The TWAIN blog

Today I added myself to the list of people running for the Area 20 TCEA Board Member position. Currently, I know of two others who are running for the position as well: Jennifer Faulkner of Alamo Heights ISD and Miguel Guhlin of San Antonio ISD. Those two names alone make this an even more daunting run for me. I almost pulled out of the race after hearing that they were running for the position.

Jennifer has served as the R20 TCEA board member and there are no complaints from anyone. She has done an outstanding job and I look forward to seeing her in meetings we attend. She is organized and offers great ideas in our area technology directors meetings. She also is a great resource and has answered many questions I have sent her way. Being a newbie to this CTO job, I have to rely on people for help. Jennifer has been a great help to me and I really appreciate that! Her humor is right up my alley as well and I like that she makes me laugh during meetings.

Miguel is a blogger extraordinaire! He is also the most prolific TEC-SIG listserv Q&A guy. He is really plugged in to the resources we all need and he has such fantastic ideas on technology resources for educators. He is an encyclopedia of tech-knowledge! Plus, he is progressive and a change-agent. You can read his blog post for his ideas on change, especially for our association. I support his goals for change in our association. Plus, Miguel forces me to continue blogging when I get so frustrated with it. He encourages me to share in my voice and to be an honest blogger which is really encouraging to me.

But enough about them….

The nomination form to drop my name in the hat allowed me 50 words to post my ideas on what I could bring to the TCEA Board. It felt like a Twitter post and it really did not allow me to share what I believe I could bring to the executive board.

I am new blood but I feel great responsibility within our association. If you attended the TCEA 2009 Convention and the opening keynote, you may have heard my blog post read to the entire audience that reflected my history and feelings about TCEA. There is a family history with the association and I have been raised by a steady group of inspirational leaders in the TCEA community. I believe we need to honor the past as we develop the future.

The sad news is there is a division in the association about the pace of change and implementation of transparency in both TCEA and TEA. It has spurned interesting online discussions, uncomfortable group gatherings, and has developed factions within the larger body of the association. These are symptoms and results of change. It is a the classic battle between tradition and innovation; to which both have relevance on the path to change.

But it is separating our association rather than doing what I would like to see my TCEA do: unify all of our efforts. TCEA must unify its stakeholders and resources to develop as THE state resource for Educational Technology for students, teachers, administrators, and support specialists.

I look at the SAIL ON initiative that is uniting seven Houston area districts in a common goal of providing online interactive lessons for all subject and grade levels in the state. I see this and I wonder why I can’t find that type of resource in the TCEA association. This is a group of districts pooling their resources together to share with the rest of the state. Why can’t I find a list of resources like that on the TCEA website?!

I visit Wisconsin’s IDE@S site which is devoted to providing “interactive dialogue with educators across the state”. Do we have this on the TCEA website? I guess the listservs provide that service to a small degree. But I have to use Facebook, Twitter, email, listservs, podcasts, wikis, and blogging to really have interactive dialogue with educators these days. To be connected to my professional learning community, I have to be a member in over 10 different social networking sites! My interactive dialogue consists of reading timelines of events that happened while I was working. God forbid I skip a day!

To engage in interactive dialogue in TCEA, I have to go to their NING site which is fairly new and promoting the one week conference lasting 5 days. What about my other days? Must I make a Second Life profile to engage in interactive dialogue? Is there a TCEA island?

I read (sometimes) the blogs of educators across the state asking questions and facing the same issues. We are all facing the same problems and finding similar solutions. But are we running to TCEA’s website for the solutions or are we running to Google? The TEC-SIG daily digest is full of repeat answers to repeat questions. We all want to know what is the most recommended CIPA filter and if anyone can share an RFP for this given service.

I am convinced that if you were to layer all of our district instructional technology pages on top of each other to measure the number of similar links and ideas, you would see that we are almost all linking to the same resources.

And we are all making training videos and documents for our teachers. We are all creating the same newsletters; sending the same virus warnings; proclaiming the need for proper cord management; and declaring the sanctity of open record emails. We are spending time and money on tools to make instructional and promotional materials for teaching the same integration tools.

Don’t even get me started on our wikis! Do we all have them? Are they so different? And do we really need a different wiki for every topic or convention idea?

We are all under the same guidelines of the mandates of TEA, NCLB, the Fed, etc.; but we are all inventing the same wheel over and over again. We are chasing our tails when we should be paving the roads for future teachers to rely on our organization for all their technology integration resources.

I am still fairly new to our TEC-SIG meetings where TEA representative share changes in legislation and requirements. I’ve been to a few meetings but I am pretty clear in understanding that they are overwhelmed and can’t be the educational technology repository for the state. I don’t think it is fair to require TEA to be this for us. The skillset isn’t there.

We need to work with TEA and relieve them of this tremendous burden. We, as the state computer education association, have the skills to do this. We are an association built of members with such skills! You can see for yourself in all of our bloggers, podcasters, digital storytellers, GIS hunters, open source renegades, webmasters, etc.; we are an untapped resource and a necessity to become THE resource for education in Texas. Our association can be the pattern for 49 other states and even to other nations.

This is my platform for running for the Area 20 representative to the TCEA Board. My goal is to tap into the greatest resource within the association and that is the membership of the association. We need to hear not only from our most vocal members about their ideas for change; we also need to give voice to those in our state who are so overwhelmed they can barely breathe. My platform supports both Miguel and Jennifer in their efforts to also lead in the TCEA Board. I would hope that should either of them win, they will take into consideration my voice and yours as well.

The association needs all of our voices. Voting is one way to provide voice and I hope you provide that in the elections.

A conversation on our TEC-SIG listserv brought this item into my line of sight today. Last year, I had posted about the idea of “pico-projection” which is the concept of bite-sized projectors that fit into the your hand. These are starting to hit the market and this one – the WowWee CineMin Swivel is marketing directly to iPhone/iPod users.

I looked up more information about it and this is what I found:

– Features Texas Instruments’ DLP projection technology
– 90-degree hinge to project on any surface (no tripod required or having to shove books under it to get it screen height)
– Connects to multiple handheld devices – iPod, iPhone, Netbooks, PCs, and Flip Video (projects videos, photos, and more)
– 2-hour rechargeable battery life (most other pico’s have 60-90 minutes)
– High-contrast, ultra clear HVGA image – 480 x 320
– Can project a 60 inch image from 8 feet away
– Speaker output for headphones or portable speakers
– International power cords (4 different adapters) for travel
– Padded carrying case

Cost runs about $350 for the device and it is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Now….is this something feasible for our classrooms? Can this be used in your schools?

This is the one year anniversary of my start date in my current job. It is a time of reflection for me as so much has changed in just one year – for me and the district.

A great experience for me during this was the support I received from the training I received from TCEA’s Technology Director’s Academy. This is a five-day workshop spread across an entire year. The two presenters were Kari Rhame (from Deer Park ISD) and Lori Gracey (from Bastrop ISD and now Executive Director of TCEA) and they provided so much rich content. I call it my “just in time” training because each session met my needs just in time. I learned about staffing, evaluations, budgeting, technology planning, and developing those Big Hair Audacious Goals (BHAGs) early on. I developed my BHAG that continues to drive my focus and plans for the next few years in my role.

In the district, I helped push them toward high-speed Internet and migrating services to the web. We are looking into wireless solutions for accessing resources online. We are evaluating curriculum, looking into research, reading books, listening to podcasts, and developing blogs for principals and librarians.

The district website was redesigned so each department and campus has a web-editor who can make changes from any computer connected to the Internet. We have an online calendar that not only allows us to see events across all campuses, but also allows visitors to subscribe to events through email, text, and RSS. We can even edit online resources from our phones if we need to.

After attending two board meetings, I put together an idea to make more room by removing some older cabinets and cleaning up some wiring. We now have a media cart for the board room that should make presentations easier without having to switch out cables, laptops, and speakers. The system saves space and allows more people in the room.

This year I was able to take 10 people to TCEA – and most of them had never been to TCEA or a conference for that matter. They were exposed not only to the conference and the magnificent exhibit hall; the conference sparked a fire in them that is continuing today. They have had conversations with teachers and administrators about what the world outside of Kerrville is doing and they want to change….everything.

We have tested our 8th graders for NCLB technology applications and that information isn’t just vital for NCLB but it is sparking conversations about how we should be teaching our students. I even tested a few teachers using the tool and that sparked a few more conversations about what is expected of them to know and use in the classroom.

This summer, I have offered some staff development opportunities to learn about all sorts of Web 2.0 technologies, Microsoft Office 2007, and even a book review of current education literature. Participants have been hesitant coming in but leaving with passion and ideas. The best compliment is that they keep returning and wanting more. I’ve had a few tell me that the 3 hour trainings have been the best trainings they have experienced in careers over 20 years long. They like that the trainings don’t dumb them down or make them feel dumb. That they are encouraged not only to use the resources but that the training website points them to finding more training on their own. They like that I tell them not to become experts, but to become resources to find learning online. This is the key to Staff Development 2.0, if you will (I like adding 2.0 or 3.0 to everything).

My job requires me to wear a lot of hats and to balance a lot of information. I have to know hardware, software, web-ware, networking infrastructure, purchasing, federal and state requirements, administrative input, community involvement, etc. I multitask while multitasking on many things all at once. It is never boring! And when I have a moment to dedicate to one project, I take it head on.

I am making change. I am working with district stakeholders to develop a vision for the district that encompasses the history of where they have been and where they want to go. My title is Chief Technology Officer and I have never been thrilled with the title. It is a little intimidating. In my interview, I asked if I could change the title to which they said I could. But I haven’t found a title suiting the job. I do like something incorporating Technology Vision. Maybe adding something from Disney – Imagineer. Ideas?

I say all this to say….this was a great move. I love this job. I love this town. I love how it changes me as it changes with me. It isn’t easy day to day and there are some frustrations here and there. But, I am challenged and I like that. I love it.

The last day of the TCEA Tech Directors Academy was three days ago and I am just now able to blog about it and post my reflection. I was really thrown by that day and it wasn’t a reach for me. It was a concept I am really familiar with but haven’t been implementing: facilitative learning.

As a classroom teacher, I was pretty good at this idea. I took the lecturn out of my classroom and provided differentiated, problem-based teaching with the basis that “I don’t have the answers” so students learned to find answers on their own. I implemented the “Ask Three Before Me” concept that had students ask three of their peers before asking me for help. Not only did this help them with collaboration, but it gave me time to consult my Dummies books for answers.:)

A stinging reflection has been that I feel I strayed from this method as a campus technologist and became the “expert” in my old job; thus leading to fast burnout. I became the expert in so many things that I didn’t allow people on the campus to become the experts. People called me for help in everything. They didn’t know how to find answers on their own. This isn’t an exercise in making me out to be something super. Nope. In fact, this is an embarrassment to me. This is a reflection on how poor I have been as a teacher the past 5 years.

As I prepare to start professional development next week, I see that I need to completely renovate how I develop training so that I don’t do this to myself in this new role. In other words, I need to change…..everything…..again. I need to go back to the basics. Each staff development program I offer needs to be about the audience learning to find solutions on their own; and not about me being the one with all the knowledge.

The truth is, I am not the one with all the knowledge! I really think the only thing I am good at is putting in the right terms in a search engine for the answers. This is what I need to show staff to do – show them how I find the answers and how they can find their own answers. Let them become their own search experts.

I know this sounds basic to some of you who are in this role and you probably do this very well. I want to say that I used to be doing this. I was good at letting go and letting the class take learning above the level I could teach. The frustration is that I did not carry this over with the adults I was teaching. As I look back on how I worked at WHS, I (embarrassingly) look back and see that the training was about what I was doing with technology.

Such a shame.

Thus the reason for not posting a reflection on the last day of the Tech Directors Academy. It was a hard lesson to learn and may be harder to put into effect. But I will try! I will adapt. I will let go!

I am in the last days of the 5-day Tech Directors Academy through TCEA. This academy spreads 5 days over the course of a year and these last two are about curriculum & instruction and professional development. Today was C&I and there were some real gems in our discussions.

Again, I cannot put in words how valuable this academy has been to me. I am a first year CTO with minimal training in everything I do. This academy is something I see as valuable to my day-to-day role; but I can see how valuable it could be to the “old-timers” out there too. Just plugging it again again – take this academy. It is really a rich resource for all of us. Both Lori and Kari have been a great team for teaching us. They also provide us with TONS of resources we get to take with us and use.

I think today’s biggest influence on me was the idea of developing a district research model and then how to share it with staff and stakeholders. Lori didn’t get to show how they developed their model but shared how to instruct others to use it. She showed how Bastrop ISD gathered librarians, tech apps teachers, and CTE teachers together in groups to apply the research model to solve a problem. A project-based learning model in staff development.

It is interesting to me because many districts develop a Writing Model but it is rare to have one based solely on research. Personally, I feel that this model is key to our students living in the 21st century. The ability not only to research but to ask good questions to find good answers is such a demand for everyone. We need to teach our students not only to research for classroom projects but to answer those questions we all face in the future:

• What is the best cell phone for me?
• Where should I go to college?
• How can I finance my new car?
• Where is the best place to go on my vacation?

Being able to ask good questions and to find information in a variety of methods is key to survival outside the walls of our schools and the homes of our parents.

What Lori shared was the first meeting with the teachers and librarians – she gave them a problem-based learning scenario and outlined the research method. First she had participant gather in their group: librarians, CTE teachers, and Tech-Apps teachers. Then they were all presented the problem which was that the President needed a brief on Global Warming – what it was and how to solve it. Each participant had a laptop and had to assemble the brief.

After they had their information and shared presentations, these groups mixed together so that they could share how each group researched. The discussion among these groups was about the method for implementing good research. Then the discussion continued to be about how students could implement the research model. And on even into how to incorporate the research model into curriculum and instruction.

This is something I want to take back to my district to develop. It seems so fundamental and that it could be that missing link to connect curriculum, libraries, and technology on a foundation shared by all.

Today’s session was about a lot of stuff but my brain got stuck on this one. I really think this is going to be key to our staff development process. Now we just have to develop that research model. Good thing Lori shared her resources with us in the Academy!