Rick's Blog

We ALL can benefit from digital citizenship reminders

For quite come time now, I think I can safely say digital citizenship is something I have been quite passionate about. I have presented locally, regionally, and at state and international levels on the topic. I have been lucky enough to develop a strong digital citizenship PLN consisting of many experts in the field, and have the pleasure of having countless discussions with people on the topic of digital citizenship. I recognize that my views on the subject are sometimes a bit outlandish, but that's the dreamer in me.

I bring this up because I found myself in two separate situations recently, each with its own applications of digital citizenship. More importantly, it was a chance for me to practice what I preach on the topic. What I learned having gone through each situation was interesting.

The first situation arose shortly after ISTE. A fellow interwebber made a comment regarding the composition of many of the panel seessions, and how the review teams, as well as ISTE in general, could make it a point of having panels be more inclusive. My "digcit" senses started tingling, and I knew the first decision was whether to respond or not. Seeing as I did not take the post as a personal attack, and instead a chance to have an impactful conversation on the topic of equity, I decided to respond. The next gear to engage was the "re-read everything" gear, as in read the original post multiple times before responding and re-read by response multiple times before posting. It was clear that the lack of non-verbals and voice tone would present some hurdles that would require careful navigation. In the end, I think things wrapped up well; I was made aware of influences I may have, along with possible ways I can help insure equity, and this conversation gave me the opportunity to practice many of the digital citizenship skills I often talk about with both students and teachers.

The second situation was more of a gut check for me. I was at another conference when I was put on blast by a significantly younger interwebber. I thought this individual was more than likely trolling me for a response, however, there was a chance there may be something greater behind the call out. I chose to ask the individual a follow up question, trying to be as straight-forward and non-confrontational as possible. I assumed the result would be one of two options:

1. The interwebber would lash out with some foolish response that did more damage to them than any words I could muster
2. There would be no response, proving the interwebber was really just trolling for emotional responses.

To my surprise, the result was neither of these two: I was met with a clear, well thought out response that gave us the opportunity to have a real discussion on what education looks like today.

Where's the gut check?

Right at the start of all this, it took more effort than I would like to admit to NOT unload on this interwebber. Keeping in mind that that would be the response they may have been looking for, and I know it's best not to feed that beast. I have lost count of the different ways I've tried to message to students "you don't have to respond"... and yet, here I was struggling with that exact situation myself. Despite preaching the good word, I still needed to take a minute to make sure I was practicing what I preach.

These two "situations" really provided me with an opportunity to reflect on my own digital citizenship practices; and make it more than just lip service. Additionally, I was reminded of the importance of student efficacy. I truly believe that if we give our students the opportunity to shine, they will meet and exceed our expectations. I'm also a realist, knowing that some individuals may choose to make "less than optimal decisions". But then again, I have to ask myself... is my expectation that my students will succeed, or that they might fail?

Either way, they will meet my expectations.

As we go forward, let's be mindful that it's not always "the kids" that need to work on digital citizenship, and it's not "the parents" who need work on digital citizenship... we ALL can continue to work on it. Let's all be good humans :-)

ISTE 2019 - Post decompression

Holy cow. My hopes for documenting each day were quickly nixed, and it took a little longer than I was expecting to decompress and reflect.... more on that later. There was so much going on at that conference, and I was able to take away some really awesome things with Adobe Spark from a session with Claudio Zavala Jr., and some awesome augmented reality and virtual reality ideas from sessions with Jaime Donally (free free to reference the notes I was keeping attached to the June 25 post below). I was also able to connect with lots of amazing educators from within my current PLN (mainly on Twitter) along with finding some new additions.

While there were some new and neat ed tech things that came up in the sessions I attended, I think the bigger take away from ISTE this year revolved around the idea of physical/mental health.... right, at a tech conference?

Typically when I go to a conference, I try to find at least one session to attend in each time block and take LOTS of notes. This got me into some trouble this year. While this was not my first ISTE conference, the experience can still be overwhelming. I fall into my typical "ALL THE SESSIONS!" mode especially at a conference like ISTE for, what I believe to be, a few reasons:

1. This is my chance to learn so I need to take advantage of the time as much as possible.
2. Let's just call out the elephant in the room... FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out)... What if I don't go to that session, and it's the magical one?!
3. If I don't go to as many sessions as possible, I feel like I'm doing a disservice to all those teachers who aren't fortunate enough to attend an event like this.

It caught up to me. In reflecting, I've described it as: "I was overwhelmed by Monday afternoon, but didn't realize it until Tuesday afternoon", and by then the damage was done. I couldn't keep a clear thought stream, I felt like the epitome of "Ooooooh! SHINY!", and quite frankly I wasn't happy. There were so many things I wanted to try, so many things I wanted to work on/experiment with while my inspiration was on high.... but I had other sessions I "needed" to attend. I felt torn.

Taking a bit of a gamble, I decided to forgo my afternoon sessions in favor of some reflection/decompression time. Keep in mind that this decision happened around 2:30 that afternoon... so if had been a very full day. Here are a series of tweets I sent out after having some time to think:

In the end, it's like the phrase "it's not the hours you put in, it's what you put in to the hours". It's possible to hit a ton of sessions, take gobs of notes, and potentially have a bazillion new ideas.... but be mindful of the depth of knowledge you will have. In addition to that, if you're running yourself so ragged you may not have the same cognitive load capabilities, and possibly even stifle your creative problem solving skills. For me, I would rather know a smaller number of things at a deeper level, and think about how to apply them in new/different ways rather than have a shallow level understanding of a lot of things.

I know I've heard some people say that sometimes we, as humans (specifically educators), feel like we need permission to do things that others may see as common place. So here we go. I give you permission to take care of yourself. You are more than welcome to attend as many, or as few, sessions as you see fit. If you have something super cool you want to work on and your creative vibes are flowing... go find a place to sit and work that out; it's ok. Go find some of your PLN and have a chat with them. You do you.

I've joked with a few other educators that I am just now getting to the point where I can start reflecting on all the things I learned at ISTE and start playing around with them.... just in time to head to another conference, SchoologyNEXT. The good news is I am more comfortable about managing my time, and taking the time to reflect and connect. I'm really excited not only for the opportunities that NEXT can provide, but also this "new outlook" on conferences. Stay tuned for more!

ISTE 2019 - Day 1

What a jam packed day! Started the day around 8am and didn't stop moving until around 10pm... and I'm not complaining! There were a bunch of really awesome sessions: Google Tips, hidden Google stuff, augmented reality, and Google slides. Of course I want to share my notes with you all, so please check out my shared notes at the bottom of this post.

One of my biggest take aways from today was a session on Going beyond the slide show with Google Slides, facilitated by Eric Curts. It's amazing what being in a different room with different people can do to change your brain state. Don't get me wrong, I truly value the team I work with; they are amazingly talented people. But there is a problem I've been trying to work around regarding manipulatives and Google Slides for between 6 months and a year. In the first 15 minutes of Eric's session I had a spark of how to resolve that issue... and I was so jazzed, it's crazy. There was a ton of other great information shared in that session, and I am super excited to implement a lot of what Eric shared... but that first 15 minutes made my day.... potentially my conference. I'm not trying to withhold information... I'll post that solution over on my Ed Tech Tips page (July 2nd post).

While that solution was an awesome experience, there was another piece that really made me step back and think. I talked in my previous post that we, as teachers, can often forget that we can still be learners... and this session was a great example of that. Here is Eric Curts, an expert on creative uses for Slides (along with many other Google products), and while the focus of the presentation is for him to share some of his knowledge, he is more than open to the idea of learning from the session participants. Thank you for that.

ISTE 2019 - Day "0"

Well, it has begun! ISTE 2019 in Philly. One of my favorite things about attending events such as ISTE is the ability to connect with many members of my PLN, and meet and learn from a host of others. There are so many changes to learn from not only the people facilitating sessions, but also from people you have conversations with outside the sessions. Waiting in line for a session, or for food or coffee is the perfect time to get to know some people... you never know who you might run into and what they may be able to offer you!

My colleague and I presented a session today on Digital Citizenship. The presentation offers an account of how we helped launch the digital citizenship initiative in our districts, taking it from occurring within pockets of the district to being a more comprehensive, embedded practice. The start of our session is designed to provide teachers with the "why" regarding digital citizenship and the second half looks at resources and strategies for embedding digital citizenship into the classroom.

Our session provided a chance for the participants to engage in great conversations with us, and each other. I look forward to the results of the feedback surveys from our session, but our participants expressed to us the session was valuable to them. I can also say that we learned from them as well. Some of our participants shared their own experiences and best practices regarding digital citizenship, and my colleague and I look forward to reflecting on those suggestions, and seeing how we can improve our practice based on them.

That's something I think we can often forget... even when we "know" something, we can always learn something. As I teacher, I became really comfortable with the notion that I held all the information and my job was to impart it onto the students. There are a few problems with this model: 1) It doesn't allow students to naturally develop and explore their curiosity. 2) It makes the teacher comfortable with the idea that they aren't learning. I've been working a lot this year on the idea that I can always learn things. I've always recognized that there is significantly more that I do NOT know compared to that which I DO know... but my attitude didn't always reflect that. I'm really looking forward to this summer as there are two conferences I have the opportunity to attend, and the potential for learning at both of these is huge!

The purpose/hope of this blog is to chronicle/document my journey with these two conferences, and the reflection that follows... with any luck, it will keep going. Here's to the learning!