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Recently I was recognized as the 2017 National Assistant Principal of the Year by NASSP. With this distinction came an opportunity to procure educational resources for Black River Middle School. For years, I wanted to find an easy to capture events and share them virtually with school stakeholders. Through my research and past experiences, I knew about the Swivl as a way to record, archive, and share video content. I was always impressed with the way it tracked movement and picked up sound clearly. So I ultimately decided to purchase a Swivl for our school as way to capture moments, like you see below with a Holocaust survivor, that will live online for a lifetime.  Holocaust survivor speaking to students. So how can a Swivl benefit your classroom, school, or district? Here are four easy ways that I can think of right off the top of my head...
As you can see there many ways to make the Swivl work for your educational environment. Start out by locating a school or district that uses a Swivl and ask if you can take it for a test run. Then, at some point purchase a Swivl and try it out at a small event. Eventually, over time it will become a part of your daily routine and help enhance your transparent environment. Make sure to establish a Swivl team consisting of staff and students to help with the integration aspect. Ideally having multiple Swivls accessible for sign-out from your library will be very beneficial. The time is now to extend your role as story teller in chief and purchase a Swivl for all enjoy throughout the school year.
 That's right. You heard it here first. The Twitter feed never lies. Or at the very least it provides users the ability to access classroom, school, or district content that would otherwise be hard to obtain if observing from afar. Teachers, principals, and superintendents from around the world are taking 140 characters to get the message out and move the educational conversation forward.
Throughout the 2016-2017 school year Black River Middle School, by way of the @BlackRiverMS Twitter handle, was able to give stakeholder's an accurate depiction of learning experiences that take place across all grade levels and subject areas. Mrs. Moore's 4th grade classroom by way of the @MrsMooreFRSD Twitter handle was able to expand my knowledge as a parent of my son's daily learning experiences. The Falls Creek School District in Wisconsin leveraged the power of their hashtag #gocrickets and Twitter handle @fccrickets to promote all the great things that are taking place on a daily basis. There are so many great examples of how educators use Twitter to push the positive. Tweets highlight the great work of students, the innovative methods that teachers implement, and the exciting learning environment that leaders support. All it takes is a smartphone, the Twitter app, and a commitment to tell your story through social media. A great way to become acclimated to all the things that Twitter has to offer is by purchasing the book 140 Twitter Tips for Educators. It provides novice, intermediate, and expert users ideas and insight on how to make this invaluable tool work for you. At the end of the day, if you do not tell your classroom, school, or district story, someone else will and it could be wrong. Brad Currie is the author of the newly released 140 Twitter Tips for Educators. His other books include All Hands on Deck: Tools for Connecting Educators, Parents, and Communities and Personalized PD: Flipping Your Professional Development. He is one of the founding partners of Evolving Educators LLC. Brad is a 2014 ASCD Emerging Leader and Google Certified Trainer. Brad currently serves as a K-8 Supervisor of Instruction and Dean of Students for the Chester School District in Chester, NJ. He speaks and presents nationally about technology integration. Learn more about Brad by following him on Twitter@bradmcurrie or visiting his website at www.bradcurrie.net. 
Image Credit: http://fox13now.com/2014/02/17/the-classroom-behind-a-super-bowl-commercial/
A student's ability to speak in front of their peers has always been an important real world skill to develop in the school setting. With the evolution of technology, in particular mobile devices, students now have the ability to share their thoughts globally with a few taps of the screen. Being that we now in the year 2016, it's imperative that educators support students efforts to communicate clearly and effectively on smartphones, tablets, and laptops. For the most part, most devices in today's world come equipped with microphones and cameras. It's so easy for students to show what they know or learn more about the world around them by way of a Google Hangout, YouTube video clip, or podcast to name a few. Students must be put in digital situations where they can practice looking into the computer camera, speaking off of digital notes, communicating clearly, social cues during an online group discussion, and making their point with images and text on various presentation platforms. In fact, the same can be said for educators that are leading or participating in a webinar, Skype call, etc. The more teachers provide students with the autonomy to leverage the power of this particular technology, the more opportunities there will be to improve their digital speaking skills. Here are eight tools that can help students communicate in the digital world...
FlipGrid ~ Post a topic or question and have participants respond via recorded video. Blab ~ Watch, record, and participate in live virtual conversations. Google Hangout ~ Conduct live and recorded conversations. SoundCloud ~ Upload, record, share, and promote voice recordings. Voxer ~ Tap to talk web application with image, text, and video capabilities. Skype ~ Video call an individual or groups of people. YouTube ~ Create a maintain your very own online media channel. As you can see there are so many options for kids to show what they know in the digital world through video and voice. Click here to access rubrics aimed at helping understand expectations when put in these types of learning experiences. There are other ways for students to work on their digital speaking skills through apps they already utilize such as Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and Facebook. It's important to note that students should have options available to them when they are tasked with having to use this sort of technology. Looking for ideas on how to connect students on a global scale? Check out Connecting Your Students With The World by Blumengarten, Naugle, and Krakower. A one size fits all approach will back fire and limit creativity. The time is now to take a risk and put students in a position to succeed as they communicate and collaborate in the virtual world. Brad Currie is the author of All Hands on Deck: Tools for Connecting Educators, Parents, and Communities and the newly released Personalized PD: Flipping Your Professional Development. He is one of the founding partners of Evolving Educators LLC. Brad is a 2014 ASCD Emerging Leader and Google Certified Trainer. Brad currently serves as a K-8 Supervisor of Instruction and Dean of Students for the Chester School District in Chester, NJ. He is a Google Certified Trainer and speaks nationally about tech integration. Learn more about Brad by following him on Twitter @bradmcurrie or visiting his website at www.bradcurrie.net. We felt it was time. Time to recognize every student for all their contributions to school, society, and family. How could we make this happen? Very simple. Start a Students of the Day Initiative. Each day of the school year, one student per grade level is highlighted. By the end of the school year every child is recognized. Let's look at how this plays out..
The Students of the Day initiative provides each student with an opportunity to shine at some point during the school year. The smiles on their faces when they find out about their designation are priceless. It provides me with an opportunity to get to know each student a little bit better as the slide deck is created and conversations take place when the certificate is presented. Every once in a while a parent will be in the building when their child is recognized as the Student of the Month. This is an extra special moment that is captured on a camera and sent home with the child at day's end. There is no doubt that this sort of initiative can be make a good school even greater. Brad Currie is the author of All Hands on Deck: Tools for Connecting Educators, Parents, and Communities and the newly released Personalized PD: Flipping Your Professional Development. He is one of the founding partners of Evolving Educators LLC. Brad is a 2014 ASCD Emerging Leader and Google Certified Trainer. Brad currently serves as a K-8 Supervisor of Instruction and Dean of Students for the Chester School District in Chester, NJ. He is a Google Certified Trainer and speaks nationally about tech integration. Learn more about Brad by following him on Twitter @bradmcurrie or visiting his website at www.bradcurrie.net.
 This guest blog post was written by first year teacher Sylwia Denko. Learn more about Sylwia by following her on Twitter @MissDenko or visiting www.missdenko.weebly.com. Innovation. To me, innovation means: change, risk-taking, new, and maybe even most importantly, fun.
My name is Sylwia Denko and I just completed my first year of teaching. I teach third grade and work in an incredible district with unbelievably supportive and dedicated administration and colleagues. My first year was absolutely wonderful. Part of the reason why it was so great was because of an important word: innovation. As a first year teacher, I was told by several people: “Play it safe, stay quiet, do what everyone else does, don’t feel pressured to get involved or take risks yet.” I understood where they were coming from, but that is simply just not me. I believe that the reason why I am who I am is because I am different and I take risks. I was offered a job three days before my graduation date last year partially because I am different, because I take risks. Just because I secured a job through many risks taken, does not mean that I will stop taking risks now. Risk-taking can be, well of course, risky. However, the way I think about it is “What’s the worst that could happen? I fail and then have to fix it, no big deal.” Without failure, we cannot learn and grow as people. That is what I encourage my students to do, take risks and get back up if they do not succeed. There is no judgement, only support. I was lucky to have talked to my friend Brad Currie at EdCamp in November who told me to be different, be true to myself, and to showcase my skills without feelings of judgement or fear; and that’s what I did. I love learning. I love talking to people, reading, and researching. I enjoy having a plethora of knowledge, strategies, and resources to choose from and to make my own; so I talk to people, colleagues that I work with and my professional learning network online. I take so many different ideas and incorporate them into my teaching. As a first year teacher (well, now, second year teacher), I do not have a lot of experience to help me. Instead, I have people with experience to help me. In addition, I have my mind that is always spinning with ideas, thinking about ways to make my teaching even better. My mind enjoys the idea and thought of incorporating technology in the classroom. If you think back to my definition of innovation, technology is exactly that: change, risky, new and fun. I love technology and students love technology. I decided that I wanted to change the way I taught and incorporate more and more technology. The first thing I did, which no one had done yet, was create a classroom Twitter in the beginning of the year. I wanted to be a transparent educator for many reasons. As a new teacher, I wanted to alleviate any feelings of discomfort of the parents in my classroom. In addition, I wanted my administration to see what I was doing in the classroom in case they were not there in person to see it. My students were always doing wonderful things and I wanted to showcase that. Eventually, I wanted my students to become more reflective in our classroom and more involved in sharing what they do. I had a “tweeter of the week” that would compose tweets about our day and those tweets would be posted on our classroom Twitter. I have had very positive reactions from parents, administration, and colleagues. Parents enjoyed seeing what was happening to avoid the conversation of: parent: “What did you do in school today?” student: “Nothing.” (however, I would hope that students had more to say about our day together than just nothing!!). Now, in order to further the conversation (just in case they did respond with “nothing”, parents could say “Well, on twitter I saw…”. I even had a parent tell me “A classroom Twitter is the best thing to have happened in school.” After seeing my classroom Twitter and my professional Twitter, my administration asked me (a first year teacher!!) to develop two professional development sessions to my district about Twitter in the classroom and a professional Twitter. I was so excited about this opportunity and of course, I agreed. Through this, many of my colleagues have joined Twitter and we have developed our own personal hashtag for our district. Our district is a growing district in terms of population and technology. The number of students are growing as well as our resources. This year, there were three classrooms in our school piloting a Google Chromebook program. I was hoping to someday have the opportunity to teach in a 1:1 classroom like them, but just because I wasn’t at the time, did not stop me from incorporating technology in my classroom. I used technology daily by incorporating videos and digital manipulatives, and eventually the google platform, into my teaching. Although we did not have Chromebooks, I taught my students how to use google drive and create documents for them to work on at home and documents that were worked on collaboratively in class. I took my students to the computer lab as often as I could when they were working on collaborative projects so groups could be working on the same document at the same time. When we were not able to go to the computer lab, we developed a system together that allowed one group at a time to work on our classroom computers while everyone else worked on hard copies. As time went on, students took the initiative to use the google platform on their own. I even created “office hours” for my students while they were working at home so I could confer with them outside of our time in class together. Not only did students benefit from this, they enjoyed it. One of my student said “Miss Denko, THIS IS SO FUN!” In May, we found out that the Chromebook Initiative would be growing in our district and I would be one of the lucky teachers who will be teaching in a 1:1 Google Chromebook classroom next year. I am so excited that my administration is confident in me to take on such an exciting and innovative initiative. Now that the school year is over, I am excited to reflect on a successful and innovative year. My year was also filled with smiles, laughs, loving, and learning within the walls of our classroom. I am so happy to look back on my year and know that I have successfully made it through, what people say, would be my toughest year as a teacher. It may have been challenging at times, but people are strengthened through challenge. The best part is that next year, I can do it all over again, but better. I cannot end my post without thanking my unbelievably amazing administration, colleagues, PLN members, family and friends who supported me the whole way through. Thank you more than you know.  Burying our students. Sounds scary right? Sadly it's happening all over the world. Educators from all walks of life are allowing or helping students dig a hole that they can't possibly get out of. Have I been guilty of this before? Probably, and all for the sake of sending a message and holding them accountable for their actions. Why? Because it will prepare them for the real world. Really? Last I checked, I live and work in the real world and always get second chances. And so should students. Giving students a zero or letting them earn a zero is the easy way out in my opinion. Look, as a teacher I made the same error early on in my career. A student didn't hand in the assignment or project? No problem, you just earned yourself a zero. I will teach you a lesson. Really? As time went on though, I realized that there must be a better way. I would make sure every option imaginable was exhausted in order to put this student in a position to succeed. I would also question whether or not I was providing engaging learning experiences. Towards the end of my teaching career, I finally felt that I truly was doing right by kids. It was no longer cool to bury them and basically give them no chance to somehow learn the material on their terms. As I transitioned to administration I wanted to make sure that student's best interests were kept at heart. It was no longer acceptable to simply hand out a zero or fail a child just because that's what they earned. It should be more about mastery of content rather than a "I gotcha!" Don't get wrong, at some point if a student does not do the work then they don't do the work. No one every said that being an educators was going to be easy. Motivation, differentiation, relevancy, innovation, and finding a way to connect with each child should always be at the forefront of all our minds. But this all easier said than done. It takes a different mind on behalf of all school stakeholders to understand that mastery of content trumps a student receiving a letter grade. So how can students, parents, teachers, and administrators come together to ensure things stay above ground? Over the years I have experienced or researched the following best practices......
So what do you say, pull those students out of the holes that we have collectively dug, fill them back in, and make a commitment to never bury another student during your time as an educator. We will all be better off in the long run. Brad Currie is the author of All Hands on Deck: Tools for Connecting Educators, Parents, and Communities. He is one of the founding partners of Evolving Educators LLC. Brad is a 2014 ASCD Emerging Leader and Google Certified Trainer. He currently serves as a K-8 Supervisor of Instruction and Middle School Vice Principal for the Chester School District in Chester, NJ. Learn more about Brad by following him on Twitter @bradmcurrie or visiting his website at www.bradcurrie.net.
My 8 year old son practicing his typing at home in preparation for the upcoming PARCC tests (sarcasm).
PARCC is very controversial and has sparked many debates. As a parent, taxpayer, and educator I often struggle with the impact these assessments have on our students, my own children, fellow colleagues, and education as a whole. Here are twenty reasons for and against PARCC....... Reason #1 (For) ~ Students need to know how they progress from year to year in subjects like math and literacy. Reason #2 (Against) ~ Schools will be in testing mode for 40 days (20 in March and 20 in May) Reason #3 (For) ~ Parents need to know how their children progress from year to year in subjects like math and literacy. Reason #4 (Against) ~ The test results do not come back until late summer or early fall. This timing makes it incredibly difficult to help students when results come back six months later. Reason #5 (For) ~ Teachers need to know their students' progress, or lack there of, in order to impact future instruction. Reason #6 (Against) ~ The computers being used for testing will not be available for other students who are not testing for close to 40 days out of the school year. Reason #7 (For) ~ Schools can use test results along with other pieces of evidence to help promote the success of students. Reason #8 (Against) ~ Teachers and support staff will be pulled out of their regular classes to proctor the tests for up to 40 school days. Reason #9 (For) ~ The shift from paper tests to online tests has forced districts to buy more technology and upgrade infrastructure. Reason #10 (Against) ~ Critics of standardized testing claim that PARCC is technically not being used for diagnostic purposes. Reason #11 (For) ~ Ultimately the PARCC will have results made available in a more timely fashion which will address student learning gaps. Reason #12 (Against) ~ PARCC scores are being tied to teacher evaluations. Is this really fair given that it's one piece of the puzzle? Reason #13 (For) ~ Students are working on their typing skills more at much younger age in preparation for the PARCC test. This will help them down the road when they enter the real world. Reason #14 (Against) ~ STRESS. Students, Teachers, Administrators, and Parents are going through undo stress as it relates to testing. This can not be good for anyone's health. Reason #15 (For) ~ Over time results will show which schools and teachers are ineffective. Reason #16 (Against) ~ PARCC testing is costing taxpayers millions of dollars. Reason #17 (For) ~ Standardized testing results help people understand how schools match up with others nationally and globally. Reason #18 (Against) ~ Tech staff have no choice but to be solely focus on ensuring that the online tests are working at all times. What about other tech issues in non tested learning areas? Reason #19 (For) ~ Students work hard in school preparing for the PARCC exam. This is their time to shine and show what they know. Reason #20 (Against) ~ Finnish students rarely take standard tests and are tops in the world at educating their students. Why is it that the United States wants to compare themselves to every other top performing country except for Finland? Not sure if I totally agree with the reasons listed above, but I am glad I got it off my chest. It will be interesting in the coming months and years to see how these new age standardized tests impact the educational world. Let's all try to keep an open mind and continue to do what's best for kids. Brad Currie is the author of All Hands on Deck: Tools for Connecting Educators, Parents, and Communities. He is one of the founding partners of Evolving Educators LLC. Brad is an ASCD Emerging Leader, Bammy Award Finalist, ClassDojo Thought Leader and Google Certified Educator. He currently serves as a K-8 Supervisor of Instruction and Middle School Vice Principal for the Chester School District in Chester, NJ. Learn more about Brad by following him on Twitter @bradmcurrie or visiting his website at www.bradcurrie.net. 
Pic of me speaking to staff at a Google Apps workshop. Photo courtesy of Jonathan Rochelle.
This past week we welcomed back students and staff from their well deserved summer break. The organized chaos that comes along with starting a new school year is unexplainable. All in all the first two days of the 2014-2015 school year were a huge success. Here are some things that I was apart of to help ensure a tremendous opening......
Brad Currie is the author of All Hands on Deck: Tools for Connecting Educators, Parents, and Communities. He is one of the founding partners of Evolving Educators LLC. Brad is a 2014 ASCD Emerging Leader and Bammy Award Finalist. He currently serves as a K-8 Supervisor of Instruction and Middle School Vice Principal for the Chester School District in Chester, NJ. Learn more about Brad by following him on Twitter @bradmcurrie or visiting his website at www.bradcurrie.net.
Image Credit: www.remind101.com
Looking for a simple yet effective way to reach a group of students, parents, athletes, or key stakeholders in a safe manner via text messaging? Try Remind 101. Recently, I have been playing around with this wonderful communication tool to see just how effective it is with reaching groups of people. In particular, I have used it while coaching our middle school softball team. That's right, I have returned to the coaching world and love every minute of it. At the beginning of the season I had our players and parents voluntarily sign up for the free service. Basically, they visited the Remind 101 website, registered, and then joined our private softball group. Anytime there is a schedule change, important reminder, or a positive message that needs to be shared I simply open up the Remind 101 app on my Smartphone, type in the message, and press send. Parents and players will then receive this message from an anonymous number via text message or email. They can not send a message back nor can I send a message to one individual person. Recently they have added a feature that allows a user to send files which is just outstanding.
Many educators throughout the country use this tool in their classroom to communicate with students and parents. Take for example Melissa Tonnessen at Dickerson Elementary School in Chester, NJ. She heard about Remind101 from a fellow colleague before the school year began and decided to include information regarding the service in a back to school packet that parents take home after the September visitation. That information told the parents what the service provided and gave instructions for signing up. So far Melissa has 13 out of 19 families sign up for it, and has used it for a variety of reminders, ranging from "Don't forget that your Reading Bingo is due by Friday" to "No snack is needed tomorrow due to our class celebration." She even used it on the first day of school, letting parents know that it was going well and that I had a class of happy second graders. As you can see there are so many uses for Remind 101 in the school setting. From athletics to academics, school stakeholders are taking advantage of this very powerful and safe communication tool. It's important that schools meet students and parents where they are in the communication world. At the present time, people want information at their fingertips on a cellular device. Remind 101 makes this possibility a reality. So what do you say? Take the plunge and try it out with one of your classes, teams, or clubs. You never know, they might like it. |
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