This process made me realize the importance of sharing ideas with my own school community and getting them involved in the discussion. In the past I may have gone off and presented without sharing with the faculty and students. In this presentation I included teachers and students in the process. While I’m not someone who enjoys self-promotion, in this case I think that it will be valuable for our school community to view the presentation and spend time discussing the ideas. The concept of risk taking for innovation is one that we all should consider. While I didn’t mention it in the presentation, I view the act of creating a K12 Online Conference presentations risky. We’re all putting ourselves out there for the world to see.

You can hear my Voicethread description of the story behind the making of the presentation at the 2011 Presenter Backstories page. Creating a video was a new endeavor for me. One that I hope to repeat in the future. I know for a fact that I’ll do a much better job of editing the final product. That’s the one area that needs the most work.

Who knows how many people will be exposed to these ideas?

Photo from Creative Commons: Boy Scouts – Gettysburg 

Michael Coakley holds the new official NBA basketball, left, and the old one, at right. outside the Winstanley offices in Lenox. Tue June 27 2006 (Bonnivier)

For those of us who are promoters of change it’s important for us to step back and carefully consider how those involved with the change initiative are feeling. In 2006, the NBA made the decision to change from leather to synthetic basketballs. There hadn’t been a change to the basketball in 35 years. Talk about a sensitive subject.

The league tested out the synthetic balls for approximately 3 months. Spalding, the ball manufacturer, stated “We believe the microfiber composite ball offers many superior characteristics to leather…” After the player’s union filed a grievance and many of the players complained, the NBA decided to switch back to the leather balls. At the time, David Stern reported “Although testing performed by Spalding and the NBA demonstrated that the new composite basketball was more consistent than leather, and statistically there has been an improvement in shooting, scoring and ball-related turnovers, the most important statistic is the view of our players.”

“The only thing that we love the most is the basketball. That’s your comfort. I mean, without your basketball, it doesn’t work. That was my biggest problem, was, why would you change something that means so much to us? ” —LeBron James, Cleveland

So, the NBA decided to listen to the players and not make the change.

I’ve been thinking about this example a lot lately as we take on change at school. While we’re not going to drop our work on assessment, PLCs, and teaching and learning in today’s digital world in a 1:1 environment, we can certainly decide to slow down or backtrack a bit when necessary. Whenever we make significant changes there are always unanticipated demands on time and energy. These demands can lead to frustration, anxiety, anger and grievances among colleagues. Sometimes the leader has to press on, and act as a cheerleader for change. Other times the leader has to listen to the teachers, students and other administrators and slow down or back track a bit. David Stern certainly understood this in 2006 and the league backtracking didn’t seem to  have a negative impact on the NBA.

Like David Stern, I hope that I am able to recognize when it’s time to back track on planned changes.

Photo from Jacobwolman

I’m a bit shocked by the focus of the article and the way that the program is portrayed. Take a look at a few of the quotes from the article and you tell me what you tell me what you think.

This is the quote from Ms. Stafford that ends the article. “This wasn’t a technology initiative — this was a curriculum initiative,”

OK, but look at these other ones.

• “The day all have seen coming — traditional textbooks being replaced by interactive computer programs…”
• “The material we’re teaching is old but everything around it is brand-new,” said Pat Premetz, chairwoman of the math department at Wilbur Wright Middle School
• “Uncuffed, Angela Bartolomeo’s sixth graders spent a recent Wednesday rearranging terms of equations on an interactive Smart Board and dragging-and-dropping answers in ways that chalkboards never could. (In between, a cartoon character exclaimed that “Multiplying by 1 does not change the value of a number!” in his best superhero baritone.)”
• “When Ms. Norman told the students to take out their ear buds to watch a video, two in the back yelped, “Cool!””
• “With a textbook, you can only read what’s on the pages — here you can click on things and watch videos,” said Patrick Wu, a seventh grader. “It’s more fun to use a keyboard than a pencil.

Are these the main reasons that we advocate for providing students and teachers with access to technology? Are these examples of higher level learning in a 21st century classroom? I applaud the efforts of the school district and teachers. I just think that this article fails to capture the real reason why the district decided to go 1:1.

Photo by Pink Punk Shelly

Check out the supply list for you typical school and you’ll find a list like the following.

6th Grade
• 1 pen/pencil pouch*
• 2 one inch binders (one of these should be green)
• Minimum of 25 #2 pencils (NO MECHANICAL PENCILS)
• Minimum of 5 red ink pens
• Minimum of 5 ink pens (blue or black)
• 8 low odor dry erase markers
• 300 3×5 ruled index cards
• 2 boxes (8 count) colored pencils
• 2 yellow highlighters
• 2 folders with pockets (one red, one orange)
• 2 one subject spiral notebooks (one blue, one green)
• 1- 5 subject spiral notebook w/ plastic cover (red)
• 1- 3 subject spiral notebook w/ plastic cover (yellow)
• 1 hand held pencil sharpener (covered)
• 2 bottles of 4 oz glue
• 1 pair of scissors (Fiskars-no sharp points)
• 1- 8 tab pack of dividers
• Book bag (book bags on wheels will not fit in the lockers)
• 1 box of tissues
• 3 packs of lined notebook paper (loose-leaf paper)
** Students will need a basic calculator and ruler at home
to complete assignments. **

These are suggested supplies for the CORE area subjects. The CORE teachers will begin the year focusing on organizational skills using the above supplies. Elective teachers will give out a supply list when school begins.
*PLEASE EXPECT TO REPLENISH SUPPLIES SUCH AS PENS/PENCILS/PAPER AS NEEDED THROUGHOUT THE SCHOOL YEAR.
If your child brings other supplies to school, or you purchase products for their use at home, please make sure that they are safe products whose vapors are not harmful to breathe. For a list of products and safer substitutes, visit

Materials will be color coded by subject:
Math = Red Science = Green
Social Studies = Blue English = Yellow

From Providence MS in Chesterfield County VA.

What happens in a 1:1 school? Does the list look like this?

Laptop or Tablet PC

• Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise Operating System.
• Microsoft Office 2007 Professional (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, OneNote).
• Various other software packages.

Our purpose for today is to brainstorm ideas as to what do we need to do as a school to empower individuals to do what is right and stand up to bullying?

We’ll use the comments section to capture ideas.

First, keep the following in mind when posting.

• Please make sure that your comments relate to the assembly topic and remember, there is the potential for the comments to be seen by people all over the world.
• You may use your first name, but not your first and last name.
• We trust that you will act responsibly when you contribute to the discussion.
• Be honest and open with your responses.

I’ve been thinking about Charles Babbage’s quote quite a bit lately and I think that it still rings true today.

“Propose to an Englishman any principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the English mind is directed to find a difficulty, a defect, or an impossibility in it. If you speak to him of a machine for peeling a potato, he will pronounce it impossible; if you peel a potato with it before his eyes, he will declare it useless, because it will not slice a pineapple.”

Think back to times when someone came up with an innovative and new idea and how others responded. Our first reaction is to think of reasons why it won’t work. We’re all probably guilty of it. Of course, some more than others. It happens all the time. Instead of coming up with positive ideas on how it can improve things, we focus on the negative.

Fredrik Haren in The Idea Book suggests that the first thing a group should do is to listen to 50 ideas without saying anything negative about them. I’d love to try this with a group when a new idea is presented. Ask the group to only think of positive implications of the new idea or innovation.

Think about how it will change the tone of the discussion. Some interesting ideas may even have a chance.

Photo by Chellabear

It’s very interesting because I really thought that the problems would be different in nature. I did not expect that the immature acts of a small number of students would dominate the discussion on the back channel chat. I had asked a colleague to turn it off if someone posted anything inappropriate and about half way through he shut down the computer. This happened even after I gave them three clear rules: 1. Use real names; 2. Conversation has to relate to the topic; and 3. Think before you post. Here are my thoughts on the risk, my learning and the future.

The Risk

As I mentioned, The purpose of the assembly was to create an awareness amongst the students of Graded’s plans to start a 1:1 program in the high school in 2012.

I was certainly nervous and knew that there was a certain level of risk going into the presentation.

• Will students be receptive to the message?
• Will the technology work?
• How will I effectively communicate the message?
• Will anyone actually participate in the discussion?
• How will the teachers respond to the topic?
• What will happen when I all give students voice?

With these questions in mind I set out with purpose. When putting together the presentation my focus was on the topic and I tried to use a mix of text, videos and images to convey the message. Like every good teacher I rehearsed my speech and made sure that the Prezi slideshow, videos, and the back channel tool, Today’s Meet worked.

While I may not have been successful in creating that discussion on the back channel chat, I have anecdotal evidence that discussions are happening. Our film teacher  told me that his class had a “interesting” 15 minute discussion right after the assembly. and our PFL students shared their comments with their teacher. I even find a sense of contentment in the fact that a few stragglers on the back channel chat session posted relevant comments as late as 8:35 pm on Tuesday.

“But Graded is trying to be a pioneer in the area in Brazil. I really admire them for that.”Liberalism Rules at 8:19 PM, 4 May 2011 via web

“And as for the maturity, if this technology was something that we were rather used to, people wouldn’t be so “obsessed” over it, and…” troll at 7:57 PM, 4 May 2011 via web

“I think that although laptops would provide more interactive learning experiences for the students, it would also hinder their concentration”: D at 7:45 PM, 4 May 2011 via web

I’m in search of more stories from students and teachers.

My Learning

Every good educator processes the lesson and whether or not students learned to identify improvements for the future. In this case, let’s think in terms of risk management.

• It’s probably natural for high school students to get a little giddy when they are introduced to a new tech tool and some will want to play around more than others. Maybe I could have tested the back channel out on smaller groups before doing it with 350 students.
• Next time I’ll plan to use a back channel tool that shows the identity of the participants. This will take longer to set up but it will be worth it. I can use the expertise of our Academic Technology Facilitator to help me with this setup.
• I’ll make sure that every student has access via the wireless network. I found out just prior to the presentation that this could have been arranged. I believe that there were students in the audience that wanted to respond to the topic and they were not able to. These students could have turned the conversation. In a 1:1 environment it is so important to provide everyone with the opportunity to participate.
• I’ll ask the faculty members to bring their mobile devices so that they can participate in a positive manner. Since this is a community discussion their voices are important.
• I’ll also continue working on building relationships with students so that there is a level of genuine respect between us. It’s my first year and the school and I have much work to do to build stronger relationships with the Graded student body.
• You can bet that I’ll also set up a way to measure whether or not I was successful in raising awareness.

What other suggestions do you have for me?

The Future

Will I do it again? You bet!

Will I do things differently? Of course.

In today’s learning environment it’s imperative for educators to try new approaches to teaching and learning. I think that it’s actually OK to fail every once in awhile. I’ll probably do a more thorough risk assessment in advance next time. I’m saving the transcript of the back channel because I want to go back and review it in the near future. I envision a time when everyone will have a voice at our assemblies in a meaningful discussions. I would have loved to have seen back channel chats when we had MV_Bill and Nando Reis speak to our community.

Photos: Risk Taking Quote by useitinfo

Risk Assessment by Blue Square Thing