The Journey to Discover the Importance of a PLN

I have been in education for the past 20+ years and until the last year, really didn’t understand how important building a Personal Learning Network was.  Six years ago, I made the transition from Higher Education to the awesome and interesting world of K-12.  As an IT Professional, my focus was completely different.  I have always loved technology, problem solving, and all things “change.”

My love for facilitating and training began when I worked as a Technical Support Analyst in Research and Development at a local DuPont plant.  Part of my responsibility was to design and deliver educational materials for corporate technology training activities. This inspired me to learn more about the details of what made technology work, and I began a journey to explore all facets of Information Technology management. I realized there was no better environment to learn more about IT Management than in education.  Educators are always experimenting, learning new things, and discovering what does and does not work within their area of specialty.  I knew I was personally responsible for challenging my thoughts, skills, and abilities and that I must commit to being a life-long learner. 

I had the privilege of working at Lamar University, where I held a number of positions including Director of Network Services and IT Strategic Planning, and Assistant Vice President of Infrastructure and Security Services.   I realized I would have a variety of opportunities to learn about cutting edge technologies and how they contributed to the success of students, faculty, and staff.   I received my Master of Science Degree in Computer Information Systems and learned that I loved project management and planning activities.  While at Lamar, I was fortunate enough to serve on a number of Technology committees at the local, University, and Texas State University system level.  I learned so much from all of the experts with whom I served. I was inspired to incorporate as many of the “leading-edge” technologies as possible to provide students with relevant, reliable, and available resources to improve their educational experiences. 

Why is this important?  It was through the planning that I learned what was required to successfully deliver technology resources and provide the services needed to support both the educational and operational needs in an educational environment.  There are so many details that must be addressed to make a technology environment seamless to the teachers and students.  There are usually many people working behind the scenes to make the delicate balance of classroom success and the requirements of delivering technology work together for the benefit of everyone.

When I made the switch to K-12 six years ago, I spent the first few years learning the new policies, legal requirements, and jargon of a K-12 public school.  Being a Technology Director at LCM is challenging, rewarding, and a daily discovery of just how talented our employees are.  I was accustomed to “drinking water through a fire hose” and was as comfortable with that as possible.   It was change, it was challenging, it was new, it was shiny….and actually fun.  I was so focused on the delivery and making the experience good for students, faculty, and staff that I needed to rediscover the reason I chose this profession.  I came to the realization that I desperately needed a Personal Learning Network of K-12 educators to add to my current PLN.  I used a variety of tools to reach out to others and build my PLN, but it wasn’t until July of 2014 when I attended the ISTE conference in San Antonio that I realized the power of my PLN. 
My favorite part of the conference was the informal sessions where students were presenters and experts shared their knowledge in a small personal environment.  I had so many questions, and the presenters were so patient and willing to share what had worked well and not so well for them.  I appreciated the honesty.  There is really no opportunity for failure in Information Technology Management, a failure means someone is without a service that is necessary for student success.

I looked at Technology through different eyes, with a different focus.  I questioned my peers, experts in my PLN, even my grandchildren.  I got Minecraft advice from a nine and ten year old, learned about apps from a two year old, and had a contest posting vacation photos to Instagram.  Seeing transformation in family was inspiring, knowing that it was happening in our classrooms made it more meaningful.

The new focus quickly led me back to my PLN.  My favorite way to connect with my PLN is through Twitter Chats.  Although fast-paced, the chats provide a great opportunity for information sharing and building PLNs, as well as best practices for delivering technology. Questions can be answered quickly, and someone always knows the answer to the question, or is connected to someone who does.  Our awesome LCM Administrators started the year with an admin chat to facilitate building PLN’s and prepare for upcoming Professional Development activities.  We now have a number of LCM faculty and staff participating in the Region 5 chat, #reg5chat, and communication and collaboration activities are increasing in our classrooms.  This has been an unforgettable year.  I can’t wait to see the continual progress in our District and throughout our region.

Technology Champions

I have always had the utmost respect for educators.  Even when I was in school myself, teachers, administrators, and coaches, were people I looked up to.  People who taught me much more than than what was in the lesson plans.  I still have the same view of educators today.  In our District, we have a team of teachers whose passion for teaching and willingness to work outside their comfort zone continues to inspire me.

Today we kicked off our new Technology Champion program.  This was based on a concept shared by a variety of Texas K-12 schools where sharing is a common occurrence.  (A special thanks goes to Victor Valdez of Pflugerville ISD)

During the course of our first meeting, I learned so much from this talented group of ladies. Throughout the day we discussed a variety of applications and how they aligned with District initiatives.  We worked through technology issues, shared ideas for technology integration and cohort teams, and had a quick Twitter chat for fun.  

I am looking forward to an awesome year with our Tech Champions.

@phale, @brenda_jones, @sumlendia, @LeighMartin317, @_taniajackson, @cebf2008, @melanieclaybar,

Update: March, 2014 - Our Technology Champions were recognized at our March Board meeting and demonstrated technology integration in the classroom to those in attendance.  Their presentations were amazing, we appreciate these teachers and their dedication to our students.

#edtechchat #edcamp style

Tonight I participated in an event that was as productive as any Professional Development opportunity I have ever attended.  The #edtechchat was #edcamp style and was all about the participants leading the topics by posting the questions.  This was amazing to watch.  The expertise, resources, and connections are something to review, share and invite as many others as possible to join.

We all know the power of a PLN, but honestly, until I began to participate in the #edtechchat, I had no idea the amount and quality of information that I could find.  I asked a question, and within seconds, I had a response.  Let's face it, we all need more time to do the many things we have to do each day.  The ability to quickly have answers as we are planning, sharing with others, developing training materials, or compiling specialized lists of online resources is priceless.  

The "moderators" did a fabulous job, as always.  Thank you @ajpodchaski, @iplante, and @s_bearden

I also appreciated the 11 Year Old Keynote Speaker link provided by @cybraryman1 - this was perfect timing as I was thinking about including something exactly like this in a training session this week.

It was a perfect end to a stressful day, I love learning and this type of activity inspires me.  This is something worthwhile, time well spent.  

#youguysareawesome 

Student Learning with Gaming and Minecraft

The summer is a great time for spending more time with family, and it also gives me more time to learn about the kiddos in my family, what they like, what makes them laugh, their friends, and the traits that make me love them so much. 

I don't think there is a parent or grandparent that wouldn't do anything they could to make sure there are always happy faces, an overabundance of fun, and opportunities for the kids to be themselves.  Whether the summer fun includes swimming in the pool, playing soccer, riding bikes, riding in the boat, fishing, or looking for shells at the beach, there is always time for technology.

I am amazed by the proficiency of today's kids, they are faced with so many options in technology devices, and yet master them in a few minutes after having it in their hands.  After the ISTE conference and hearing about the educational benefits of gaming, I began to pay more attention to what they were playing.  I began to see what the presenters were talking about in a real-world example in my only family. 

This summer, both the girls and the boys seemed to be most interested in Minecraft.  They were able to tell me all about the game, how much planning was involved, what they were learning the "secrets" of the game. Both of the oldest kids (soon to be 10, and 9), gave me a detailed description of what the object of the game was and all about what they were building.  I saw the critical thinking in action.  They were learning from the game, improving their skills and deciding what to build next based on their successful experiences.  Their "presentation" was jsut a good as

It was great!  Amazing what a 9 and 10 year old can teach you.  Our students have so much to offer, we just need to give them the opportunity to share and listen to them.

There are so many resources available, but this one from TeachThought is a good one. 

Lessons to Learn From Minecraft 

Digital Citizenship and Technology Trends

Resources, resources, resources.  There are so many available, and focusing on specific topics is a challenge in itself based on the ever-chaning landscape of technology.  I recently ran across a presentation by Jason Ohler, University of Alaska (emeritus). http://www.jasonohler.com

The 21st Century Fluency project www.committedsardine.com has some great resources related to Digital Citizenship and technology trends that are extremely interesting.  One of the most interesting things I found was a potential mission statement for today's students.

"Students will study the personal, social, and environmental impacts of every technology and media application they use in school." 

That is something we sould all want for our students to prepare them for the future.

PLN's and Hashtags

Some of the most exciting uses of PLN's I have learned about in the past few weeks have to do with hashtags.  Of course, I was familiar with how to use them, had become proficient in searching for them, but had never used them to participate in a live chat.

After a few weeks of "lurking" in the #edtechchat, I finally decided to participate real-time and it was an eye-opening experience.  Within a few seconds I realized I would have to change to another app to make sure I could review the tweets quicker.  HootSuite seemed to work best for me.  I was still overwhelmed by the amount of information shared, and the differing perspectives were extremely thought-provoking. 

I answered the questions as quickly as I could, then reviewed the tweets of others.  I retweeted those which would be beneficial to some who follow me.  The next time I looked at the clock, an hour had gone by and I was still reading. 

Today I found additional resources on #edchat and am looking forward to reading more and sharing them as well.  I am working on Professional Development activities for our Administrators and these resources will help.

I realized that our District is far ahead of the game when it comes to willingness to learn new things.  Our Administrators are open to learning new technology to benefit our students, faculty, and staff.  Our new "Connected Administrators" activities are an opportunity for us to build our PLN's during the upcoming year.  I look forward to participating in many great things.

Steven Anderson's "Its all about the Hashtags" http://ow.ly/nfgqt is very interesting.  Enjoy!

BYOT Resources

There are amazing BYOD/BYOT resources available, and I have been compiling resources to use in Professional Development activities for the upcoming year.  Our District has  a long-term BYOT pilot which has been in process for the past two years.  We have about 150 students participating in the project, and have kept the numbers small at this point to make sure our infrastructure will support it well.  So far, we have been able to keep the network running well, and our students, teachers, and parents seem to be pleased with the progress.

The first year of the pilot we surveyed our teachers.  The majority of them who had students enrolled in the BYOT pilot were in favor of it, considered it to be reliable, and said the students were more engaged.  While we had positive feedback, we still wanted to continue the pilot for another year as we tweaked our infrastructure to allow us to get the best results from our network resources while we continue to expand for mobile devices.  At the end of year two, we surveyed the teachers again, and continued to receive positive comments, however, we still did not see the level of integration using the devices expanding rapidly. 

This year, we plan to spend more time with the teachers and in the classrooms focused on integration activities.  Providing resources to assist our teachers with BYOT integration ideas is a great first step.  I found some great information in the Cybraryman's resources for BYOT/BYOD and wanted to share.

Cybraryman's BYOD/BYOT Resources

Additional information can also be obtained by particpating in the  #BYOTchat on Thursdays at 9:00 p.m. EST