Director of Professional Development

I'm pretty excited to start school year 2020-21, even in the face of Covid-19 and the realities it brings. I'm excited because I have started a new position at Cheongna Dalton School as the Director of Professional Development. The school asked me to move from EdTech to PD to support the entire school community with their continual growth as educators and professionals. As much as I love EdTech, this was an opportunity that was too great to pass up. I have created a Google Site specifically for professional development at CDS. Part of my role is to facilitate the WASC accreditation process as well, which is happening this school year. My first task is to get accreditation work rolling and then to help with teachers create their Professional Growth Goals for the year.

#pubpdasia Reflection

First, I want to give another shout out to @maplesyrupedu for creating the concept of #pubpd. It really is simply brilliant. Second, I want to give another shout out to @clos_gm for bringing the idea to #Asia with #pubpdasia. And Third, I want to give a shout out to all the educators all over Asia who jumped on this idea and arranged multiple locations where live f2f events happened while the Twitter chat was running. I think we are on to something here and it has the potential to be huge. The next #pubpdasia will be happening in January and the amazing duo of @mcelroy23 and @cho_liz are going to be the moderators.

Reflection on #pubpdasia:
The best part of this event was the combination of a live Twitter chat and face-to-face discussions. In Cheongna we had six participants, which was actually five more than I thought I'd have. Things are really busy at school these days and not many folks are really in to Twitter, but that was part of the magic. Two of our directors showed up, this I did not foresee at all, but it was great. One has been trying Twitter and the other one said, "I haven't touched my account in a month and probably won't again until the next time." One of our English teachers showed up, and at one point he asked me to tweet something for him, because he isn't really interested in Twitter either. Do you see what was happening? People who saw no purpose for Twitter were suddenly seeing a use for it. And people who probably will not get in to Twitter were still part of the discussion. This is a perfect synergy. And that, my friends, is my big takeaway from this event. We need to be doing more activities like this in the future, tying f2f social gatherings with social media events.  We were discussing ideas that came up from the questions asked during the chat, but being able to think about our own context and things that would work at Cheongna Dalton School. I'm hoping to get more people out in January, but even if I don't find more people to join -- I am sold on this idea.

Hongcheon World Experience Tour Day 1

Pimp Your Blogger & Student Friendly Settings

Book me for a Google Hangout if you need support or want to brainstorm/trouble-shoot.
Blogger recently went through a subtle update, these Slide reflect the changes to the User Interface (UI).

Part 5: Avoiding the Professional Blind Spot

You must realize from the beginning that just because something comes easy to you doesn't mean it comes easy to others. Because of this fact, you should never make someone feel inferior because they learn slower or because they are interested in different things. We have a tendency to be incredibly patient with students, but not patient with colleagues. If you want to be an effective support person, you will need to avoid the professional blind spot and tame your tongue.

I remember when I first started in EdTech, I was humble because I didn't have a computer science degree. I was working in someone else's field in a sense. The most negative interactions I had as an EdTech person have generally been with computer science people, but not CS teachers -- with IT Admin. I don't want to paint all IT Admin the same way, because I have meet and worked with some amazing IT people. But there are some folks in IT, as there are in any subject, who seem to want to look down on others. Nothing will kill a program faster than people feeling pushed away by negative attitudes and experiences. I've had teachers tell me that they didn't want work with Mr./Ms. X because of his/her attitude/sarcasm/negativity. You need to respect people and appreciate their abilities, even if those abilities are low by your standards. You are building capacity; not everyone has it when you start with them.

I remember one conference I attended and in the first session it seemed that everything was blocked. We had no access to social media at all. I went to Twitter, my go to for sharing my learning and was blocked. Facebook -- blocked. Edmodo -- blocked. EDMODO! I approached the conference presenter about the problem and he said that everything was blocked. He was concerned because the first thing he wanted to show us was Edmodo. He then pointed me to one of the conference attendees who was the IT Admin for the school where the conference was being held. I walked over and introduced myself and asked about Twitter. The conversation went something like this...

Me: Hi! I'm Tim from ____ school and I noticed Twitter is blocked. (in a pleasant and unassuming tone)

IT Guy: Yes, it is. (short and curt)

Me: Would it be possible to unblock it? (still being pleasant)

IT Guy: Why? (now snotty)

Me: I'd like to tweet about the conference. (continuing to be pleasant, but struggling)

IT Guy: Tweet about the conference? (sarcasm and some eye rolling)

Me: Yes. I like to share my learning with my PLN. (more forceful now)

IT Guy: I'll look into it. Give me a few minutes. (sort of a strange look on his face; I think he realized that he was out numbered in the room or something)

It was like I fell into an episode of the IT Crowd. Surreal and bizarre. I realized later that I was a threat to his little kingdom. He was the authority on computers and Internet at his school and was very used to having others simply go along with his decisions and rules, so someone questioning that was a challenge and a threat to the status quo, which he usually crushed with sarcasm and rudeness. When it didn't work, he wasn't sure what to do. Within five minutes, I was on Twitter and Edmodo. To this guy's credit, by the end of the two day conference, he seemed like a changed person. I think the openness of other educators and fresh ideas expanded his mind. He was asking our team about social media that we allowed (everything) and how teachers were using it. He learned that he had things he could learn from us and that is the secret to avoiding the professional blind spot. Remember that other people may not have the level of skill that you have in a certain discipline, but they may have great ideas about the field anyway. When you are helping someone build capacity, keep your ears open and you may find that you learn something surprising and new. At the very least, you will learn more patience and that is something valuable.