The End is Near...

Tomorrow will be June 1st, and educators everywhere can't help but find themselves thinking of the finish line as we sprint (or limp, depending on how your year has been going) down the last leg of this school year.

While this is a time for looking back, saying goodbye to our graduating seniors and students moving on to the next grade level, it can be a great time to look ahead and lay the foundation for next year's plans.

Here are a few brief suggestions for stepping up your tech game for next year:

1) Prepare an Internet survey for your incoming students. How many of them have access from home? How many will you need to help find alternative means of accessing your online curriculum and participating in your paper-free classroom?

2) Fine-tune that grading policy. If you find yourself disliking the practice Jason Christiansen described in his recent AP Stat blog post of giving students points at the beginning of the year, then "slowly and methodically remove them for each successive mistake a student makes," perhaps you're ready to flip your approach to grading. Rewrite your grading policy to focus less on the grading and more on the learning. A good place to start is this blog entry. Also, be sure to check out http://sbg.wikispaces.com.

3) Google Your World. Try the Google applications for yourself, and prepare to start the year by having your students create accounts so they can collaborate on and easily submit files (projects, presentations, spreadsheets, surveys, forms, essays, reports, etc.) to you. Here is a link to our professional development session on getting started with Google applications.

4) Exit polling. Ask your students what they liked best, what worked best for their own learning this year, what made them most excited about your class, and what they would have you improve or change for next year. I am not sure why I am always surprised by the insights provided by the people who spent the whole year working in my class, but it ALWAYS guides me about what to keep and what to change.

Stay cool & enjoy those last weeks of school!

Five Steps to a More Perfect School District

1) Provide Google accounts for all students.

2) Allow students to bring in their own laptops and mobile devices to connect to the Internet through the filters.

3) Instead of staff in-service days, close the buildings and allow teachers to learn from home. They could research their own topics and do their own learning, take online flex sessions provided by expert teachers, or design and offer the sessions themselves to earn flex. And don't require fewer flex hours; require more.

4) Administrators, staff developers, managers, supervisors, coaches, coordinators -- everyone with a teaching license -- should teach at least one class as part of their jobs, allowing everyone involved in policy making the ability to try out their ideas and practice what we preach.

5) Provide on-demand support from coaches for teachers who need assistance, allowing them to do professional development in response to actual classroom needs.

Any other suggestions? Please share in the comments below.

See you next Tuesday!

Today

Welcome to Tuesdays with Swindy.

Today is the 57th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

It is also the birthday of Page McConnell (1963), Bob Saget (1956), Sugar Ray Leonard (1956) and Boticelli (1444).

It is the anniversary of the deaths of Lloyd Alexander (2007) and Lawrence Welk (1992).

On this day, Cincinnati Reds' Mario Soto threw 4 strikeouts in one inning (1983), Israel and Lebanon signed a peace treaty (1983), the Soviet Union recognized Israel, Alaska became a U.S. territory (1884), and Buffalo Bill Cody's 1st wild west show premiered in Omaha (1883).

On this day in 2011, I thought for hours, but could think of no other topic about which to write...

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Hello, blogosphere!

I took last Tuesday off to celebrate my birthday, but I'm back with another block-rockin' beat...

or, at least, another post.

I was told that I sounded a little downtrodden in my last entry, so here's a topic that's a little more uplifting. :)

Last week, the three AICs compiled some data on what we've accomplished this year, including all the 50+ flex training sessions we offered, as well as the just-in-time, on-demand professional development we do during the work day, and aligned each instance with its topic and applicable ISTE standards. We also listed a breakdown of our time spent in the position, our role in the district's Strategic Plan, and listed several success stories from the field.

It is a difficult budget in any school district to justify tech integration, something that many people still see as something "extra," or as a luxury, and do not know is essential.

We decided to call upon the teachers with whom we've worked this year and ask them to share with us their thoughts on the value of our positions. Within the first 24 hours, we received nearly 100 responses!

The kind words from our colleagues have made us very proud of our accomplishments during the short nine months we've spent in our position. Regardless of whether we'll stay in next year's budget, their feedback has made it all worthwhile. I would like to take this Tuesday to thank them, and to share some of our favorite responses.

Read them all here!