You know that feeling where you're 90% sure about something, but you second guess yourself because there may be an off-chance that you are wrong? Well that's what's going through my brain now... Here's a screenshot of my computer screen from this morning to tell the tale.

"Recommended by Dept. for Admission" - it was like music to my ears!!! ...But wait, I haven't gotten an official acceptance letter back from the Admissions Officer yet, so am I actually in? Or just "recommended" and someone else has a final say in the matter? Eeks.

Patience, in this case, will be a virtue to exercise. Positive thoughts!

[EDIT added May 2, 2013: Yesterday I was granted my official acceptance into the UBC Masters of Educational Technology program! Hurrah! And phewww!]

Over the past week, I have been working diligently at making sure that our set of 10 iPads for the resource room are ready for staff to use with kids. Through my research and the help of my PLN, I have found several apps that will work for our purposes, but I can say with certainty that we will be adding quite a few more over the next couple months. 

Of course, as any school starting up, we are running into a few snags:

1) Some apps require user accounts, such as Evernote or Dropbox. In this case, I had to make an additional email account for our school above and beyond our Apple ID (which is controlled by our Information Systems team in the district, not by the school). There's another username and password to remember for all the adults using the devices. On the plus side, it's the same sign-in/password for all the app user accounts. On the other hand, it's not the same as the Apple ID account we use to purchase the apps.

2) Even though I synced and backed up the Master iPad through Apple Configurator, the apps don't all hold account memory from device to device. Well, some do, some don't. When I sync a new iPad or a set of them, I still have to go in to manually link up apps to each other (eg. TopNote to Dropbox) and sign-in to all apps with accounts on every single iPad. Now this isn't so bad with 10, but definitely would be a major pain when setting up class sets. I'm hoping this doesn't have to occur every time I reconfigure the set-up which, again, is something I anticipate doing fairly often in the coming months. 

3) Apps themselves have limitations that we didn't expect. Like Dragon Dictation - it's an amazing voice to text app , but when the work is complete, it only is capable of sharing the file via email or social networks. So rather than consistently using a simplistic file sharing app such as Dropbox, students are forced to share their work through different mediums from app to app. 

If you have any experience with any of these topics and would like to share your knowledge, I would love to hear some advice and feedback. This is my first time doing this and I may be overlooking some silly details. This is learning! :)

Twitter has been an amazing professional development tool as I continue my learning in technology leadership.  There are hundreds of great educators on Twitter who are willing to share their knowledge and experiences, tech-related or otherwise. My primary use for it is to participate in ed chats that deal with varying issues in education, even if the chats  are not specifically intended for my region.  It is the ultimate PLN... for the tech-savvy teacher. 

The general attitude of the tech experts that I follow on Twitter is that we need to dramatically change our teaching practice in order to meet the needs of our student population.  This article written by Will Richardson, one of my sworn-by people to follow on Twitter, in the most recent issue of the Educational Leadership magazine discusses the "upheaval-filled" changes that must be made in education over the next decade.  While I agree that we need to transform our education system to meet the needs of learners who no longer need the "sage on the stage" educator to disperse knowledge, I feel that we are missing a paramount step in this change. If we are going to transform our practices to meet the needs of today's learners, we need to support educators in that shift. Much like our students, teachers need facilitation and guidance throughout their learning process.

This is something that has been irking me as a teacher who has been hired to begin this school's tech integration initiative. There are so many educators who experience roadblocks with integrating devices or are terrified of changing a practice that has worked in their favour for years. Or perhaps they are using the devices but they are using them in a way that tech experts would scoff at - digital worksheets, PowerPoint, word processing - not what they have defined as transformative education, but adaptive to the needs of the prescribed curriculum. But hey, in my opinion, at least they're using it - that's a step in the right direction. 

Evidence kept stacking up as I had a conversation with a self-proclaimed "traditional teacher" on Twitter. He argued that Twitter isn't a forum that attracts traditional educators for Pro-D purposes:

He's got a valid point. Traditional educators are not typically motivated by the powers of the Internet or technology and  don't often make the jump to Twitter to professionally develop themselves. In fact, many of the teachers I work with don't yet have that popular, immediate response to Google something when they don't know the answer to a question.  Yes, there are endless possibilities with this gift of knowledge at our fingertips, but teachers need to be led down the path of learning as much as students do, even if you begin with showing them how to do a search online for a simple question and eventually lead them to more complex tasks like developing a PLN down the road. 

A few days later after that ed chat, I held a meeting for our staff regarding the direction of technology in our building in the coming year. The meeting ended up turning into somewhat of a debate of whether there was a need for more technology in the first place. We began the school year in September by bringing projection units into each of our classrooms, a big jump for our school, leaving some of our staff questioning the amount of money going into the technology pot. 

This turned out to be a lesson not only in my young abilities to lead and facilitate a meeting with my colleagues but also in how to better help educators see the potentials that technology presents us. Sometimes showing a few apps or how I can move about the room with my projected iPad using AirServer isn't enough. Not every educator is going to have that "Ahhh, I could use that in my classroom in this way..."  or "Ohh, I could do my Pro-D online through that site..." moment(s) immediately. These teachers know that the world of learning has changed. This isn't breaking news to them. But the majority of them (not all, but a majority nonetheless) are asking "How do I do it?" or "How can I push it further than what I know?" and are at a loss because the amount of support they need now or will need down the road to make the change isn't or won't always be there. So how do we support the true "beginner" and "novice" teachers in taking the first steps in the journey of adapting, modifying, or better yet, transforming their practices and allowing tech to fit into their world?

Some may argue that these teachers need to take it into their own hands to find professional development that supports tech in their programs. Let's remember the type of Pro-D that they're accustomed and will undoubtedly search for: workshops. A forum where time is limited, information is frequently disseminated via presentation software, and you might get a handout to take with you that you're probably not going to look at ever again anyways. And to speak to Pro-D that is tech-related, with the volume of devices trying to connect to the local network, there are often technical glitches that set individual users back and slow down the workshop decisively. I'm not saying that traditional professional development isn't a good place to start to learning about technology, but it's not enough to motivate transformation of instruction. Teachers who don't feel comfortable enough to develop their own PLN need continued support in order to find success in utilizing the tools that technology has to offer us.
 
It is up to leaders in the tech field whether they be admin, teachers, or support staff, to help other educators take the next step in creating globalized, student-centered education. This needs to be initiated first and foremost at the school level where educators can have access to immediate support in their tech skill acquisition through modelling, side-by-side teaching, and shadowing. Akin to student learners, teachers need repeated exposure, time to play and process, and critical, professional reflection on what tech can do to enhance their teaching and their learning. 

Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment below or follow me on Twitter to get updates on new posts. 

So yeah, I'm learning to drive this thing.  I'm going to post my short autobiography as my first post to give you an idea of who I am.  I am hoping to grow not only as an educator but also as a writer as I maintain this site.  What you see below will permanently be posted in its own page so future readers can be introduced properly to yours truly.  Enjoy. :)

My name is Victoria Olson and I am currently in my second year of teaching with School District #35 in Langley, British Columbia. I teach at Gordon Greenwood Elementary (@GGEGeckos) in a multi-age classroom (Grades 1,2,3) with another part of my position dedicated to administering and supporting technology in our school. 

I have two missions and motives for creating my own website:

1) I am determined to expand my PLN to keep up with our digital world. Our kids are in it. Let's dive in and find out what's out there.

2) I want to document my career path as I move through my first years of teaching.  Personal reflection on successes and failures has thus far been integral to my growth as an educator.  I might as well share it with someone who cares.

More about me...

I have just applied for my Masters in Educational Technology through UBC in Vancouver.  I am on pins and needles waiting to find out if I have gotten accepted as my future as a "tech teacher" hangs in the balance. This year, I was fortunate to gain my position through my experience in the multi-age classroom.  Throughout the school year, I have exponentially increased my knowledge of digital learning tools, software and hardware issues, our online world, administration of technology from iPads to projectors, and just how much support teachers really need with tech.  (They, me included, need a lot!) But I don't have a degree or any documentation that I know this stuff, which really just gave me an excuse to learn more through a Masters program.  Wish me luck! 

Onto the other side of my job.... Whenever I tell someone that I teach in a multi-aged classroom, without fail, I get replies like "What?!", "Why would they do that?", "Is that normal?", amongst other commentary that I probably shouldn't publish.  The worst part is that it is extremely difficult to explain the concept of peer mentorship, collaboration, and mindful classroom learning to people who aren't immersed in the world of education.  Others who are in the world of education may argue that it doesn't work, the gaps are too wide, and that they do all of those things in the regular single-grade classroom, so why have the program at all?  What's worse is that those people usually walk away thinking that I got duped into a crummy job because I'm a young teacher.  

They couldn't be more wrong. 

I love teaching in a multi-age classroom.  I love facilitating learning rather than being the primary source for information.  I love watching as my students assist each other in problem-solving activities whether the subject is math, science, using technology, or a social issue on the playground.  I love being able to call upon my students to "teach" the others in their own language as I'm often called out by my Grade 1s for using big words.  They make their own class rules and vote on them and they run their own routines like calendar and class meetings without teacher intervention.  The self-regulation that begins to occur is out of this world due to peer expectation and reinforcement.  I could go on but that's a blog post within itself. 

So perhaps one would argue that it is worth the difficulty to explain exactly what it is that I do in this position that encompasses both a multi-age classroom and technology.  So I'm on a mission to share and catalogue some of my experiences so that I can give people a place to go when they are scratching their heads about my current job description.  But I'm also here to learn and make mistakes along the way.  Happy reading :)