On the technology front, I managed to get myself back into Twitter again. I use the Twhirl program to access my account. Many people scream the praises of Tweetdeck, but I just can’t use that thing efficiently or effectively. The interface reminds me of a student with ADHD — all over the place. My schedule has me in the classroom more this year, which gives less time for such endeavors like Twitter; but, I really enjoy more face time with teachers and students.
We discovered that Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) isn’t playing well with Snow Leopard, so we had to tell students to stop updating their software. This I find personally problematic because the computers belong to the students, but there really wasn’t another solution at the moment. We have a bunch of students who have account issues on the network and need to be worked out. Plus, Bruce, Greg, and I need to train the middle school and high school teachers how to use ARD, so when we return from vacation, we will hit the ground running… Not that we ever stopped running since the beginning of the year.

One of the art teachers has decided to use a blog as part of her class as a way for students to reflect on process. She got the idea from David Gran and we sat down and brainstormed some possibilities for it. I was pretty excited about this development because the three middle school departments that were having the most difficulty shifting in the past were art, music, and math. The music department made a giant leap last year and had students produce music videos to go along with their choir arrangements. Now the art department is seeing action with blogs and the math department has a new member who is keen to try some tech infusion. Awesome!

On the discipline front, I’m trying my best to be supportive of teachers and students, but sometimes both sides make it difficult. An example of this is a situation where a teacher lost a student’s assignment and later found it; but between the time of losing and finding, the student turned in a buddy’s assignment as his own. The teacher put the student in a difficult situation, but the student still made a bad choice while trying to solve his problem. Of course the student thinks the teacher is a little responsible for this situation. I addressed the issue, but was very curt with the student when pointing out that two wrongs don’t make a right. Overall the students are doing very well this year. The 6th graders have made the difficult transition from elementary to middle school and we have planned some orientation programing for next year that should smooth the transition even further. Also, many of the students are looking at ARD not as a policing threat, but as a way to help them stay on task during class. Nice!

Here is a short collection of some of the reflections I am currently working on.

1 — The Phoenix Film Festival — The festival hasn’t even happened yet, but Greg and I have thought of some improvements for next year. First, we plan to start promoting and planning from the beginning of the school year with a calendar of dates with different tasks that need to be accomplished and time frames for finishing those tasks. Greg and I want the festival to live beyond our time at KIS, so this type of planning is necessary for the future of the festival. Second, we plan to offer clubs at the middle and high school levels, so student can begin to take over the process. After all, it is their festival. Third, we plan to reflect on the festival once it is over.

2 — Recent communication — I had an unfortunate communication with one of my colleagues recently where I inappropriately communicated my frustration with a situation involving a duty schedule for our parent-teacher conferences. Due to the great demands on my time as the Dean of Students and the Technology Integration Specialist, I try to plan ahead at least one or two weeks in advance so I can focus my time correctly. Robin Schneider, my principal, had came up with a great idea of having a showcase of digital work done by students on display during the conferences. Sadly, his idea came the week before the conferences, but because I felt the idea was great, I told him we should move ahead with the plan. It required me to collect a lot of student artifacts in a very short period of time and then compile those artifacts into presentations. We looked down the road at what else was coming and saw the Middle Matters staring us in the face. At that point we both felt that it was manageable because during conferences I could work on the layout of the Middle Matters. On Wednesday, the beginning of the conferences, I received an email with a duty schedule for the conferences. I was surprised to find that I was listed on the duty schedule with 12 hours (four hours per day) of supervision duty during the conferences. Instead of taking a deep breath and counting to ten, I exploded and shot off one of those emails that you aren’t supposed to write when you are angry. I have apologized to Jamie Otis, but still can’t believe my own behavior. We all make mistakes and the best thing to do is to admit the mistake and apologize to the appropriate people. In addition to my unprofessional response, I do feel that the problem highlights one of the major concerns at the school — time lines and planning. Why was the duty schedule handed out on Wednesday morning of the conferences? It should be out at least one week before the required work so people can plan accordingly. This doesn’t excuse my behavior, but it does place a framework around it.

3 — KIS Podcast and KIS YouTube Channel — Both are off and running and the important point now is momentum. We need to continue interviewing teachers, students, and administration about the 1:1 program for the podcast and continue uploading student samples to the YouTube channel.

4 — Discipline — I am currently trying my best to add a guiding and mentoring approach to our behaviorist/control discipline policies. This is an example of merging two philosophies together to make a livable situation for everyone concerned. Our school-wide discipline approach is very much from the behaviorist philosophy of education — a system of rules and punishments. My personal philosophy is more to the guidance or constructivist approach, so each major discipline case is coming with some serious discussion of appropriate behavior and what can be learned from the situation. I’m feeling better about the situation, and the students involved so far seem to leave the room feeling better about receiving discipline.

Reflection is an important part of education and we must all engage in it.