#Colchat takeaways

It was so great to run into expected and unexpected tweeps at #COLchat2action. 

 There's an amazing type of learning that happens when you have a room full of a passionate professional that are doublingly  engaged. I say double egagned because I am listening to  and being inspired by great speakers such at @thenerdyteacher and at the same time my head is down engaged on my device in a back channel conversation. That head down device lit  face body language looks disrespectful on it's face value. But it's not. I am activity engaged in listening, inspiration and channeling that engagement into constructed my own learning. Is this learning our students would benefit from? Posssibly. Is this learning we would allow our students? Probably not. 

We say we go to these conferences on our own time own our own dime for connections. And #Colchat did not dissappoint. I ran into all the usual suspects. Geat to see them and hear what's going on in their life. 

But also I put faces to people I have talked to on Twitter. Another awkward face to face moment where I say so nice to meet you to someone I feel that I know well through twitter. 

But also I connected to new people. I spoke with new adminstrators. I learned about new groups in virtual education. 

And that's what a conference should be. 1. see those you know 2. meet those you know 3. meet new people. 

And then there was the learning. 

I learned about Voice Thread. We can have a read out with our homeschooling students. 

I missed the session on standards based grading - that will have to be home work for me. 

Someone mentioned Glide - some app. I want to figure out that is. 

I want to recommitt to bloging. Not  because I want a following but to be reflective in my parctice. 

 In Seth's session he challenged us to do some crappy writing. This is mine. I am a terrible speller and the iPad Blogger app does not have spell check - can you believe it! 

The power of words in your standards #michEd #masspchat

7/29/14

One of my summer projects is to co-author a standards document to codifed the best parctices we have been growing into and learing as we build our program.  As a Teacher Leader I will be supporting hte learning behind these standards. Here's my evolution of one standard that reflects the developement of word choice.

Teacher will learn the curriculum.

Yuck ! It  is so bossy. It's not supportive.  what about ....

Teacher understand the curriculum. 

Better makes a positive assuption but there's no why. what about .....

To best support student learning, teachers know the curriculum. 

I like that. Positive. Grounded in student learning. 

We need to be intentional with our words. Those words share reactions and convey our intentions. 

11/16/14

As we wrote further chapters, my mentor and I decided that we needed to change the tense from teachers to "the teacher" since this document would be read from the point of view of one teacher trying to understand the expectations. 

Also we are working on our team evaulation instrument. This has impacted this work. I am learning relationship with national standards ( Danielson and INacol), our standards/expeaction in Field guide, and what the looks like on the evaluation. 

I would like to be able to cross reference all of these. They should all tie together to create a clear picture of a highly effective teacher

And that brings up highly effective. Does a highly effective teacher meets or exceed expecations? That's another blog topic. 

The stages of admin #masspchat

7/29/2014 So just like dying becoming an admin has stages. This blog used to be about growing into the role of a virtual mentor teacher. Now I am beginning the transition into growing into an administrator in our program.

My new position is Lead Teacher. This is a 40% teacher position and 60% administration. What that really means - well we are still working on that. I can tell you some things I am sure of. My focus is supporting our teachers to be highly effect in the best practices of virtual teaching and I am a 12 month employee so bye bye summers off.

My journey into adminstration can best be described in the following stages.

Stage 1 I want this ! ~ This is the stage where you are searching for that admin position. You have the drive. You demonstrate the teacher leaderships. Other teachers consider you a leader. And you want to change the world. Much of your job is pre-leaderhip work. In my case I am a teacher but already doing a large part of leadership. 

Stage 2 WoHo! I got the job! This is stage where you just found out it's offical. All those extra duties you were doing are

Stage 3 Holly Crap I got the job! This is where I am now.

Stage 4 I got this. This is where I am shooting for! Not there yet.