Flies on the Wall

I have referred to myself before as a 'fly on the wall' in my work with C.I.S. 339 School of Technology, and today I had two other 'flies' observing proceedings. The two visitors were Dr. Michael Fox (psychologist and high performance coach for athletes and businesses), and his wife Karen, an Assistant Principal at St. Ursula's College, and one of the best educators with whom I have had the pleasure of working along side.

Michael and Karen sat in with me during two morning Skype meetings, and were astounded by the ease with which the teachers and administrators at C.I.S. 339 handle not only the technology, but grapple as well with pedagogical issues like differentiation and student goal-setting.

The visitors were first treated to a Differentiation Task Force planning meeting with the AIS, IEP and Bilingual Coordinators, Ms. McHale, Ms. Lovett and Mr. Betancourt respectively. After making the initial Skype contact, we flicked between shared Google Docs and Google Presentations, and ventured into discussions about how we would live stream the next Differentiation Task Force meeting using ustream.tv.

This level of comfort not only with the technology but also with such effective collaborative planning, barely existed before the start of the school year. Without a doubt, technology has been our accelerant for positive school change.

Following this first meeting, Karen and Michael were welcomed into a Curriculum Team session, with noone in the team even slightly fazed by their virtual presence. This time Google Spreadsheets came into play as we discussed our need to 'close the loop' in terms of some systems in place to support teachers. These systems involve members of the Curriculum Team providing instructional and goal-setting feedback to teachers on Google Docs, which are all tracked on a spreadsheet.

Every day there are exciting new developments, whether they be a class recording podcasts, a teacher using chat for the first time, a novel use for blogs, or making contact with educators in other schools through an iteach-ilearn ning, set up by Lisa Nielsen.

What is most exciting about all of this is that there is a sense of a shared vision and a united commitment to improving learning opportunities (for everyone within the school community) together.

Talk that's not too tedious

When we were planning the midyear SMART goals review process, it probably seemed like this would be a tedious task for Curriculum Team members and teachers. However, from the thirty minute meetings that I have had so far with individual teachers, this talk has been a breath of fresh air.

For some teachers, this has been their first one to one exposure with using Skype, and my online review meetings require some shuffling back and forth between the original goals on Google Docs, the reflection sheet for teachers on another Google Doc, and the Google Form for review feedback. Online meetings go surprisingly well though, perhaps because we can stay focused on the task at hand as there are very few other visual distractions.

These meetings have also produced some gems in terms of ideas. For instance, Ms. McHale was wanting to make better progress with her goals, be a consistent blogger, and launch a newsletter about academic intervention. Now she's going to do all three in one as she transforms her blog into the newsletter and addresses the key issues from her SMART goals - differentiation (especially for ELLs), data-driven intervention, PD offerings for academic intervention, and so on.

Ms. Lovett has proven what a star performer she is, and we have been planning to round up some teachers to be part of two study groups on differentiation.

Ms. Jenkins will be deep in thought about developing our school web-site - with Google Sites being an option - and Mr. Himowitz will be focusing on the development of protocols for offering students feedback on their Google Docs.

It's great to be part of a community of innovators.