Technology
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Three Biggest Data Mistakes School Leaders Make
As school leaders, we know that data drives decision-making. From tracking student progress to identifying intervention needs, our spreadsheets hold the key to unlocking student success. But too often, we find ourselves stuck in inefficient workflows, spending more time organizing, manipulating, and simplifying data than actually using it to make impactful decisions. Over the last…
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#MADPD Building Staff Morale as an Instructional Coach
Yesterday, I had the pleasure of presenting a session on building morale during #MADPD. MADPD (or Make a Difference PD) is an full day online conference for professional learning put together by Peter Cameron and Derek Rhodenizer. This year, over 100 teachers presented either a session on a topic they were interested in, or a…
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Disconnected Day
Anyone who know me, knows I’m a technophile. I’m an instructional technology coach, a constant Twitter user, and podcaster. I Snapchat most of my life, text friends, have multiple active Voxer groups, and take tons of pictures of my son. My phone is in my hand constantly. Last week, I popped into my friend’s office…
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Google Add-On: Class Folder Creator
As a teacher at a one-to-one school who uses G Suite and Canvas as an Learning Management System (LMS), few things are more annoying than the “You must request permission” screen. This happens a lot for my teachers and I. You give an assignment description on Canvas, the student creates their work in a Google…
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Story Speaker – Part 1
On Google Teacher Tribe Podcast last week, I heard about a Google Docs Add-On called Story Speaker. In the description on the show and on the Add-On page, it was said to be for making choose-your-own-adventure style stories that connect with Google Assistant to be read aloud and choices made through voice. I remember the…
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My Time on APlusEdTech Podcast
A couple months ago (yes, I’m behind big time), I was interviewed for the APlusEdTech Podcast. This podcast is hosted by Ashley McBride, who I was lucky enough to just sit down at a table with during ISTE. Ashley asked to talk with me because she wanted to learn more, and share with her audience,…
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Automated Google Appointment Calendar Follow-Up Emails
Do you use Google Appointment Slots and wish you could have an automated thank you message with a survey link included each day? Well, you can! A couple years ago at #ISTE, one of the EdTech Coaches mentioned using the Google Appointment Calendar feature in Google Apps for Ed. It’s really easy to setup and…
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Future of EdTech Coaches
Last night I participated in the #EdTechChat on Twitter, in which the topic was Ed Tech Coaches. As a full-time Digital Instructional Coach, the topic obviously intrigued me. Given the content of the chats, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about it a little on here. Huge thanks to Susan Bearden…
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ISTE2016 Summary – Problem-Based Learning Extravaganza!
ISTE2016 is finally here, and I couldn’t be more excited! In the beautiful city of Denver, some of the worlds greatest teachers have come together to talk pedagogy and technology. It doesn’t get any more mind blowing than this. Ok, geek out session over (for now). The following are my impressions and some paraphrased quotes…
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Organizing Administration Using OneNote Staff Notebook*
At my school, we have launched into OneNote as a school platform with both feet. At this point, just 9 weeks into our one-to-one program, we have roughly 80% of our teachers using Classroom Notebooks for their day-to-day activities, and 97% of our staff using the devices every period of every day. We believe that…
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ISTE2015 Wrap-Up
I’m home, and mostly recovered, from ISTE. Feels like a good time to take a minute and write about my thoughts on the conference. The simple summary is that I really enjoyed the conference and think it was totally worth while. That isn’t to say that the conference was perfect by any stretch, or even what…
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ISTE2015 – Flipped PD Session
My first session at ISTE2015 is called Flipped PD: Creating Teacher Buy-In and Modeling Technology-Rich Professional Development. What a mouthful. Still, very interested in this topic, especially as I step into the Instructional Technology Coach roll. One of my primary responsibilities is Professional Development (PD), and getting that buy-in from the staff is going to be…
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Technology is Not a Learning Outcome
Found this on twitter and felt it was worth sharing. Good for all of us to remember as we merge technology and pedagogy. Source: https://twitter.com/CushGills/status/601399974820061185
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Everything Wrong With Internet Filtering
Ran into my first major problem with my TEDx project today. Well, I say “major problem,” but I really mean “minor but recurring problem requiring a big change.” Anyways, the problem is that blog.com is awful. It clearly hasn’t had anybody coding on it for a couple of years at least, and even the blog…
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Cool Tool for School – EdPuzzle.com
Today, I spent some time using EdPuzzle, and I wanted to share my experience with it. EdPuzzle is a website that allows you to “Make any video your lesson.” In it’s simplest form, it allows you to give it a video (either by upload or link to web video) and add stopping points. At the…
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Social Media in School
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about social media being used in school and in the classroom. There is great benefit to student use of social media, but some very clear concerns as well. Having an online presence is becoming as important for people as a credit score. We, as a society, have become so…
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Harsh Conversations With Myself
It has been an interesting year for me. For a couple of personal reasons (the details of which I don’t really want to get into here), I have written nearly nothing in a year. I haven’t found myself in a writing mood. I didn’t even win NaNoWriMo this year, and for anyone that knows me,…
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Audiobooks: Are They Really Reading?
Despite what the title may imply, this post simply will not answer that question, partly because I don’t actually have an answer and mostly because I’m too lazy to research the answer in any way. I have had friends tell me before that they have “read that book,” and then proceed to talk about the…