Educational Leadership & Technology » technology

End of Another School Year

tsbray — Thu, 28 May 2009 00:08:20 +0000

Well it is time to say goodbye to another school year, but I think 08-09 will be one I remember for a very long time. It was an action packed year for me as I learned the ropes of administration and worked closely with teachers to encourage and support their use of technology. The list of achievements for the Technology Integration Specialists at KIS is quite impressive:

First ever Phoenix Film Festival
First ever Korea International School podcast
First ever Korea International School Youtube channel
First ever Technology Showcase
Development of the Middle Matters KIS MS publication for parents
Several on going Wiki projects like our technology sharing wiki and middle school advisory wiki
Not to mention the countless hours spent planning and supporting teachers

I feel like it was been a productive year with technology. Teachers are trying new things in the classroom and students are making amazing collaborative projects with technology. It is actually working!

Apple Leadership Summit and Phoenix Film Festival

tsbray — Mon, 11 May 2009 03:02:26 +0000

It has been a busy couple of weeks, which is my excuse for not blogging more this time… But, seriously, it has been crazy busy! I went to the Apple Leadership Summit in Hong Kong and listened to some amazing presenters discuss the improtance of shifting education and bringing it into the 22nd century (I’m not writing 21st century anymore, because we should strive to be head of the game and not behind). John Couch, vice president of education for Apple, Tom Kelley, manager of IDEO, Marko Torres, and several other educators shared the stage to impress educational leaders that it is time to move or go the way of the T-Rex. It was a huge honor to present at a conference with such giant names in educationa and innovation. There were several ADEs from my 2008 class in Singapore, so it was a wonderful chance to catch up and check in with everyone.

Also the Phoenix Film Festival finished its first ever awards ceremony on April 30th in the PAC at Korea International School. Greg Israel and I would like to congratulate and thank all the students and teachers who were involved in the process. We’d also like to thank Apple, Korea for donating 9 iPod Nanos to the event and the KIS administration and PTO for ponying up the money for the other Nanos. We had 31 films from five countries and seven different schools. The winners list can be viewed on the Youtube channel as well as the awards ceremony.

Commandment #3: Fill the “buckets”…

tsbray — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 03:46:38 +0000

The third commandment is to “Fill the “buckets” of others. Talk to them in such a way as to increase their self-esteem.” Amen, brothers and sisters! Seriously, how much extra effort is needed to add something complimentary or kind in a discussion? It costs you nothing and means the world to the other person. In the discipline game it is quite essential. Sometimes you need to break a person down in order to get them to admit to a mistake, but after the tearing down, there must be a building up. Students who admit mistakes and seek to correct them need to be complimented for the action; even if it takes some work on your part to acquire the statement of guilt. It is a mark of integrity when a person owns their part of a mistake, and it shouldn’t go unnoticed. When students come to my office for discipline or as part of an investigation, they need to know that I will treat them firm, yet fair; with gentle respect, yet with high standards. I think I have pulled this off in most cases. I’m not perfect and I have made my share of mistakes, but I believe most students leave my office feeling like they were dealt with fairly. When I see them in the hallway or cafeteria, they harbor no malice or ill feelings toward me, which I think is a pretty good sign. I always try to make the final message that no one thinks any less of them as a person for making a mistake, but that part of being an adult is to take responsibility and accept the consequences — but learn from the situation. I don’t have to leave them feeling better about the situation, I could simply hand out the punishment and move on, but where is the learning in that way? How is another person’s bucket filled with that way?

As the Technology Integration Specialist I need to help a lot of teachers who often feel very uncomfortable with the technology. I make sure to compliment what they of accomplished and I point out the wonderful work I see the students doing. This helps them try more and to adventure further into the waters of technology as a vehicle for teaching and learning. Again, I could have a pragmatic approach — time is money and the extra time and care really doesn’t pay off in the end, but I know that isn’t true with teachers who are experimenting with new ideas. Compliments pay off bigger dividends than the cost required to give them; not to mention the fact that is the human thing to do.

Asia ADE Conference 2008

tsbray — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 00:31:43 +0000

ADE Day One:

I’ve been thinking about what a great activity Yes, And was yesterday. It really does put people into a different mind-set and allow some more creative and original thinking. I want to return to Korea International School and do the activity with the middle school team. This is the first year of 1:1 in the middle school, but the teachers are really trying new ideas in the classroom, which is wonderful to see.

I feel very comfortable with the project my group is in the process of fleshing out. Cultural Perspectives was such s great topic to begin with because there are some many directions people can go with it. And as a group we did a great job narrowing the subject to something workable and realistic. Very excited to get started on it!

I’ve also enjoyed the overall positive attitude of the whole conference and attendees; what a great group of people to be with!

ADE Day Two: iShop, Web 2.0, Mission Impossible!

Day two continued the energy from day one with another amazing activity and a chance to meet in Singapore’s iShop. If I had a $10,000 to spend at will, it would have been gone quickly at the iShop; but, what really made the day was the Mission Impossible activity which required us to get into new collaborative groups and wandered through downtown Singapore to solve a murder mystery treasure hunt. Our group needed to take photos of downtown locations and report to “supervisors,” who were located around different places of importance. At each stop, we needed to gather evidence and use it to produce our own version of the murder. Once we made all of the five stops, we rushed back to the iShop to assembly the photos, film clips, and sound bites into one podcast that explained the entire murder scene and the events leading up to the horrible event. Our group discovered that it was Gilbert, one of the Apple managers, who committed the dastardly deed. Another great day of team work and playing with computers.

ADE Day Three: Exploring Singapore!

Back on day one, near the end of the day moments before we broke for dinner, David Gran, David Larson, Mikey McKillip and myself formed a group under the project category Cultural Perspectives. At first we brainstormed about culture and different elements of culture and how we could see all those different elements very clearly in Singapore due to its rich history of multiculturalism. It was either Mikey or David G. who mentioned that the first thing he does when he wants to travel to another country is check out information of about the local cuisine. Then we discussed how recipes from a country tell a person a ton about the culture and history of the place. For example, Singapore has four main influences, Malay, Chinese, Indian, and Eurasian, which can be clearly seen, or tasted in this case, in the local dishes. An idea was born! On the morning of day two, David G. came to breakfast with the idea for the name — iTooth: The Educational Food Revolution.

Which finally brings us to day three, our chance to eat our way through Singapore. We stopped at food stalls from different areas of the city: Little India, the Arab district, Chinatown, and various Malay wet markets. Unfortunately, I had to surrender early in the day to the eating due to a horrible churning in my stomach. Usually I have an ironclad constitution, but something from the day before was playing hacky-sack with my innards; plus, it was very humid and hot outside, which didn’t help the situation at all, and finally, by 10:00 I had drank more coffee than I usually consume in three days and eat more than I usually consume in an entire day. But I fought through the pain to provide moral support to the boys in their gastric adventures. It requires mentioning that Mikey is an inhuman eating machine; honestly, the guy must have a hollow leg or something, because at every location he ate a massive amount of food and always seemed prepared for more. Strong work, Mikey!

ADE Day Four: Project Work Day!

The conference was wonderful because of all the time that was built in for collaboration with other teachers and a fantastic example of that was the two back-to-back days of project work — outside to gather data and inside to build content and organize. It makes for awesome results in teacher creativity and collaboration and I think the projects that all of the group projects produced display this fact. Also, I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to work in than David Gran, David Larson, and Mikey McKillip who are gifted teachers, technology advocates, and simply funny guys. I really enjoyed our two full days of working together. It was so nice to have a group of people with a can-do attitude and a sense of humor. Thanks guys! It was a pleasure.

ADE Day Five: Presentations!

Truly an amazing day for education! Each one of the presentations displayed such wonderful inquiry-based learning that uses technology. Sharing these products with our home schools and the educational community at large is very important. Use the wiki, use the Ning, and use ALI to continue sharing and building. I also learned about Google Sketch Up which appears to be an amazing educational tool.

KORCOS Follow Up

tsbray — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:13:09 +0000

The day of the conference came and went, and, as usual, I met very wonderful and enthusiastic teachers who all want to learn new methods of teaching; exploring new possibilities with student learning and finding new ways to reach all students. During the Job-a-Like session, I facilitated a discussion about technology use in the classroom. Great questions came up and people seemed to get a lot out of the conversation that went on in the room. During my afternoon session, a smaller group discussed the reason for metacognitive activities and how podcasting and vodcasting could be used to help students think and process their learning. I also attended a session on Comic Life (you can download a free 30-day trial here) and learned that I wasn’t the only teacher to see the educational applications of the program. Finally, I closed out my day with a session about becoming an administrator for DOD schools; although it was focused on advancement within the DOD structure, there was excellent advice for professional and career development.

Several of the people I met at KORCOS asked for follow up information, so this post will be providing some extra information for those folks.

For those interested in the potential of a wikispace you can check out any of the following sites:

Ms. Digges Yearbook Wiki Good beginning wiki by a teacher who is new to using Wikispaces.

Mr. Brightman and Mr. Bray’s World Literature Page 2007-08 You can track the evolution of our skill with a Wiki over the previous school year. Includes examples of student writing, podcasting, collaborative exercises and movies.

Mr. Spivey’s Social Studies Wiki Here is a shameless plug for my friend and colleague — this is the third most edited Wiki in the world. Seriously! His wiki is basically the way his class works. You can find examples of just about any type of student work involving technology.

If you aren’t nesscessarily interested in wikis, but want see examples of student movies, vodcasts, or podcasts the following will be helpful.

These is from a project where my students used the play A Doll’s House to make a modern adaptions. They were only given five minutes of actual movie time (doesn’t include title, credits, and outtakes).

Stuffed Happiness Overall concept of this film was great. Very original and creative work; especially how the one girl plays two different roles by use of camera angles.

A Pet’s Life The opening film segment where the girl is primping her hair and the boy looks up at her in shakes his head from the background is a brilliant shot. That moment is a wonderful example of digital story telling; without even one word spoken, we understand the relationship and the two characters.

Rat Race Another one that overall hit the nail on the head. A little melodramatic, but it works.

The following examples are first time efforts with metacognition about the writing process and using vodcasts and podcasts.

English Seminar Scroll down the page and click on student names to find different examples of podcasts and vodcasts.

Hopefully everyone will find a little something that will make that inspiration spark for lesson planning. If you have further questions, want to contact me for support, or want to get together and discuss technology and teaching just email me at tsbray@internationalteacher.info.

Learning 2.008 Conference, Shanghai, China

tsbray — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:35:17 +0000

Over the Chusok holiday (sort a Korean Thanksgiving), I was able to travel to China for a little vacation and some professional development. Overall the Learning 2.008 conference was a major success with teachers, administrators, vendors, and tech-geeky types of all walks of life. Clear back in February the conference developed a Ning site for exchange of information, networking, and sharing. Two things I truly love about the conference is that it focused on learning and was totally teacher-centered.

One huge event that came from the previous conference is the Shanghai Student Film Festival. Having the chance to share time with the organizers of the film festival was wonderfully rewarding. I’ve been thinking about a student film festival for years, since my time at ACI. ACI has a film festival every year, but the only participates are students from the school; the Shanghai version opens the doors to any student, anywhere. Last year they had 150 films entered and this year they expect 300 or more. The organizers share their experience and knowledge; plus, they encouraged people to have students enter films and to begin film festivals of our own. My hope is that next year KIS will be able to have a Seoul Student Film Festival.

Of course there were thousands of great ideas floating around, but I also discovered some interesting information about my school. First, I’m very lucky to work in a school with an administration that truly believes in the power of technology to enhance learning. Second, I’m blessed to have a school that can afford the price tag that comes along with technology. Whenever I turned around at the conference and spoke about what KIS was doing or where we are at in our one-to-one program, others simply stated, “It must be nice to work there.” Which brings me to another dream I have for KIS’s future, to host a technology conference in Seoul within the next three years.