#DEN18: (A Slightly More Coherent) Wrap-Up (Part 8)

After quite a bit of travelling after the academy, I finally made it back home on Thanksgiving, and I've had the chance to reflect a bit more on my #DEN18 experience. I wrote a bit of a wrap-up post the morning after, but I know I was exhausted, and hopefully this one will make a little more sense :-). Warning: it's not short.

TL;DR Version

It was amazing and challenging, all at the same time. Both a struggle and a highlight of my professional career.

Photo cred: @IngviOmarsson 

The Academy

Photo cred: @markwagner

The Academy itself was amazing. Let's start with the people there - bringing together brilliant educators from all over the world creates a powerful think tank! There was a sense of purpose in the group - to change the world through education. And I'm not exaggerating when I say "change the world." We were consistently encouraged to start small, but dream big about how to impact the lives of students, teachers, leaders, & communities. I know that this community will continue to encourage, inspire, stay connected, and do great things throughout the year and beyond!

Photo cred: Innovator Program (@WendyGorton?)

Our three days went by quickly with a mix of team building, inspiration, work on our projects, and just plain fun. At first, I was overwhelmed at how I would get from my "problem" into a "solution" in such a short time, but everything was broken down into small steps, and I feel like I made a ton of progress. There was never enough work time (but is there ever enough?), but we kept moving anyway, and the limited time actually fueled my thinking and stopped me from over-analyzing every bit of my ideas (which I am prone to do). Constraints really do breed creativity!

Photo cred: Innovator Program (@WendyGorton?)

One of my favorite parts was getting to give & receive feedback from a wide variety of people. I feel like my project is a mix of all of the ideas other people gave me, rather than what I came up with, which makes it so much stronger! I loved that we were all there to push each other & ask the hard questions. In education, especially, how often do we hold back on asking a question to avoid conflict? My experience is...too often. I loved the expectation that we would kindly deliver critical feedback, which would make our projects better. Pivots & changes were celebrated, not seen as failures. Risks were encouraged, and support was everywhere!

Photo cred: @jlubinsky

Another big reminder - the environment really does make a difference! Being taken out of my normal context, being surrounded by balloons and decorations and, before long, our work on the walls, created an energizing space to work in. The team at Google did such a good job of taking care of us and keeping us well-fed (you know food had to make an appearance somewhere in this blog!), which meant that I was free to focus on my work rather than where to go for dinner. With all of this, I was in a mental space where I had the freedom to dream, which leads to innovation!

My Journey

Photo cred: @Itsbenwhitaker

Photo cred: @IngviOmarsson 

As I alluded to in previous blog posts, there were some tough parts too. My personal journey was much more of a roller coaster. Let's start with the people. It's way too easy to be in a room with all of these people and fall into the comparison trap. "I haven't done this like they have...they're so good at this...how in the world did I get invited to be a part of this group?" And then, going to a place of fear about what others think: "What do they think of me...why did I just say that, it sounded stupid?" I wrote about this in Part 4 & Part 5 of my live blog reflections, but it was a huge turning point when two of our morning sparks focused on Impostor Syndrome (@deanstokes) & "This Is Me" from The Greatest Showman, with the question, "What's your story?" (@cutiablunt). Two phrases from these sparks really hit a chord in me: "You are not a fraud" & "I'm not scared to be seen, I make no apologies, this is me." It was at this point that I remembered who I am - someone who loves to connect with others, who cares about her faith, who is passionate about pretty much anything she can get her hands on, and who is quirky and nerdy at times - and was affirmed in living that out. No more comparison. This is me, and I have something to bring.

(There were also so many other great sparks - these just hit at the right time for me!)

Photo cred: @lesmcbeth

Here's the secret about being an Innovator: Your project is important, but it's more about your mindset. Until that point, I was pretty focused on myself, and wasn't able to absorb as much as I wanted to (which I was aware of, and it was frustrating me)! I'm grateful for my friends (in my area & PLN tribe alike) back home who were able to give me a bit of encouragement through this (living in a connected world is so wonderful). Once I was able to settle my thoughts, I was able to focus on learning. I began to see so many connections between what we were learning and not only my project (which is only somewhat related to my job), but my daily work as well! The tools and ways of thinking I engaged in at the Academy have truly changed how I approach problems in general, and that will benefit me in everything I do!

Photo cred: @markwagner

Another one of my big takeaways was to have fierce conversations. My #Admin2B group did a book study on this book (Fierce Conversations) not too long ago, but I never finished it, and this trip was a great time to dive back in! This is relevant both in our professional and personal lives. Be brave. Confront reality. Don't fear conflict (but DO approach it with kindness) - diversity in thoughts & perspectives makes us all better.

Photo cred: @markwagner

Finally, I was inspired to create some magic. Disclaimer: I tend to be a pretty practical person, and it's easy for me to roll my eyes (on the inside) when we go way above and beyond what is necessary. But there's something amazing in experiencing something that goes so far above and beyond expectations that it truly feels magical! Whether it's with the refugee students I work with, my teachers, or the foster kids I serve every couple of months, I am inspired give them a moment to remember...even if it costs a little bit more money, time, & effort.

My Project

Photo cred: Me, myself and I

Yeah, I'm not going to make this blog post any longer - more later (that's for you, @markwagner)! I am hoping to build a resource to help educators find training about working with refugee students, to help them connect meaningfully with families, and to give refugee students a platform to share their stories. If you have any ideas about what you would like to see or what would help you, please let me know!

Follow Along Live

Post-run selfie! Photo cred: @MrGutoA

In case this wasn't long enough (kidding!) and you want to read my live thoughts & reflections, here they are:

Part 1 - the beginning of the adventure + pre-academy thoughts

Part 2 - arrival in Copenhagen + finally meeting cohort friends in person!

Part 3 - pre-academy reflections + excitement about meeting more of the cohort!

Part 4 - reflection from day #1, when I was in one of the "lows" of the roller coaster

Part 5 - reflection from day #2, after my "epiphany"

Part 6 - quick reflections right after it ended 

Part 7 - even as a tourist, #DEN18 is already changing my perspective!
Innovator Spark Sketchnote - how I kept my hands busy all day!

Thank you!

Photo cred: @KatieF

Thank you to everyone who made this happen. To Google Copenhagen & the team for hosting us. To EdTechTeam & everyone who puts this program together. To our coaches & leaders who set the tone and shared their energy & expertise with us. To my fellow Innovators who pushed me to think further and more deeply. To my family, friends & PLN who have helped me get to this point. My experience is a compilation of all of the encouragement & inspiration you have given me over the years!

So...are you applying next round? Let me know if you want help through the application process!

Photo cred: @IngviOmarsson

Gratitude: How #Edtechteam Summits & #BreakoutEDU Changed My Life!

As we prepare for the #edtechteam summit this weekend, I've found myself reflecting on the path that has brought me to my position as an ed tech specialist. In many ways, my journey started two years ago with a summit that I didn't attend.

Wait, what?

Two years ago, my brother, who is a math/computer science teacher, attended a GAFE (Google Apps for Education) Summit hosted by my district. Here I was, barely even aware that it was happening, yet my brother drove an hour and a half to attend. We met up for breakfast one day because he was in the area, but that was about the extent of that.

A few weeks later, we were both home for Thanksgiving break, and he set up this cool thing that he had heard about at the summit: a BreakoutEDU box. My sister, dad, & I all played Time Warp, and we had a blast! I liked the idea of using it in the classroom, but didn't really see it as realistic for music...or for the number of students I had in each class. It became a fun idea, tucked away in the back of my mind, that maybe I could pull out if I ever found myself in a situation that would fit.

Fast forward two years. 

My mind continued to stew on the idea of BreakoutEDU, and that summer, seeing the digital versions really drew me in. Creating my own games led me to get on Twitter, to develop a PLN, to begin this blog, and to dive into the ed tech world. From there, I started gamifying my classes, implementing genius hour projects, experiencing a pseudo-1:1 environment by hogging regularly checking out a Chromebook cart, getting more involved in my district's ed tech initiatives through applying for a cohort, and eventually landing in my current job as an ed tech specialist.

As I reflect, I can't help but feel grateful to so many people who influenced my journey without even knowing it. I'm thankful for the Ed Tech Team & the people in my district who brought the summit to Boulder, CO. I'm thankful to the BreakoutEDU folks for creating an engaging opportunity that was my first glimpse of why I should attend conferences like this. I'm thankful to my brother for sharing his learning! I'm thankful to the people who started BreakoutEDU Digital, which was my gateway drug to the world of PLNs & connecting with a global community. And I'm thankful for all of those who encouraged me along the way and let me step out, explore, and grow, even when that included some wins and some failures.

"Big things often have small beginnings."

Find the Force #7 (Genius Hour #7): Wrap-Up!

It's amazing what happens when you give students a stake in their own education.  That's what our Force Projects are all about (you can read more about our journey at Find the Force #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, & #6).

It’s hard to believe that our Force Projects are over - but the end of the year always is a whirlwind!  I had students complete an evaluation at the end to gather their perspectives on the project to aid in planning for next year.  Here are some of the insights they provided:

*Disclaimer: I’m a bit of a statistics nerd, so the first part of this is very numbers-heavy, with the second part being more anecdotal comments

My thoughts: Overall, they liked it, but this wasn’t quite as strong as I would have liked.  I know that several students commented that they enjoyed the project, but missed the time playing.  Others shared that they felt like some people just used this time to mess around, so it was frustrating to them.

My thoughts: This proved to be an interesting bit of self-analysis, as the students had quite a bit of loosely structured work time.  I would agree that the majority used it pretty well, but there are a few groups I would definitely not rate as high as they rated themselves.  I wonder if they felt like they could be honest on this, or if they worried about it affecting their grade (despite my assurances that it wouldn’t)?

My thoughts: We put a lot of effort into choosing a topic, but as with any new project, there is a learning curve, both for students and me.  A lot of the comments were about wishing they knew exactly what their project would entail before they chose what they would work on.  While I fully understand the sentiment, part of the inquiry process is making a goal and then figuring out what steps you need to take to get there.  I know from talking to my students that they learned a lot about time management, sequencing, and how complicated different projects were!

My thoughts: This is another question I was curious to see the responses to.  This was a true #20time project, where students were given approximately 20% of class time to work on these projects (including their blogging, required reflections, etc).  The project stretched out over the whole year, which was a challenge for some of them in time management.  In the comments, many shared that it felt like they had longer than they actually did, but that the end of the year snuck up on them (can anyone else relate?!?).

We used blogging as a way to reflect on this project. How did that work for you? Do you think this was a good use of time?

• I liked being able to blog because it helped me stay on track and I liked being able to see what other people think about my project. 
• I liked the thought of blogging because it helped with sharing your ideas. When you just speak it to a person they may not remember it or not understand the full idea of what you did. 
• Blogging was so fun, it makes you feel famous even with a orchestra project. It was a way to bring in some of your personality into your reflection but still got us thinking about why we did the project and what we learned. This was a ok use of time because I would sometimes want to practice cello but have to look through blogs. I think if we did just a little less we could still use the blogs but get more time to play. 
• It helped me reflect on the project, but I don't like writing so I didn't care too much for it. It was fun reading other blog posts however. 
• No because I never really wrote anything and i change the project so much so i had to rewrite from the beginning to the end every time there was a new project so I would say not really. 
• Yes, it helped me plan everything I wanted to do and needed to do. Like adding more detail or needing more topics. 
• I did not really like blogging our project. I would have much rather written a paragraph of what we have done. 
• I didn't really like blogging that much, because I felt like we could of been working on our actually project rather than a blog that I didn't feel worked for me. 
• I think it was a good use of time but I would have liked to blog even more because I feel like we did it regularly but not enough. 
• It worked pretty good. At first I didn't like it that much but then I started to figure out more about how cool blogging actually is.

My thoughts: I tried to pull a representative sampling of the responses I got for this blog.  In general, the positives associated with blogging were that it helped them reflect and stay on track, they enjoyed sharing their ideas with the world (authentic audience!), and that they were able to get feedback on their projects.  The negatives were that it took some of their work time, they had trouble knowing what to write, and they got bogged down by technical difficulties.  Overall, one of my goals was to include more literacy in my classroom through these blogs, as well as engage a more authentic audience.  While this was probably the least popular part of the project overall, I still think it served its purpose, and I would do it again (with some tweaks). 

We connected with other students (in our class and in other classes) through blogs, comments, etc. Did you find this interesting? Do you think it was a good use of time?

• This was a good use of time because I could tell people what I thought and people could tell me what they thought. This was a good way to improve our projects because we knew what our peers thought.
• I liked the way it helped get more ideas on what you were doing. It was a good use of time because you can see what other people were doing even if you weren't in their class.
• It was really cool to give people feedback, and to get some in return. This was not a waste of time, as it helped us shape and change our projects and make sure they were in tip-top shape!
• I thought the idea was cool, but most of the comments and other things weren't that helpful, so I don't think it was the best use of our time. We could have used more work time.
• As I said before I did think it was very interesting to see what other kids were doing in other classes, because people can come up with such different ideas that I would have never even thought of before. So I thought it was definitely interesting and very cool. I don't think that this was a waste of time, I think you should definitely do this portion of the blogging for next year students because it was definitely very cool.
• No, I didnt really want to know what other people were doing.
• I did not find this interesting. I didn't really learn anything, and it was more of a chore to grade other people.
• I liked looking at comments on my blog and commenting on others but sometimes people that were supposed to comment on mine never did or were not thinking deep about my Force Project in their comments.

My thoughts: Again, I tried to pull a representative sample here - I always want to be honest about the successes and challenges on this blog!  Overall, students seemed to like the commenting and feel that it helped them reflect and improve.  Some of the most-mentioned positives were that they enjoyed the social component, they liked seeing what others were doing, and it helped them improve their own projects.  Negatives mostly revolved around the varying quality of comments and blogs, feeling like they did not learn much or get meaningful feedback from the commenting.  They did enjoy connecting with @msventurino’s class, and thought it was fun to hear from people in a different state!

Final Thoughts:

There are always things to improve on, but overall, I would say that this first go-around at a #geniushour was a success!  The students’ comments helped give me ideas for how to tweak it in the future, but the basis of the project will largely stay the same.  I will end with a few of my favorite student quotes from their final blogs:

• “Some final reflections I have on this project is that it was very fun and I enjoyed it. It was very challenging to learn a new instrument and it was fun to learn it it. I made a lot of mistakes on this project that will help me learn for in the future.”
• “I just want to say I had a lot of fun with this project and this blog is going to be difficult for me to let go.  But for me, our actual presentation was okay. To be honest I loved the process more than the our actual presentation.”
• “I thought the force project was awesome, I had a fun time making it. I really enjoyed this because I actually enjoyed doing homework.”
• “If we would've just done normal orchestra throughout the year I would have learned no where near the amount that I learned. I feel it is important to not just know how to play a note, but also know the music. These force projects taught me good music!”

Whew, this might win an award for my longest blog post ever!  I hope the reflections and student comments are helpful to anyone else looking at doing a similar project.  I’ll close by saying, “May the Force be with you!” and add this tidbit from one of my 7th graders…

FORCE FOR LIFE!

To see some of their projects (the ones that can be shared in this format), click here!

Summit Reflections [#GAFESummit/#GSuiteSummit/#EdTechTeam]

Last weekend, I attended the Colorado EdTechTeam/GAFE/GSuite Summit (changing names = I'm not sure what to call it).  I was excited going into the weekend, but a bit cautious.  Honestly, I had never been to a professional conference that I had enjoyed.  There always seemed to be pressure to be posturing, showing that you had your act together, and going to all of the "right" sessions with the "right" people.  Now, I'm not saying that these conferences were poorly organized or run...that is just the way I felt walking out of them, which has as much to do with myself as anything that went on there!

Fast forward to the Google Summit.  It was an amazing time of growth, comradery, and learning with other educators from this state and beyond!  Despite my lack of sleep and need to catch up on grading, I am so glad I went.  Here are some of my key reflections and learnings:

Embrace Change!

It was so inspiring to be surrounded by people who were continually learning and seeking to grow in their craft.  There was an environment of continuous iteration and change, and optimism for that change!  So often, in education, the word "change" brings about eye rolls, sighs, and resistance.  Regardless of how we react, change is coming, and will continue to come.  While it is prudent to run ideas past a critical eye of what's best for students, it was refreshing to be around a community who is striving to embrace change, rather than run from it.

Connect, Share and Collaborate!

I was exposed to so many cool ideas and teaching "hacks", and was reminded of how powerful we can collectively be together!  And the best part?  Just as we talk about in our classrooms, there was no "sage on a stage" mentality.  Sharing resources, accepting feedback, and building knowledge collaboratively was the norm.  I wish that were the case everywhere!  Some of my personal favorites were BadgeU by Daniel Sharpe & all kinds of thoughts about blogging by Chris Moore.

Belonging

I know I have written before about how I have really grown in confidence as a teacher and a teacher leader this past year, and this was yet another step down that path.  Often, I struggle to figure out where I fit in professionally.  I teach music, but my vision of a successful music class expands beyond the traditional performance model that is held by many of my colleagues.  I love dabbling in educational technology, but I wonder if people will really take a music teacher seriously - my classroom looks so different to begin with!  Over the weekend, I felt so validated in the way I am combining my subject area with technology, and several people encouraged me to present at a future event.  Right now, that sounds like the most nerve-wracking experience - I will stand up in front of kids all day, but speaking in front of adults is another story - but it's planted a seed in the back of my mind.  Maybe I do belong here.  Maybe there is a place for me in this edtech world.  Maybe I need to stop hiding behind my curtain of being "just" a music teacher or "just" dabbling in technology and confidently share my ideas!

The closing keynote, by Sandra Chow, was based on a song one of my favorite musicals, "Alone in the Universe" from Seussical the Musical [insert music teacher geeking out here].  As I listen to the words of this song, the need for friendship and fellow dreamers resonates so strongly with me!  But, in order to reach out and find each other, both Jojo and Horton had to take a risk and put themselves out there with some pretty big thinks.  I want to continue to think and dream about how to improve education for our students, AND to share those thoughts with my colleagues and PLN!

#EdTechTeam #GAFESummit: Learning about Blogging with @cmoor4!

I'm sitting in a workshop at this #GAFESummit (which is now rebranded as #EdTechTeam) learning about blogging with @cmoor4.  These are some great resources and things I wish I would have had when I started blogging with my students this year!

Quick thought so far: we have talked a lot about being a good audience and how important it is to develop an authentic audience for the kids.  I'm so thankful for my #sunchatbloggers group and friends @MsVenturino, @AmyLynnRever, and @jkervs who have connected with my blog and my students' blogs to engage in this learning adventure together!

Time to click post so I can follow along with the next step!  I will post much more later, including a recap of my experience at this Summit!