Sunday, July 19, 2020

Exciting Times, All Things Considered

There is no question that the past few months have been hectic. Schools shutting down all over the world forced educators to teach remotely, states canceled extracurricular activities for students, graduations were held virtually or by drive-through, and professional development has become even more important with the uncertainty of what the next school year is going to look like. Unfortunately, there isn't an end in sight, regardless of calls from many within the federal and state governments to fully open schools, even as numbers of COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing.  But this isn't a piece designed to debated whether schools should open or not (I am 100% fully in the continuation of remote learning camp until numbers have decreased dramatically).  This is a look at some exciting things that are happening in education instead!

As a result of the closures, states canceled standardized tests. Many colleges and universities eliminated requirements for tests like the ACT and SAT for admission. And some states are already exploring canceling testing for the 2020-2021 school year as well. Testing has been a powder keg issue for many years on its effectiveness and necessity. And guess what? The world did not implode when it was canceled this year, nor will it if testing is canceled again this year! It's time for standardized testing to fade away and while it is horrific and unfortunate that it took a pandemic for the demise to begin, this will be one of the lasting positive impacts if testing is indeed eliminated from our schools.  

Because of the necessity of learning various tools for flipped, blended, and distance learning, I have noticed more and more people sharing their work on social media.  Everywhere you turn and every hashtag you search results in a ton of amazing resources from hard-working educators, from short videos, blogs, podcasts, graphics, and more.  And my perception is that more people are actively seeking out learning materials. As a result, I have seen more activity from Google Educator Groups (Nevada's group is relaunching in August, more on this in a moment), Facebook educator groups have been popping up for educators to share and ask questions, and various companies have been hosting more webinars, chats, and other activities for educators to learn about and become better versed in their products. 

There has also been some exciting things happening for me more directly. For educators in the State of Nevada, two huge developments are coming to fruition after weeks of preparation, the Nevada Digital Learning Collaborative, and the Nevada Google Educators Group. And for me, a book study on my book, To The Edge: Successes & Failures Through Risk-Taking.  

Look for The Battle Born Digital Learning Podcast wherever you
listen to podcasts! The podcast is sponsored by the Nevada Department
of Education and the Nevada Digital Learning Collaborative. 
The former consists of educators around the state that is working to prepare a variety of materials for educators, students, and families to highlight digital learning. I am fortunate enough to have been selected as a member of this team. My role in the NVDLC is to work with other educators on the marketing and communicating aspect of the organization.  To market the work of the NVDLC, I have teamed up with the Nevada Department of Education and a longtime colleague, Maggie Cox, to create The Battle Born Digital Learning Podcast!.  The show will be posted on the first and third Mondays of each month and will highlight the work of educators from all over the state.  I am really excited for the show to take off.  As of this writing, it is available on Anchor, but will soon be available on all other podcast apps like Apple, Spotify, Pocketcasts and Stitcher.  

The Nevada Google Educators Group has been around for a few years, but there hasn't been much activity. I was recently contacted about my interest in relaunching the group to help make it relevant and a place for educators to turn to for questions and to share resources and to be a part of the leadership team for the group. There is a multitude of ways to connect with the group on the Facebook group, Facebook page, Twitter, YouTube, and their website. You don't need to be an educator in Nevada to be a part of the group or access materials, all are welcome! The relaunch will be streamed on YouTube Live on Monday, August 3 at 6:00 PM Pacific, so watch the group's social media feeds, subscribe to the YouTube channel and visit the website for more information!

With the school year approaching and the unknown of what it is going to look like or what educators are going to face, now is a great time to take some risks in the classroom. Starting on Saturday, August 1, I will be leading a study of my book. My goal is to inspire others to embrace risk, learn from risk, and take the consequences of risk, good and bad, in stride.  The book study will take place on Voxer. If you are unfamiliar with Voxer, it is a messaging app that allows users to leave text and voice messages. It is available on iOS, Android, and there is also a desktop version.  If you are interested in participating in the study, fill out my book study form and I will be in communication with you to send you the details. If you do not have a copy of my book, it is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in paperback, Kindle, and Nook.  I am very excited to host this study and hope that you can join! 

Even though the world seems to be burning, there are lots of great things happening that need to be highlighted. I hope that you can find something positive and are making the best of a tough situation. Please share them out so we can all connect through positivity!

Until next time... 

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Summer Recharge - Pandemic Style

Stop me if you have heard this one before: "Teaching must be great, you only work 6 hours a day and you get the summers off!"  If you are a teacher, you laugh at this one whenever you hear it because you know how ridiculous it truly is when you dive into it deeper.  What teacher is really working only 6 hours a day? How many hours a day are you really working? Are you working once you get home? What about weekends, are you working on the weekend? And come summer, how much time are you really taking off?  

Over my 15 years as a teacher, I can't tell you how many hours I have worked after my contracted time at night from home, on weekends, or in the summer.  Figure in the time I have spent pursuing my graduate degrees, certifications, attending and presenting at conferences, etc., and it adds up to thousands upon thousands of hours of times attempting to improve learning for my students and improve my skill set.  And while I have always viewed summer as a time to focus on self-improvement, this year is much different.

For many, myself included, the last 2-3 months of the school year was very taxing.  Working from home remotely was something that nearly nobody had ever done before and the process of figuring out how to provide school to students was very trying.  Luckily, I was already familiar with the tools that my school ultimately decided to use for remote learning, but there was so much more to the remote learning and teaching process that was exhausting, such as coordinating schedules for teachers, students, and families, ensuring that devices and Internet were available, and communicating through phone, email, video conference, etc.  

Clientmoji
Yes, you can disconnect & recharge! And did you also know that
you can customize a Bitmoji in the Google Chrome extension? 
Adding to the crazy that was the last few months and the continuing pandemic, I moved in the middle of May. Moving is tough in the best of times, but getting everything packed in an apartment and a storage unit, finding movers to help and trekking across the state to a new home that you have never actually seen only increased the stress. (We didn't just find a place and sign a lease, the realtor that we worked with was amazing and conducted a video walk-through of the home before we committed).  Meanwhile, I still had a few weeks of school and conducted remote teaching from my new home over 400 miles away (my principal and I talked about it and in not so many words, he essentially said that it didn't matter where I taught from as long as I was doing my job). 

Had the opportunity to meet Jim Craig and have him sign
my copy of We Win! A few months ago at an event in Las
Vegas celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice
As a result, once the school year ended, I shut myself down to reset myself and take a break from everything.  I went days without turning on my computer.  I scaled back my scrolling and participation in social media.  I still listened to podcasts, but I wasn't as actively engaged as a listener and I started listening to more non-education related shows and more music (I went down a rabbit hole of The Offspring's catalog for several hours one day and was turned on to a very early punk band from Detroit called Death by the boys from The Punk Rock Classrooms Podcast).  I watched a lot of different shows on Hulu and Netflix, namely The Office, Waco, Ozark (as of this writing, still need to finish it), and have been rewatching episodes of Trailer Park Boys.  And I have been doing some reading, plowing through We Win! Lessons on Life, Business, & Building Your Own Miracle Team by Jim Craig, the goaltender of the 1980 USA Hockey team that defeated the Soviet Union in the Miracle on Ice game before beating Finland to win the gold medal.  I have also been reading White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo and The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, using both books as an opportunity to realize my own biases about race to become a better-informed person and educator and striving to be an anti-racist.   

Fishing was slow during the trip, I only landed one small rainbow trout, but
sunrise over the lake is extremely hard to beat! 
To further unplug, I needed to get out of the city and get back to something I love but had not had the opportunity to do in a long time: camp! My travel trailer had not been out in the great outdoors for a couple of years and had been sitting in storage.  My fishing gear had also been sitting dormant, so as a family, we went to Panguitch Lake, Utah for a few days.  While I did not have any intentions to be on a device anyway, it made it much easier to avoid my phone when I arrived at the lake to learn that there wasn't any cell service.  For four days, we hiked, we fished, and we ate our meals cooked over a fire and had a great time until the drive home when we broke a spring on the camper and had to have it towed to Cedar City for repairs (but thanks to Matt's Springs, we were back on the road about 4 hours after calling for the tow truck!).  I have another camping trip lined up for later in the month to Williams, Arizona, not as rustic as Panguitch Lake, but another opportunity to unplug and relax in nature. 

After nearly a month of unplugging, I have been starting to get back into the game. I have recorded a handful of episodes of my podcasts, The BeerEDU Podcast & The Podcast by Sons of Technology. I have been working on some modules provided to Pear Deck Coaches as a way to refresh and expand my knowledge on the platform.  Since I missed the live presentation, I have started to go back to watch sessions from CUE-NV's CUE'd Up virtual conference that was held in late June. Because I am going to be teaching in a new district/school and do not know what the fall is going to look like, I'm not sure how to prepare other than brushing up on skills and looking at other ways to create lessons in a blended, flipped, or virtual format (I know I am teaching special education, but what I am co-teaching is still up in the air).  Either way, I am motivated again to grind after having some time to decompress.

My point was not to tell you about my summer, not explicitly, at least.  My goal, if you are still reading this, is to tell you that not only is it okay for you to unplug, but you NEED to unplug.  Take care of yourself. Spend time with your family. Get away (safely) if you can and leave your electronics behind, perhaps even go somewhere without cell service or put your phone into airplane mode when you get there. You have my permission to do these things (not that you need MY permission, what you do is YOUR prerogative)! You will be better for it, your family will be better for it, and when we return to whatever school will be in a few weeks, your students, colleagues, and community will be better for it!

Until next time...