Throughout my eleven years in the classroom, I have never been only a math teacher.  I have been a classroom aid, substitute teacher, and proctor.  I have taught science, AVID, and Latin. (Yes, I really did teach Latin.)  I have had a lot of adventures in education and this year I have the opportunity to start a new adventure: Spartan Tech Squad.  This is an adventure that I am very excited to begin because I love sharing my passion for technology.

I have always loved technology.  I was that nerdy kid that played video games, fixed computers, built websites, and loved Photoshop.  The fact that I get to teach students about technology is a dream come true.  I’m excited but…nervous.  I have a long road ahead on developing this program.  Fortunately, I am not alone.  My co-teacher, Julie Gallaway (@mrs_gallaway) and I are teaching this class together.  Even more helpful, my school site has purchased the Mouse Create curriculum which has given us guidance on what we want to do during the upcoming year.

As a team, Julie and I have narrowed our student and curriculum focus into three areas:

• Google Apps Training
• Mouse Create Curriculum
• 20Time Projects

While planning, Julie and I have noticed that these three focus areas tie together very well.  Our students are on Chromebooks so, the more they learn about Chromebooks, the more it will support them as they go through the Mouse Create curriculum and/or develop their 20Time projects.  Within the Mouse Create curriculum, there is a course on “Design with a Purpose” which will support students as they discover problems and solutions within their 20Time projects.  All three areas of focus are constantly working together to support the other in a variety of ways.

Here are some of our thoughts and goals for these three areas over the next year:

Mouse Create Curriculum (Monday, Tuesday, & Thursday)

In the early development of our Spartan Tech Squad, our assistant principal introduced us to the Mouse Create.  I’ll admit, I tend to be a bit cautious of curriculum that you have to purchase.  I guess I have always struggled with finding curriculum for Math that I really love, so I create it myself.

This is the moment where I say…I was wrong.  Mouse Create is amazing.  Although we are only a week into using this program, I have been extremely impressed with the curriculum and the support that has been offered by their team.  Julie and I have both undergone training, created our student and staff accounts, and have begun introducing our students to the Mouse Create website where students can learn about “the potential of technology – to solve real word problems and make meaningful change.”

Currently, our students have been going through the Tech Team and Web Literacy courses.  However, next week, Julie and I are planning on allowing our students to explore the Mouse Create website and submit an “interest form” on the courses.  Our goal is to narrow it down to two courses and place students into groups based on their interest.  For instance, if half of the class is interested in the “Coding” project, I may begin working with this group of students over the next few months on coding.  If the other half of the class is interested in “IT Admin”, then Julie may take the other half and begin working with them on this project.  Overall, we are hoping to create an environment of student voice and choice so they will be fully engaged in their learning experience.

Next week, our students will complete the “Interest Form” and will have the option of choosing among the following topics:

• Circuitry and Electronics
• Coding
• Green Tech
• IT Admin
• IT Essentials
• Intro to Design
• Serious Games
• Sewable Tech
• Tech Team

Within each of these courses, there are 8+ projects for students to complete.  The majority of these projects are hands-on and require students to complete evidence checks.  In addition to this, students can also earn badges based on the courses and projects they have completed.  Although we are in the very early stages of using the Mouse Create program, I am extremely excited to see how it develops over the next year.

Google Apps Training (Wednesdays)

Our school site is 1-1 Chromebooks.  Every student has a Chromebook and is allowed to take that Chromebook home at the end of each day.  This means that our students are using Google Apps on a daily basis.  One of our goals is to go through the Google Educator Level 1 course over the upcoming semester with our students.  This is our achievable goal.  One of our dream goals is to have students take the Google Educator Level 1 exam to become a Google Certified Educator.  Our school site is low-income, therefore, this goal is “in process” since we are not sure that we have the funds to cover the tests for our 70 students or if our students would even be allowed to take this exam.

Our purpose with this training is to give our students the skills to become a “tech team” for our school site.  We want our students to 1.)  support teachers with using Google Apps in their classrooms and 2.) support students with using Google Apps for learning.  Although it is still in the early development, some of our ideas include:

• Create a help desk and ticket system of student/staff questions in which the tech team can respond.
• Offer a technology training by students at staff meetings.
• Host technology lunches for students and teachers to learn new tools and tricks for Google Apps.
• Host a parent tech breakfast to introduce parents to the tools that their students are using.

Again, all of this is in the very early development but I am excited about where it could lead and the leadership skills it will provide our students.

20Time Projects (Fridays)

I have always wanted to do a true 20Time Project where students are able to spend one day a week working on a project of their choice that will solve a real world problem.  Although I have done 20Time projects in Math and AVID, it is often difficult to designate 20% (one day a week) of our time because there are so many standards that must be covered.

With Spartan Tech Squad, there is much more flexibility to complete a 20Time project.  Currently, I have read 20Time by Kevin Brookhouser and Dive Into Inquiry by Trevor Mackenzie.  Both of these books have been helpful in narrowing our focus for the 20Time projects.  In addition to this, Mouse Create offers 16 projects in the “Design with a Purpose” course on their website and these projects align with the 20Time vision we have for our students.

At the moment, our focus is to have students:

1. Discover their passion and/or interest in technology.
2. Discover a problem that exists.
3. Find a solution to the problem.
4. Develop and implement the solution to the problem that incorporates their passion and/or interest.

There are a lot of smaller and purposeful steps within these four areas but this is our broad plan over the next year.  Our students will spend time developing essential questions and creating a project calendar to track their progress.  They will keep a blog that shares about their progress in developing their project and allows other students to offer feedback.  Overall, our hope is that we structure it in a way that makes it achievable for students while offering them that freedom and flexibility to explore and create.

Over the next year, I will be sharing our experience with our Spartan Tech Squad class and I would love to hear from any teachers who are teaching a “Tech Squad” class at their school site.  Teacher collaboration is vital for success and it can extend beyond the boundaries of our schools, so I hope to hear from other teachers that are actively developing curriculum for technology, 20Time, or Google Apps courses.

Our First EdTech Bootcamp

As the Team Technology Leaders (TTL) at our site, myself and my co-TTL provide professional development to support teachers in using technology in their classroom.  Over the last couple of years, we have had the opportunity to lead trainings within staff meetings, send weekly Ed-Tech tips, and support teachers through our “technology support” days.   Although all of these have been great professional development opportunities, we started noticing that there was a lack of interest and attendance in our teachers for these professional development opportunities.

During our “technology support” days, our principal would get subs for myself and my co-TTL, as well as roving subs for teachers to attend.  The teachers would sign up and come visit us during their prep period and/or a time slot in which they had signed up.  During this window of time, the teachers could ask for any technology help that they needed.  Although this was not a bad approach, we started losing interest quickly because teachers did not know where they needed support.  During our last “technology support” day, we only had 4-5 teachers show up for the entire day.

I have to admit that I found myself getting very discouraged.  I struggled with the idea that other teachers were not as interested in these opportunities as I had hoped.  Then I thought…What if I am not providing the learning opportunities that would be meaningful to each teacher?

With technology changing so rapidly and a diverse set of learners, I have always felt that it can be a struggle to create professional development that is meaningful for each teacher.  So, I found myself thinking about some of the most beneficial professional development that I have attended.  I thought about what I would like to see if I was sitting in the place of the teachers.

My conclusion…It’s all about choice.

What is the best way to get complete buy-in from your teachers for professional development?  Give them a choice on what they can attend and when they can attend it.  It’s a very popular strategy in classrooms right now – so, why are we not doing the same for our teachers?  Around this time, I had the opportunity to attend and present at a couple of EdTech Team Summits and I loved the ability to choose what sessions I wanted to attend based upon my own needs.  I found myself thinking…Why don’t we do something like this at our site?

This is where the idea of our “EdTech Bootcamp” was formed.

Currently, our school site is on an 8-Period block schedule, so we created 8 sessions for teachers to attend (see below).  These sessions ranged from beginner sessions, such as Google Drawings, to advanced sessions, such as flipping the classroom.  Our principal set up five substitutes for the day – two for the TTL’s and 3 roving subs for other teachers.  Teachers were able to sign up for at least one sub and could also attend during their prep period.  As we released the schedule and sign up for the teachers, we immediately saw that there was greater interest when the teachers had the choice to attend sessions that interested them.  Instead of reaching only 4-5 teachers, myself and my co-TTL were able to train over 15 teachers on our site in different educational technology tools and strategies.  It was a huge increase and the feedback that we received was very positive.

Click on the picture below to view all the sessions that the teachers were able to attend during our EdTech Bootcamp:

Although I had hoped for a greater turnout, I was so excited about the turnout and positive feedback that we received from these teachers.  It told us that we were on the right track with our professional development plan for technology.  However, as always, I tried to find some ways that I could improve it for the next time.

Four Ideas for Next Time

1.) Create longer sessions for certain topics.

A few of the sessions that we created needed more time, particularly our more advanced sessions such as Flipped Learning and HyperDocs.  The teachers really enjoyed these sessions but mentioned that they would have enjoyed more time to create an entire lesson.  Next time, it might be a good idea to do less sessions so that some of the sessions could be over two periods, rather than just one.

2.) Find ways to reach more staff members.

Although I was very excited about our turnout, I had still hoped for more teachers to attend from our 40+ teaching staff.  It’s a great start but I am trying to brainstorm ways to reach more staff members and to create interest in attending these session.  Part of me is hoping that the positive feedback from those who attended will be shared with their departments which will encourage more teachers to join.  If not, I believe that this is one of my greatest areas to reflect upon over this summer.

3.) Create a session (or two!) for our administrators, counselors, and classified staff.

Why do we always forget that educational technology extends past the classroom?  Our administrators, counselors, and classified staff could also benefit from a technology training that is aimed towards tools that they could use in their jobs.  The possibilities with this are endless and I look forward to exploring this option more in the future.

4.) Badgify It!

Creating and earning badges for professional development is becoming a big thing right now.  A couple of our teachers and coaches in our district mentioned this on Twitter the other day and I cannot wait to see where they take this idea.  I think it would be very interesting to “badgify” our professional development.  Would it encourage teachers to participate by having something to earn?  Would they become competitive at earning badges?  Honestly, I have no idea but I do think it is something to brainstorm and consider for future professional development.

A lot of these are ideas and questions that I have for our next EdTech Bootcamp.  If you have any ideas/answers that come to mind and you know of some ways that can better support teachers, leave some comments below.  I love hearing from other teachers about the amazing things they are doing at their sites!

Back in September, I wrote an article about how I had quickly fallen down the Twitter Rabbit Hole.  I knew that Twitter existed (obviously) and I even knew that there was this whole world of educators on it.  I just hadn’t really gotten into using Twitter as a source of professional development…yet.  While attending an EdTech Team GAFE Summit back in September, I attended the session “Twitter Chat Live” which was an introduction into joining weekly Twitter chats.  I was hooked.  Who knew there was a whole world of educators that met weekly on a variety of chats to discuss educational topics?  Not me!  So, for the last few months I have been participating in weekly chats where I have discussed numerous topics in education with educators all over the world.  These conversations quickly began to have an affect on me – both personally and professionally.  I started developing my PLN and discovering more ideas for classroom instruction and engagement.  Which started me thinking…

What if we did this in our own district?  What if we started our own HUSD Twitter Chat?

Getting Going

Being the major nerd that I am, I totally ran with this idea and found people (other education nerds) who would want to participate in this adventure.  During our first meeting, I knew that we had an amazing team of passionate educators who could make a Twitter Chat successful.  Everyone was excited and had so many ideas to bring this chat to our district.  We created our Twitter Chat account (@HUSDchat), hashtag (#HUSDchat), and the time that we would want to have our weekly chat (Thursdays – 7PM!).  We created a website to host information about our chat, including upcoming chats and a transcript of previous chats.  The foundation of our Twitter Chat was created, but we had a question…How were we going to get others to join our weekly Twitter Chat?

Our first idea – host a “Twitter Chat Social” for the district where we could teach educators on how to use Twitter and participate in the weekly chat.  Our amazing team met every month for three months to plan for this event, which included creating promotional videos, sending emails to the educators in our district, and planning for a personalized learning environment for all educators attending the event.  Seriously, our team is AMAZING.  It was incredible to see a group of educators work so well together.  Everyone took on a variety of tasks to make this event a success, such as creating websites, logos, and T-Shirts, purchasing gift cards and prizes, designing and building an HUSD Twitter Chat trophy, and designing table placards.  It was certainly one of those events that would not have been successful if any one individual had tried to do everything on their own – it was truly a team effort.

The Twitter Chat Social

Finally, the day arrived for our event.  We were excited and…nervous.  Well, at least I was nervous.  Maybe no one else was, but that just tends to be how I roll.  Personally, I was really hoping for a good turn out.  I was hoping that educators would attend this event and be excited to learn.  Fortunately – we had a great turn out!  I think we had about 20+ educators attend our Twitter Chat Social.  (Unfortunately, we lost a few due to the crazy rain and snow.)

As the educators entered the room, they were all directed towards different tables based upon their knowledge of Twitter.  These included tables for beginner, intermediate, and advanced Twitter users.  At the beginner tables, the educators were taught how to set up their Twitter accounts and the basics of Twitter (hashtags, mentions, etc.).  If they were getting the hang of the basics, they were also taught how to use TweetDeck to organize their hashtags, view notifications, respond to messages, etc.  At the intermediate tables, the educators were taught how to use TweetDeck, including adding columns and organizing their TweetDeck.  Since our group was very new to Twitter, we did not have anyone at the advanced table, which actually worked out very well.  It allowed our team to spend more time with the educators who were completely new to Twitter.

For the first half hour of the social, our team spent time working with the beginner and intermediate groups on understanding the fundamentals of Twitter.  During the last half hour, everyone participated in our first HUSD Live Twitter Chat.  By having our first chat in person, it allowed us to walk these 20+ educators through participating in a chat.  It was perfect!  We were able to answer so many questions and model how the chat can be used for professional development.  By the end of the event, everyone had a strong idea of how to participate in these chats, as well as the purpose behind it.

Just for fun…We also had a competition!  Educators that attended had a chance to win gift cards and the school with the most people in attendance won our Twitter Trophy.  I have to say, my school totally represented.  (Yay Cedar!)  We proudly took home the Twitter Trophy to our site!

Next Steps

Although we have only had one chat, I feel like it was a success and I am excited to start our “official” chat next Thursday.  We will have  to be consistent and keep encouraging others to join.  It can be very disheartening when others do not see the value or do not want to join, but I have come to the conclusion that, if only a few educators join, that is a few more educators that can be given new ideas to impact student learning.  In the end, the goal of our Twitter Chat is open dialogue across our district and encourage teachers to share ideas.  Personally, I truly believe that these kind of discussions can have an amazing impact upon educators and how they teach their students.

Our Twitter Chat is open to anyone to join – so, please! Join us on Thursdays at 7-7:30 PM PST for amazing dialogue amongst passionate educators!

P.S. – If you are looking to follow those amazing educators I keep talking about, check out our Twitter Team on Twitter (of course!): Jenn, Melissa, Amanda, Kelly, David, and Debra.  None of this would have happened without them!