2013 Summer Bucket List

House in BozKoy, Karaburun, Izmir, Turkey.

I've been noticing some folks in my PLN sharing out their 2013 Summer Bucket List and the idea intrigued me, so here goes my list. We will be heading to Turkey for the summer to finish furnishing our house. I will begin the list there:

1. Furnish the house in Bozkoy. It seems like a lame task to many people probably, but it is very important for us to finish. The good news is that we should be finished with everything in a week or two and then we will be able to enjoy the house for the rest of the summer.
2. Begin the landscaping around the house. For this summer, I don't expect to accomplish too much, but it would be great to get some top soil down and have at least 7-8 trees planted around the house. In addition we want to add some cacti along the back wall near the road to act as a natural fence.
3. Finish reading Schooling by Design. The Leadership team at KIS has been reading the book this year and I'd like to be on the same page as them with regard to planning the future of KIS's EdTech team.
4. Reflect on Out of Our Minds. Several of the faculty at KIS formed a think-tank to read Sir Robinson's book and discuss how creativity can be merged with the culture of learning at KIS. Due to several projects and conferences, I was unable to attend many of the meetings, but I want to take some time this summer and reflect on the book and what it means to us as educators. I'm envisioning some blog posts about this topic in the future.
5. Study my Turkish more diligently. I have several relatives and friends in Turkey and now that I'm also a home owner, it is time to get serious about learning this language. It is nice to be able to get around and order things, but I want to be able to hold an actual conversation with someone. There is no better place than the village to do it, because nobody speaks English out there. My goal for the summer is to be able to communicate with a local villager that I don't already know for a full three to five minutes in Turkish. I have a great app for this by the way that works on both iOS and Android.
6. Music and Movie production. Everybody needs some down time to engage in hobbies and creating music and movies are mine, so I'm giving myself an opportunity to do both as part of my summer bucket list. I will create at least five completely new songs inspired by Karaburun and I will create two three-five minute movies about the villages and/or village lifestyle. I've actually wanted to make a couple of short films about Bozkoy and Karaburun for years, but whenever we are back, we are always too busy doing something; this time I'm going to do it.
7. International Ethical Educational Leadership website. This is something I want to plan during the summer and then launch in the fall. Sadly, I've seen some fairly dubious behavior in international educational leadership. Don't get me wrong, I've seen some amazing leaders, too, but I think overall international educational leaders could really step up their game with regard to ethics. The plan is to form a website community that would share case studies about situations with ethical dilemmas and then discuss our solutions to the dilemmas to encourage discourse and pre-reflection. Pre-reflection? Yes, to think through or role play a scenario that could happen to consider better solutions and alternatives before an actual problem occurs. This way, when a sticky situation does happen in real life, you can stop and reflect on things you role played before and have a better list of options to choose from than the ones that come to mind in the heat of the moment. I know, I'm a nerd.

If I can accomplish the seven items on this list, I will feel like it has been a very productive summer and I will return to KIS renewed.

#beyondlaptops 2013 Take-Aways

     It has been a busy couple of weeks since the Beyond Laptops conference finished at YIS, but I have been thinking seriously about what went down and how it will impact KIS and me. But before I allow myself to wander aimlessly in writing, I'd like to thank all the attendees for sharing their thoughts and experiences for the collective good. "We all improve together," should be the motto of international schools. Of course, I'd like to say thanks to Kim Cofino (@mscofino). Without her passion for learning and amazing organizational skills, there simply couldn't be a Beyond Laptops conference. And finally, I'd like to thank the leadership of Yokohama International School. The vision to understand that hosting a conference (and picking up the tab on it) helps your community improve is a rare sight in these days. Thank you.
     After looking over last year's take-aways, I noticed that I still felt there was a need to break the bell schedule to allow more freedom for students to pursue their passions. On an upside, KIS has made some movement in the secondary school with regard to breaking the bell schedule. Next year we will be piloting a "free block" with seniors; although many of the juniors have said they would use the time to study and work on other courses, there are a few who mentioned pursuing other interests that the normal schedule doesn't currently allow. My plan is to approach a small group of seniors and offer the opportunity to explore something they are passionate about with support from a teacher (me). Hopefully with a few successes, the idea will spread and we can move toward more freedom for the students as a whole. The middle school is developing an experiential learning program to have some time without walls for the students. Progress! Along the same topic, the discussions with students also reminded me that we need to listen to them. They have valuable information about their learning, their goals, and their motivations that are beyond value to us as their teachers.
     After our discussions at this year's Beyond Laptops, I felt all four of the KIS members left with a reaffirmation of the importance of visionary leadership in education. If a school has a strong vision of what good learning is then changes in devices and strategic plans are less worrisome, because the vision will remain the same. As we discussed last year's conference, we shouldn't focus on the device or technology, but the learning. If we are focused on good learning, we will be heading in the right direction no matter what happens. Focus on learning and transferable skills and you will not go wrong, nor be held hostage by a certain device.
     Other big ideas that occurred to me were about cafeteria food and an accreditation portfolio for schools. Allow me to elaborate on the cafeteria topic first. Zest Catering makes the very best cafeteria food I have ever tasted. Period. End of story. Game over. But seriously, feeding students healthy, delicious food is a very important issue. We should be offering students healthy choices for lunch, it is a life style we are developing. My family has a history of adult onset diabetes because of poor dietary choices. If I had been raised and encouraged to eat healthier, possibly I wouldn't be staring a future date with diabetes in the face right now. I'm sure my brother, father, and mother could have put off their health problems until later in life. We, as educators, need to do a better job of teaching healthy lifestyle choices with regard to food to our students. OK, I'm off the soapbox.
     The last big take-away is about how most schools choose to handle accreditation visits and how they could do a much, much better job. We have students create portfolios to demonstrate their learning and growth over time, so why don't schools do it? That's right, build a portfolio for accreditation. Instead of looking at the calendar and suddenly realizing that the accreditation team is visiting in two weeks and then running around like a chicken with your head cut off, continually build upon what your school has done and is doing. It would be a much richer process and accreditation would actually do what it is intended to be -- a process of growth, change and improvement. #justsaying

SoundCloud on your Blogger

Step 1: Go to your SoundCloud Profile, select Share and copy the
Widget Code.

If you are a musician, or simply a person who loves music, and you want to share this passion via your Blogger, but you don't know how to tackle the problem... Continue reading friend, because I will walk you through the process of making a SoundCloud feed on your blog. The more I use Blogger, the more impressed I become with its functionality. The Gadgets are truly amazing and allow for almost any HTML code to be embedded in the top, bottom, or side bar of your blog. The screen shots in this

blog post walk you through the process step-by-step.

Step 2: In Blogger, go to Layout and select the Add a Gadget button.

Step 3: Select the HTML/JavaScript Gadget.

Step 4: Give your Gadget a title and paste the code.

QR Codes in Art Education

Art installations enhanced with QR codes.

When a person thinks of QR codes, they rarely picture art work or artists, but at Korea International School things are a little different. Our Art department has a spring art show each year where our students showcase their artistic endeavors. The art teachers adopted online portfolios for high school students two years ago, and this year they added the middle school students to that initiative.  So the art teachers started wondering, "what else can we do with technology?" QR codes in the art installations! Now a student creates an art installation for the spring art show with QR codes included that direct the audience to the student's online portfolio. Instead of posting a reflection or additional information about the art piece next to the art work, they can save space by simply placing a QR code next to the art work. Audience members can use the QR code to listen to a reflection about the piece, or look at other art pieces by the student.

Example of an audio art reflection linked to a QR code.

It is a simple idea that adds great value to the art show and allows a student to share more art work with the audience members. Genius!

KIS Secondary Art Department: Sara Arno, Sondra Mullenax, Sallie Inman, and Angel Catholic

Thoughts on being in a "State of war" with N. Koera

We are coming off our spring break here at KIS; Aysem (@aysem_bray) and I stayed here in Seoul to simply rest, recharge, and work on a few projects. So, being here in Korea, you can imagine how surprised I was to receive a frantic Skype from my mother asking about the war between North and South Korea. The "war" went by rather unnoticed here in South Korea. For those of you unfamiliar with the antics of North Korea, let me simply say -- they're crazy. Period. End of story. And as one of my psychology professors once said, "Don't try to understand someone who is insane, because... Well... They're crazy." But, if you look at what is happening with N. Korea, you can see some logic at play; it is just a very, very strange logic.

The first thing to understand is that N. Korea and S. Korea have been at war since 1950; in 1953 they agreed to a truce, not peace. So when Kim Jung-Un, the new great leader, says that N. Korea is at a "state of war" with S. Korea, it really is old news. They have always been in a "state of war." The second thing to understand is that N. Korea really wants to get the US and S. Korea to the bargaining table and ridiculous threats have worked in the past. Third, Kim Jung-Un is trying to establish himself as the legitimate ruler of the country and like grandpa and dad -- he isn't afraid of the S. Korea and the US. Finally, and this is my opinion, the new S. Korean president is a woman. Mrs. Park will hopefully prove herself to be a tough lady who will not bend to the threats of the North, but is it surprising to think that a reclusive country shut-off to the modern world for the last 60 years would be sexist? Not really. There you have it -- North Korean threats of war explained in a nutshell. But, like my psychology professor said, "Don't try..." You get the picture.