Week 10 Professional Learning Community

Until very recently a Professional Learning Community (PLC) was something I felt I have moved past, yes before the days of the Internet there were things called Bulletin Boards which people would use to share downloaded updates, bug fixes, and utilities.  They were the life-line for people living or working with computers.  When I first began teaching I had classmates that I met when converting my BS degrees in Accounting and Management Information Systems to secondary education with a k-12 computer certification.  Now, I had a new different focus to my PLC, education comprised of several students in the same program meeting 2 nights a week for 18 months.  When I began teaching there was an opportunity to teach a college level networking class at the high school where I worked.  There was an excited yes from me on that request!   The Instructor’s class met daily for 7 weeks during the summer at Pease Trade Center, so I again blended into a new PLC for Cisco Networking. The nice thing about these communities is once accepted you always belong.

Reflection on PLCs has confirmed my want and need for a technical PLC entity.  Most of you are unaware that in the last 3 weeks I have been infected by 2 worms, hosted a Botnet, and lastly a malware attack.  Those of you unfamiliar with a botnet, check out the Kaspersky article, The Botnet Business. It is a pain in the butt!!!!

These formidable adversaries have costs me hundreds of hours during the crunch time of our class, nearing the end.  What I realized is that my PLC needs to save me from the hours and stress associated with this type of invasion.  Yes, I do have resources and protection, using Kaspersky as my protections program.  Yeh, I know some protection, but the same thing happened with Norton’s endpoint, McAffee, and Sophos protection engines. The root of the problem is that the botnet is within the school system when it attacks a PC it locks it up forcing a hard boot.  When the machine restarts it launches and embeds into the startup file before the protection engines start.  The only reasonable work around for the problem is a product called Deep Freeze which will freeze the hard drive and the boot sector to prevent unauthorized programs and or files.  Actually Faronics has a wide range of products many are ideal for education and computer labs.

Sorry, I have spent so much time researching my invasion I am sounding like the geek from many, many moons ago  (When you are a computer major, geek is good). There is a huge value to PLC's and they don’t just need to be work related even if the P is for Professional.  The P could just as easily mean Personal as with both my daughters who married last fall,  I am their PLC when it comes to cookingJ  I think society has always had these learning communities only they didn’t utilize technology.  I’m thinking that, those old fashion sewing circles were probably a PLC…… 

ce5160networkedclassroom - home

ce5160networkedclassroom - home

Webinar

I attended a webinar which is a seminar, lecture, or interactive conference hosted on the web, in this case at the hosting site called Elluminate.  Richard Byrne a local celebrity/teacher from Maine introduced and led the topic of back-channeling in the classroom. The term Back-channeling was first coined in 1970 by Victor Yngve, a Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (MIT) professor in the area of linguistic who used the term to identify the short messages such as, yes, head nods, and uh-huh that the person speaking receives from the listener indicating attention and understanding. Technology’s version of the back-channel is slightly different because there are actual conversations occurring outside of the lecture.  It is similar to passing notes in class while your instructor is talking but with technology back-channels that type of behavior is accepted and encouraged.

This is how the webinar worked with Richard Byrne speaking during a slide show of the topic but the best part is that while that while he is presenting  there is a side bar in which participants can Instant Message (IM) to presenters and other participants without disruption to the presentation.   I did not participate in the sidebar chat as this was a first experience and things were moving very quickly.  Even though I only listened into the Webinar I still felt like I got a lot out of the experience.  How does back-channeling look in the classroom?

The back-channel is an open real time chat channel available for student’s questions and comments occurring during the course of instruction.  It is truly amazing!  Think about showing a movie in class and you need to stop it for students to ask questions or to provide students with a missing connection in the content.  No more interruptions or disruptions because now those conversations can take place in the back-channel and not interrupting the flow of the lesson/movie.   Websites available to use for back-channeling are as follows:

Wave.google.com

Edmodo.com

Micromobs.com

Todaysmeet.com

Hootcourse.com

Neatchat.com

Friendfeed.com

Chatzy.com

Tinychat.com

Stinto.net

Snapgroups.com

Twitter can also be used if the back-channel is open to everyone on the web.

You can enjoy the entire webinar at slideshare.  Additional resources available from Derek Bruff posting on the 9 uses of back-channel in education which include:

Notetaking

Sharing resources

Commenting

Amplifying

Asking questions

Helping one another

Offering suggestions

Building community

Opening the classroom

Lastly consider Cliff Atkinson's new Book, The Backchannel.

Week 10 Thoughts on Chapter 5 Professional Development

Remaining active in your career development is vital to maintaining employment in all professional positions, teaching is no different.  Employment in the technical fields meant education and training plans were developed by managers to achieve the corporation’s vision for the future.  I worked for large highly technical organizations literally on the cutting edge of technology throughout the 1980 and 1990’s before moving to public education in 2000.  Professional development in corporate environment for technical staff included conferences and tradeshows attendance for exploring processes that assisted work flows in all departments.  Every major technical conference or tradeshow would require corporate representation to collected material and network with competitors and vendors on new equipment and software.  Corporations saw in technology, means to improve customer service, reduce operating costs, and a stairway to the top of their industry which provided the greatest rewards.  Corporations were actively involved learning and acquiring cost cutting technology.  Top management created the vision of the future then took the steps to make it a reality by training current staff and hiring both new and temporary staff to meet deadlines and milestones.  Education could learn something from the private sector in that area.

In 2008 Yale University hired Michael Peel as Vice President responsible for Human Resources and Administration.  Peel had plenty of experience as Vice President of General Mills Corporation for 17 years, impressive yes.  However, even more impressive is GM’s consistent appearance on the “top 100 companies to work for,” according to Fortune Magazine annual list.  Peel identifies important qualities that companies must have to be great workplaces and acknowledges Yale as a positive environment.  Peel   understands how important employee development plans are to employee job satisfaction and uses surveys to identify areas for improvement.  Kansas State researchers, Thomas Wright and Jon Wefald, found that happy employees perform better and are less likely to leave their jobs.  Wright goes on to state that happy employees are essential to achieving corporate outcomes.

Education has had more a mishmash approach to professional development.  My district’s idea of professional development is more the one size fits all approach used by schools without success.  The district has failed to unite staff, students, and parents with short and long term district goals and a plan to achieve them.  Yes, educators do develop both annual and 3 a year goals that must include a method of measurement.  Shouldn't district goals contain the same elements? We are all rowing the boat but not really going any place. This true tale explains why graduate classes are my most valued means of professional development. I can count on Plymouth staff to do as Yale has done in focusing for the long range. 

Professional development page within the above link cannot be directly referenced and is provided below for your convenience.  

Personnel 119                                           PROFESSIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES

A program of in-service training shall be established to provide an opportunity for the continuous professional and technical growth of the professional staff.

Staff members shall become knowledgeable about new developments and changes in their specialized fields, and shall utilize any new and/or improved methods in their work.

It shall be the responsibility of the Superintendent or his/her designee to implement appropriate staff development training and activities.      

Week 9 Unlocking the tool kit

Yes, please unlock it!  I have always believed that network access for teachers should never be restricted because we are the ones that design and implement lesson plans that are appropriate for our students?  It is so frustrating when you spend the time to put together materials to engage, inspire, and develop deep understanding on a topic only to experience the dreaded HTTP error 404 page not found!  We can use a proxy server like Proxapp to get around it or simply omit and push forward.  No matter, what your decision is it takes time away from the plan and disrupts the lesson flow.  This is how quick and easy it is to bypass school filtering, just watch the video.  Search you tube for how to bypass Internet or school filters to see the extensive list of suggestions. Filter bypass options can only mean that once again we have put a Band-Aid on a broken arm.  Please do not think I promote this method but, we need to face reality for many students it is a challenge that is enjoyable and frequently successful. 

or

The United States Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) intentions were to keep young citizens safe from inappropriate material.  However, the federal law is more concerned with “images” of an inappropriate nature and material that could be “harmful to children” which is basically, the words describing the images.  New Hampshire school district computer and network policy requires an acceptable use as well as inappropriate or illegal use policy.  Computer World blog post on, How Internet censorship harms schools provides great examples of issues with filters on school district networks.  This link provides information on news groups for a few popular search/webmail resources that email daily proxy sites for bypassing filters on selected sites.  My thoughts are the energy wasted that could be used for far better outcomes.  My belief is that we should be spending our time putting together great and I mean really great educational tools for digital citizenship allowing students to access sites like you tube, facebook, my space and the host of others that are blocked because of their location not for their content.

 

Why not ease into digital citizenship beginning with staff by removing all blocks and filters from staff network logins.  This would give teachers more flexibility in the classroom to select material that is current, relevant, and engaging for the students. Keep filters on for inappropriate images and “sexual related text” at the upper grades.  We can adjust content from a more open environment reducing filter management and freeing resources for computer and network support.  I believe an implementation in a slow and focused approach would be respectful of our students and their attainment of knowledge.    

Webinar with Rich Bryne of Free Technology for Teachers

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxYb4rUcbZo&feature=related

Week 9 Thoughts on Chapter 8

Chapter 8 is titled Systemic Issues or issues affecting the entire system which can be addressed and ultimately resolved in one word, technology.  Systemic issues include equity, digital divide, English Language Learners (ELL), English as a Second Language (ESL), special needs, struggling learners, special education students, blogging, podcasting, and assessment can all be addressed with technology most of the time.  Beginning with issues common to ELL, ESL, special education, special needs, struggling learners, and print disabilities are reading fluency and comprehension related problems.  

In 1998, an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, required federal agencies to make all electronic and information technology accessible to those with disabilities.  Microsoft led the way incorporating disabilities options in their Office products beginning with version 2000.  Students can listen to what is in a document, spreadsheet, or presentation using those disability options available on all Microsoft products.

Practice involves multiple repetitions; practice improves reading performance and ability.  When decoding tasks become very intense as they often do, comprehension suffers.  Using free reading programs, like read please, natural reader, and rocket reader to create a connection between what a student’s sees, and hears, improving the decoding task and comprehension.   The next step is to require all libraries to comply and provide electronic or audio aids for those who choose to use them.  All libraries should be required to activate disability options on all their computers to ensure universal access for people with disabilities. 

It is my belief that excessive special education budgets and struggling readers could be a thing of the past.  No longer will a student need to visit a resource room to have material read to them.  The real power will belong to the student, who becomes independent in their learning and has the ability to control when and where they learn.  Think of the budget dollars that just one school employing an aide for student reading, could redirect to technology.  At $60 a day {$10 per hour * 6 hours}  or almost $11,000 a year {$60 *180 days} a school could purchase a total of 55, $200 netbooks {11000/200}. 

In 2005, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor, Nicholas Negroponte, began a mission to develop a rugged, low cost, low energy laptop, to educate the world’s poorest children.  Negroponte’s vision was for every child to have a laptop and the non-profit organization, One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) was born.  The laptop designed for 3^rd world countries was anticipated to cost $100 per unit however, indestructible and improved battery and solar capabilities drove the cost to $199.  The laptop named XO is available on Amazon and will meet requirements for blogging, podcasting, and video conferencing to improve writing and learning across the curriculum.