Monday, October 28, 2013

If I Fail...or...WHEN I Fail?

I recently attended the British Columbia Principals and Vice Principals Association's (BCPVPA) Connecting Leaders conference in Vancouver BC.

One of the overarching themes I heard was to push farther and to examine and possibly embrace the ideas that initially seem crazy.

For as long as I can remember my self talk has been about "What will people think if I fail at trying something new?" Will I be criticized? Judged? Called names? The topic of negative conversations?

Maybe I'm just getting older, but what I've come to realize is that the answers are probably "yes" to all of those worries whether I do something new or not.

So...perhaps the new question becomes, "If I fail, what do I want people to think?" rather than "What will people think if I fail?"

Thanks to technology, I believe we have a lot more opportunities as educators to share our thinking and include our whole school community and beyond with decision making and building something new. When we jump from the safety of "tried and true" into the "you'd better have a parachute" zone we can now explain our whys and hows along the way.

People can now see the thought and research that goes into the why we wanted to try something new and can hear and see how we hope to make it happen. So, some of the things I would want people to think about me if I tried and failed at something new would be...
  • She tried hard to cover all bases. She did her homework before starting. She had a good reason to start something new.
  • She showed dedication and believed in what she was doing.
  • She showed her purpose and intention was to replace the old with something that would make life better than what it displaced.
  • she demonstrated action steps to making the idea a success (even if they didn't end up working - seemed like a good bet at the time).
  • She was willing to learn and made her flexibility and adaptability visible for others to see.
  • Wow...that took guts.
  • I'm glad she is sharing the failure so the next iteration can be better. I think I will start on that right now.
  • She spent a lot of energy and thought on this and so much was "right" I will support her in making it better and will contribute my energy too.
  • I can't imagine the guts and energy it took for her to start that.
  • If she can do it, I can too.
It is easy for others to be critical of something they were not a stakeholder in. It used to be that if you were not able to be at a table or in a room at a certain time you were not able to be part of decision making. Utilizing technology can help others be part of the process because to join an asynchronous online discussion, watch/listen to a recording of an online meeting, vote online or complete an online survey, or email an organizer with suggestions and opinions can be done at a time that works for the stakeholder.

Lucky for me the older I get the less I take things personally. I expect this trend to continue...Sometimes I wonder if I could be "this self" in the past what would the differences and similarities be in my life path be thus far. What things have I avoided due to fear of what others would say if I failed?

At the conference this video was shown...  Question: If the outcome was that the kid wiped out at the end would you have felt different about the attempt to jump? Or would you still appreciate the guts it took?

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Connecting Leaders 2013

Connecting Leaders Tidbits

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend the British Columbia Principals and Vice Principal's Association (BCPVPA) "Connecting Leaders Conference - Beyond Innovation and Change".

I am often skeptical of whether I need to go to these "gatherings" when I am continuously professionally developing through my personal learning networks both online and offline. The amount of effort it takes for me to actually get to a conference with coordinating family and work responsibilities is exhausting and there is always the risk that I will come away wishing I'd enjoyed a weekend at home.

However, there is nothing quite like meeting people you've only ever conversed with online, or being able to shake the hand, or give a hug to someone that helped you out at some point or another. I also find these more "formal" learning opportunities are different than my "informal" ones that I do on my own time. They force me to listen to what others have to say and to formulate my own opinions. They don't get interrupted e.g. Often I will be reading an article or following up on something someone has shared and household distractions cause me to stop what I'm doing...and often I never get back to it. Having the time and space created for learning was a treat.

I had a lot of take-away tidbits from this gathering. It was great to see how the number of people tweeting had increased from the last time I attended and in general, the technology used e.g. YAPP greater facilitated my learning.
The two keynote speakers, Simon Breakspear and George Couros, provided catalysts for reflection and action. There was reassurance given, that putting learners in charge of their learning in a greater capacity and that taking risks to make our systems better for learners is necessary and worth it.

Simon described the student as the owner/driver of the learning, teacher as designer/activator and technology as the accelerator of learning. I enjoyed the analogy of school as a "basecamp". When we look at what the role of a basecamp is, this definitely fits for me. Pushing past the "Why should we?" to ask "How do we?" was refreshing to hear.

Some other gems...
- ask "ungoogleable" questions vs "googleable ones"
- Learning looks like pull/push
- Learning will be hard/easy

Two things on my action list thanks to Simon are:
- spending more time to find out who my learners are outside of school and what their journey is to get to school each day
- provide more opportunities for creating and sharing "crazy ideas" to promote a culture of risktaking

George had many themes in common with Simon in his keynote. I appreciated his attention to making vision and journey visible to the whole learning community and how technology can support and provide this openness. I also attended his blogging/tweeting workshop where he provided a slew of useful tips. As evidenced by my sporadic blogging and the little time I've put into "prettying up" my blog I have some work to do! As was said in the session... "Even the worst bloggers make us smarter because it is always easy to win an argument if it is just in our heads." Blogging gets people sharing their ideas and challenging assumptions.

A few action items for me thanks to George's keynote/presentations are:
- Using Tweetdeck and Hootsuite to have a more organized approach
- Providing more opportunities for kids to practice "digital being" and to analyze their online footprints more regularly
-getting better at aggregating and curating information to share with others
- improving my use of following/using hashtags 

I am grateful I had the opportunity to attend, and that I am a part of such a dynamic association that feels it is important to provide formal opportunities for continuous professional learning.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

21st Century Pecha Kucha

What is a Pecha Kucha?

Honestly, I had NO idea until a few weeks ago when creating one became a "homework" assignment for Administrators in our district.
Google it...I had to...and I learned at least the very basics - fast...thank you internet.

Being fairly tech savvy my brain came up with all kinds of ways I could wow the crowd with my slideshow...but then...I started to look at the images I would use in my presentation and that used up almost all of my time. I needed just the right ones to speak to the concepts I was trying to bring forth in relation to 21st Century/Personalized Learning at our school. 

So...here I sit on the eve with images that speak to me, labeled with words, in a plain old Powerpoint. A bit disappointing on some levels considering my grand plans but...it is what it is. Now my aim is to make these images speak to my audience as they do to me.

I spent my time choosing images and deciding on just the right words to represent them...Here they are in order...
1. Clever
2. Community
3. Co-Facilitators
4. Cultural Awareness
5. Confidence - Independence
6. Context - Real Life Learning
7. Comfort - Learning Spaces
8. Coordination 
9. Creativity
10. Curiosity
11. Courage
12. Commitment
13. Chances
14. Crash and Burn
15. Respect for People
16. Constructive
17. Compassion
18. Connections
19. Camaraderie
20. Celebrate
Each slide can be spoken to for 20 seconds each. Then I had to have the dilemma over whether to record my "speech" ahead of time...or if I should speak to each of the slides in the moment. I chose the latter but was worried, mainly because speaking with a time limit is NOT my forte. Like composing a tweet on Twitter, I found having to make my point in very few spoken words made me think a WHOLE lot more. 

So - my experience with the Pecha Kucha was overall a positive one that provided growth and understanding about situations and expectations that make me nervous. I hope we will get the chance to make a few more so I can correct some of the errors I made this time around. 

Probably one of the best parts was coming up with a playlist that I would play to accompany my images if I couldn't speak to it ...see below...

Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield
Dare you to Move - Switchfoot
Right Here Right Now - Fat Boy Slim
Brand New Day - Ryan Star
Count on Me
Crazy - Seal
Fireflies - Owl City
Free Falling - Tom Petty
The Golden Age - The Asteroids
Hall of Fame - The Script
Won't Back Down - Tom Petty
Levels - Avicii
Over My Head - The Fray
Your Life is Now - John Cougar Mellencamp