Got this message from TCEA that I thought I would share:
What’s your message? Many times educators may feel they’re alone on an island. If you could place a message in a bottle to share with the world, what would it say? Who would you hope to receive it? Let the bottle become your vehicle to deliver your message.
Come Tweet with us!
Beginning November 2, 2010, tweet your ‘message in a bottle’ to @tcea
Begin your tweet with “My message in a bottle is: “
Message in a bottle should pertain to education (not limited to technology), the classroom, students, administration, funding, assessment, community, or technology. Freely express yourself and send us your message in a bottle.
Messages will be narrowed down to the top picks and will be voted on by TCEA members.
Winner will be announced at the TCEA 2010 Convention & Exposition in February, 2010.
Contest ends January 8, 2010.
Grand prize $1,000
Contest is not limited to TCEA members. Re-tweet us and invite your followers to submit their message.
Note: TCEA board members and staff many not participate in contest. Voting will take place January 18-22. 2010, at www.tcea.org.
Not because I sit on the board for TCEA, but because this is just pretty cool, I wanted to share this bit of information about the 2010 TCEA Convention to be held in Austin, TX, February 8-12, 2010. The biggest COOL factor for me is the iPhone/Touch App being developed for the conference. It is shaping up to be a really nice app available for free as the convention draws closer.
30th Annual Convention and ExpositionThe TCEA 30th annual Convention and Exposition “Charting New Waters” will be held at the Austin Convention Center Feb. 8-12, 2010. Nationally-known keynoters, more than 400 vendors in 900 booths, hundreds of concurrent sessions, Web 2.0 lounges, gaming playgrounds (Second Life and geocaching), Bring Your Own Laptop sessions, Model Classroom demonstrations, and so much more will be available to attendees. Early registration will open Sept. 9 on the TCEA website and will be $165. Starting Nov. 1, registration will go to $180. Onsite registration will be $190.
Participants for the first time will be offered the “I Touch Learning” convention experience.
Educators who select this option will receive all conference benefits plus an iPod touch loaded with convention information and teaching resources. Exact pricing of this option will be available when registration opens.
Registration for the convention includes a free membership to TCEA. Housing information will be included in your registration confirmation.
New this year, you will find an Opensource Cafe (blogger’s cafe style), Blogger’s Cafe with its own room for noise reduction, Twitter, an EduBloggerCon (Lonestar EBC), an iPhone/Touch app loaded with all of the convention information you will need, and more. These are big steps to take all at the same time, so it will be a cool thing for TCEA to try this all out at once.
For additional information, check out these resources:
Once again, we had another fabulous day in Texarkana ISD. Today we spent time discussing blogs with the elementary teachers. It looks as if this district is going to light up with WWW with elementary bloggers in the very near future. I look forward to having the kids in White Oak collaborating with the students here.
Below you will find the list of resources we discussed. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comment section.
Thank you, Texarkana ISD, for such a warm reception at your back to school, instructional technology-themed conference today. It was so nice to have a welcoming environment when I know how hard it is to listen to someone talk to you for 90 minutes to start the day. Hopefully, I was able to get you motivated for the kiddos who will be filling the halls and rooms next week.
As I mentioned in my talk, I am listing the links to the videos and sites we talked about during both the keynote and my breakout sessions. If you have any questions or I left something off, please leave a comment and I will add it in or get back with you about your questions. I look forward to working with your district again in the future. Good luck in the coming school year!
Keynote – “Instructional Technology: Who’s driving?” Breakout Session – “Social Networking: It’s not just for kids anymore”
Dean and Alec plan it out. Photo courtesy: techleslie
While I should have gotten to this a month or more ago, I am just now finally having the opportunity to review the evaluations returned at the end of our Area 7 TCEA Technology Conference held in White Oak ISD in June. Feel free to ignore this post, but I would appreciate any feedback you can give to allow us to improve it next year. Whether you were a virtual attendee or in person, your feedback will help us out.
First of all, let me thank the line-up of top notch presenters that gave of their time to help me out:
I think that is everyone, but if I missed you, please let me know. Each of you folks have a place in my heart for what you did for us that day. Giving of your time to prepare and present was absolutely awesome. If I can return the favor, please let me know. I will do whatever I can to repay each you.
As for the survey, I am happy with the return rate of the post event evaluations. It was right around the 50% mark, so I feel like I got some good feedback. I only had one attendee who was obviously forced to attend, but I included that response anyway.
The only written feedback that came with the only dissatisfied attendee was “Hands on step by step learning”. My assumption is that he/she thought it was a workshop instead of a conference. But when you throw in the several other satisfied attendees that asked for more hands-on content, it lets me know that it might be a good idea to see if I have any presenters willing to offer longer sessions that could become mini workshops to allow more hands on. We did offer three labs of hands-on sessions along with open wireless throughout the buildings, so there were opportunities to become more hands on if you just wanted to.
Looking at the other data, I found that the vast majority heard about the event from emails circulating with some word of mouth thrown in. The TCEA website only directed one person to the event. While the TCEA site was going through a major overhaul at the time, items could have been posted quicker and easier to see since they were submitted months before. The good news is that it looks as though board members will be able to add their own content (if you use IE), and that will allow for a smoother process. Maybe this will help next year.
We had the standard “rooms were too cold” complaints, but that is always a difficult one to overcome. While I felt the building was a bit too cold in the morning, it leveled out as expected as the afternoon rolled around.
I did have a few who wanted cookies and Dr. Pepper provided even though there were only positive comments on the BBQ lunch. It was good. We did have coolers throughout the buildings all day with free water, Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Mountain Dew, Sunny D, and more. I will try to remember the DP next time.
Everyone loves them some Randy Rogers. Photo courtesy: Dean Shareski
Upon reflection, I feel like I could have improved in a number of areas:
- Gather more volunteers. I did this intentionally this year because I wanted to take the fall personally if things did not work out. Next year, I will find others to go down with me. Not really. I will find some giving folks to help facilitate sessions and check folks in to speed up the processes. It would not hurt to have a few folks stuff bags ahead of time as well. I had several great ladies in the admin office help out, but it is always faster with more folks. Otherwise, the administration part went well. - Train volunteers. I want the facilitators to be able to start the UStream recording sessions for the presenters. Only one person (a first time presenter) did not want to be streamed. Everyone else did not mind. I would just like to have someone in place to hit record so we have the archive for everyone to refer back to. - Have a better PA system in place for keynotes. While I only had one complaint, we need to put a better system in that area that allows for multiple wireless lapels. No tech presenter in his/her right mind is going to stand behind a podium while presenting the entire time. Then, you throw in the Cool Tools Duel and you have the need for multiple mics. This would also help with the UStream of the keynote as well. - Continue to invite the virtual world in. We had what I thought was a tremendous presence of virtual attendees. I was only able to follow the sessions from my iPhone (Twitter) due to me being everywhere at once, but the response seemed very positive. The interaction was off the charts of anything I expected. Having the Twitter board running over the gathering area was a really cool deal. I appreciate Master Audio Visual for supplying the screen and projector. It worked very well. We wanted to leave it because it looked so cool, but the campus admin shot us down on the idea. Something about middle school kids, pencils, markers, yada, yada, yada. - The conference Moodle was a great tool. I need to better prepare it next year. I would like to give the vendors a little more coverage on it if they would like. I had them in two places with links, but I want them to embed content to make it better for them and the attendees. I also feel like the way I linked the rooms to the UStreams worked well. If the virtual attendees downloaded the conference program, they could easily match the session room number to the stream. Leading to…. - UStream was great. Our network, thanks to @mikegras and Suzanne Woodburn, ran like a top. Their prep work on the network kept everything running smooth as silk. We had as many as 15 streams running at one time along with all of the presenter traffic, attendee traffic, and a video conference stream with no hiccups. Very nice. Thanks to you both (along with Cheryl Hawthorne who ran around stomping our any fires that came up). - The MacBook is a VERY powerful little tool. Why anyone would hate on the Macs is beyond me. I received tons of emails and Twitter messages after the event asking me what mics and cameras we used because the quality was so good via UStream. Well, we used the built-in mics and webcams of the MacBook. Those little, white, plastic laptops ran like a champ all day long. It was a good testament to our staff who are/were receiving MacBooks and realized how easy it really is to share with the world what is going on in the classroom. Next year, I will ramp up the audio and video quality settings on the streams since we know the network can handle it with ease. So next year, be on the lookout for even better quality streams. - Judging by the Flickr photos folks posted, everyone was having a good time and learning. I appreciate the crowd sourcing of those photos. Always nice to refer back to. - Registering participants and presenters via Google Forms was painless and worth every penny I did not have to spend. Thanks, Google Apps for Education! - Do a better job of letting the campus admin know the schedule/routine for picking up equipment after the event. While those of us working the event knew we would be back the next day to pick up the laptops locked in the rooms, the campus admin did not. He got a little concerned and picked them up himself which in turn made us scramble to account for all of them. We knew which rooms had them. He did not. Next year, I will do a better job with that, including the documenting of which machine was in which room and letting him know our plans. - Having Two Guys from Saskatchewan was a great idea, if I do say so myself. Alec Couros and Dean Shareski did awesome jobs in every way. They even sat around at lunch continuing the conversation with my superintendent and many others. Having their outside of Texas perspective did wonders for many in attendance. They see that the problems they face are systemic, and that if we are going to improve the system, we all have to work together. The CoolToolsDuel was a hit, to say the least. While I know it is not about the tools, we are working with a lot of teachers who are not even the least bit familiar with what they have out there. Alec and Dean did a superb job of showing a wide assortment. Who won that thing again? Oh, and catch the tool list here on Randy’s blog. - Jen Wagner is a lifelong friend that I have never met. This sister in Christ did everything short of hijack a plane to get involved with our event. The weather did not get her there, but her persistence and the continuing assistance of Paul R. Wood and John Maklary sure did (along with more than a dozen online tools). I never heard one negative thing about attendees having to sit in a virtual session instead of a F2F one. That is a testament to the power of the Jen. Thank you, my friend. Sweet tea and BBQ still await you (with half a Chick Fil A shake for dessert). - Offering VC sessions are not the most popular, but they were attended, informative, and appreciated. We had two separate presenters utilize the portable VC system we have. One showed off the online offerings of TETN (yes, I let the TETN folks present; I even called and asked them to; see, I’m a good guy…mostly). The other session showed off the online database offerings for librarians. Our library staff loved it. Hopefully, others did as well. - We need to rethink our VGA connections. I had no complaints from presenters on the VGA connections being in the back of the room. I offered bluetooth wireless presenters, and some brought their own. I did have a few comments from teachers in attendance, though, that said they are now rethinking why they keep their connections in the back of the room. They realized how difficult it can be on the kids to be engaged if the speaker is behind their backs. Good point. I will plan on having extensions available next year just in case, though. - Twitter did a great job of just being a part of the conference experience. Many used it to retweet key quotes. Some used it to announce a session starting. Still others used it just to let their friends know where they were headed. Regardless, it was well used and appreciated. And, as I mentioned, having that ginormous screen with the Twitter Camp running was too cool. - While I appreciate the high rate of return on the paper conference evaluations, I want to make it online as well next year. This will not only help me with collecting and disaggregating the data, but it will show another tool our teachers can be using with kids. I use Google Forms for my surveys, so it should work fine. - While on the topic of surveys, I should have had one for the presenters. I plan on doing that now anyway. I am sure they can recall any issues, concerns, or good things still. I want and need them to be happy. If they are not enjoying themselves, I want to fix it. - I only had one session with no attendees (that I heard about). I wonder if it was that I had too many sessions offered at once, since that session really was a great one for elementary teachers. We had about 13 sessions running concurrently for 200 attendees. Maybe I should back it down to about ten sessions at one time and just add another into the schedule. I need to think on that one, but please feel free to comment on it as well. - Having three strands was good (admin, tech director, classroom teacher). No one commented on it, but I think it made a difference in helping them find a session. I plan on doing that again. - Master Audio Visual helped sponsor some of the travel to get the Canadians into Texas while Visual Techniques provided the very large screen they had behind them, which was cool. Both vendors are very supportive of what we are trying to doing in White Oak. We truly appreciate that. - When you order BBQ for 200 folks, send a full size cargo van or two SUVs to pick it all up. Thanks to Melanie and Cheryl, it all arrived safely…in multiple trips. Sorry. It was much appreciated, to say the least. While on the topic of food, I need to get the cafeteria to make cookies next time. They are awesome, and a few folks missed out on having them. They’ll be there next time.
Michael Gras and I spent the better part of the Thursday before the conference smoking ribs, brisket, veggie kabobs (thank you to @CClong’s hubbie for grilling those bad boys), hamburgers, and more. We wanted our out of town presenters to feel at home their first night in the area. We all sat around the pool at the hotel breaking bread and reflecting on why we do what we do in education. It was an honor to be in the presence of those folks. I could not have paid enough money to gather that much talent. Yet, they did not come for the money. They came for the love of making things better in public education. You have to love that. It is why I am proud to call them all part of my PLN. I only wish more people could have enjoyed the time with us.
Speaking of which, if you missed out on presenting this year and are interested in helping us out next year, put June 11, 2010, on your calendar and email me (floyds at woisd dot net) about it. The smokers will be fired up once again, the golf courses will be beckoning, and the Gladewater Rodeo will be going on. We had a great time there as well. Then, you throw in what turned out to be a heck of a little area tech conference, and you should thoroughly enjoy yourself. Please consider it.
And for the one person who said we needed better door prizes, I’m not sure how to improve on iPods (including Touch), digital cameras, iTunes gift cards, an IWB, free conference registrations (TCEA and Bishop Dunne’s GeoTech Conference), complete curriculum kits for GIS, and more that I know I am forgetting. It was not a state level conference, but I thought we did a decent job with all of those prizes. Anyone is welcome to fill me in in the comment section below as to what else might be preferred. Other than a Plasma, that is. And remember, the registration was only $25 and we offered free breakfast snacks, lunch, and CPE credits for the day.
My final reflection concerns an award I received Monday night. White Oak ISD’s highest award they present is called the Roughneck Award. It is given to those who go above and beyond the call of duty. My superintendent presented it to me at a school board meeting. His presentation speech meant a lot for me to hear. He discussed my spending time on campuses instead of just in my office. He talked about my work on the district website, adding Twitter as a communication and collaboration tool, and building a program for electronic portfolios and blogs district-wide for staff and students. But the part that will stick with me was about this conference. He was bragging about the turnout and the quality of the sessions and presenters and the organization of it. Then he added one thing. He said that none of it would have been possible without the PLN that I have been able to develop using tools like Twitter and blogs. He said that being able to wrangle in that much talent with only the promise of BBQ and golf was a feat, but he felt those people came because of the relationship and level of respect they had with me instead. That was the take home line for me. He is right. If it were not for a bunch of free tools and encouragement by those I have met virtually, none of that would have happened and 200 educators would have missed out on a really awesome collection of knowledge. While receiving the award was definitely appreciated, having such good friends and bosses makes all the work worth it. Funny, it rarely seems like work these days.
Jen Wagner contemplating virtually calling time violations on Dean and Alec during the Cool Tools Duel Photo courtesy: techleslie
____________________________________________ Survey Results ____________________________________________ 97 total responses (about a 50% return rate)
How did you learn about the conference? 68 – Email Announcement 27 – Word of Mouth 1 – TCEA Website 1 – no response
Overall, how satisfied were you with the conference? 67 – Very Satisfied 27 – Satisfied 1 – Dissatisfied
Overall, how satisfied were you with the technology (wireless access, conference Moodle, UStream sessions, Twitter, etc) available to you? 55 – Very Satisfied 41 – Satisfied 1 – Dissatisfied
Overall, how satisfied were you with the sessions offered? 58 – Very Satisfied 38 – Satisfied 1 – Dissatisfied
Do you plan on attending this conference next year? 77 – Yes 0 – No 20 – Maybe
What, if anything, could be done to improve your experience as an attendee at this conference? - several comments asking for longer sessions - a few requests for handouts to be mandatory - several requests for more hands-on - +++++ Excellent - Loved the Macs! The most effective sections for me were the podcasting because there was a “beginner’s” session followed by a more intensive session. This really helped me understand more than jumping in over my head. - More time at each session; Make it a 2 day conference - Wonderful day. presenters excellent, great content, Cool Tool Dudes – COOL! - a couple of requests for presenters to specify if they use Mac or PC (most sessions were web based, so I’m not sure why this mattered) - Randy Rogers was awesome! (Randy swears he did not write that on his evaluation)
It’s a funny thing being a presenter. While I really work hard to make my own presentations engaging (and fail at times, I’m sure) I find myself more critical of others. Now, by critical, I mean both good and bad. I am always looking to see what makes one a better presenter over another and also what was the “thing” that released the crowd from the stream of thought so they would day dream instead.
With that in mind, severalposts and conversations were had this year at NECC that I took notice of. While Scott McLeod and Doug Johnson do nice jobs of sharing their thoughts and even offering suggestions, one of the things that got my attention was a conversation had at the Google gathering with several others including Scott Meech and Dean Shareski.
Standard sessions have turned into sit and gets and have lost their luster. Poster sessions might be the better option. What makes one better than the other? The conversations. My presentation this year was changed from a standard session to a poster session. At first it was mixed feelings, but after having gone through my two hours of the poster session, it is all good. I was able to have deeper conversations with more people than if I had stood in front of an audience sharing the same information. The engagement for both me as a presenter and them as an audience was a far better experience than I have had in other settings. Dean noted that he felt it might be the better route to have the session conversations take place (as opposed to the unconference sessions conversations).
While many of us say the best PD takes place in the halls of the conference, maybe the poster session is the next best thing. Should that idea be expanded?
Now, let’s take ourselves from the position of teacher/learners at a conference and move into the position of learner in a school setting. Yeah, I would have preferred this type of setting in school as well.
Last year I had the honor of attending Gary Stager’s conference Constructing Modern Knowledge. It was time very well spent. If you have the time and resources to make it to his event this summer, you will not regret it. He and his presenters will make you think, discuss, experiment, and collaborate like never before. If we are lucky, NECC will invite Dr. Stager to be a part of the debate at NECC, and you will be able to get a preview of what you have ahead of you. Here is what you need to know:
Dear Constructing Modern Knowledge Pioneer,
I hope you are well!
We
are less than 2 months away from the 2nd Annual Constructing Modern
Knowledge institute and this year’s event promises to be even more
amazing than the fantastic time we spent together last summer. Folks
are registering for CMK09 and I want to make sure that as many
educators as possible know about the event. The talent assembled for
this year’s faculty humbles me. Where else can you collaborate,
experiment, think, tinker AND spend time with the likes of:
Deborah Meier -
a Macarthur Genius honored for her decades of service and innovation in
urban public education. Ms. Meier is the “mother” of the small schools
movement and her Central Park East in NYC and Mission Hill in Boston
provide stunning examples of creative, compassionate, competent public
education.
Herbert Kohl – a
National Book Award winner and author of more than 40 books on
teaching, learning and parenting. Herb Kohl is one of the most
important educators of the past 50 years.
Brian Silverman -
a gifted recreational mathematician, scientist, bricoleur and raconteur
who has his DNA on nearly every version of Logo created over the past
30 years. Brian played instrumental roles in the creation of
MicroWorlds, LEGO TC logo, Scratch, Turtle Art, the Phantom Fishtank
and is now the president of the Playful Invention Company, creators of
the Pico Cricket. Brian even built a working tic-tac-toe playing
computer made entirely of TinkerToys.
Peter Reynolds -
the award-winning author, illustrator, animator, software developer and
inspirer will host a CMK Reception at his famed FableVision Studios at
the start of Wednesday night’s Night Out in the Big City (Boston)
That’s right, the Boston trip will begin with a rare reception at
FableVision Studios, high atop the Boston Children’s Museum.
As the director for Area 7, please accept my invitation to the following:
Area 7 TCEA is accepting proposals for presenting at our annual TCEA Area 7 Technology Conference to be held June 12, 2009, in White Oak ISD at White Oak Middle School (outside of Longview, TX).
One of the highlights of the day will be the closing session where some of the featured presenters will face off in a “Cool Tools Duel” sharing what they feel are the best online Web 2.0 tools available for educators in a rapid-fire style event (60-120 seconds per tool). This will allow all attendees to leave with a list of new things to try over the summer in preparation for the new school year.
Our local staff who were 2009 TCEA attendees are being asked to present at least one session at our conference sharing what they learned and implemented. Maybe you are asking your teachers to do the same in your district, and this is their chance to present to others. We already have sessions lined up for wikis, paperless classrooms, tools for the primary teachers, and Nings. But we need more!
The session might be a round table discussion about how to use different technologies in the classroom now and in the future, or it can demonstrate how you have used technology with your students, campus, or district this year. We would love more sessions on opensource software use, electronic portfolios, technology assessment (both educator and student), core area technology integration, elementary technology sessions, remote hosting/cloud computing, classes that have switched to electronic textbooks, and more.
Since we have all levels of educators that attend (admin, network directors, multiple grade levels, multiple levels of experience, etc), you can present on pretty much any tech topic at any level of expertise. If you presented at TCEA in Austin this year, submitted a proposal to submit (that did not get accepted), or are working on one to present at 2010 TCEA, feel free to use that same session in Area 7 for our conference. We anticipate having 50 minute sessions with 250 attendees.
We have a web form created for you to submit your session proposal online. This helps us organize the conference much easier than paper. We need to have your submission within the next three weeks in order for us to get our programs created and printed. We ask that you have everything submitted no later than the end of the school day on May 22, 2009. You will find the form here: http://moodle.tcea.org/area7conference/course/category.php?id=9
If you are interested in just attending the event, that is okay, too. Registration is $25 for both members and non-members (free for presenters), and it includes the conference, Bodacious BBQ luncheon, a vendor area, and plenty of door prizes. Watch the Area 7 page on the TCEA site for registration information. I also have updated information in the Area 7 Tech Conference Moodle located at http://moodle.tcea.org/area7conference/ There you will find an agenda, session listings (as they come in), vendor information, registration information, directions, and any updates to the conference including presenter handouts. We will have on-site registration at the same $25 rate as well, but we prefer at least a heads-up on your anticipated attendance so that we can have plenty of promo bags and lunch for everyone.
We look forward to a great conference on June 12th and hope to have your participation. Email me for more information – floyds@woisd.net
I have the opportunity to co-present with Michael Gras and Miguel Guhlin at Tech Forum Southwest on Friday. Find below the session summary and the slideshow I prepared for the roundtable discussion. It is pretty cool to be asked to present at the same one day conference as David Warlick, Miguel Guhlin, and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach. Who knows? Maybe the bandwidth will play nice and we can UStream the session.
Open Source Goes to School
Christine Weiser (moderator); Miguel Guhlin, Scott Floyd and Michael Gras Is education ready for free, open source solutions to education problems? According to our presenters, the answer is YES. They will share examples of how open source technology is allowing for open knowledge sharing—the creation of a global table at which student and educators share ideas—while saving money that can be used for staffing and other much-needed resources. Learn how students, teachers and administrators in their districts are using open-source software, including Moodle, NeoOffice, OpenOffice, Wordpress and Joomia, to create an online world compatible with but outside the bounds of costly, proprietary software.
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.
Photo Credit: Me.
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