#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.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Signupgenius

Parent-Teacher Conferences are right around the corner for Saipan International School (October 14) and this year we are using SignUpGenius to schedule appointments for the secondary teachers. It is very simple to set up and allows parents to schedule their appointments when it fits their needs during the day. In the past the school used MySignUp, but I found the UI to be very poor. There was no easy way to correct a mistake, so you needed to get the entire schedule correct the first time or begin again. Terrible! In addition, it looked like something out of the 1990s, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, I remember the 90s fondly, but times have changed and signupgenius allows for different themes that can fit a variety of school uses. Signupgenius was easy to make and correct. Plus, you can easily track who has signed up by checking the account or having updates sent to your email account. Nice! The free version is robust enough to handle our needs as a small school, which means no fees. My wife, Aysem Bray (@aysembray), created two simple to follow tutorials for parents on how to sign up and how to edit their schedules. If you are interesting in giving signupgenius a try, feel free to use these tools with your parents. You can also contact either of us for advise, help, or support.

Sign up from Aysem Bray

Edit from Aysem Bray

Sharing the Wealth

Photo from TaxCredits.net

When I was hired to be the new Headmaster of Saipan International School, my contract came with $2500 toward professional development. I was happy for the access to this money, because continually developing myself and learning are things I enjoy doing. I had made early plans to travel to Malaysia and attend the EARCOS leadership conference. Once I was back on the ground in Saipan, however, I realized that the entire school faculty needed access to professional development; we currently have no funds dedicated to PD. After some careful consideration about options before me, I decided to use my $2500 for the entire faculty. Improving the leader will help the whole, but improving the followers does it more effectively and efficiently.

Step one was to join the ASCD website. For those who aren't familiar, an ASCD membership is a great resource for professional development. They offer online courses, Educational Leadership magazine, and hundreds of educational books from the best minds in learning. In addition, I ordered some books about differentiation and supporting ELL students in the regular classroom, which are areas we are working on improving through our WASC accreditation process. Step two, I provided the entire faculty a short article on the power of feedback in the learning process from our new Educational Leadership subscription. I want to encourage the faculty to begin reading journals for their own improvement and growth as educators; plus, by sharing articles, we can have educational discussions about a common theme with a common language.

We have about $2200 more to spend on PD, so I'm thinking and exploring what other options could work for us. When you share, you can make a little go a long way and help everybody. Didn't a famous guy once say something like that...