I’m Still Here
It's been quite a while since I've written anything here. Moving to a new city, buying a house and car, and starting a new job have taken up a huge chunk of time. Not to mention I now use Twitter for most of my (micro-)blogging.
I thought I'd share a little about what I have been working on in my new (well, 8-months old now) position in the communications office at Beaver Country Day School, an independent 6-12 school in Chestnut Hill, MA. One of the projects I am most proud of is the BCDS mashUp. Inspired by Worchester Academy's WA Mash, the BCDS mashUp is a way to showcase student work. Our students produce such wonderful work -- both online and offline -- that it needed to be displayed in a place where people other than those in our own building could see it.
One of my motivations for this was to get students' names in an online space other than Facebook or mySpace. The hope is that as college admission offices search for these students, a result or two will link to an example of their work at Beaver. Just like creating a paper-based portfolio of work, I believe it is important that students also build up their online presence to feature material that they would want future colleges or employers to know about.
Another project that is just getting off the ground is the Beaver Alumni Community. Powered by Ning, we are providing this site as a place just for alumni. We have a Facebook fan page which has become quite popular. However, since anyone may become fans, we have students, parents, alums, and friends all in the same space. We thought it would be beneficial for alumni to have a space that is populated by alumni only. Once membership is approved, alumni can join their class or regional group, upload photos or video, create events that other alumni may be interested in, and start discussions.
I am also grateful that I have not lost all interactions with students. Currently, I am working with the performing arts department on the upper school's winter production. We are trying something new this winter. Instead of a play, we are producing a three-episode video series leading up to a live, on-stage finale. My background in video production is coming in handy for this. You can read more about the show and follow the series on the mashUp.
Hopefully this will be successful and it will lead to more video productions at Beaver. I would love to one day teach a video production class.
Here are a couple of other things that are going on:
- My colleague Jan Devereux and I will be presenting about the mashUp at the edSocialMedia Summit at Beaver on February 16.
- Our Whipple Hill website has been winning many awards, most recently a Silver award in the CASE District I competition.
Boston Bound
I am excited to announce that I will be moving to Boston in May. I have accepted a position in the communications office of Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill, MA. While I am sad to be leaving the wonderful people I work with at Sycamore Creek Elementary, I am looking forward to this new opportunity.
Over the next few weeks, I will be tying up loose ends at Sycamore Creek and handing over my technology duties to others. I am proud of what we have accomplished in such a short time. It's hard to believe that it has only been nine months since we opened the doors to a brand new school. Opening a school has been one of the best experiences of my professional life, and I am grateful to everyone who gave me that opportunity. I will miss you all.
Kyle the Crocodile Gets Some Press
Our Kyle the Crocodile blog has been getting some attention throughout the area recently. Here are some of the places it has been posted:
New Staff Development Model
This is the first month that I have tried a new staff development model for my teachers. In the past I have tried to 
conduct before or after-school sessions for teachers or sneak in five minutes at a staff meeting. These haven't seemed to go over very well. For one thing, no one wants one more meeting to attend, and attention spans at 7:00 a.m. or 4:00 p.m. are not the best.
My class schedule has allowed my to try something different. I teach a semi-flexible schedule. We have an "A" week and a "B" week. On "A" weeks I teach a tech "special" to K-2 in the morning and have the afternoons available to collaborate with teachers on projects, handle tech matters, and now to provide staff development. "B" weeks are the same except I teach grades 3-5 in the afternoon and have mornings available. The guidance counselor rotates weeks me so classes don't miss a special when they don't have tech.
Here's an example of how this new model works: This week is an "A" week so I teach K-2. I set up a time today to provide staff development to 4th grade teachers during their normal special time (all classes for a grade have specials at the same time to provide common planning time). Next week I have sessions setup for 1st and 2nd grades during their special times since I am only teaching 3-5.
This small group setting provides an opportunity for a grade level team to ask me questions that they might not otherwise want or be able to ask. At the start of the month I give each a team a choice of a few topics we can cover that month. Normally the conversations stray from that topic. That's fine, because it always is about something the team needs assistance with.
This model works well with the Professional Learning Communities (PLC) that our district is implementing. Each group must have a PLC meeting each week. Our principal has said that these tech meetings can act as the team's PLC meeting for that week. Teachers are happy because they can kill two birds with one stone.
All-in-all I am excited about how this model is playing out so far.
[Image from Amanda Woodward]
Natural Resources Trading Cards
I just finished a project with a second grade class on natural resources. The class was studying the different types of natural resources, why they are important, and how to conserve them. After discussing ideas with the teacher, we came up with the idea of creating natural resource trading cards. Each card would have a picture of the resource, the student's name, and a few facts about the resource.
Day 1: After coming up with a list of resources as a class, students came to the lab for research. The teacher and I each took half the class and engaged them with guided research using both internet sources and book. We discussed how to find important points when reading, and we developed several facts for each resources. Students recorded these facts onto a pre-made research form.
Day 2: I pre-selected about five different images for each resource so that students would have some choice for the pictures for their cards. I did not want them going out searching for images on their own at this point. When students arrived at the lab, I walked them step-by-step through the process of creating one card using the trading card maker at Big Huge Lab's Flickr Toys. Once studnets went through it once, they quickly got the hang of it and finished the remaining cards on their own with minimal help from the teacher and myself.
Students saved their cards to their network space. Later, I pulled them out to print. They needed to be resized so I changed the resolution to 300 dpi and sized them to 2.5" by 3.5" -- the same size as traditional trading cards. I then used PowerPoint to lay them out for printing (I have found that PowerPoint is a very easy way to do light desktop publishing). Once printed on card stock the teacher cut the cards out and handed them out.
That's it...two days was all it took. The students loved having these cards for themselves and to show to their friends.