Highly Effective Teachers Using Technology

My school isn't one of those "7 Habits" schools.  There are schools in our county where that is the one true gospel, but ours isn't one of them.  I do enjoy reading various things connected to those concepts, though, so when I came across this short blog post  from teachthought about 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teachers Who Use Technology, I was intrigued.  Sylvia Duckworth's work has crossed my path a few times, and I always love the way she uses graphics to organize concepts in ways that make sense, and even more so, make you want to read about them.  Check out the way she summarizes this information:

There's so much to love and take in from this, but I especially love the emphasis on an attitude that embraces change and rolls with the punches.  When I was working on my masters degree in Instructional Technology, one of the recurring noted hurdles to any kind of change with regard to tools, technology, or curriculum was teacher resistance to change.  The more flexible we all become, the better we'll be able to muddle through all of the regularly scheduled chaos of a typical day of school.

Just a thought. Check out, let me know what you think in the comments below.  What traits do you see in yourself?  Which habits do you want to work on strengthening?

I'm considering printing this graphic out and posting it in the lab at school. And maybe in the work room.  And maybe giving copies to my teachers. (Too much? Maybe.)

Have a great day, guys. See you soon!

#FutureReady Instruction & Understanding What Drives Us

(We're going to pretend like it hasn't actually been more than 2 years since I started this blog, k? You with me? Good. Let's continue.)

One of my favorite ways to stay in the loop with new content that relates to the field of Instructional Technology (or Ed Tech) and even just education in general is to subscribe to "professional" publications whenever I can.  The two big ones that I turn to most often are EdTech Magazine and Tech & Learning, both of which offer a physical magazine and an online component.  What I love even more about both of these resources is that they're free!  One thing I hope to do roughly once a week (maybe more, but let's not get ahead of ourselves) is to share some of the resources/articles/etc that I came across that I found worth sharing.  Today I'll be sharing a couple of posts that I came across in an eNewsletter that Tech & Learning sends out.

First up, let's talk about getting #FutureReady in our classrooms.  This short and sweet post from a blog called Recharge Learning touches on the concept of 21st Century Skills, which is a buzz-phrase that's been echoing in the heads of educators for what feels like forever.  The way that this blog post breaks down the concept of what it calls "Future Ready" classrooms is through what they describe as "The 4 C's," which looks like this:

I'm always a fan of simplified strategies that aren't overly or unnecessarily complex, and I like the way it's broken down in Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Creativity here.  These are easy to understand concepts.  For more information and strategies in implementing this model, check out this awesome Google Doc that's full of links for you to explore.  Kudos to @WickedEdTech for creating such an excellent resource!

The other article I'd like to mention today comes from actual Principal and speaker/author George Couros.  I came across it on the site Connected Principals, and it's called "Child-Driven and Data-Driven; Can you be both?"  In it, Couros explores the conflicting concepts of being child-driven versus being data-driven, which is most definitely a familiar conflict experienced by all educators.  We want to encourage our children to reach their fullest potential, and to honor whatever that may be, but we also feel pressure from all sides to achieve a certain level of success on tests, and sometimes the push to hit those particular goals comes at the cost of staying centered on our students.  My favorite quote from the article was this:

"...when we do things to validate the adults that hurt kids, our focus is on the wrong place."

Talk about a gut punch.  I encourage you to take a look at the full article and give it some consideration.

So that's going to be it for this post.  If you take a look at either resource mentioned, leave a comment below with your reactions, questions, comments, or concerns.  I invite anyone with a vested interest in our students' success (which is everybody, by the way) to be a part of this conversation.

Happy Hump Day, y'all.  See you back here again soon! (I promise.)