where does leardership come from

I think as a group the team looks to me as a leader. S needs to feel that she is a leader too. But that's her ego coming out. I think I was like that when I was younger.I hope they do see me as a collaborative leader. not a directional leader. ...... spring board to new post

and here we are in the new post.

Leadership in people comes from very different places. Some people, it is a competitive edge. It's a drive to be the best. They gather lessers as currency and conquer equals. betters are targets to shoot at.

Some people are servant leaders where they are there for a purpose. to gather others to that good work. They raise up others and leverage equals. betters are examples to learn from.

Some people are natural leaders. They do what's right and in doing that draw others. Lessers learn and equals benefit from pieces they can contribute to the good work. betters are where they are going.

what type of leader are you?

high school and about next year

I imaged myself moving to the high school perhaps even heading it up. But that's not going to happen. Carol is already mentioning Linda about the high school. I should have know you are not going to head up a program when you are as new and as under educated as I am. People that head up things at oakland schools are older and dr's.

I am not really interested in teaching in the high school. It would be a new system to learn. I would be high school English which is a lot of papers to grade. I would go to the high school to be principal. but not a teacher.

Based on the conversations Carols is having she sees me working summer school - which I want too. There are hints she sees me doing the same job next year. But Dee is the math teacher. I would rather she teach Algebra. My first choice would be to be a principal of middle or elementary or k-8. I am interested to know if she will ask me to do parent meetings. That will be one sign.

I think as a group the team looks to me as a leader. Samantha needs to feel that she is a leader too. But that's her ego coming out. I hope they do see me as a collaborative leader. not a directional leader. ...... spring board to new post

some things never change

There are some constants in the functions of education that will never change
parent wants something
teacher make decision it's not in the best interest of the child
teacher double checks with admin
admin agrees
teacher has that hard conversation with parent
parent goes to admin
admin agrees with parent

Then the teacher is in a pickle. Pick you ending
did you admin throw you under the bus?
How is your relatship with the parent? Student? admin?
How does the teacher save face?
How the teacher maintain professional creditably?
What about trusting the admin?
How does the admin handle the communication of that decision to the teacher?
How does the admin create a place where the teacher can handle that reversal with trust?

Teachers can feel betrayed. They can transfer those feelings to students and parents. To grading. It can impact their commitment and confidence.

One of the real challenges of leadership is handling those critical conversation between an admin and teachers so the pitfalls that are all around this do not happen.

I wonder if the admin could leave it with the parent that I will talk over with the teacher and the teacher will let you know --- if they are giving the parent want they want. That would require the admin to not give into that emotional plea of the parents and the human response to want to say yes.

paperless problems

So I am trying to paperless at grad school this term. I figured out the whole what to do with handouts. I take a pictures and I can make them into PDF. My plan is everything paperless and in G Drive in a folder and use my iPad not laptop I have trust issues with the cloud but I am trying to get over them.

Taking notes in class - the delemia is Blogger verses Google Docs in G drive. There's no spell checker in G drive. And it's another place if I put in in Blogger. But Blogger could better organize the information. Not really sure where I fall on this but I need to make a commitment doing both is too messy.

PPT were a challenge. My current status is open them in keynotes and make notes on the slides themselves. Then put in up into the G drive. G drive does tag into many of the apps. Not in keynotes but I can get in there with some hops.

Another challenge was when DR. Martin said "take out a picture of paper and draw....." Panicky. There's no paper no pencils tool. But then I remember skitch - downloaded it and had my tool

Another problem was internet access. G drive was acting weird Thursday night. I kept giving off line messages. I thought it was the university's wifi but I had the same problems at home so I used notes instead and copied up to G drive when I could.

So far I am sticking with the paper plan. I think it helps that my professors this term are light in handouts.

the daily grid

My thoughts on coming back after Christmas break

So we are back the daily grid of being a virtual teacher. The worst part is specific to our program because it's the grading. It's so stupid that I spend time grading PDF that are multiple choice and matching. Scantron would be better then this. My own kids in the brick and motor school do moodle- Hey we have moodle!!

Wow I just had the idea of us porting those tests into moodle. We could do it. cut and paste! I think I could get the whole middle school done in a summer.Core, GCS, and Science it would work for. Math you may still need to should your work.

There are some issues that I would like the team to discuss. how to we make them go somewhere else to take a test? We could not stop. Would they use offline? Skipping tests? resetting tests for retry?


Lauren Childs said at our last pd "You are who you are waiting for"

Reflecting on the year

Hi VLAC Teachers!

We would very much like to include your positive experience(s) with VLAC in our upcoming media student recruitment launch. If you would be willing to send me a very short “testimonial” paragraph with your personal thoughts on the past school year (e.g.: teaching, curriculum, students), we would very much like to include your voice in the 2013-14 program promotion. Prospective VLAC parents will be very interested in what you have to say!

Jean (our social media "guy")

Jean

I am not sure if this is what you want. I can revise if it does not fit what you need.

Wow what an amazing school year this has been! Reflecting back on the first half of the year, I so happy to be part of this program. For parents, this program gives you the support from both other homeschooling parents and certified Michigan teachers. You no longer have to spend time and money figuring out what to teach and when to teach it. You can get right to teaching your child.  For students, this program gives you a strong education with a flexible schedule. 

I feel more connected to my students and parents in this program than traditional schooling. We are a team to develop the learner. This program offers a laser tight focus on developing the individual learners to master the curriculum.

Thanks so much,

Julie Alspach

Virtual Learning Academy Consortium

248 310-6885

are you smarter then your smart phone

we used to teach our students a knowledge base to remember so they could go out and be better equipped to learn in the world.
now we have smart phone, tv and cars so you how you get smarter then a smart phone?
You move up the ladder. OUr students need to learn to apply, analyze and evaluate

because we do not know the data set they we will need. Don't know the questions they wil face but they need to have the problem solving skills to conquer it.

really living working at home

when we really start workgin at home here's somethings we will need to think about:
more than one home office per house; "it's a three bedroom; two office home"
Working at home requires less food and more moving
gym membership will be more
hours of work will be blended into our family lives; 9 to 5 is dead
eating and exercise will need to more deliberate.
interaction and involvment with causes-----more deliberaye

PD day

lauren childs

getting ready for my day in the big world

pop I have to get one caffeine and two unleaded.
snacks plus at least two snacks bars.

It's been a long time since I had a full days meeting out in the real world. We have had meetings but they were only half day.



Reflection
It was a great day to have the PD all day to build the team. Lauren really got us to think about how we have hard conversations. I think we expressed concerns over parents but not parent bashing. I do not like when that happens
We talked about how to approach those hard conversations. We talked about where we are now and where we would like to be at April 1st and August 1st.

One thing we talked about was dialogue verses discussion. Dialogue = developing understanding. Discussion = developing a decision. This is one of Carols "tricks" that works very well. She dialogues about something that is happening so when it comes to decision making, we have a common understanding developed.

going back??....... standard for personal relationships

How would it feel to be put back in a classroom right now?

I would feel locked into a room and a schedule. I would change my teaching style to change up delivery methods and activities more. I would lack the stama to teach/talk/stand all day.

I would not get the blending of work and home that allows me to run my home life bettter. For example doing laundry as a grade tests.

I would have back that strong connection with students that comes so much easier in the phyiscal world.

But maybe younger people do not need that. Emily is friends - real friends as she expresses it- with at least two people she does nto - well I would say does not know - but she would not. Really she has not seen in person - but she has skped so I wonder if she would feel that she has seen them in person

The standard for personal relationships has globalized also maybe shifted maybe that connection is there in terms of their end of it
maybe it's just my old fashion thinking

so going back?? double edge sword for the same pay I would stay.

I made a mistake.....

I made a mistake. I have a student that asked if he could read another books rather then the main or alternate selection in the curriculum. My first reaction was to advise him to read it gently. He insisted so I started working with him to select a different novel. He waited until after break to tell me what he selected. It did delay him in that class. I suggested that he double up in other classes so overall he was not behind. This conversation has been going on for a month now. Yesterday his dad sent me an email nicely saying he did not approve of the switch out, he was concerned that his son might not be successful and he might be switching out of the program.

My mistake was forgetting our parents are Learning Guides. I assumed the parent was OK with the conversation the son and I were having about switching.

One part of my mistake was in Madison I got used the absent parents and high school students who were operating more like adults. And these parents are right there everyday.

These parents are not just consumers of their child's education. They are providers. They are Learning Guides. Really they are the teacher. I am an quasi admin.

I should remember this is middle school. Because I cannot see these students and this "building" I work in, I sometime losing the grounding. They sound so adult in web message. I think it's part of the human condition to image people to be like yourself. I do not see their faces or hear their voices. It's just letters and academics I see.

Overall it's not a big mistake. It's just a reality check of our environment. Interesting to reflect on how this type of educational support varies from traditional teaching.

forward is not always forward

When you are looking at a new way of doing things you need to make sure you are not just repackaging the old ways. We have on line testing. Some classes they are embedded test where the student answers the questions on line. Any long answer are checked by a human teacher but multiple choice and matching are done by the program. That's great.

However ( There's always a however) for all the middle school subjects that is not the case. They print sometimes 22 pages of paper. Fill them out by hand and scan them back to us. The Core classes come back as one file ; four subjects ; up to 27 pages.
Real assessment cannot be done through only multiple guess - because as a student I used to be really good at that! I can get a D on a subject I barely know. It cannot be done with matching and true/false so there will always be that need for humans to express their learner mastery to other humans for the deep learning or in Maslow's concept the higher learning.
But there's a great value to working smarter not harder. Grading is a very hard part of this job. And really at the lowest level of technology is does not have to be hard as it is it the current form.
Scantrons!! what are they from the fifties!! That would make everything is much easier. It would take away 3/4 of my grunt work. And it is grunt work because I groan every time I have to do it.
So as we are developing this new virtual learning we are building the ship as we sail but there are some anchors of our old ways of thinking that we need to jettison.

not about on line teaching but geeked about my new toy!!

So I have always maintained the Ipad is not quite the creation device. It's a consumption device. Reading the web books shopping. Not really taking notes.

I also totally believe the mouse is dead. I said that when the first Ipad came out.

There are new window machines with touch screens and the windows8 operating system is a touch based system. But those new laptops with touch screens are 700+ to 1000. And the hardware is nothing special. Nothing i could game on. that proves the mouse is dead and is a creation device.


sooooo all that added up I got a new ipad four. The retain is beautiful. But the creation barrier is gone due to the new case/keyboard I got. It's a chiclet or island keyboard. It's much faster then the spongey soft rubber one I had. The speed is there and the size in not an issue for me.

So 600+ for the 32 GB and 100+ for the Zag case with keyboard. Same price as the laptops but I have all my apps and reading books in a small size.

My goal is paperless for the next term. Google drive will greatly help.
My issues are
how to download something straight to google drive. I installed it on my PC so I solved that problem on the PC. Now I just have to get around it on the ipad.
printing - google drive will solve
writing report - still using the PC for the really heavy lifting. But definately lifting more with less ( less paper and less size on the ipad)

geek geek happy happy joy joy