- Skunkworks Learning Labs Launched
- Joint Presentation at SLATE 2017 at the NIU Conference Center in partnership with Professor Jeremy Hajek and Louis McHugh
- Named FLGI Top 100 K-12 Teachers Worldwide by the Flipped Learning Global Initiative.
- Partnership with Illinois Institute of Technology renewed entering 6th(!) year for NxtGen Learning Lab
- Over 1.2+ million individual quiz question attempts delivered 1st Quarter alone on LearningCentral.info (holy guacamole Batman!)!!! Productive powerhouse work horse learning platform for delivering meaningful, targeted formative assessments!
- Creative use of platform's advanced quiz engine--for example, AP Environmental Science has freed up over 3 weeks(!) of their curriculum delivering summative chapter exams leveraging platform to open up class time for active learning activities, and some Physics classes have moved to mastery learning where students can work on every major assignment until 100% is achieved, or retake unit exams!!!
- Pilot teachers trained and delivering advanced formative assessments including drag n drop interactions, dynamic calculated questions, CLOZE question types, and adaptive quizzing mode (complete with specific, meaningful real-time feedback) for powerful formative assessments to embrace the "teachable moment" when mistakes are made to uncover common misconceptions and to help construct and build understanding
- Develop and deploy batch enrollment tool in partnership with John Williams for GoGuardian (click for more info)
- Research, retool, deploy, and test batch enrollment tool with John Williams for rapid batch enrollment and grouping of students for teachers to quickly enroll and group students within their courses, or to make new groupings for advanced tools and pedagogy including TBL (Team Based Learning) and the Active Quiz plugin developed at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and Teaching & Research Application Development
- Productive brainstorming meetings with Physical Education to listen to needs of department and practical ideas to help department--hope to pilot effective blended learning by deploying State mandated Red Cross CPR / AED training using best-of-class tools for certification, formative assessments, and detailed tracking / analytics.
- Launched test of new Google Sites for Physical Education department for courses, department teams, and athletic clubs
- Research, prototype, and deploy in conjunction with Dave Lapetino and Andy Daniak the newly released Vernier's Graphical Analysis 4 for Chromebooks app in order to use GoMotion probeware in the science lab for data collection in preparation for next year's 1:1 Chromebook roll out
- Research, prototype, and troubleshoot in conjunction with Dave Lapetino and Andy Daniak using RollApp.com, a cloud based service to run apps in the cloud using client virtualization technology. We were able to get Tracker, an open-source digital video analysis package developed by Professor Doug Brown at Cabrillo College that uses Java to run on Windows, Mac, or Linux. Using RollApp.com's virtualization technology allowed us to run Tracker on our student Chromebooks with connected cloud storage via Google Drive--making analyzing high speed motion capture seamless for our students by simply uploading a slow motion video clip of athletic action (e.g. shooting a free throw or doing a back flip) to their Drive accounts!
- Completed Google Sites Verification process for all 3 production servers for enhanced security
- Completed Google Cloud Platform/API Trust & Safety OAuth Client verification process (major pain in the wazoo!)
- Over 2.7+ million(!) individual quiz question attempts delivered as of 2/6/18! Productive powerhouse work horse learning platform for delivering meaningful, targeted formative assessments!
- Over 45+ active courses supported on NxtGen pilot servers, including team taught courses with several hundred students--over 3,000+ active users supported!
- Collaborated with Robyn Corelitz and Gina Chandler in the English Department for the school-wide "Tell Your Story" live storytelling event (theme of "current") featuring student art work, live music, snacks served by the FACS department, and an interactive virtual drum kit connected to coffee tins, a slinky, and bananas using a MakeyMakey circuit board for students to beat box, an interactive plasma globe, a high voltage Jacob's ladder, and a homemade "Run the Red Devil" Steady Hands Circuit Challenge!
- Support District roll-out and March Institute Day training of Canvas--successful presentation with the one and only Steve Moore in spite of setbacks (detention classroom not setup for presentation, projector not working and spare projector not initially available for first two sessions, etc.). Developed solution during sessions to successfully help World Language teacher's embed Google Docs "cleanly" in Canvas, as well as Google Drive folders in Canvas. (Go TEAMWORK!)
- Pilot test and wrote up practical guide on using the fantastic Google Class Shared Folder Creator add on paired with John Williams super-handy RosterConvert tool
- Working in collaboration with Andy Daniak and Eric Shade , we have developed, deployed, and successfully tested our own D86 Secure Exam App as a complete turn-key solution for securely delivering assessments on both Chromebooks, Windows, and Mac devices. Special thanks to Colin Matheson at Carmel Unified School District and Butch Wilson at WilsonWorks Technology Consulting for their help in developing our app.
- Partnership with Illinois Institute of Technology renewed entering 5th(!) year for NxtGen Learning Lab
- LearningCentral.info, ActiveLearning.info, and PhysicsCentral.info upgraded to modern Moodle 3.2 with the latest innovative Snap 3.2 User Interface with new teacher training, course deployment, and rapid student enrollments
- Successfully contacted and collaborated with developer Frederic Massart from Perth, Australia to test, debug, and give feedback on his phenomenal Stash plugin set for gamification of courses--has huge potential for teachers to get really creative with their courses!
- Successfully deployed SSO (Single Sign On) to LMS (Learning Management System) platform via Google's Open Authentication protocol. Successfully completed Developer API Console requirements and hacked(!) PHP code to allow login from Home Page.
- Upgraded all servers to secure HTTPS / SSL encrypted connections for modern security standards and HTTP2 connections for optimized network traffic and scaling
- Successfully worked with science teachers to research, test, and deploy sophisticated quiz questions that pass variables between questions, allowing successful scaffolding assignments to be built with immediate feedback and dynamic feedback for powerful formative, carefully scaffolded assessments.
- MASSIVE backend / technical upgrades to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, PHP7.0, php-fpm, Nginx, MariaDB (benchmarked performance is 4x faster than original pilot servers!)--ready to scale & deliver! (HUGE break through--I had previously failed over 12-15 times!!!)
- Successfully worked in collaboration with the support of Lisa Fernandez, Tim Hohman, Tom Thomen, and Andy Daniak to prototype, test, and deploy a proof-of-concept server on District infrastructure our OWN, internal LMS server: LearningCentral Skunkworks (this is HUGE!).
- Started Learning Revolution blog in collaboration with Gina Gagliano and Jim Vetrone to support them in their journey to experiment with flipped / blended learning in their 4th quarter(!) AP Physics 2 and Statistics courses. Mentor and support Gina and Jim during their brave venture 4th quarter to embrace new models of learning using 21st century tools and pedagogy.
- Successfully worked with Kerrin Riley to set up LTI keys and integration with Turnitin.com for anti-plagiarism detection and seamless integration for BOTH Canvas and Moodle. Researched, prototyped, and tested with pilot student and teacher accounts assignments passing back and forth between systems as well as gradebook integration.
- Completed Flipped Learning Certification Level I
- Helped contact and vet vendors during extensive LMS search meetings for contract pricing, bids, and feature comparison.