TCEA 16 Takeaways

I just returned home from a week FULL of learning, connecting, sharing & growing at TCEA in Austin. The connections I made, both new and old, made the week a great experience! 

My focus for the week was on learning more about creating personalized professional learning opportunities for our teachers and supporting a 1:1 initiative. Google tools and tips are always on my radar, so I planned to work that in also! Thankfully, my TLBFF, Tina Berumen, created a collaborative Google Doc for session notes, so that we could all share & learn! 

The Google Academy was a great day of learning all things Google! From the Keynote Panel to all of the breakout sessions, I learned so much. The session on Google sites by Christy Fennewald gave me helpful information on how to make my WISD Professional Badges site better. I was cautioned to not have too many tabs, and to work on eliminating drop-downs. 

By Tuesday, we had about 35 people from WISD at TCEA to learn! One of our assistant principals, Leslie Ackmann, had create a Google+ Community for all of us to share our notes and presentation information. We also established a district hashtag for TCEA, #WISDtcea16, which enabled us to share learning quickly. It was awesome to see the excitement as they went from session to session, tweeted & posted! We even had one campus, our Ninth Grade Center, that would meet each evening to debrief.  The best part- the teachers organized this! 

As I was gathering information on badging for professional learning, I met so many helpful people! It is so funny how things will transpire, but I mentioned to my friend, Michelle Cooper about the badge system. She introduced me to Scott Floyd who had created a system for White Oak ISD, who introduced me to Dr. Roland Rios, from Fort Sam Houston ISD. Scott also told me that I need to meet Kelly Fitzgerald. What is amazing is how each of these people spent time and shared resources with me, someone they had just met, to help me create a successful badging system for our teachers. Coincidentally, Kasey Bell of ShakeUpLearning also updated a blog post on Badging, which was sent to me no less than four times! Guess what I am working on this weekend?!

I was also reminded that some of the best learning happens outside sessions, in hallways, at tables at the back of the exhibit hall, at dinner, anywhere you are able to have conversations with others. I'm so appreciative of the time Brandi Rosales took to help me with features for the badge site! We truly have some AMAZING people in education in North Texas!!

There were no shortage of sessions offered for 1:1 rollouts, initiatives, PD and support! A couple of the best were Chad Jones from Lamar CISD who went step by step on how to rollout devices or programs. It was so thorough, from starting with the end result and working backwards, to developing a detailed planning document to make sure all stakeholders are involved and informed. Their instructional technology website, iCafe, is amazing and helps teachers find the help they need at any time of day! 

Another great session was by Temple ISD's Instructional Technology team, Jessica Mays & Jacki Wright. What I liked best about this session is they shared how they worked through issues they had when implementing 1:1 at their high school. It is always helpful when people share their failures, along with their successes! Our high school will soon have a student tech team, so it was great to hear about their TechCats & how they work with teachers & students, along side the instructional technology specialists!

Other cool things that happened:
I presented with two out of my three #TLBFFs, Nancy Jo Lambert & Tina Berumen! We presented on Knocking Down Your Library Walls during the Librarian Academy. 

I met Eric Sheninger, author of Digital Leadership and Uncommon Learning. I have recently read both of his books, so it was nice to be able to meet him in person. Hopefully we can get him to our district soon! And that is Matt Arend photo-bombing! He is an elementary principal in Plano and doing great things in education! I've followed his journey on Twitter and enjoy reading his blog.

Being able to see the excitement & engagement of our teachers was awesome! We had two teachers present on Knocking Down the Walls in Your Classroom. Amanda Rogers & Jacqueline Rose connect their students as a normal part of their classroom environment. They even had students join in the presentation! 

And I found two of our teachers, Jessi Medlin & Shelly Stout, being interviewed in the TCEA Radio booth! I know they will be taking their new learning back to their classrooms, teams & campus!



It was a great week and there were many more connections that happened that inspired me to keep learning & growing! I finally was able to meet Jess Malloy & Ryan Steele, who have created an amazing learning commons on their campus! My #oneword for 2016 is ACTION, so I will be immediately putting into action my new learning about badging systems for professional learning. 


** To grow your #PLN on Twitter, be sure to click on names. They are all linked to the individual Twitter accounts**

Professional Learning Options

As the Future Ready Learning Coordinator for our district, I work with teachers across the district who would like to learn new approaches to using technology in the classroom, connect globally, or create "future ready" learning opportunities for their students. For some that has been rethinking classroom design, for others it has involved Skype or Google Hangout, a new app or web tool for students to use to present and for others it has been trying blended or flipped learning. My goal is to help teachers locate resources and offer support as they try new ways of teaching & learning, whatever that might be.

So why does it feel like I'm spitting on a forest fire sometimes??  How do I support learners efficiently & effectively, as well as empower them to take some ownership in their professional learning? One of the ideas that I am trying is offering a badging system, that will begin with physical badges to be placed outside the classroom. I first saw information about digital badging through Laura Fleming's Worlds of Learning website. I have looked at other districts (such as Denton ISD and Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD) and how they are using badging to recognize professional learning, and think this is something that might work for our district. As with most things, I am looking at what others are doing and then shaping it into something that will work for us. With a physical badge outside a classroom, teachers on the campus and across the district will know of a person who could be a resource for that skill or tool. 

To start the badging system, areas of focus had to be selected. Just this year we have become a GAFE district, as well as added Canvas as our learning management system (LMS) and so those two areas seemed like a great place to begin. In addition, being a connected educator is something our district encourages and supports, so a badge for this was also needed. Canva is the tool I chose to create the physical badges that we would print for classroom doors. It is so easy to use and I could quickly duplicate a badge to make the next one. Here are just a few that we will start with for this spring. 

For this to be ready to go for the spring semester, we also have to have a way for teachers to earn their badges. I liked how Denton ISD used Google Forms for teachers to request training and/or badges. Things must be easy for teachers to access and easy to manage, so Google Forms seem like a great way to manage everything.

As this continues to develop, I will post about it. Hopefully others will offer suggestions, and this will help hold me accountable for completing this goal. As we all know, other things quietly slip in and before we know it, we are off track! If you have ideas or suggestions, please share!