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Summer Conference Time

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Just returned from my one and only conference of the summer. ISTE 2018 was in Chicago this year and did not disappoint. The town is amazing, beautiful, and friendly. My hotel was a couple of miles from the conference center, but I didn’t mind the walk. I got to see Millenium Park every day.

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ISTE is an educational technology conference. There are sessions about integrating technology into your classrooms, about new instructional tech that is coming onto the scene, and about improving your teaching practice. Microsoft, Apple, Google have a giant presence at this conference. Many, many sessions just from these three technology giants.

There were three keynote addresses, but I only attended one. It started with a mini-concert from the group, Musicality. They are a high school group that once appeared on America’s Got Talent. Fantastic way to start the show!

Author Andy Weir (@AndyWeirAuthor) did not disappoint. His session about how he started as an author was fantastic. His message was about problem-solving, never giving up, keep moving forward.

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I scored a free Microsoft Innovative Educator T-shirt from the Microsoft booth, and bought a shirt from the ISTE sales booth.

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I have to say that the size of this conference can be overwhelming. It took me several hours to make my way through the Expo floor where the vendors are showcasing their products. The program of sessions is extensive and it really becomes a matter of priority when deciding where to go next.

I did get to meet one of the big-cheeses from FlipGrid. Joey Taralson is really down to earth, and easy to talk to. His company was just purchased by Microsoft, but he is still the same person that I met last year.

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FlipGrid is all about student voice, and I have used it in both of my AP classes. The students really like it, and I get to hear what is uppermost on their minds in response to a simple prompt.

While at the conference I finished by 2018-2019 Microsoft Innovative Education Expert application. Most of this time was spent on the 2-minute Sway. I was an MIEE last year, and it gives some credibility when presenting a new Microsoft tool to a group of teachers. I find out on August 23rd if I made the list again for this year. Fingers crossed.

One of my regrets from the conference was BCPS leadership. I saw directors and office-heads from my district, a couple that I know personally. In every case, they turned their back as soon as they saw me or ignored me completely. There were a handful of teachers from our district at the conference, and I cannot say that they all had the same reaction, but this was my experience. It just further divides the elitism that seems to exist between the district administration and the classroom teacher.

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Professional Development for Chairmen – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Imagine sitting in professional development surrounded by your fellow chairmen.  What do you picture?  If your picture of PD is a good one, you imagine productive and thought-provoking conversations about content and instruction, engaging activities that you can share with your teachpd-300x225ers, resources and materials that can be taken back to be used in classrooms, and all the other things that would make you better than the bearer of bad news about grading, assessment, accountability, etc.

If your image of PD is bad,  you have probably lived through a series of PD that involved someone’s worn out, go-to activity for engaging you in learning that is far from relevant or useful to you or your teachers.  You’ve probably also sat through the development of norms about how you should play nice during the PD, all the while, thinking about how this will go over like a lead balloon with your department.  Or maybe the PD was everyone’s favorite, the ever so engaging PPT covering the latest required initiative that in no way assists you in carrying out the initiative effectively in the classroom.

Hopefully, you have experienced the “good” more often than the “bad”.  More importantly, I hope you have never experienced “The Ugly.”  Unfortunately, I have experienced “The Ugly” recently.  “The Ugly” occurs when looking around the room you with much sadness observe that everyone has given up.  What I mean by given up is that everyone has finally come to terms with the fact that we are on a consistent drip of “bad” PD that continues to get worse.  It isn’t that chairmen don’t want to learn or grow professionally.  They are yearning for resources and ideas to take back to their teachers. With repeated meetings lacking open discussion,  many, if not all of us, are just discouraged with the thought of returning home to our schools without any resources or ideas that will solve our problems or provide answers to our teachers questions and concerns.

I wonder if those in charge of PD recognize the signs of “The Ugly” or even the signs of bad PD?  When the entire room is openly checking email, grading papers, knitting, and surfing the web without any response to the presenter’s ongoing questions isn’t that a sign the PD is not going well?  Too often, the leaders of professional development view “The Ugly” as the fault of the participants.  Their excuse is that the participants are not following their beloved norms.  As observers, they would never write off a bad lesson lacking student engagement as the students’ fault.  They would ask the teacher why the students weren’t engaged.  Why don’t they do the same with professional development?

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