A Piece of My Mind

Photo Credit: Michael Gras

I had the opportunity to speak with directors of technology, curriculum directors, and other school leaders at Chapel Hill High School. The event was sponsored by SUPERNet Consortium. SUPERNet is a collaborative of twenty-six rural schools that originally banded together to share technology resources, evolved into one of the most successful virtual high schools in Texas, and is now poised to become technology integration leaders for our portion of Texas.

They are on the cusp of getting it. Many of them have, but now most of them are. They realize that the curriculum drives the technology. That is part of what this meeting was about. I was sharing my experiences of working through the process in White Oak ISD as well as what we feel that we still have ahead of us.  Feel free to give it a listen (if you have 1:45 to spare). I am always open to criticism and other comments. I also added the PDF of the Keynote presentation as well. You will get the gist of when I move on to the next slide, I think.

One of the questions asked was about how we handle copyright. If you have read my blog before now, you have seen a post or two about this. We have not had ANY issues with this in our district. We are blessed with a very professional staff. So, that is where my response went. We train our staff on utilizing Creative Commons Share Alike images, video, audio, and other items. We ask our campus administrators to make sure to inform us if additional training is needed. If a situation comes up, we would handle it with that person on a one to one basis. If it is a repeated event, we would handle it however the campus administrator and superintendent prefers. The ultimate responsibility is on the teacher. When a copyright question came up during a presentation at TCEA last year, I called ATPE and got my response. Those are the folks covering my rear in court. The school district would not be responsible for that if they have tried to show me the light. I must repeat again, our staff is very professional. I cannot tell you how much easier that makes my job.

There was an interesting question that came up after the mic was off and I was packing up. An IT from Tyler ISD approached me with the question of how we handle public information requests concerning the blogs. I have to say, I did not have a clear cut answer. The simple, honest response is that the information is already public, so they can just print it off if they want it. There really is no need to put in paperwork to get it. We do not hide our teacher blogs. The other side of my mind is wondering about a post that creates an issue (which I hope never happens), so the teacher deletes it. Then a parent shows up wanting a copy of it. How is that handled? That is the question that has me stumped. I know we will have regular backups of our WPMU site, but what are the chances we catch it while an offending post is live? Feel free to comment below.

I would also like to thank my PLN for all of the PD you give me on a daily basis. Sometimes you feed my current beliefs. Sometimes you smack me down and change my mind. Other times, you challenge my thinking, and who knows where that will go. In my presentation I used material from Chris Lehmann, Dean Shareski, Dr. Scott McLeod, Miguel Guhlin, Kim Estes, Dr. Helen Barrett, and Darren Draper (who still has iTunes U K-12 while Texas doesn’t). There is no telling who I drew ideas from over the years, but I assure you this. If you are in my PLN, you are making a difference. Not only for me, but for every kid that ends up being affected by what I say through the people that hear it. Thanks to you. Stop by when you are in Texas and I’ll buy you some BBQ. Or Mexican.

“The portfolio is a laboratory where students construct meaning from their accumulated experience.” - Pearl and Leon Paulson

With our district’s website overhaul out of the way, our sights are now set on ePortfolios. Our goals:

    * 100% coverage of certified staff by the end of the 09-10 school year
    * 100% of our students at the middle school maintaining them with the transfer to high school as 8th graders promote each year
    * Utilization of ePortfolios as evidence of staff mastery of state and federal technology application standards; future reporting to SBEC
    * Utilization of ePortfolios as evidence of student mastery of state and federal technology application standards; current reporting to TEA for NCLB

Before we started considering different platforms for this project, we needed to nail down what we felt were important attributes of any software solution. After multiple meetings, conversations, and general mulling it over, we decided on these:
Opensource - This was not a have-to, but is was one we wanted to work toward. There are some nice commercial choices out there, but we did not want our staff and students tied to a paid source due to the next characteristic. Also, many opensource softwares can be stored and launched completely from a flash drive. This means our ePortfolios can be carried around on a keychain or in a pocket if so desired.

• Portability - This was a must have. Our goal is to create a system our students can take with them when they leave the high school to improve their chances of college entrance or job placement. Much like paper portfolios, the students need to be able to show them off at will.  We also felt it was a priority that our staff had them as well for two reasons; One, we are on the cusp of our state education department requiring our teachers to prove technology mastery to maintain certification, and two, if our teachers are familiar with the platform then they can help our students design and maintain high quality portfolios.
• Usability - The platform must be easy to use and personalize. Each of our staff and students have different personalities and qualities. The ePortfolio should represent them as such. With multiple, customizable templates and plugins, they should be well on their way to the end product of their choosing.
• Popular - This sounds like a stupid characteristic, but a popular solution is one that enjoys more support by a larger community. With opensource software, the community depends on each other to make the product better. We will also rely on it to keep ours afloat.
• Flexible - We knew there were several items the users would need for this tool to be effective. It needed to provide:

1. privacy - Not all items are meant to be published, but the learner (for this post, learner = students and teachers) still needs to flesh out the content. There might be a time the content should be made public, but not always.
2. ownership - This relates directly back to the usability listed above. The learner should be the ultimate decision-maker as to the appropriate content to be published and how it is presented.
3. reflection - Learners should reflect on their learning. They need a place to post, edit, re-post, and so on. Alvin Toffler shares, “The illiterates of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Reflection in an ePortfolio will help our learners adapt to this.
4. collaboration - Barbara Harrell Carson, Thirty Years of Stories, shares this: “Students learn what they care about, from people they care about and who, they know, care about them.” Collaboration is imperative for them to become lifelong learners. If they enjoy the learning process because of who they can work with, then they will enjoy learning as a habit, not a requirement.
5. linkable - Our learners need to know how to link to content stored in various forms and locations. The solution should allow for this while also offering local storage of files. As Dr. Helen Barrett shares from Portland State University studies, hyperlinking leads to metacognition which leads to deeper learning.

• Durable - We need a solution that was not buggy, but more importantly we need one that will be around for a long while. This kind of lends itself back to being popular. If there is a large community built around the software, chances are it will sustain a long life.

We set off to discover a solution with these needs in mind. Considering the conversation around the idea of us implementing ePortfolios has been ongoing for well over a year, we have had the chance to preview a number of ideas, theories, and  examples. Blogs was one of our early thoughts, but we did not want to pigeon-hole the entire program right off the bat.

Wikis were considered, but it seemed like it would be just an electronic paper folder. While that might be attractive to some, we wanted our users to have more flexibility in organization and presentation without having to know lots of coding.

HTML sites is always an option, but we would rely on our users learning HTML. So, it wasn’t an option.

Moodle was another option, but I think it does not have the portability nor the nice appearance many of our users would be after. It is broadly used and even has hosts offering the use for free. It just was not exactly a good fit with our users.

Mahara is fairly new on the scene these days. While it looks promising, it lacks the portability and usability. Portability really ranks high on our list, so this left Mahara out of the final cut.

We ended up back where we began: blogs. Blogs give the user the chance to customize the final product. They can also be hosted on the Internet both in paid and free hosting services. I wish I could say that we looked at tons of options here, but the truth is that the easy choice was Wordpress. More specifically, Wordpress MU (WPMU). Wordpress is a very popular platform that enjoys a worldwide fan base of users who eagerly work to improve both its main coding as well as new templates and add-on extensions. We also knew that WPMU gave us plenty of extra options as a useful communication tool and learning center within our school district. Administrators and teachers can utilize them to share information with students and parents. Teachers can also use them to create epicenters of learning in sharing, reflective, and collaborative formats.

Our choice was further solidified at NECC when I was able to sit down with Dr. Helen Barrett, the Godmother of the ePortfolio. Seeing her sitting in the Blogger’s Cafe was like spotting a movie star. Her reaction, though, was unlike most stars out there. She was very welcoming, open, honest, and sincere in her thoughts and comments and treated me like an equal colleague. She was more than interested in our project and willing to help in anyway she could. Her more than fifteen years of ePortfolio work is very impressive.  We talked about her new book that she was working on that even supported our plans. I recommended her as a feature presenter at TCEA. I can only hope she is able to make it. She is the type of professor that you could sit and have great conversations with. I hope to do more of that in the future.

Now that we had our software solution, we had to look for a host. We could house it internally, but that would require more from us in tech support than we are equipped to handle.  Outside hosting would cost more per month than typical hosting because WPMU requires a VPS server. Not a problem, but it was something to keep in mind. We chose SiteGround as our host because of the superior tech support they have provided us in hosting our district website. Let me tell you, I cannot say enough good things about the work SiteGround has done for us. Our website is based on the Joomla platform, so they are not worried about the opensource nature of what we will use.  Kudos to those guys and gals.

So we had a solution and a host. The next thing was all of the coding to make it look and act just right. Twitter to the rescue. While I was online following the conversations one evening, I saw Kim Estes commenting on several WPMU sites she was working on. A quick trip over to the Burleson ISD site showed some very impressive work. I asked for some tips and tricks from Kim, and I got all of that and more. I will not go into detail (I’ll leave it to Kim to share her work with you), but I will tell you that she is one talented individual that I am proud to have connected with. Her BISD site was nearly exactly what we were looking for on ours, and she was more than happy to help out. I was so impressed that I talked her into letting me hire her for a day to work with our middle school staff. Her training was so popular that other campus teachers and administrators sneaked in for a little small group assistance from her. I cannot overstate this about Kim. She is a talented, hard working educator who sees nothing but what is the best for ALL kids. That is the type of person I love to work with. Heck, I even have her lined up to Skype into a presentation I am giving in the spring. Her experience and knowledge is just too vast to hide in Burleson.

There you have it. The process to go from idea to implementation has been a long one. With the advice of folks like Dr. Helen Barrett and Elizabeth A. Hebert, our work will move forward. I will blog about our hopes and dreams, beliefs and choices, and our successes and failures. I hope that you will follow along and offer advice.

While it might be lonely being one of the few (the only ones?) in Texas making a leap of faith into a project like this, it will be a wonderful learning experience. Even a Texas legislator that I had the opportunity to meet with last week in Austin called it brave. We are putting ourselves out there for criticism, but I feel our staff and students are prepared. They do such great work academically, this is just a logical next step for them to take. They deserve the chance to showcase their hard work. We do know one thing. When Texas decides that it is time for students to be assessed authentically and educators to present their technology proficiency in an authentic manner, White Oak ISD will be ready.

Visit the Roughneck Blog and ePortfolio server today and see what’s going on. We are in the early stages, so come back here and share your feedback. We are happy to have you be a part of the process.

PS - The title of this blog post is a snippet of a metaphor Dr. Barrett uses for ePortfolios. Here it is in its entirety:

“An electronic portfolio has the potential to
become a dynamic celebration of learning that documents a teacher’s
professional development across his or her career.”

One of my favorite literacy lessons with kids is exploding their writing. I tell them that if they want it to pop with the reader, they have to explode it. Telescopic Text is a great example of that. This one little website does a nice job of turning a three word sentence into a story worth hearing. It is a wonderful visual for the kids to see up on the projector. Keep clicking on the grayed out words to see just how far you can blow that baby up.

Consider letting them start this in a Google Doc or a wiki and watch it grow.

Photo Credit: notanalternative

[Background: For some insight into the argument presented below, let me
share this. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) uses a government subset organization called Texas Education Telecommunications Network (TETN) to share TEA updates and other material via a distance learning network. School districts must pay to receive those connections. As budgets have been crunched due to continued shortfall funding by Texas leadership, school districts have had to trim away even the important things. You know, the things you should be getting for free like state mandated updates. This is not a plea for TETN to be free for all of their services. They also offer DL sessions for classrooms that many find very useful.]

Notes from TECSIG, October 2 & 3, 2008:

TEA - Let me begin by saying, I truly respect Anita Givens. Her work on behalf of public education and technology has been tremendous. We are lucky to have her in the new position she now holds. But I believe respect between two professionals is appreciated most when there is some honest pushback and not just a bunch of agreement. (It is the reason I like Gary Stager and the work he does.)

While TEA may rest on the idea/reason/excuse of cash-strapped and man-power lean, the rest of us are in the same boat but are utilizing the free technologies that are out there for us. Government is not thinking that way. Government wants to place a high price tag on what it does because it makes it seem more important, I presume. As a public school district employee, I find it extremely important to have timely policy and program updates from my governing body. Cost should not be an inhibitor.

A few years back I blogged about how another state passed a bill requiring all government offices to consider free, opensource options when looking at alternatives. Texas does not do that. For too many years we have listened to our state’s leadership talk about how transparent school districts need to be. Texas government doesn’t do that either.

So, to TEA, my suggestion is a simple, classic line heard many times: Lead, follow, or get out of the way. And let me add one more to that. Consider this turn of that phrase: Lead, follow, collaborate, or get out of the way. If you cannot make the system better for any of a long list of reasons, let us help. Somehow we are able to harness the free resources that are out there for our schools and classrooms. Let us use those same systems to get the word out about new programs, policy changes, and important deadlines. Don’t claim some false statement of copyright (which you do not have in this instance anyway thanks to Texas Sunshine Laws) and slow down the information superhighway. We are not talking about private conversations here. We are talking about large group policy and program updates. You know, the stuff you and the tax payers expect us to live up to.

While we can go ahead and repost the information without repercussions, it would be nice for TEA to step up and applaud the fact that Texas educators care enough about their state system and local school districts that they are willing to be a part of the solution to make it the best it can be. Why anyone would think or do otherwise is incomprehensible. We do not extend our personal learning just to aggravate the state. We’ve better things to do.

As an aside: Please don’t tell me that TEA has been “telling you for eight years” about a tech literacy assessment. We both know that is a cop out. Sure, NCLB came out then and it is a part of that, but there has never even been a hint of holding anyone accountable until May 9th when you folks shared it with the limited number of people in attendance that day. Even still, the limited funds that MIGHT be lost by ignoring the mandate is not enough to move many districts to act. Why districts would choose to defy assessment now in as an important area as any is ridiculous, with our without the consequences. But I digress. I know it was a statement made as more of a defensive measure than one that was thought out.

TETN - These folks are in a bubble of sorts. They want to be relevant. They need the money stream to stay afloat. Yet, they have become an old version of what we use now with online tools. They are the land line compared to the cell phone. The HBO to NetFlix and iTunes. The post office to email.

What if you propose to place Marco Torres’s decision-making self-reflection on it: “Complain, Innovate, or Quit.” TETN is in the Complain stage. The problem with that? They’re a vendor. How long will they survive in that spot? Relevance is a limited state of being. Remember that. Go for Marco’s second option in that list. Please.

Yes, there was more to those two days in Austin than TEA and TETN, but let’s face it. We all go there to hear what is expected of us next. Yes, Apple did a fine job of professional development the first day. Maria Henderson is always pure genius (even if her old links are dead due to the Mobile.me upgrade. Sigh.). So, if you want to know more about them, go to one of their offerings for school district administrators.

But, if you want to be a part of TEA opening the virtual doors to their massive amounts of information, become part of the solution. If you want to stand in the way because you have nothing productive to do, you’re wasting your time. You cannot hold up progress. The Texas Legislature meets in January. I’ve started my game plan. Have you?

Just warming up my speech.

I got a really nice Comment Approval Email in the Inbox the other day. Scott Merrick of real life Nashville, TN, fame and Second Life blogging aficionado left a comment on my Texas SBOE post to inform me that I was one of four educational bloggers nominated for “Blog-o-the-month” in Second Life on ISTE Island.  So, big deal, you’re thinking. Well, when you consider the other three bloggers in the running, it is an honor to me. They are:

“Dr. Z Reflects”–Leigh Zeitz

“Moving at the Speed of Creativity”–Wesley Fryer

“The Strength of Weak Ties”–David Jakes

Those guys turn out some great stuff. So, I will stick with the back-up speech: “It is just an honor to be nominated with such an esteemed group of dedicated educators.” How’s that?

Here is how to vote:

If you would like to vote click on the Slurl.The Slurl is a URL for a location in Second Life:

• You will see a Second Life webpage that is Google Map-ish
  
• Click on the “teleport now” button
• This will launch Second Life and then you log in
  
• You will appear in SL at the Blogger’s Hut. Give it a few seconds to show all of the extras, including the bars you click on to vote. Spin your avatar around if you need to figure out where you are at.
  
• There are four bars. Click on the one you want to vote for. Good luck to all.
• Here is a video Scott Merrick made in case you want to “see” how to vote.

Now, read what Scott Merrick had to say and get over there and vote for your favorite (yes, even if it isn’t me). Is it possible I might achieve Miguel Guhlin greatness with this? One can only hope.

Hey Scott. This is to let you know that this blog is one of the four
in the running for “Blog-o-the-month” at the Blogger’s Hut on ISTE
Island in Second Life. This is a good-natured poll whose winners have
been featured in the Hut’s RSS feed for inworld visitors to enjoy every
month for a year now. Past winners are:

Phasing Grace–Grace McDunnough

From Mr. A to Mr. Z–Jeff Agamenoni

Around the Corner–McGuhlin.net

Fleep’s Deep Thoughts–Fleep Tuque/Chris Colling

NMC Campus–New Media Consortium

PHSPrincipal Blog–Dave Meister

Teaching Math Technology Blog–Maria Anderson

2CentsWorth–David Warlick

The Story of My Second Life–Kevin Jarrett

Oh! Second Life (now Oh! Virtual Learning–Scott Merrick

Spread the word and encourage Second Life Educators to visit and to
vote for your wonderful work for the month of November. The options
this month are:

“Dr. Z Reflects”–Leigh Zeitz

“Moving at the Speed of Creativity”–Wesley Fryer

“The Strength of Weak Ties”–David Jakes

and yours, of course,

“A Piece of My Mind”–Scott S. Floyd

I’ll have a celebration post at my own blog “Oh! Virtual Learning” up in a bit. Congrats!

Photo Credit: Lee Bennett

I received a jury summons in the mail yesterday. The US District Court about 40 miles away has some type of patent case coming up. I’m not a specialist in patent law, not by any stretch. Yet, they are going to pay me about $40 a day plus mileage to sit on a jury to act like a judge for who knows how many days. It kind of makes you appreciate the vast skills and knowledge a judge has to have to cover many types of cases, not to mention the prosecutors and defendants. You know, the people who come through the court room. But if I don’t show up, I will get arrested and fined. I get out of my regular work because the law says jury duty is important, so I will be in attendance on October 17th at 8:30 AM in a coat and tie.

That got me to thinking. What if we did the same to get substitutes in the classrooms? What if there was a random draw to decide who would be available for a certain week?  The local governing body (school board) would send out notices and everyone shows up.  Then the principal and other teachers would chose who gets the $40 for the day acting like a teacher for who knows how many days.

Better yet, what if it applied to parent conferences (minus the randomness and $40 a day plus mileage)? What if all of a sudden the government decided it was important for parents to attend these meetings and told the companies that they could not dock the employees for attending them during work hours? And if the parent did not show up for the conference …..

Just thinking out loud here. You can move along now.

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