Three years ago I moved into a position of instructional coach for my building.  The majority of my days are now spent as a content-generalist coach focused on helping teachers improve pedagogical skills.  Our opt-in model keeps the conversation focused on one thing:  pedagogy as opposed to content.  This is a very smart model for honing in on the “P” sphere of Mishra & Koehler’s TPACK framework.  However, perhaps even smarter is the fact that I am not completely removed from being behind the wheel of my own classroom.  Teaching my own class is a way to assure my attachment to at least most of the day to day experiences of our folks in “the trenches.”  My opinions on instructional practice and concrete strategies are only as good as my ability to pull them off in my own classroom.  I say this for perhaps a different reason that you might think.  The core of my role as a coach is to question, to advise, to consult, encourage, and inspire my colleagues toward better and better things.  It really isn’t about “me.”

That said, my ability to move down any strategic path toward best practices in instruction with a teacher is directly tied to both my familiarity and comfort level with that mode of learning.  Put simply:  you can’t talk the talk without walking the walk.  So during the day, I teach Principles of Biology during period three as well as Marine Biology.  Marine Biology is a special case across the board.  The program was created in 1999 and and includes night classes from 7 to 9pm on Mondays, a roster made up of students from our three local high schools, and a week-long field study on the coral reefs of the Bahamas each April.  Did I mention yet that my district respects and fosters solid innovation?  For that, my students and I are terribly lucky.

To my original point

Seriously.  Blogging is such a reflective act for me.  So often I start down a simple path and quickly realize there is far more under the hood to discuss.  So with that out of the way, allow me to introduce you to two of my newest colleagues:  Jennifer Toalson and Alex Paolillo.  Interestingly, between the two, they teach quite a range of subjects: General Biology, Environmental Science, Microbiology and Genetics.  More interestingly, they were (somewhat recently) Marine Biology students of mine.  Our department has a total of less than seven FTE’s.  Therefore, here are two-sevenths of my immediate world.  Jennifer was a member of the 2002 Marine Biology class and Alex was a 2004 member.

Jennifer joined the Benton Science Department last year and was an immediate success.  As the oldest of seven, she is a natural at building relationships and getting the most out of younger folk.  Jennifer’s Dad is also a teacher of industrial arts at a high school across town.  Alex, who will begin his teaching career this fall, also comes equipped with a teacher’s pedigree.  Alex is actually the son of two teachers and his father was at one time the Director of Secondary Education in our city.  And yes…  in my prized image below, you’ll see Alex attempting to feed bread crumbs to seagulls from his bare chest in The Bahamas.  Tell me this isn’t going to be fun.

How many of you have been lucky enough to have two former students as direct departmental colleagues?  How fun is that?

I can’t tell you how excited this makes me.  Again….. I am now only a really a small part of the science department at my high school.  However, with a wife who is the Department Chair, it is even more exciting to see our immediate world become so infused with young, enthusiastic blood.  One thing I can say for sure about Alex and Jennifer:  they really want to make a difference in the lives of young people.  With that, anything they want to work hard for in this profession will come to them.  Not only do I remember their high school days as fun-filled, I now have spent time with them as colleagues.  The following pics will give you a glimpse of them in their (recently) younger days as Marine Biology students.  One might wonder if perhaps holding a sea urchin or encouraging sea gulls to feed from your belly makes one a likely candidate for biology educator in later years.  I am staring to believe so.  (funny now to see them so young again here in the next two images)

I recently thought about doing a quick and dirty post that mentioned these two coming on board as biology teachers.  (as biology teachers, biology teachers in my hometown, and as biology teachers in my current school)  The day it hit me was a few weeks ago when Erin, Jennifer, Alex, and I spent the day at a biotechnology workshop in Kansas City…  (many thanks to Erin for organizing the day’s events.)  Overall, we had a great summer day of re-connecting to the past and teambuilding for the future.

In closing

Since Marine Biology began in 2000, some of my former students are undergrad marine biology students.  A few are even PhD candidates.  People frequently ask about those.  However, the demographic that isn’t often inquired about might just be those who have lived their entire lives in the center of the continent…  who love biology…  love the energy of youth…  but cannot find a better reason to move that far away from a strong family/friends network.  I’ve been thinking quite a bit about this as of late.

See what this does?  I start out with an idea to post a simple image from a recent workshop and I end up tacking it on to personal connections, people-to-people connections, coaching, and the TPACK framework.  When I began blogging a just over a year ago in April-  it was done as a “proof of concept” exercise.  That has blossomed into the mess you now see.  The bottom line is:  You cannot imagine the effect blogging will have on your future learning unless you are actually doing it.  This truly is a new genre of writing.  It is more than empowering for the everyman who embarks upon it.  Give it a try.  What are you waiting for?  And while you’re at it…  give my two new colleagues a shout out from the masses.  They will soon be getting an earful from yours truly about establishing their “digital footprint” and getting connected as a professional.  I am excited about being a leader in the “T” (in TPACK) revolution in the Saint Joseph School District.

Stay tuned…

Artwork

I had to tell someone–and I knew you’d appreciate it.

A series of serendipitous events:

• 1. You taught me the value of Web 2.O.
• 2. I finally started using Twitter.
• 3. Following lots of great people.
• 4. Barak Obama tells all Americans to try to help others-volunteer. (I read about it via Twitter and watching live streaming at CNN.com etc.)
• 5. Thought, OK! What can I do? What can my students do?
• 6. @teachmescience on Twitter Discusses National Pink Shirt Day to put an end to Bullying.
• 7. I recall Pink Shirt Day being mentioned on Channel One last year.
• 8. Start a discussion in my Teacher Advisory Class about the Pink Shirt Day and Bullying-they decide we should promote it at Truman.
• 9. We’ve made posters, kids have created Commercials to run in the AM at Channel TMS (our student run news program.), and are creating pink “labels” for kids to pass out and wear on the date-February 25th.
• 10. I mentioned this to @teachmescience via Twitter as a thank you for the heads up.
• 11. She mentions this via e-mail to the Radio Station who started Pink Shirt Day.
• 12. Evidently “National” meant Canada.
• 13. Said radio station just e-mailed me asking to set up a telephone interview for Wednesday Afternoon.

How fun is that?!?

Terri

So, apparently, she and a couple of her students did a radio interview on the Christy Clark show during school today on CKNW AM980 in British Columbia, Canada.  Unfortunately, it was far too wild of a day for me to listen in, but I hear it was a great experience for all.  A little research on my end led me to the website for Pink Shirt Day, as well as Christy Clark’s page on the topic.  Apparently, this little movement aimed at ending bullying is gaining quite a head of steam, as Ms. Clark says on her site:

“I encourage all of you to wear something pink to symbolize that we as a society will not tolerate bullying anywhere. I wish I could take credit for this idea but it comes from two incredible Nova Scotia high school students.”

Terri-  of course I’m hoping you’ll pipe in here to give up a few more of the details.  Way to dive in an immerse yourself with like-minded professionals the world over.  And what’s more…  involving your students every step along the way in real social action.  You are modeling some pretty powerful connections.

*UPDATE: This just in, an audio link the piece (about halfway through).

I’m asking for your help.  If you could pick anyone, anything, or anyplace, What books would you read?  What conferences, workshops, or meetings would you attend?  Who would you travel to meet with?  Who would you fly in to sit at the table with you?  Who would you pick to help you in your strategic brainstorming or planning?  Who could help inject progressive, innovative ideas about the future of education and the technologies that will drive it?  Anyone.  Yes, I am serious.

This post is a straightforward attempt to leverage the power of my PLN.  It is my goal to get some fresh input about that very thing…  fresh input.  As a generalist instructional coach on what could realistically be called a “21st Century upgrade” mission in my building, I have spent countless hours in research this past year.  In fact, this blog originated from some of my earliest explorations into how a school can systematically raise the tech literacy of its staff ahead of a larger edtech implementation with students.

Here’s the deal

I am pleased to say that I work in a district with some success in incubating innovation.  We locally help to fund innovation with a fantastic “Apple Seed” grant program for creative projects.  We also celebrate ingenuity with an “Innovator of the Year” award- presented alongside the T.O.Y. award each year.  On a district wide level, our administrators in charge of curriculum & instruction are working hard to implement constructivist-leaning instruction and content-specific best practices.

In my opinion, we have long lacked such a mandated, district level approach to educational technology integration.  We invested early in a robust and speedy system-wide fiber optic network.  We have always succeeded in putting current, state of the art technological tools in the hands of our children.  What we now recognize the need for, is an innovative and comprehensive plan to elevate the technological savvy of all SJSD faculty members.  21st Century literacy skills (whatever you think those might be) cannot be developed in our children by skipping over our staff to do so.  We are ready to do the staff development required in readying our own workforce…  to ready those of the future.

Our crew

A district task force was assembled to study the situation.  Our group consists of three instructional coaches, one social studies teacher, a library/media specialist, our district’s technology curriculum specialist, and our chief operating officer.  We have been told that we are “taking one year to study.”  One year to learn everything we can about what the future of learning will look like-  at least with regard to information and communication technologies.  Experimentation with free online technologies has been spawned and is growing in a grassroots way in a few places already.  My home high school actually has a building-wide implementation plan that was put into play this past summer.

The goal is to get just enough perspective about what we are currently doing… and what we still need to do…  before making any more large scale technology purchases.  The idea is to put the “buy it and they will come” -approach to edtech integration to bed for good.  This task force is headed by our C.O.O.  He is a direct sitting member of our superintendent’s council.  This level of buy-in is aligned what I had in mind when I wrote a post entitled “Increasing Our Level of Vitamin A” last November.  We are really to the point in our little corner of the world where we need to think long and hard about our mission and vision prior to buying even one more laptop.  Smart move, methinks.  And this mission had better be flexible.  Life moves pretty fast in these circles.

Why should you care?

I don’t know if I can say why you should care about a project in Missouri.  However, I do believe I know why you will.  Because you are a bunch of committed, forward-thinking educators.  Folks like us know the power of buy-in at all levels of implementation.  Here’s betting that the readers of this blog realize the power potential of solid know-how combined with administrative support.

Please help.  I could submit my own recommendations.  I essentially do that quite regularly behind the driver’s seat of this blog.  The articles I write examine interesting avenues and advocate passionate positions.  My blogroll is a list of folks I rely on for new learning.  I have a set of books on my shelf that were important to me, but really…   the elements of my learning network allow it to be a dynamic, hyper-responsive, thing.  There is even a pretty good chance you came here from the Twitterverse-  and that has become a frighteningly good resources as of late.

We are locked and loaded for NECC 2009.  We are set for a sit-down at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino this March.  We recently sent a small contingent to METC 2009 for a last minute look at a few of the presenters.  We are ready to grab a few keystone texts for the group to dive into.  We are ready to visit the top workshops available where our learning/time ratio will be strongest.

We are going to take a slow, smart, focused look at this issue.  I can make informed suggestions as it is.  Yet- this post marks one of the ways I am increasingly gaining input.  Here’s betting that an emerging best practice in “informed decision making” includes surveying your PLN as an crucial step.  What do you say…  will you make a suggestion for our study?

For my non biology-geek readers (the majority) please allow a quick define of both a synapse and the site itself:

A SYNAPSE is a minute gap between nerve cells which transmits crucial information through the nervous system. The goal of this network is to perform a similar “synaptic” function between biology instructors of all levels and locations.

The Synapse is a science content-focused site on the Ning platform. Though it is managed by six people who are all relatively well versed in educational technology, it is not the primary focus of the network. It was designed primarily as a site for life science educators to connect with others without any geographical barriers.  In fact, the site owes its origin directly from a frustrating discussion in the Twittersphere between biology instructors of many levels.  On that day, it was decided that we needed a central place to meet, share and support one another from afar.

“What’s in it for me?”

Here, teachers can sign in to create a free profile to begin commenting, sharing, etc.  The Synapse is a professional social network that features a discussion forum, blogs, event listings, images, videos, chat, etc. This is a perfect place to troll for ideas on an upcoming unit, a new strategy or approach you’d like to attempt in the classroom, etc. On The Synapse, teachers can log requests for ideas, tips or suggestions for teaching those most challenging topics or using new strategies. Teachers will also notice the ability to join or form their own subgroups within the network based on region, content focus, instructional strategy, etc.

The facilitators of this network represent different regions across the country, varying grade levels, varying approaches, varying years of experience.  In fact, diversity within the network will certainly grow quickly even more over time. As this new network begins to expand, the power of numbers will work to produce results in an even more timely fashion.  I look forward here to what James Surowiecki quite simply called “The Wisdom of Crowds.”

The real potential beauty of this network is its goal of decentralized intelligence. Online social networks such as this one harness the power of asynchronous communication to allow teachers to collaborate when and where possible within our increasingly busy lives.  Sure, your brain has a ton of neurons…  on the order of about 10 billion.  However, it also contains around 100 billion synapses.  That is, connections between neurons.  It could thus be said that the connections between these brain cells are in some ways a larger factor than the brain cells themselves.  Play that metaphor out in terms of this project.  The connections we make here are potentially larger than any of us as individuals.

Sign in

The first step is to join. The second: poke around. See what this site can do for you as a teacher who is constantly looking to improve his or her practice. The final step: share. If everyone adds that minimum of one or two special things they have to share, this site will quickly be a huge part of your personal learning network.  In fact, in the words of Dr. Geoffrey Hinton:

Learning occurs as a result of changing the effectiveness of synapses so that their influence on other neurons also changes… Learning is a function of the effectiveness of synapses to propagate signals and initiate new signals along connecting neurons. Learning and experience change the structure of the neural networks. (Geoffrey Hinton, “How Neural Networks Learn from Experience,” Scientific American, 267:3, September 1992, 145.)

Experience affects efficacy when it comes to your brain.  Aren’t we magnificently plastic creatures?  (Check out the related discussion between Dr. Doyle & I on this post.)  The fact that you could alter the structure (and thus the function) of the only brain you’ll likely ever own, is a really powerful idea.  So what on Earth are you waiting for?  Jump in.  Become one of the collaborators (neurotransmitters) within this newly-forming network.  If you aren’t one who teaches life science…  forward this post to a colleague who does.  They might just thank you.

So welcome to another outpost on the rapidly expanding web that potentially connects professional educators worldwide. With a bit of help, this tiny outpost could turn into a metropolis. We think the infrastructure is ready. What do you think?

Artwork thanks: