Happy Holidays!

Feedback from AppsEvent at Chadwick International School December 1-3, 2017

It is a nice feeling when you get positive feedback on a presentation you did and that is what I received from the AppsEvent feedback that was collected after the Chadwick International School event December 1-3, 2017. Only seven people filled out the evaluation, but it was overwhelming positive. I also received some great written feedback with some recommendations on how to improve the session on Tracking Discipline with Google Forms, Sheets, Docs, and autoCrat.

Takeaways & Shout Outs -- AppsEvent at Chadwick International School December 1-3, 2017

The AppsEvent at Chadwick International School during the weekend of December 1-3, 2017 was an great professional development opportunity based around Gsuite for Education. I offered two presentations at the event: Tracking Student Discipline with Forms, Sheets, Docs, and autoCrat and Student Portfolios with Google Sites. The first session didn't really go as smoothly as I would have liked, but I was able to receive some solid feedback that will help reshape my presentation for the future. The second session went great and people were very positive about the content and pacing of the session. Enough about me!

The best part about AppsEvents is the networking and opportunity for learning about new Gsuite products and new ways to use them. I got to code a drone thanks to Rob McElroy's (@edtechmac) session about Parrot Drones. What makes the little Parrot Drones amazing is the ability to use Tynker to code the drone thus tying coding and drone robotics together. Super cool! The simple Tynker programming language makes drone flight available to young and old learners. It opens up endless problem solving opportunities by creating challenges with everyday objects that drones must dodge or land on. Thanks, Rob!

Brett Petrillo's (@brettpetrillo) session about bringing out your school's inner Google was inspiring and an affirmation of the current work we are doing at Cheongna Dalton School. Brett explained how educational leaders need to use Gsuite to actually run the school and improve efficiency with the organization. Once again I was reminded of how lucky I am in my current position having an admin team of David Hill, Ben Scoville, and Malcolm Harrison who all use Gsuite with ease. This year they made the commitment to use Gmail less by using Classroom as a communication tool within their divisions. Everything can be easily found when needed this way, rather than everyone trying to search through all their emails to find documents, links, or announcements. One super cool thing I learned is that Brett uses Slides to create his weekly newsletter by changing the Slide size to 8.5 x 11.5. Genius! It was also nice to meet Brett face-to-face for the first time because we have been collaborating on Twitter for several years. Thanks, Brett!

Megan Godek's (@MEGodek) session on Google Drawing gave me many new ideas on how to use Drawing with our elementary students. Teaching kids to recognize shapes, patterns, and colors while also introducing elements of design and making their own images rather than simply copying something from the internet. Super cool! I'm looking forward to sharing her ideas and enthusiasm with my elementary team at CDS. Thanks, Megan!

And finally there is Dean Stokes (@deanstokes). What can I say about Dean? I feel like my IQ goes up by simply being in the same room with this guy. I attended three of Dean's sessions. The first was about supporting literacy with Gsuite and third party products. The voice recognition software now built into Docs was a mind blower. The last time I played with Google voice recognition, I left thinking I'll wait until this gets better. It is now much, much better. It was typing my spoken comments with a very high level of accuracy. Very useful for many things, but especially for students who have difficulty typing or have trouble with spelling. It could also be a great tool for helping ELL students learn about correct pronunciation. The second tool Dean introduced us to was Chrome's Read & Write extension -- AMAZING! It is free for teachers, but there is a small fee for students, but even just having the teacher version for yourself would open up tons of learning opportunities for your students. The Read & Write tool bar comes with a regular dictionary that allows you to find a definition of any word you highlight. There is also a picture dictionary. There is a function for the Read & Write tool bar to read aloud a highlighted passage and much, much more. It is definitely a help tool for supporting literacy in a variety of ways. Awesome!

The second session I attended was Dean answering any question you have about Google. If you have the chance to simply sit down with Dean and talk, you should always take that opportunity. We had a very good discussion about a variety of topics, but my big takeaways were about Jamboard and Google Timelapse. If you haven't heard about Jamboard, you better look into it. It is Google's redesign of the old school digital whiteboard. Remember how most of the education world decided that digital whiteboards were mostly useless for a variety of reasons I will not get into now? Well the folks at Google found a way to make them useful by taking away the parts that sucked. Digital whiteboards didn't allow for more than one person (usually the teacher) to use them, but Jamboard does allow more than one user and the user doesn't have to be in the room or the building or even in the same country. Thanks, Google! Timelapse takes satellite images of the earth going back to 1984 and plays through them showing how an area has changed over time. Really cool!

The final session of Dean's was the closing keynote and it was totally worth the price of the event all on its own. It introduced me to Google ReWork. I website where Google explains how they make and maintain their culture of innovation. Dean took Google's lessons and applied them to education. It is a major change in the way education is currently done in most institutions around the world, but it is time we start moving in this direction. Considering the incredible success of Google and companies like it, we can clearly see that the world of education needs a serious rework. Super amazing! Thanks, Google for sharing your approach and I hope that educators start reworking our schools in this image. And thanks, Dean.

#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.

#PubPD is coming to Asia!

Carlos Galvez (@clos_gm) is starting an incredible professional development opportunity for Asia and it is starting at 18:00-19:00 on Tuesday, November 21, 2017. The idea is simple -- go to a pub, order an adult beverage of your choice, and get on Twitter. That's it! Amazing educators from around Asia will be joining the chat with the hash tag: #pubpd. For those of us in Korea, there are currently two pubs that I'm aware of involved in the action -- Cocky Pub in Yatap and Hans Craft Brew in Cheongna. Come out and join! If you can't make it out of your house, at least have a drink and follow the chat on Twitter. #PubPD was originally the brainchild of @maplesyrupedu from Canada. Like... Those Canadians are pretty cool, eh? Totally not a bunch of knobs or hosers like those folks from the US.

AppsEvent December 2 & 3

Creating an Email Filter in Gmail

One of the great things about Gmail is also one of its worst features if you don't know about it. Gmail has predictability through Artificial Intelligence. This is just a fancy way of saying that over time, your gmail account begins to learn about your email trends. If you receive loads of email from a person and you rarely open those emails, Gmail starts to think that those emails are spam and puts them in the spam folder automatically. Within our domain, Claudia sends a lot of important emails to everyone, so her account is already flagged as "troublesome." Claudia is simply doing her job and Gmail is simply doing its job, but if you haven't read some of Claudia's emails -- they could be going to your spam folder. This video will show you how to avoid that problem by creating an email filter.

Interesting Things in Blogger Stats

If you aren't a regular consumer of your Blogger stats, please read this entire message and check out the photos. There is always some rather interesting and even slightly bizarre information in that stats. First, I have always been a big supporter of the map. It is one of my favorite ways to see where traffic is coming from, but the numerical break down by country is also useful. It can really make you start to question, why? Why is traffic coming from there? For example, why so many readers from Russia? I don't offer any content in Russia, so why the traffic. Recently I added an ad campaign for my site, because Google Adsense was offering a free month. BOOM! I suddenly get super popular in Russia -- click farms for sure.

The next piece of information that is always compelling to me are the what browsers and what operating systems. How in the world is 34% of the traffic coming from Internet Explorer? Seriously? Why would someone still be using it? I mean I know it is popular here in Korea, but only 57 viewers to my blog were from Korea, which means another 416 people from other places were using it. Strange. I dumped that browser years ago and I'm not going back people. Seriously folks, join the rest of us on Chrome and Firefox. I'm not surprised by the 65% from Windows operating system. Disappointed, but not surprised. I'm disappointed because that many people still opt for an inferior product, but I guess that is life and it explains the Internet Explorer situation.

Beyond all of that, there is something else noteworthy here -- look at all the data they have on you! They know where you are, what type of device you are using, and what type of browser... Privacy? That is a dead concept gang!

The 5-Day Teacher Challenge (#5DTC) Day 1

Some of the five day teacher challenge didn't fit my current job, because I'm not in a classroom everyday with students. But a few of the challenges did fit and here is the first one. Last week, I was supporting the music and drama teachers with recording performances for them to display on their websites, for students to use on their portfolios, and for detailed assessment. These were of a few of the performances that I especially enjoyed.

Google Certified Trainer!

So it is official -- I'm now a Google Certified Trainer. I'm super excited about this opportunity and look forward to helping people learn how to use Gsuite Education Apps to enhance teaching and learning. The last time I was truly this stoked about my own professional development was when I become an Apple Distinguished Educator. This was a serious milestone for me and caps off a year long odyssey. I first decided to get my Level 1 Certification as a leader, because CDS was requiring all teachers to do it. Then I moved on to Level 2 this school year. I was so happy with my success in the Level 2 exam, I decided to jump right in for the Trainer Level. It has been a year of some serious highs and lows, but this is certainly one of the highs. And now I'd like to encourage others to challenge themselves. Have you been putting off taking the exams? Have you been sitting on the fence about it? Are you doubting your abilities? Don't! Don't hold yourself back. If I can achieve this, anybody can do it. Get out there and do it!

ISTE Standards for Coaches Standard 1: Visionary Leadership

The last chat session on Twitter with #isedcoach was on the ISTE Standards for Coaches; specifically it was about Standard 1: Visionary Leadership. After reflecting on the chat for a few days, I wanted to revisit the topic of visionary leadership.

• What is visionary leadership?
• How does one become a visionary leader? 

After re-reading all the tweets, I have come to the conclusion that visionary leadership is a very large task and to aspire to be a visionary leader is no small aspiration to reach toward. It requires constant work with networking and reading. This standard alone is enough to be a full-time endeavor for a normal person and it is only the first of six standards. It seems overwhelming, but that is what makes the perfect challenge for each of us. With the rapid rate of change currently existing in the world, staying a visionary leader is difficult. No one can do it alone. So the actual requirement to continue to remain visionary is collaboration. Coaches must work with others; we must network and read and challenge each other to be better, work harder, and continue to be visionary leaders. If you are a department of one (like me) you will need to use networking with people outside of your institution in order to grow. It cannot happen in isolation and it cannot happen in a comfort zone. It requires collaboration and discomfort. The discomfort of knowing that to fall behind is not an option in this job. I take my job as a coach very seriously even though I have a playful personality. Visionary leadership is a difficult standard, but with help from other coaches, I think I can manage it.

AppsEvents 4th South Korea Summit December 2-3, 2017

ISTE EdTech Coaches Blogging Buddies

Blogging Buddies

I decided to join the ITSE EdTech Coaches Blogging Buddies program for this school year. If you are unfamiliar with the idea, you sign up and agree to write one blog post per month and comment on at least one of your assigned "buddies'" posts. It is a great way to keep accountable and motivated with your blogging; plus, it puts you in touch with other EdTech Coaches. What could be better? You are interested in learning more you can use this link. I'm looking forward to adding some new people to my PLN.

3 Great Ways to Use Google Classroom Questions

I believe that the most under utilized tool in Google Classroom is Question, which is unfortunate, because it is rich with potential for gathering feedback, generating discussion, and starting a lesson. If you are unfamiliar with the Question option in Google Classroom, allow me to introduce it to you and explain way it is an amazing tool.

My favorite use of the Question is as an exit ticket near the end of a lesson. In real time, I can gather rich data about my students learning that day, which allows me to plan immediate modification if I see that students are still confused by a concept. Set your question to be done immediately and have students get into your Classroom and answer it. I recommend using multiple choice option, because the data collects in a chart automatically. You can immediately see how many students feel comfortable with the concept of the lesson and how many still feel confused or lost. But, you don't have to wait until the end of a lesson to use it either, you can gather some quick feedback during a lesson as a temperature gauge with your class.

My second favorite method is as a discussion starter. Show a short video, a photo, or share a short reading and ask a Question that requires students to have an opinion on it. As the votes roll in and populate your graph in real time, ask different students to explain why they felt the way they did about the video or reading. After doing this a couple of times, you can have students submit topics and resources for discussions they are interested in having during class.

Finally, you can use the same approach mentioned above to make a hook for your lesson. Show a video, a photo, or a reading to get your students interested for the day's lesson. It is a fast and powerful way to engage students in the learning.

Now go out and use the Question tool!

Presenting at Google Summit at Chadwick International School on December 2 & 3

https://southkorea2017.sched.com/directory/speakers

And yours truly is a featured speaker!

Parent Notifications in Google Classroom

Some parents have been having trouble with notifications from Google Classroom. These Slides will walk you through the basics. Some things to know -- Google Classroom sends a list of assignments and activities directly to your email account daily or weekly. You DO NOT have to join a Google Classroom. You DO NOT need to download the app for your mobile device. The app is for students and teachers, not parents.

Learning in the Zone: Yearly Plan SY2017-18

Ready for year number two at CDS. After looking back over our faculty needs and using what I learned from last year, I came up with this tentative list of topics for presentations.

Session 1: August 28-September 1 -- Google Classroom

Session 2: September 4-8 -- Google Sites

Session 3: September 11-15 -- QR Codes, Augmented Reality, and Virtual Reality

Session 4: September 18-22 -- Google Tasks & Keep

Session 5: September 25-29 -- Virtual Field Trips (w/ Google Cardboard & Maps)

Session 6: October 23-27 -- Organizing Group Work -- Best Practices

Session 7: October 30-November 3 -- Intro to Design Thinking

Session 8: November 6-10 -- Advanced Search w/ Google & Google Scholar

Session 9: November 13-17 -- Google Hangouts & Google+

Session 10: November 27-December 1 -- Personal Learning Networks (PLN)

Session 11: January 15-19 -- Working with Video (WeVideo, Youtube, and Screencastify)

Session 12: January 22-26 -- Working with Audio

Session 13: January 29-February 2 -- Nearpod

Session 14: March 5-9 -- Newsela

Session 15: March 12-16 -- Blogger

Session 16: March 19-23 -- Google Forms & Google Sheets

Session 17: April 2-5 (6 is an in-service day) -- Gmail, Chat, & Google Calendar

Session 18: April 16-20 -- Google Docs, Doctopus, and Goobric

Session 19: April 23-27 -- Mobile Devices in Action

Session 20: May 21-25 or May 28-June 1 -- Backing Your Digital Suitcase (special session for departing teachers)

Google Certified Teacher Level 2

Last Friday in the middle of the afternoon, I decide to take the Google Certified Teacher Level 2 exam. I did no preparation (other than my normal job of teaching and experimenting with Google). I was able to pass it! One more step toward becoming a trainer.

Cheongna Dalton School's Sports Day 2017

The video was edited by me, but the photo and video clips came from various faculty members and students. It was a very enjoyable day and I think that comes out in the video. The sound track also features a song composed by me. Enjoy!

Discipline Tracking with Forms, Sheets, Docs, and autoCrat

Cheongna Dalton School World Experience Tours 2017

Hongcheon World Experience Tour Day 1

PodOmatic and Soundcloud for Student Podcasts and Music

If you have students who create their own music or produce their own podcasts, your can use SoundCloud or PodOmatic to publish them on the Internet for free. Both websites offer free accounts that can manage a load of material without dropping any cash. The Slides below will walk you through the basics of publishing a podcast on each website. Youtube is another option, but I prefer SoundCloud and PodOmatic because they are specific for the task of sharing music or podcasts; Youtube is great, but video content is more the focus of the website. I've encouraged students to do podcasting in a number of ways, but my personal favorites have been when they promote their own music or opinions and learn to use social media to spread their content.

In my Presentation and Performance course, I would make podcasting like a journal assignment in my English courses. The idea was that each student published five episodes a semester and each episode was two to three minutes long. I left the content up to them, but I did require them to promote the podcast. Students were require to visit each other's podcasts and leave at least one comment for all of their classmates during the semester. Most of the students loved it. They had freedom with regard to content so they were interested in making episodes and promoting them. One student produced his own version of Car Talk; one student made videos of her singing her favorite songs and challenged others to make their own versions of the songs; and another student demonstrated different styles and techniques in applying cosmetics. One of the biggest benefits for students, other than learning how to make podcasts, was their appreciation for the sound of their own voices. A person sounds very different when recorded and played back and it gave students an opportunity to work on voice quality and control in a non-threatening way.

Personal Learning Networks

Delaying Gratification Isn't Always Wise

There has been a huge amount of talk lately about the importance of learning to delay gratification. People much more intelligent than me are promoting the idea and there was an amazing TED Talk called Don't Eat the Marshmallow by Joachim de Posada. Currently I'm living in the land of delaying gratification -- Korea. Korean students are told to work diligently and wait for everything good to happen later in life. There is even a children's book about not eating the marshmallow. First Koreans struggle to get into a great high school; then a great university; and finally into a great job with a major company. But my question is what happens while you are delaying all of your gratification? It is a little thing called life and it is important.

I'm not going to argue the pros and cons of delaying gratification. The research clearly demonstrates that children who learn to delay gratification lead healthier, more productive lives. But are we also raising a generation of people who never take risks? Sometimes in life you just have to try something just to see how it turns out. Sometimes you need to live with a little danger, a little risk, in order to feel alive. What we really want to teach our kids is how to delay gratification, but how to also pick times when seeking gratification is acceptable; even opportune. Imagine if Richard Branson had never jumped at the chance to own Virgin Atlantic? What if he had decided to "delay gratification" by not purchasing the other half of the business? His willingness to take a huge risk led to his amazing success. We want our children to do that! To spot times and opportunities that sometimes require us to not delay gratification, but instead to embrace gratification immediately. But not all the time! Basically we want to teach kids how to balance life.

As I stated before, I'm not suggesting that we stop teaching children the importance of not eating the marshmallow, but I am suggesting that there is more to it than that. Not eating the marshmallow is part of the picture, but knowing when it is the right time to eat it is just as important.

Time Management Tools -- Google Keep and Tasks

Do you have a problem with time or task management? Do you know a student or colleague that does? Do you have GSuite for education? If you answered yes to either of the first two questions and yes to the third question as well, then you are in luck, because you can actually solve the problem with GSuite. Google Keep is a rather new product from Google and I like to think of it as an Evernote-lite. Tasks exist in your Gmail account and you probably never notice them at all. Either one of these products can help your organize your time and tasks better.
This presentation walks through the basic features of each product and also makes a comparison of the two. The basic choice comes down to what you want to be able to do with your task list. Do you want to share it with others you are collaborating with? Then Keep is best option. Do you want to use it on your own (and possibly sent a list to someone)? Then Task is part of your Gmail account already, so why use another tab?

The 20th Anniversary!

March marked the 20th anniversary of my first trip to Korea. I had graduated from the University of Montana in December of 1996. It was the middle of the school year, so my option were limited. My choices were basically work another job and try to sub when I was available or to sub as much as possible. Neither option really appealed to me. And then it happened... I was walking through the education building and came to the announcement board. Someone had posted some EFL teaching positions available overseas in Korea and Japan. I spent the next few days doing some research with at the computer lab and found several options. The pay in general seemed a little better in Korea when the cost of living was factored in to the situation. I wrote an email to one of the recruiters. Within a week, I had signed a contract with a small language school in Dong-jin and my overseas career essentially began without me even really knowing it. The plan at the time was to get some practical teaching experience and then return for the U of MT job fair the following spring. My hope was still to work in Alaska.

The year passed with some great adventures and wonderful experiences to look back on. I returned to the US in late-March and picked up some volunteer work with the Office of Career Services where I had work in my work-study job. The job fair came in May and I was signed to be dorm advisory and sub in Galena, AK. During the summer, one of the teachers would back out of his/her contract and I switched to full-time teaching and living in the dorm. It was a crazy two years in rural Alaska and the itch to travel and live aboard resurfaced in Galena's -40F temperatures.

I was hired to work in Turkey where I met my wife, Aysem. We decided to leave Turkey together and traveled to Saipan to work at Saipan International School. After four years there, we went to a job fair and got hired to work at Korea International School. I was back in Korea and loving it. After a long run at KIS (seven years), we were offered the opportunity to return to SIS when I was hired to be the Headmaster. I thought for sure that my Korea days were behind me for good, but then the typhoon happened and we changed our minds about island life.

We started looking for work and finally landed at Cheongna Dalton School. We were back in Korea! It was like returning home. We have both been happy to be in Korea again and I strongly doubt that we will consider leaving again. In those 20 years, I've seen some amazing changes on the peninsula, but the basics have stayed the same. Korea is clean and wonderfully efficient; the culture is incredibly unique; and the people are diligent, intelligent, and kind. I've left Korea twice before, I don't think I'll leave a third time.

Innovation Takes Time

There is an old adage that is very true -- if you don't make time for it, it isn't important. Lately I've been seeing a load of articles, blog posts, and tweets about encouraging student innovation. I have nothing against it; in fact, I'm happy to see educators take notice of it. Innovation is a wonderful thing and if we really want students to understand the world of creative thinking, innovation is important... But are you making time for it? It follows all of the other initiatives that get thrown at us in field of education -- reflective practice, rigor, standards, the list could go on and on. We are really good at adding, but not so good at subtracting. It is a major problem. We cannot do it all. We can't. No, seriously, we can't do it all. At some point a quality leader will look at the amount of initiatives and say, "We are going to cut the number in half and do the items we decide to keep really, really well." Or at least that is what a quality leader should do, it doesn't happen too often in my experience. It is so easy to add more.

Which brings me back to innovation. Let me tell you something about innovation that I know is a fact -- it takes time. A lot of time. Innovation doesn't fit into 55 minute or 75 minute blocks very well. It is difficult to plan innovation, because to have novel ideas that can turn in to meaningful and useful products or programs, it requires the mind to be in a state flow. We basically need to be in a state of structured play. Play doesn't really work well without time to engage in it. So, are you planning time for students to play? To explore? To be fascinated by something? If you aren't, then innovation really isn't important to you or your institution and you should focus on something else. If you don't put time in the schedule, the message is that it isn't important. Period. End of story.

21CLHK9 Take-Aways

I had the pleasure of attending the 9th 21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong (#21clhk) during March 8-11 at the Hong Kong Convention Center. I presented my Bling My Blogger session to around 20 educators on Saturday. As a presenter it was nice to hear someone say, "I'm going to go home and begin a blog now." If I only convince one person to begin sharing their professional practice, then I count myself successful; plus, a few other people were seriously considering user Blogger as a digital portfolio tool for students, so another win in my opinion. Enough about me!

On March 8th, there were Job-A-Like sessions offered. And although I would have loved to attend the Technology Coaches group lead by Robert Appino (@rappin01), because I know he is amazing, I really needed to join the Tech Directors group with Dr. Matt Harris (@mattharrisedd). Dr. Harris did an outstanding job facilitating a whole-day discussion. It could have been a tragically long and tedious affair, but instead it was very engaging and informative. As Dr. Harris stated, "It isn't often that Directors of EdTech get to be in a room together." We discussed a variety of topics, but the things that hit me the hardest were the topics of evaluating the IT side of the office as well as changing the culture of the IT staff of be a service based approach with accountability and incentives. In my current role, I don't really have a say in those matters, but I took away several good ideas for the future and possible ways to push our community in a new direction as we grow and change.

 March 9th was a half-day session on EdTech Leadership lead by Dr. Harris. The entire session was useful, but the best take-away for me was about knowing your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. The comment that hit me the most was, "As an EdTech leader, I need to play to my strengths, but be accountable for my weaknesses." Dr. Harris took this idea further with talking about how he knows his personal and professional strengths, so he looks to hire team members that will balance his weaknesses. As a former Headmaster, I could really appreciate this perspective. Too many leaders want to run out and hire their buddies, or people just like them, but the point is to make the leadership team stronger. If everybody is the same, how do you grow? How do you see your blind spots? The team needs to have a variety of skills and abilities and they need to know those strengths and weaknesses of other team members. Gold!

My big session from Friday, March 10 was with Dr. Matthew Savage (@savageeducation [also gets the award for BEST Twitter handle of the conference, IMO]). The session was entitled -- What Lies Beneath: Data Stories from Across the Globe. I had two big take-aways from this session. The first was the amazing data that can be gathered about students using the CAT4 and PASS and the second the analogies about data that Dr. Savage used throughout the session. Those of you who have followed my blog know about how much I love good analogies, so this appealed to me for obvious reasons. He showed a photo of a man using a metal detector on a large beach and then said, "Think if we took the metal detector away, but placed flags on the beach where treasure could be found. It would be much simpler for the man to go to these flags and dig. Sure, he wouldn't find something very valuable at each flag, but something would be there none the less. That is how data works. It is like a flag on a large beach pointing to something interesting and potentially useful to us." Pure genius!

I also attended Craig Kemp's (@mrkempnz) session on Change Management & the Culture of Innovation, which provided me an opportunity to have some short but important discussions with colleagues who were new to the videos and concepts that Craig shared. Although I was familiar with the content of the presentation, it was good to be reminded that schools and professionals are on different points on a continuum and we are all there to help and support each other with learning and change. Insightful!

Rob Newberry's session "What are we really doing online?" was amazing and powerful. It involved a personal story that was intriguing that lead to the title question, which changed to a discussion about how were are living these new online lives and how we are helping students navigate that world. Although I didn't leave the session with answers, I did leave the session with some incredible questions that administrators, teachers, parents, and students are struggling to understand. Thought-provoking!

However, the best part of being back at 21CLHK after four years away was having a chance to see some old friends and meet some amazing new ones and I believe that is the real power of this conference. One major event to occur because of this synergy of 21CLHK is the first ever #isedcoach chat which will happen on Wednesday, March 22, 2017 at 3:00pm Seoul time and continue on the last Wednesday of the month. Look what happens when EdTech folks get together and hang out -- we build stuff! Thanks to the team that puts it all together... You know who you are! (I love the photo.) And to the boat crew, thanks for some great memories. Mad respect and deep love to you all.

New Templates in Blogger!

New Blogger Templates! Woot! Woot! After several years of Blogger just sort of being the ignored step-child of Google, there have suddenly been a few updates. AMAZING! Thank you, Google! First was the update to the User Interface (UI) to make it more clean. It was a subtle, but very good update. I mentioned a few of those on this post. The new templates are a welcome improvement and I'm excited to see where Google takes Blogger next. Of course, as I

have mentioned in many posts about Blogger, one downside to some of the more tailored templates is that the HTML/JAVA script Gadget doesn't always work so well with them. The Simple templates take more modification/manipulation than the tailored templates. I'm hoping to experiment with the new templates during my spring break and see if they are able to deal with a large amount of Gadgets.

Makerspaces & 3D Printing

Canva -- Graphic Design Made Easy

http://canva.com

If you are like me, you generally lack the skill set of the typical graphic designer. And, if you also a poor teacher (like me) you can't really afford to have a professional graphic designer help you with everything you need to do (even when I can find some affordable help on Fiverr). In the last month alone, I have had to design four different ads for school events and then three ads for my professional development offerings. Thank goodness I discovered Canva, because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to deal with all of the work. It is free with a Google account, so if you are working at a Gsuite for Education school -- you are in luck!

Do you need to create a poster to promote an event? Want design a banner for your website? Need to make a greeting card? Do you desire an attractive way to promote your Instagram or Twitter account? Canva can help you do these things and it can do a whole lot more. The .png file to the left was created in less than 15 minutes with Canva. I know my friends who do graphic design are probably thinking, "It looks like it took 15 minutes, too" but for me -- this work is way better than I could ever hope to do on my own. Canva really is graphic design made easy for the totally helpless, but if can also work for someone with professional level skills in graphic design. There are a ton of layout ideas for a huge assortment of different projects. You can add and subtract elements easily and color schemes are done for you, which is a giant help when you are trouble a matching colors. You can upload your own photos to add to your projects to provide that personal touch from your own life or school. Give it a try!

Bling My Blogger

With 21 Century Learning in Hong Kong rapidly approaching, it was time to update my old Pimp My Blogger presentation. I asked around to a few people and received some feedback on the new name -- Bling My Blogger. The new name lead to a redesign that I'm fairly happy with. I'm looking forward to the conference.

Fiverr.com Gigs

tsbray6

Fiverr

Seller

Firefly Video to Promote Twitter

Differentiation of Assignments in Google Classroom

Google Explore Button

Another Year

Another year has passed and time continues its grueling and painful march forward. Time to look back and see what was accomplished and what was not. I have managed to return to blogging on a more regular basis, but still not to the level I was three years ago. The impact of two years as a Headmaster of a small school are still being felt; plus, in a new position (Director of EdTech) at a new school (Cheongna Dalton School), I'm engaged in building an entire department from scratch. It involves continually defining and redefining the position according to the needs of the faculty and the other administrators. Also, I have my own ideas of what the department must accomplish and some of those ideas are left over from working in a department of five people at a much larger school. There is plenty of work to do, but only so much of me available; however, I feel like I have managed to balance the work/life tight rope much better than I did as a Headmaster, which is a major victory. The job of Headmaster was all encompassing and I threw myself in to it with reckless abandon. It was heartfelt and sincere, but not wise. As much as I love education as a profession, school as an organization, students and faculty as humans, there needs to be a balance maintained at all times. There were too many crises throughout the two years; too much turmoil. I will admit that some of the problems were of my own creation, but many were events out of my hands; the will of fate. Little could be done other than find a way to solve the problem and move forward as best as possible with when best was never enough for some people. Being back in Korea is wonderful. The speed of the Internet alone is enough to continuously bring a smile to my face. But beyond that the food, the seasons, the people, the efficiency, and the safety of the place are all lovely. I lived in Korea twice before 1997-98 and 2007-14; twice I left, but I don't see myself leaving again. This is home; this is where I belong. I'm more comfortable and happy in Korea than I ever was in the US. And although we have a home in Turkey, this last visit was eye opening in many ways. I still enjoy the village of Boz Koy, but Turkey in general no longer pulls me. The people are desperate; the mood is ugly; and the violence worsening daily. We were in Izmir when the most recent terror attack occurred and it was a terrible feeling. A feeling I really don't care to have again. Hopefully 2017 will be a better year, but the start has not be promising.