I’ve had the hardest time answering this prompt.  My learning curve has been steep at times this summer and I’ve been given so much important information.  I’ve accessed and experimented with resources that I was unaware of and tried to adjust my comfortable “tried and true’s” to bring in engaging and relevant new applications.  The more I work through what has been shared, the more I truly absorb.  But…what can I share about that “flipped switch” moment?

You know what I’m talking about.  I mean that moment when rays of light shine down from the heavens, when the firefly hovers over RJ’s head in “Over The Hedge,” and when Gru memorably intones: “Light Bulb,” in “Despicable Me.”  I truly feel like the WHOLE experience has been bathed in light!  It’s so exciting to be building relationships with curriculum movers and technology shakers!

If I absolutely, positively had to identify the most important benefit from our Kenan Summer, I would have to say it’s swimming outside of my local fish bowl.  There are so many interesting fish in the other bowls around the state!  I feel more refreshed and positive as I’m preparing to return to my dear little isolated tank than I have after summers of R & R activities.  I had no idea that was possible and even worried a little about the lack of true vacation on my schedule.  But I know now that I couldn’t have spent my summer in any better pursuit.

Light Bulb!

CREDITS: Light Bulb: wearesolesisters.com & Over The Hedge picture: hedgecomic.wikia.com

…the new standards don’t inhibit the use of technology in my curriculum.  As a teacher of ELA, I have found that the biggest change with my delivery of instruction is my pacing.  I have definitely changed from a delivery model of destination-focused instruction to journey-focused instruction.  I need to add VERY quickly that I do not mean test-focused when I mention destination.  Focusing on the tests to come (and embedded assessments) is certainly an important aspect of my instruction because I know that the Code of Ethics requires me to prepare students specifically for the state tests.  No, I was simply referring to instruction that doesn’t stop, but keeps a steady tempo, marching on to the current destination.  I am a destination-focused traveler, for example.  I don’t want to stop for anything; I just want to arrive.  I know the reason for that is that I don’t travel well and get sick quite easily in anything that moves.  The reason for teaching that way is different.  I began as a destination-focused teacher because I felt like I had “X” number of concepts to “cover” and not a lot of time.

So, in that sense, I believe that experience AND the new standards have helped me evolve into a journey-focused facilitator.  All of the words I chose there have significance to me.  First of all, I believe that focusing on the journey in a classroom means, figuratively, wiggling your toes into the sand and maybe building some sand castles as important experiences for the destination of going to the beach.  It isn’t going to be all about running down and jumping into the ocean, although the ocean will always be a goal in sight.  In my CCSS-based classroom, then, it is all about reading a text multiple times and learning how to closely read text and finding text in multiple genres that tie to my anchor text to deepen understanding.

But this post isn’t meant to be focused on how the standards have changed our instruction.  The point is that the result of being a destination-focused teacher is that technology is a helpful tool to provide the rich learning experience involved in teaching with the CCSS.  For instance, I have found several annotator tools online that make it easy be sure that my students (who all have computers) can all use multiple colors to code their responses and can add neat/legible notes throughout their text.  My students have enjoyed building timelines online, as well, because it is a much more simplified process and looks “cool” when they are done.  Besides having helpful tools and apps available, they also are able to locate primary source documents and a variety of classic and nonfiction literature at no added expense to my classroom.  Those are all really must-haves in the CCSS classroom, and technology is making that possible for my students.

The bottom line is, I think, that the standards (and I’m fairly familiar with the ES, too) have neither inhibited or required the use of technology, per se.  Teaching in response to the standards, however, could end up encouraging increased use of technology.  Um, not to be too cute, but should that could be a should?

Well.  Here I am.  I’m sitting in a professional development seminar and reading a PowerPoint slide that has a LOT of acronyms on it.  And I’m suddenly struck by the fact that we are in a profession that functions through acronyms.  Actually, by an inordinate number of acronyms.  These titling representatives aren’t static, either — they change all the time.  Well, some of them change and some of them just get added to the list of “must know” terms.  So, what I’m wondering as I sit here is: at what point do we become so saturated with the acronyms that they become a meaningless blur?  I mean, is it possible to take in an endless array?

It seems funny to find myself absorbed by this topic, but it is a phenomenon that seems most singular to our profession.  I don’t know when we started building our bank of acronyms.  I do believe I know why it began.  When people find they are repeating a multi-syllabic term repeatedly, they tend to abbreviate it rather than belabor the length of it.  My husband and I experience that with our names.  I understand that since my name has three syllables, people want to simplify it with the nickname “Kim.”  That’s fine.  Really.  I think “Kimberly” is much prettier, but I recognize myself through both names.  My husband, on the other hand, has a simple two syllable name.  People shorten his name for the sake of pure familiarity.  However, if you call my house and ask to talk to “Bob,” I will likely tell you that no one lives there by that name.  I have done so on multiple occasions only to be taken aback by the delayed notion that they could have been calling for “Robert” and don’t realize he’s never been known as “Bob.”  The point is, whether through familiarity or simplicity, educators have built a veritable library of acronyms.

The question remains: how much is too much?  or too ineffective?

I must make a disclaimer to start off this blog!!

I have received so many valuable gold nuggets (resources) to take back to the classroom that I will be incorporating into my curriculum!  However, I do recognize that this blog isn’t asking for a review of what I found most useful.  That wouldn’t be practical in terms of space and time available.  Suffice it to say, I haven’t found any of my externship experiences to be without applicable merit.  That being said, I have to add that my first response was to flash through all of the glorious applications shared at NCCAT!  But I realized that those were pieces of information that had been shared with everyone.  So I spent more time panning until I could make my choice.

I believe the nugget that weighs in as most transformative to my professional practice is the lesson plan evaluation rubric that the DPI ELA team shared with my Kenan cohort and presented to teachers in their Summer Seminars this summer.  They have panned through the CCSS nuggets nationwide and appreciate the value of the tools published by the tri-state team of Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island through Achieve.  I will attach the link at the bottom of this document for anyone that wishes to review it.  What makes this so valuable to me is that it forms a unique reflection format that I can use to strengthen my lesson planning process and verify its connection to CCSS.

While this rubric relates specifically to the ELA standards, it can serve as a model for all practitioners.  The four dimensions that form the structure are universal: depth of alignment, key shifts, instructional supports, and assessments.  At first, the process of lesson review is a slow process, although not laborious.  But as familiarity increases, the process should become internalized.  Ultimately, that internalization should result in consistently strong lessons.

If you would like to view these documents for yourself, go to:

http://et.nwresd.org/files/EQuIP-ELA%20rubric-02-25-13%20to%20share.pdf

Pictures used:  Blue river panner from: addinswaow.com 7/9/2013 & squirrels: simplesharebuttons.com 7/9/2013

The most obvious challenge to leveraging technology is acquiring it.

That is no small feat in a struggling economy where education is suffering from devastating budget cuts.  However, districts across North Carolina have begun to address that challenge in the face of accountability measures moving to online venues.  My district has only 2,200 students total but has formed a partnership with Apple and completed one full year of one-to-one throughout the complete K-12 grade span.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3014/3022886382_c44dc2a44e_b.jpg

But the second challenge is providing programs, applications, and internet access.  And that is an onion with so many layers!  First we pull off the outer papery coating of the onion — the base programs that will be provided for consistency throughout the district.  Then, a tech savvy teacher shares a program that will change our instruction as we know it and the layer peeled back makes our eyes smart!  The same process is involved in the implementation of applications:  district roll out, teacher/student feedback, a virtual bevy of incredible resources, and we’re really twitching!  Before we know it, we have a pile of peels, our eyes can barely stay open and that darn onion hardly looks any smaller!  That’s because the core issue is so big — providing internet access to all the shareholders that has enough bandwidth and enough speed to truly maximize the programs, applications, and actual tool that is being leveraged.

We experienced accessibility issues ourselves at NCCAT, and I’m sure that is not the first (or thelast!) time any of us have ever had to deal with it!  It’s the most recent and memorable because we all wanted so much to use what we were learning about!  It’s frustrating — absolutely — but it’s a good problem to have.  At this point in our technological renaissance, it’s one of the key issues driving innovation in technology.  Meanwhile, we have to help our students, and ourselves, learn to overcome and work through the frustrations.  Maybe it would make a good Problem-Based lesson!

Which brings me to the final challenge that I’ve faced in leveraging the blessing of technology in my classroom — the students themselves.  Like all of the mentioned issues facing anyone who tries to harness technological advances for supporting education, this one will evolve over time, too.  We will learn a balance between when to use and what to use in the current technological offerings.  Perhaps more importantly, though, we will learn better how to keep students on task while they are using it!

My current response to the last area of challenges in my classroom is to provide engaging material that encourages students to stay on task.  Conversely, I instruct them to take notes (and I teach specifically what that means) on paper when doing research and then typing the research in paper form on their computer to make revisions easier.  I have rearranged my desks in such a way that I can see what they are all working on from the back of the room.  I set expectations that after they have time to work on an assignment, they will be sharing their work.  All these things have added up to a sense of accountability for my students and a stronger sense of my role as facilitator in the learning process.

Leveraging technology for the classroom really is a multi-layered issue.  What challenges have you faced that I haven’t addressed or alluded to here?