room FILLED with teachers! Woo! Hoo! While I'm aware that there are other ways to set up a system so that everyone could receive a text, I do believe Twitter was the way to go. Here's why: Some teachers are already using twitter, while some have never used it. As 21st Century Learners, we will all eventually be using it. If a teacher did NOT use twitter but wants to receive a text when school's cancelled, then he/she had to set up a twitter account. Sure, they may not be an active twitter user right now, but as we continue our differentiated path as 21st Century Learners, they will have their accounts ready to go when they are ready to move as a twitter learner. I'm speaking from experience here. A teacher helped me set up my account a couple months ago, and I am just now feeling more "daring" as I tweet!
The chorus teachers have enhanced the learning in their classroom with the use of i-pods. Very cool!
The Van Meter School District is doing amazing things with technology! I had the opportunity to visit with other colleagues a couple months ago. My jaw was dragging on the floor the entire time as I was in awe at the work they're doing for kids with their one-on-one laptop initiative and virtual reality room. All I could think of was, "My teachers have to see this!" A couple weeks ago, we had a teacher workday, and I just threw it out there on an email to the staff: "If anyone would be interested in visiting Van Meter on our workday, please let me know." Would you believe that a dozen teachers jumped at the chance to go with me? Here I am again - fascinated by the professionals in my building who gave up their personal work time to learn.
Imagine 75 hungry football players trying to share 3 large pizzas. That's how it is with our teachers trying to share the mobile computer labs! Well, except they don't tackle each other for the computers.... So, I'm prioritizing our budget to get additional mobile carts over the next few years. My goal over the next couple years is for each team to have their own cart of 30 laptops. Oh yes, and we just ordered a mobile lab of i-pod touches! I can only imagine how excited the students will be to use them!
We can't forget skyping! A group of intrinsically motivated teachers have recently taken the initiative to learn how to communicate via skype. In fact, the word on the street is that a number of teachers were skyping during our recent snow day. They're like the Energizer Bunny with 21st Century Learning. They just keep going and going and going! A cancelled day of school won't get in their way! The key to take us to the next level here is to use skype as a tool to connect with people OUTSIDE of our building and district, thus making those necessary global connections. Hats off to the teacher who made arrangements to have her students skype with a well-known author in the community!

So what does all this mean? In a recent reflective conversation with a group of teachers, we uninimously agreed that we have a great thing going. Instead of being surrounded by endless technology resources and not knowing how to use any of it, we are embracing ourselves as 21st Century Learners and are creating a sense of urgency for technology. Instead of having technology at our fingertips to just transfer low-level learning activities to the student computer, we are learning how to create high-level learning activities. Then, as our budget allows, we are implementing the use of technology as a TOOL in high-level learning. Pretty amazing, isn't it? And the best part is...we get paid to do this. :-)

It all began in July 2008 when I officially began my position as Principal at Waukee Middle School, or as I lovingly refer to, The Promise Land. I found out quickly that being Principal at WMS meant so much more than maintaining the budget, supervising employees, and fulfilling other managerial duties. It's about PASSION....passion for learning and serving...and passion for PEOPLE. I am so blessed everyday to come to work and be surrounded by adult learners who truly care about children and each other. And the best part is that we have fun learning together and working so very hard!! There hasn't been a day since I started that I haven't thanked God for choosing me for this role. One of my mentors always says, "A strong leader surrounds himself with people smarter than him." While I'm certainly not saying I'm a strong leader, I am saying that I am proud to be working with teachers who are tenacious and talented, and everyone has unique strengths to bring to the table. Having committed time to build trust and teamwork has empowered us with leadership capacity, and my hope is that every person feels valued and needed. As one of our literacy leaders, Angela Maiers, says, "We are smarter together!"

So here we are....a ROCK STAR staff intersecting with 21st Century Skills. Last year, we began reading and learning about 21st Century Skills and what a 21st Century Classroom looks like. Simultaneously, the department of ed infused 21st Century Skills in the Iowa Core Curriculum. We quickly recognized the sense of urgency in transforming teaching and learning. We can no longer do what we have always done....or we will get what we've always gotten. Take note: Our children WILL NOT SURVIVE their futures if we do not provide them with 21st century learning opportunities on a REGULAR BASIS. Opportunities to CREATE and EVALUATE and ANALYZE (hmmm...I'm seeing Blooms Taxonomy here...) must drive the typical day-to-day activities instead of being a special culminating project at the end of a unit.

The million dollar question is....how will we make this happen? How will we transform our classrooms? Here's the million dollar answer: WE are 21st Century Learners! If we, as adult learners, embrace 21st Century Learning, then we will create students with skills that will empower them as successful citizens in a global society. On one hand, it sounds so easy, doesn't it? This million dollar answer is just a simple sentence; not a list of a hundred "how to" strategies. If We learn, our students will learn!!! How cool is that?!? On the other hand, though, it can be scary for some because change represents the "unknown." So, we make it happen by taking one step at a time. A phrase you'll hear in our building is, "Just try one thing." For me, that "one thing" has created a disease of, "What can I learn next?" that has spread throughout my veins, and I just can't get enough! I'm seeing this same disease spread throughout the building as teachers are trying new things and sharing with one another.

We have become a Professional Learning Community of 21st Century Learners, and there is no place I'd rather be. Honestly, I've reached the point of no return! I have a responsibility, a hunger, a passion...to serve as the fearless leader of teachers charting our learning course so that we can see our transformed 21st century school come to life! "Together" is a great place to be.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

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