Episode Topic: Danae Acker and Ashley Pursley are joined by David Kelly, former Instructional Technologist in Berkeley County School District.

Introduction

In early March of 2020 the DIS traveled to Berkeley County for the Innovation Summit Conference. While we were there, we met up with Mister David Kelly to talk about Bigger Dreamer Productions, social media, and professional books. I had the opportunity to work alongside Mr. Kelly as an instructional technologist in Berkeley County, which is similar to our DIS position here in Anderson District 5. He made such an impact on my work there that Danae and I wanted to bring his perspective and expertise to our listeners. The recording of this podcast episode actually fell on March 12, which as we all know too well was right before we all went on quarantine. I say that because our focus turned away from the podcast as we worked to support our teachers and students in their new learning environments. So, we’re bringing you into the conversation almost a year later because it was a great discussion! If you’re wondering what Mr. Kelly is up to now, he is currently working as the 6th grade administrator at Greer Middle School in Greenville County. Let's get to the episode!

Today we’ve traveled to Goose Creek, SC to attend the Berkeley County School District Innovation Summit, and we are joined by David Kelly, an innovative learning coordinator in the district. Mr. Kelly taught 2 years in the 4th grade classroom, 1 year in 5th grade, and was a Digital Resource Coach in Orangeburg County. He’s been a school tech coach and now serves Berkeley County School District in a greater capacity as one of the district’s innovative learning coordinators.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I'm originally from Nashville, Tennessee, a graduate of Claflin University and the Call Me Mister program. I taught forth and fifth grade for a couple of years in Orangeburg County and was a tech coach there. Then I came to Berkeley County as a tech coach and I've been in my current role of Innovative Learning Coordinator (formerly known as Instructional Technologist) for the last three years.

What do you do as an Innovative Learning Coordinator?

I serve eight schools by helping the teachers with implementing different innovative practices in the classroom and assisting administrators with different ways to utilize innovative technologies throughout their schools.

You used the word innovative. How would you define innovation?

Innovation is thinking outside of the box. It's taking what's there in the old and making it new and better.

When you're making something new, does it have to be a thing or can it be an idea?

Either. You can take the idea, instruction for example, the old idea of instruction is the teachers stands at the front of the classroom talking at the students. An innovative flip on it could be to incorporate personalized learning strategies. Instead of the teacher functioning as the sage on a stage, he/she can become the facilitator. The students start taking ownership of their learning; they become empowered to learn how they learn. Their interests are implemented into the instruction and the learning is more student-centered. We've taken the old idea of instruction and used personalized learning to make it new and more effective.

How do you empower teachers to do that?

This year is Berkeley County's exploration year. We're getting our feet wet, trying out new strategies to see what works and what doesn't. I've been working with a lot of teachers (elementary, middle, and high) to see what works in their different settings, with their different students, in their different content areas. I encourage risk taking and capitalize on opportunities for failure.

That would take a lot of risk taking. How do you encourage risk taking and capitalize on opportunities to fail forward?

Teachers don't like to take a lot of risks. I was working with some math teachers, for example. Math teachers want it cut and dry; it is right or it is wrong. One of their told me the other day, "Thank you for being here to support me because for us, we needed to know whether it was right or wrong." What I was able to do for them was let them know there is not right or wrong; there is not failure really with personalized learning. Even if it doesn't look the way you wanted it to look, let's look at the positives. What worked? What didn't work? How can we improve? Chance the Rapper says in one of his songs, "Turn those Ls into Lessons". When we think we're losing, we've got to reframe the lens to see where we are learning.

Your definition of innovation aligns with what's found in George Couros's The Innovator's Mindset . What is currently on your bookshelf?

One of my resolutions for 2020 was to read twenty-four books this year, so just two a month. I'm already on book six. The last book I just finished was the 21 Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell, and it was powerful. Being in leadership, it's good to reflect on some of these strategies and see how you are practicing these different leadership skills. The next book that I have to read is the 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. Another great book I just finished reading is called Multipliers by Liz Wiseman. It's about how we usually like to take something that's not working and add to it to make it better. Instead of adding to it, we can use the law of multiplication to take what we have and be more effective by multiplying what's there. For example, some teams may want to add more people to the team if they see that we're not reaching enough people or that we're not being effective enough. But, instead of doing that let's see how we can reach into what we already have and multiply the talents that are already there to be more effective. She looked to apply her ideas to different business and education scenarios.

It sounds like most of the things you are reading are more of personal development that has ties into your job. Outside of your job, you have an endeavor called Bigger Dreamer Productions. Tell us a little about that and its evolution.

I'll tell you what it is now and then how it got there. Now, we have three main goals.:

1. To empower youth to see what they can be. For that we provide them with different entrepreneurial experiences and real world work experiences. This gives the youth the opportunity to work in an apprenticeship to see themselves in the job they think they want to do. This allows them a low-risk opportunity to figure out if that's the job for them, unlike people my age who went to college and then had to get to work to figure out that this isn't what I want to do.

2. To support teachers through resources and professional development.

3. To educate the communities because it takes a village to nurture the next generation.

Bigger Dreamer Productions all started when I got the vision in my freshman year of college. I actually wanted to start off with a sports league to give students the opportunity to play sports together for free. The idea grew from there over the last fourteen years. As I expanded and my passions have grown, so has the idea of Bigger Dreamer Productions.

You said that the mission of Bigger Dreamer Productions is to empower students, teachers, and the community. Can you give us some specific examples?

For teachers, we do giveaways and have purchased some things off of Amazon wish lists. We have been able to support educational companies who go to conferences. We have created songs to utilize music in the classroom. I started making music in the classroom during my first year of teaching. The story behind that is, at Thanksgiving break, I was driving home to Nashville from Orangeburg, SC, a nice little eight hour drive, and I was thinking, "I don't know what's going to happen when we get back." I was feeling defeated. Then there was a song that came on, and I got hyped and remembered every word to the song even though it's been twelve years since I had heard it. I started thinking, "hey, we remember song lyrics; when stuff is put to a beat, it makes it so easy for us to remember it." So, I sat there in the car for the rest of the ride home and started writing out the first song that we have. I then turned my classroom into a recording studio. My first class we recorded a whole album just for social studies content. We had an album-release party, and we invited the rising fourth graders. Now, the next year, that's what the kids expected. It was good; we had fun making music videos and things like that because that was what the students were interested in. I was even able to turn it over to them and make them the directors. I taught them how to use Green Screen before it was easy on the iPad. Every group had their own video to work on and each person in the group had their own role and task. All I had to do was be the facilitator, and I was there for support. I was able to teach the content through something my students and I were passionate about. It's funny because I would see them taking the PASS test and they would just start dancing and looking around. In my head, I was like, what are they doing? but then I saw what they were mouthing and I understood. I actually had a parent come in during field day and she said she actually listened to the CD more than the kid did. You can hear some of the content we created on our website.

Our website is in the works at BiggerDreamerProductions.com. You can follow us on Instagram @biggerdreamerproductions and you can follow me on Twitter @Mister_Kelly.

Speaking of social media, you've developed quite a following. How does this following and social media impact the work that you do?

Twitter for education is a great platform for ideas to be shared, to connect and network with like-minded people, so a lot of ideas that I've implemented have come from people on Twitter. I've been able to connect with people on Twitter and go to conferences and present with them! It's crazy, when you're following someone on Twitter and then you meet them at a conference, it's like, "hey, I know you!" You really feel like you know this person, like you have a genuine connection there.

What are some ways to develop those connections on Twitter besides just clicking the follow button?

Taking part in Twitter Chats helps a lot because here you get to have these conversations with people to figure out how they think and how you're similar. You could even reply to what they post in your stream. It's important to open the lines and develop that two-way communication instead of just lurking on Twitter. Be an active participant in your learning.

Transitioning from the college "you" on social media into the professional "you" on social media can be a struggle. When you become a professional, it's time to re-brand yourself. Can you talk to us a little about how to do that?

Actually, it helped me a lot when one of my mentors used to tell me, "Dress or act like the position you want, not where you are now." So, I had to go do a lot of purging of my posts. I didn't want it to be what people saw when they looked at me because I wanted them to see where I wanted to be. That was step one: take it all out; purge social media. After that, you have to start asking yourself, "Would my future employer be okay with this?" when you do get ready to post. Some things that I would post are the sharing of ideas and positivity. What you put out is what you get back, so it's important to project positivity and promote others.

We've talked a lot about tips for newbies to Twitter, but what are some sparks for someone who's been on Twitter and has been inactive? What ideas do you have for them to get back into the networking and sharing of ideas?

Join a Twitter chat to guide you on a topic and connect you with people automatically who are on the same wavelength. There are different types of Twitter chats. The standard chat has a moderator who posts questions that participants respond to using the same hashtag. An example of this type of chat that happens every Tuesday is called Teach SC. It's teachers from across the state that respond to questions around a certain topic. Then you have a slow chat that takes multiple days. The questions are already posted and people respond as they see fit. Another idea to reignite the fire for Twitter is to follow a specific hashtag. Find what you are passion about, search the hashtag, and you'll see people posting ideas; you can connect with those people and you can post yourself.

What are some of those hashtags you have found to be most inspirational?

#TeachSC is a great general hashtag that people from all over the state use to post different ideas. #LoveSCschools is another good one from SCASCD. Actually I'm part of the 2019-2020 SCASCD Emerging Leader Cohort and we created one called #emergED2lead.

Here we are at the end of the podcast, and we've appreciated our time together. What final thoughts do you have for our audience?

Live without fear. Take those chances. Don't be too afraid to step outside the box if you see it's what's best for your students.