5 We Are All Makers!

I've been meaning to write a post about our progress so far on trying to create a makerspace at our school and now I have too many reasons to put it off any longer!  (If you're interested in seeing our progress and what our space looks like via an interactive photo, visit my makerspace page here.)

Here are a few reasons why this post has finally come to fruition:

1. I recently did an interview with the EduAllStars team where I talked a bit about our makerspace and making in general.
2. I was asked while I was at ISTE to do a video on makerspaces for the Summer Learning Series (#SummerLS) that is being led by Todd Nesloney (@techninjatodd)
3. I'm part of the Connected Learning MOOC that is happening right now that is investigating making and it's many forms all summer long

Well, if those aren't enough reasons to get started than what is?!  

So, I'll first start by posting my personal example of making/ hacking which is my challenge for this week from my MOOC on making.  We needed to hack writing in some way to transform analog into digital.  I decided to focus on the makerspace at our school and create a sign that will inspire others to join the maker movement.  Let's be clear... I am not a hacker.  I'm fine with my phone the way it is and happy to only use the fonts and other websites the way the templates provided afford me.  However, I worked with a hacker (@TechGeekFest I'm talking to you!) and am now able to appreciate the mentality behind hacking.  It's being involved with your environment and interacting with it the way that you want to.  It's having a say in what you use and how those tools help you in your daily life.  I was able to appreciate the history of hacking as well after reading the book Invent to Learn which is a great book to read if you are interested in getting started with makerspaces at your school. 

Here is my example of my analog/ digital mashup or hack allowing me to take the language of my environment from books, papers, signs, etc. and re-purpose them for an inspiring sign on making for our makerspace.  I took photos of words around my house to make the saying that I wanted and then made the collage in Google Drawing.

With that example to inspire us, here is the video I made for the Summer Learning Series that encourages teachers to learn something new each week during their summer vacation and think of ways to apply it to the next school year.

So, to reiterate, if you are interested in joining the challenge, here's what you can do to get started in feeling the spirit of the maker movement. 

1. Go to the Invent to Learn website and learn more about the book and the leaders behind the book.
2. Go to the Instructables website and find a problem you can solve or something you can hack or something you can make and consciously think about the skills and abilities you are employing as well as your attitude while you are completeing your project.
3. Reflect on your learning and post on your blog or twitter about your foray into the maker movement and how you see it being connected to your teaching and learning context for the next school year.

Good luck with your making!  

Looking forward to your thoughts!

Jessica :)

1 ISTE: Catalyst for Action

CATALYST:  A person or event that quickly causes change or action.  

A spark, an incitement, an impetus.

Another year has passed and I'm invigorated and ready to reflect on another great ISTE experience.  This year, my biggest #ISTEtakeaway is- "Be a catalyst!"  Taken from the motivating keynote speech by Kevin Carroll, I think it best sums up what I was hearing, researching, and learning during my five days at the conference.  You can get a sense of everything I was learning and doing through my two storify posts: ISTE Favorites Collection and ISTE @jessievaz12 Collection.

I can sum up everything I was learning into three distinct statements-

1.  Be a catalyst of action by changing student learning through making and creativity.
I've been a long time advocate of #making and #makered and have been working toward making a #makerspace in our school for quite some time.  (You can read about our progress here.)  It was so validating to see that we're on the correct path.  After listening to Gary Stager and Sylvia Martinez talk about their theories from their fantastic Invent to Learn book, speaking to many great educators during HackEducation14 such as @teambond and @amboe_k who are also on a making journey, and hearing the great work that is happening in afterschool makerspaces such as the Digital Harbor Foundation, it impressed me how important it is for us to share this message passionately.  Students today need to be involved with their learning through creativity and making as a way to build personal resilience in the face of challenge, independence in learning, and working cooperatively to solve problems and challenges.  Every educator I met that is on this same journey shared the same feedback, "There are never problems with engagement or behaviour when students are making.  They are learning and having fun at the same time."  Isn't that what education is all about?  I challenge you to be a catalyst at your school by going to the Maker Education Initiative site and seeing how you can help bring the movement forward or going to Instructables and make something today as a way to tap into that forgotten love of making that everyone has dormant inside them.

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1 What ISTE13 Taught Me

It's been a week since I left #ISTE13 and I'm just now starting to process all of the information and experiences that I had while I was there.  It was a great experience to share with my colleagues that went with me which you can read in my blog post for the official ISTE blog here.

Along with that initial post, there is another view that has been shared by many that I feel compelled to expand upon.  I've been reading many "ISTE reflection posts" this week and they all have a common theme: relationships.  Amanda Dykes (@amandacdykes) mentions in her refection blog post that the most important tool she found was people.  Steven Anderson (@web20classroom) in his guest blog post for the ISTE Connects blog highlighted the fact that connections matter more than the information that we gain.  Todd Nesloney (@techninjatodd) and Drew Minock (@TechMinock) both list the amazing people that they met at ISTE in their reflection blog posts and how it has inspired them to continue to build their personal learning networks.  And Maggie Hos-Mcgrane (@MumbaiMaggie) explored in her ISTE post the information from the Steven Johnson keynote on liquid networks and how that connects with the relationships that we develop online through twitter.

And yes, relationships and connections do matter long after ISTE is over.  This year at ISTE I was able to organise possible projects with many different people as a way of continuing our learning through relationships.  We're hoping to have skype chats with my colleague Sofia (@sophiesofiamb) and some of the teachers she met like Erin Klein (@kleinerin), Heather Davis (@heatherd1951), and Martha Lackey (@lackeymartha).  I've volunteered to help test the new augmented reality app that Drew Minock (@TechMinock) and Brad Waid (@TechBradWaid) helped create with our 3rd grade teachers.  I made connections with gamification experts like Rory Newcomb (@roryelieen) and Diane Main (@dowbiggin) to help my colleague Julie (@TechGeekFest) get gaming and minecraft started as an afterschool project and inspire our science team.  I introduced my other colleague at ISTE, Renato (@rhamelalonso), to middle school teachers like Lisa Butler (@srtalisa) to try and build social studies connections using our geographical distances as a platform.  And for me, I was able to make many personal connections with leaders like William King (@wkingbg), Jimmy Casas (@casas_jimmy) and George Couros (@gcouros) to help me bring the message of connected leadership to my school via future skype sessions.

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4 ISTE13: Catalyst for Change!

In my last blog post, What makes ISTE different, I mentioned that I was going to have a meeting with past ISTE attendees at our school and have them give "feedback to feedforward" to the two #newbies I am bringing with me this year.  I expected the conversation to be engaging and interesting but it was so much more!  It was such an inspiring moment to hear these three teachers explain how going to ISTE has actually CHANGED the type of teacher that they are!  What a powerful statement for a conference!

All three mentioned that going to the ISTE conference helped them realise the following 3 essential points:

• They are not alone- they all arrived at ISTE with different levels of technical knowledge but talking and sharing at the conference helped them realise that EVERYONE starts as a beginner but EVERYONE can move forward in embedding technology thoughtfully
• There is a worldwide shared vision for educational technology- All three mentioned that ISTE helped them realise that the rest of the world is engaging in and using technology to develop student skills and concepts in a depth that they hadn't realised.  Seeing those examples helped them realise what is possible for our school.
• That personal learning is necessary- Two of the three teachers hadn't used twitter before the confrence but through the discussions and examples provided (and a little from me pointing out some of my favorite #edtech "rock stars"!) they realised how powerful a PLN can be.  After the conference all three teachers have become active members of the #edtech and #edchat communities on twitter.  They all mentioned that ISTE inspired them to continue reading and engaging in learning as part of their personal professional development.  

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2 Professional Development: Standardize or Personalize?

We've been in the process for awhile to teach our staff why and how they can use blogs for their classes. We're still in the early stages of adoption and  the focus has been mostly as a communication tool with parents and the outside world. Since we're fledglings, we haven't broached the topic of having our students make blogs yet. (We're leaving that for another day!)

As we continue on our journey to help the staff implement this new tool, we have found ourselves at a curious cross roads: standardize or personalize?  We're encountering this again and again in three different areas: the training, the tool, and the product. 

The questions are: 

• Should we expect all teachers to take blog training and make a blog or offer various technology training choices for the staff and support those that are interested in blogging in specific classes?
• Should we make all teachers use the same blogging tool or give them a choice of two or three tools so they can pick one that they are comfortable with?  (we only use free ones at the moment so school wide cost isn't a factor)
• Should we expect that all the blogs have the same type of information on them and the same list of recommended resources or give the teachers the leeway to have blogs that are distinctly different offering a personalized insight into their class?

My initial inquiry into the answer has led me to Personalised Learning's site run by Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey who speak about their "Personalization vs Differentiation vs Individualization Chart" in a recent blog post.  This is an excellent chart to help determine exactly which type of learning you are providing while giving a road map on how to move to other types of learning if you would like.  It clarifies that there are three approaches to encouraging learning and through the identification of the approach you are desiring you can deliver the concepts and content needed.

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3 EdCamp Santiago... Professional Learning in Practice!

Well, I've been a big fan of the edcamp movement for some time and have even had the courage to contact a few edcampers in the last few months (thanks @dancalahan !) for some advice.  But, I didn't have the "guts" yet to pull the trigger and get it started.  Thankfully, there are other members of my PLN out there who do have the "guts" (or fill in any other word you prefer) to get out there and go for it.  Thanks to @profesortbaker we've now gotten the ball rolling!

Do I have any idea what I am doing ? NO. Do I know if this will work in Santiago? NO. Do we even know how to get this started? NO. But, as with all things in the PYP framework and 21st Century learning, we're going to inquire, collaborate virtually and in person, search for resources, ask for help from our PLNs and create a product that will be amazing, even to us!  

There are only a few of us in the movement thus far but it is slowly picking up speed.  To get to know each other and for others to get to know us, a website has been created to promote our edcamp:  Edcamp Santiago  I've also put my interview below so that those of you who read this blog can know more about me and what I've been involved in. 

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2 Developing Passion Based Teachers: Midwifing?

I've been reflecting a lot lately on leadership, change and passion based teaching as is evident in the various blog posts over the last month.  Precisely, I'm in the midst of reflecting on what I can do to be a better leader for the teachers that I help; where can I let go and where can I lead.  Luckily, every once in a while, something comes along that gives you that little push that you need to get up and get going on a new path.  Thanks to @ktenkely and her latest blog post I received that passion-filled push that I was requiring!

On her post she placed the video that I also posted above.  While the message of creativity and passion are resoundingly clear, it was the part at the 12:00 mark that peaked my interest.  I encourage you to watch the entire video on this amazing school called High Tech High, but would ask that you pay particular attention to the final few minutes.

Here's a list of the points/quotes that I'm interested in with respect to leading my teachers toward becoming passion filled educators:

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0 Does a Name Matter?

Names.  That's what's been on my mind for the last two days. On Wed night I participated in a webinar sponsored by @simplek12 (LOVE THEM by the way!) with @web20classroom about Twitter and using the service for class, school and district profiles.  While the webinar was great and full of amazing information (check out the notes I downloaded here), something that really stood out for me was a converstation on the backchannel about a "new name for twitter" that was mentioned by one of the participants.  Turns out that @2footgiraffe often refers to twitter as World Educators Collaboration Network when trying to get teachers to see the value in using twitter at school.  Not only did it make me laugh, but it made me think as well.

Do you know any famous name changes in history? I'm sure you can think of many but if not, take a look here at a list of some famous ones in business and product history.  I was surprised by how many I didn't know and how many had gone completely under my radar and I didn't even realise they had changed!

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