First Session: EdTech That Connects: Expanding Student Networks w/ @juliaffreeland
- Currently we focus more on WHAT students know and leave WHO students know up to their own network. This is where we perpetuate the opportunity gap.
- 50% of jobs come through PERSONAL connections so if we aren't setting up those networks with students we aren't providing the structures needed to thrive.
- Mentorships are essential in providing students with upward mobility and connections needed for college and the workforce.
- Informal mentors are still disproportionate according to income level. However, formal mentors with connections into innovative fields (technology) are very minimal.
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| Informal Mentors (from the top): Extended Family, Any Nonfamily Member, Teacher, Friend of Family, Religious or Youth Group Leader, Coach) |
"Lost Einsteins" = inventors and creators - Students in the top 5% of low-income schools have the same likelihood of being inventors/creators as middle-of-the-road students from middle to high-income families. Students in low-income schools are often not exposed to much innovation.
- Disrupted Technology - where companies work on more affordable technologies rather than innovating new technologies (Example: Sony and RCA - RCA and the transistor radio versus Sony trying to make cheaper, more affordable technology and thus the Walkman was born. Who outlasted who?)
- 93% of Facebook users know each other (Facebook is a disrupting technology (low cost) for networking. However, even Mark Zuckerberg explained, Facebook is not good for BUILDING social networks. Users don't often meet a tremendous amount of NEW people but they connect with people they already know.
- Today, the national statistic for high school guidance counselors' case loads is 400:1 so there is a great need for mentoring programs.
- Industry-based mentorships are also not happening.
- "Weak Ties" Guest speakers spark relevance of their work (even in elementary).
- "Strong Ties" Technology is NOT how to addresses strong ties that are needed to thrive in one's career.
- Younger primary students need brief interactions with LOTS of people and experiences but in secondary students need more focused mentors and experiences by interest.
- Similarities build TRUST - surface similarities - try a "me too" activity where you share something about you and others are able to say "Me too!"
- Regarding safety - some digital mentoring programs are available with avatars only - no personal pictures shared and digital background checks like you would coming into a school
- "The dark side of privacy is isolation." Check out Danah Boyd and her keynote here.
- "Who You Know" is a book written by Freeland(s) coming out this summer.
Implications to My Work:
- Increasing parent engagement and a mentoring program.
- Having lots of people come visit students (in EnCore?) of all ages to set up relationships.
- Rather than bring your kid to work day, bring work to the kids with meeting lots of adults who describe their jobs.
- Parent evening where they sign up to showcase their own professions and businesses. Business Fair or have students create their own business?
- Third grade Economics Fair?
- Reach out to the Cy-Fair community or even parents from other PTOs in more affluent schools.
Second Session: Podcast Meet-Up
- Try Zencaster for podcasting or Soundtrap for lots of different mediums
- Bring in community stories
- Have student/teacher ideas submitted with a Google forum
- Allow a 4 week to 2 month editing process (especially in the beginning)
- Organize by like topics for a semester at a time
- Have a team/club after school for doing podcasting
- Can put podcasts into a Google classroom or put links on a Google site
Implications and Ideas for My Work:
- With NEW Texas ELAR TEKS focused on listening and speaking, have students podcast about listening and speaking for others
- Teachers record their first examples of listening and speaking experiences
Third Session (Workshop): Blending Leadership by Beth Holland and Reshan Richards
- What is the ACTUAL problem? Frame the problem, not the solution (We're so solution-oriented but time is needed to really look at roots of problems in school/business.)
- Ask yourself:
- What are we trying to accomplish?
- What change might we introduce?
- How will we know that a change implemented well?
- How are we going to measure if something is helpful or harmful?
- Leaders do: (Save us) TIME and (help us share) TALENT
- Activity: Take a line on a paper. Start from the beginning and talk about ALL the steps needed to reach the end. (Example: Getting cash out of an ATM and then getting on an airplane.) GREAT way to identify the real issues of a problem. Under the timeline have an emotional toll of each item. Now, put into a context like PD, what do teachers hate about it?
- Leadership team and teachers: Do we REALLY believe every child can learn? (If not, what do we need to change so that all are on the same page?)
- Environmental needs of a productive school/work environment:
- Core values
- Time (safety net of time/not last minute)
- Planning (expectation of what's allowed/policies) and prepared for slowness
- Outcomes MUST meet the EFFORT teachers/staff put in.
- Nearpod - pre-assessment to get their voice and emotional state (or Padlet, Google form)
- DISRUPTUS - to generate outside the box thinking or creative problem-solving
- Put picture up on the screen (shopping cart) and state main purpose - "collect things to buy" but list ways to make this more effective (wheels, smaller, sections, thermal capabilities, bags included)
- Put picture up on screen (handcuffs) now find another problem to solve with these same utensils
- 100 hours challenge - What can you solve in 100 hours? What evidence will you have that you're successful?
- Leadership - How well can you SELL your solution?
- Storytelling
- Relate-ability
- Novelty
- Tension
- Fluency (Have to explain the problem on a 4th grade level)
Session Four: Statewide Vision of Transformation (TASA)
- As a new superintendent, met with board and his admin team to create a vision
- Vision - factory model, one size fits ALL
- 21st century skills
- Visioning document
- What we're for
- About children
- DEEP learning (TEKS are a mile wide but only an inch deep)
- Strategic Plan
- Profile of a learner
- Student generated and approved
- Student engagement
- NOT buying into state testing, leaving that out of it
- Time and energy on LEARNING
- STAAR is an "autopsy report" as the scores come too late to do anything about it that year
- Ask parents "What are your hopes and dreams for your child?" They never ever say "pass the state test."
- Parent and student focus groups, panels for input.
- When building culture, have a strategic NO to all other things besides the main goals of the current work.
- Program where teachers apply for model-teachers in student-centered curriculum. They didn't get extra pay but got 1:1 technology, new furniture, an instructional coach, and hours of PD for building lessons.
- Keep on a very narrow, steady pace. "You're setting up fertile soil for the future" not setting up quick fixes.
Implications to My Work:
- Coffee with the specialist
- Panels of students and parents to help build vision/culture of the school - focus groups too.
- Make a video of parents telling us their hopes and dreams for their children.
Thank you again to SXSW EDU for the opportunity to attend your conference. I deeply regret I could not attend all four days but as a current educator and practitioner, I just couldn't get away.
If you have any questions about the content I've posted please let me know. I'd be happy to help or direct you to the correct source.
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