Innovation is Easy!

Innovation is a scary word.

I'm betting many of you are like me -- you don't think you're an innovator, you don't feel like an innovator, you doubt you will ever be an innovator, but you sure do wish you COULD be an innovator.

Being an innovator implies being revolutionary and visionary. And many innovators certainly are that way. Just check out this list of the 12 greatest innovators of all time, some of the greatest innovators of the past 30 years, and some up and coming innovators. Can you see your name associated with all those names? If you're like me, you think, "No way!"

But I have recently learned that innovating is actually not as hard as I thought it was.

I am currently doing an online book study for the book The Innovator's Mindset by George Couros. One of the things the author said recently about innovation is this -- in order to see if something is "innovative", you can ask two questions:

Is it new?
Is it better?

"New" does not have to mean totally brand new. It CAN be a new invention, or it can be an iteration. "Better" means better for your learners, but defining "better" can be tricky.

But I've seen innovation in action -- and you won't believe how easy it was!

Janine Michalak (8th grade ELA teacher) has her kids do an introduction speech each year. The kids present a culture kit to tell their classmates about themselves. In the past, this was done by handing out the papers to the kids about the assignment, having kids create a PowerPoint presentation, then assemble a decorated box full of artifacts representing their culture. The kids learned about public speaking, creating presentations, and their culture.

This year, Janine decided to up her instructional game and she said my favorite words -- "Can you help me?" She explained how she wanted to revamp this assignment to make it more tech integrated and tailored to the learners in her class. So here's how she changed the assignment:

• She converted all her Microsoft documents to Google Docs
• She shared all her documents for the assignment to Google Classroom
• She updated all the information on the documents to reflect the changes she made
• The students created Google Slides presentations
• The students created a virtual culture kit -- each student had his/her own web page on a class site where they shared pictures related to their culture
• The last slide of the presentation linked to the student's culture kit webpage
• The students turned in their final Google Slides presentation through Google Classroom

Janine didn't change the timeline for work; she didn't change the goals of the assignment. She just changed the way the students work and assemble their work.

After the first class did their presentations, she told me that she had 10 presentations scheduled, and all 10 got to do their speeches. She also said that this was the first time in over 20 years of teaching she had a set of speeches go this way. All the kids' work was in one location -- no time wasted with kids trying to find where files were saved because they were all in one central location since they were turned in via Google Classroom.

If you apply George Couros's two questions -- is it new? is it better? -- to this lesson, you can answer yes to both! It is new in that this assignment is an iteration of the previous one. It is better because the process was easier for both the students and the teacher as well as allowing students to use tools they were familiar with and provided them some opportunity to express themselves individually.

Janine Michalak is an innovator. And it wasn't hard at all. Add her name to the list -- right next to Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, and Pete Cashmore!

Janine gave me permission to share this journey with you. She's not one to toot her own horn. In fact, most teachers like to stay in the shadows and not draw attention to the cool things they do in their classrooms. But I'm offering you a challenge -- can you do one of these things?

Challenge 1 -- share with me something innovative you have done/are doing/are getting ready to do. Share not to be a "show off" but rather to be a role model, and inspiration, and a helper to your colleagues!

Challenge 2 -- pick a lesson that you want to innovate! Choose something that you already do -- you absolutely do not have to re-invent the wheel! Then send me my favorite words -- "Can you help me"? and we will innovate together!

Are you brave? If so, share which challenge you're accepting in the comments below for the whole world to see!

Are you not so brave yet? Send me an email to share which challenge you accepted!

Ready, set, INNOVATE!

Authentic Learning

The theme for this school year is all about building a growth mindset -- this is great for teachers AND students! One of the best ways to do this is to provide authentic learning experiences for our students. What does that mean, anyway? Some of the things that happen when authentic learning takes place include

• Students are solving real world problems or dealing with real world issues, not manufactured lessons.
• Students are working with real world tools and resources, not simulated ones.
• Students are personally invested in their work; they aren't just working so they can earn a grade.
• Students have a real audience for what they are doing; it's not just for their teacher or their classmates.

This can sound risky and hard to do. But it's really not! Use safeguards that already exist to help create the authentic experiences. Use your curriculum to find real world connections and talk with your kids to see how they connect what their learning to the real world. Here's an example of something I just started doing this year:

It is mandated by the state that students get internet safety instruction starting in grade 3. My lesson for grade 4 in the past has been a video that we watch and discuss about protecting personal information online. This year, I kicked it up a notch. I told the students ahead of time that they need to think about the most important lesson they learned from the video and the discussion because they are going to be responsible for teaching an internet safety lesson to others. After the video and the discussion, I ask the students to come up with the lesson and state it in a sentence. Then the students have to write it as a Tweet. I teach them quickly how to construct a Tweet. I then collect their internet safety Tweets and post them from my Twitter account, signing each Tweet with the students' initials instead of their names so they can identify their own Tweet without compromising their safety. I send a letter home to parents explaining the lesson, too. The kids are so excited to discover that they are sharing what they have learned with the whole internet and that they are helping others be safe online! This was an easy way to create something that was a little more authentic by making it real with a live audience and related to their lives.

Check out this article called "Three Ways to Create Authentic Learning Opportunities for Your Students" for some information and inspiration!

Going Places with Google Cardboard

This post was originally shared in Thursday notes in December 2015. It is written for parents, but the same ideas can easily be applied in your classroom!

Going Places with Google Cardboard

This week I had the opportunity to visit Egypt with a class of 6th graders. Actually, their teacher arranged for his class to virtually visit Egypt using Google Cardboard. Google Cardboard viewers are affordable (they can be $10 or less – and yes, they are made of cardboard); they look like the nostalgic toy ViewMaster! The “pricey” part of the experience is a smart phone! But by using the free Google Street View app, you can choose literally any location in the world, put your smart phone in the viewer, and experience an incredibly realistic 3D, 360° view of your chosen location. While helping the social studies students, one boy, with the viewer up to his eyes, reached out with his hand, pointing in the air and asked if I could see the people on camels in front of the pyramid. I had to remind him that I couldn’t because I wasn’t really in Egypt with him! That’s how realistic and immersive the experience of Google Cardboard is! Some ideas for using this at home:

• Preview where you are going for a family vacation
• Show your kids places you have visited that they have not had the chance to see
• Plan a virtual field trip for a weekend
• Look up locations students are learning about in social studies class
• Look up settings for novels
• Visit historical sites or the Seven Wonders of the World

There are other apps available to be used with Google Cardboard – just check the app store for your smart phone! Happy virtual travels!

Do You Even Classroom???

One of the most exciting tools you and your students have access to now that we have "gone Google" is Google Classroom! This is kind of like a virtual classroom where everything you do in your actual classroom can be aggregated online. You can share announcements, share resources, hand out documents, have students hold discussions, create writing assignments, have kids work collaboratively or independently, and so much more -- all from their Chromebooks or other computers! Setting up Google Classroom is very easy for you and just as easy for your students to join your class! It might sound like a huge leap for you, but it's really not at all -- I promise! Feel free to poke around Google Classroom on your own if you feel adventurous! Or you can talk with some of your colleagues -- I'm betting someone right down the hall from you has their Google Classroom set up and rolling! Or you've got your friendly tech staff to help you out!

Here is a site I found that gathers a number of really excellent resources you can use to learn Google Classroom! Take a look and let me know if you think any of them are really exceptional and deserve extra attention!

And one more thing -- if you've got a few minutes to spare, can you answer these quick questions about Google Classroom in YOUR classroom?

The Beauty of a Chromebook

When I think about some of the stumbling blocks that teachers and students have when it comes to using computers for productivity, here are some of the most common questions/issues/complaints:

Can I email this to myself?
I don't have a flash drive.
I can access my work/school files at home because they're on the server.
I have files saved all over the place.
I can't remember all the logins for my accounts.
My computer needs to be updated.
I think I picked up a virus on my computer.
My laptop died and I lost all my files because I didn't back it up!

A Google account used on a Chromebook can address these issues with ease. Chromebooks look like laptops but they're not laptops -- they're Google, they're the internet -- and they're really easy to use!

Check out this video that I originally posted in my Google Classroom that gives a nice overview of Chromebooks. Then be sure to get your kids using them if you haven't yet!

The Screen Time Dilemma

This was my contribution to the schools' Thursday Notes this week. With the addition of more technology devices in schools across the country, there is growing concern about the amount of "screen time" kids have. How much is too much? That's a tough question to answer definitively.

How much screen time is too much? That could be one of the most difficult questions a parent has to face. It’s a multi-layered question because not all screen time is equal. Time spent reading on a Nook or Kindle is different from playing a game on Xbox Live, and those activities are different from watching videos on YouTube. When determining how much screen time your child should have, consider what he or she is going to be doing as well as your child’s age. Ultimately, any kind of screen time requires balance, and what might be too much time for one child might be an acceptable amount for another. Parents need to make decisions based on what best suits the needs of their child and family. For more insight and helpful tips about managing screen time, check out this article from The Wall Street Journal: http://www.wsj.com/articles/your-screen-time-rules-or-mine-1471972582