A1 We share good practice with each other by mail and our doors are always open!
Other answers:
Share examples in assemblies and briefings. As a Continuois sharing platform TrillbyTV is unbelievable! It's so important to share out the great practice, scream it from the rooftops. We use our website to celebrate a lot of our successes. Also a weekly newsletter. Sharing successes on Twitter is also amazing, giving the sataff a worldwide audience. Convince the exemplary teachers to share their stories with colleagues during coffee, talk about school during school. Beer&Pizza nights are my favourite, fun, feet up and just share you're golden nugget, no matter how small! Lot's of show and share at staff meetings - we hnave opportunities for teachers to lead their own training sessions too, so they can share amazing things they've been doing and teach others. We share sucesses by showing each other in our Professional Learning Communities what worked well, and some PLC have to be made conscious about their successes by someone else during evaluation, also I talk about the success of one teacher to other teachers or ask the to get more into from that teacher ar ask them to show it, basically giving teachers a voice or podium to show their work. Very difficult! We don't have a system, people seem to be very silent. We are tow leaders in the subject and have workshops every 6 weeks. But since the head masters change, we became an island, seem easier to share to the world, I will try to get my new boss to implent 'digital breakfast' on a rotative schedule. I used to hold breakfast teachmeets where people would share and encourage students and staff to blog about their success too. I blog when I can but we've recently started an insta-account for the school, baby steps into social media. Sharing story by connecting to teachers and talk about it with a cup of coffee, let students share their great stories and open you class for everyone. I use twitter, make sure that you encourage and compliment efforts no matter how small, as a wise person said: small steps lead to big changes. Being authentic, leading by example, offering bigger trainings, sharing little ideas during a break, offering help with first steps, sharing ideas and materials. I'm using twitter and instagram. I support 46 schools in our Trust, however, i Use twotter to share school successes , by retweeting their own tweets but also showcasing the work that o have been doing with schools to amplify their voice. Recently started publishing a half-termly newsletter created using Adobe spark page, super simple to put it together, can link lots of types of content and looks professional. In my workshops I sometimes integrate an activity where you have to share a success story of someone else. Something yu wish you had done and maybe even are secretly a bit jealous about. I love telling everyone in staffroom how well others are doing, it brill to be able to 'big up' your colleagues and all their efforts. Just talking to each other and we have a weekly meeting where we discuss success and failures. In my capacity as eLearning coordinator and coach, internally we have message boards so I post info on posters as well, and we send info/tips by email, hold coaching sessions. Lunchtime new technologies steering group. We used to have 'Appy Monday' - where staff members would share their teaching and learning iPad success. We share on twitter as well as weekly blog showing highlights of the week and successes in and out of the classroom. Last year we created an InspirationBook: teachers handed in their best practice and we created an interactive iBook to inspire each other. We used it together with speeddate sessions with teachers, this year, InspirationBook 2.0 will be created! We share success in team, year group and KeyStage meetings held weekly whilst the children are in assembly, we also have drop in sessions to share too. We rotate classrooms for sharing, giving each teacher the opportunity to share learning in their space. We have an ICT workshop/sharing meeting an hour a week, there the teachers share good examples and we share ideas how to make them even better, we also have a local FaceBook group where teachers share their work. I work across lots of schools so hard to answer but find using champions across the school particularly powerful, different staff champion, different things to share successes. We share them in meetings, we also have the schools blog and social networks and I also try to tell others what I'm doing in order to inspire them (and get some inspiration too..) besides that, I'm trying to create an eBook to share projects with my partners. We encourage staff to share and pay it forwards, if you've had success helpt to make it happen across your team and the across your school, there is always a culture of being able to experiment and try new things. Peer to Peer mentoring; meetings; most powerful has been the students sharing with their parents during end of unit celebrations and fellow staff popping in for a rubber neck and chat. Internal sharing conferences, blogging, case studies, as an ed tech evangalist I meet with people, ask them what they are doing and spread around the good stuff that has gone before that might relate.
Q2 What strategies do you use to engage and inspire staff members?
A2 This is a quest since years! At first we asked teachers what they want to learn, we gave them copies of (handwritten) How-to's and organised 20 moments during the year to practice together. This was on volunteer-base, not succesful. Then we had Appy-Hour, not succesful, not every teacher was working with iPads. Then we had an quickscan with the important question: what do you want to learn? We offer 5 different workshops but in an short time, in a period full of workload. Now we are just doing! There is sharing in the staffroom during coffee. As it was on me, I would like to organise more workshops….
Other answers: Be personalble, appraochable and offer help at all points, even with the small things, make light of your own failure and when things don't work. Encourage staff to engage with their own PLN on Twitter. Lots is about modelling what works and engaging the students in to show what is possible. Sharing impact hopefully gives them inspiration but the team are pretty good anyway! We've had great success recently offering microlearning sessions, catering to individual needs, colleagues are very receptive, especially the beginners who had been hesitant in the past. Visit colleagues classes, team teach with others, collaborate across subjects, share at weekly PD sessions. I really believe that it's fundamentally important to build that positive relationship with staff members and colleagues so that when you engage and inspire them, they know that it is genuine. Sweet treats and rewards for competitions works well. Keeping it simple, introducing things that will give quick wins with little effort. Working in our PLC's divides our big team in smaller groups which makes it easier to make suggestions and ideas fit to their pupils, wotk with the enthousiasm of their pupils, if the children are enthousiastic the teachers usually grow forwards it. Be clear in what you want and how this fits the vision of the school's Why, you need the staffmembers to take projects to a further station. Encourage them with a little help here, an idea there, give them breathing room to develop their own ideas, cherish those when they share them, give them bigger room to showcase then during conferences or trainings. Trust, confidence and love. Be empathetic and listen to people not everyone understands technology and some people are afraid of it,above all: be kind. We are a small school and everyone is eager to show what they do since we have a clear vision from our leaders, I ask our teachers to take photo's of their work and as soon as I've hear someone doing something creative I lift it on our weekly meetings. Celebrate successes, however small, to quote one of our computing subject leaders: You will win this marathon by taking baby steps, and a baby step, no matter how small, is progress. Exactly the same way I'd inspire children, loads of fun activities along side real examples from my own experience. Training sessions, appleteacher, providing apps and app specific training, using digital leaders to support, team teaching but most of all just being there and saying: ' try this, I'll help you' and giving people the tools and safe space to try. Let's not forget the power of leading by example or demonstrating how easy things are, creating 'Wow' experiences for colleagues is the best. I'm using my digital leaders at the moment to inspire teachers, they are making tutorials, I built a sway with the name of different apps and what they can be used for, I tell and tell, hoping something sticks, I show and ask for help. I think it is important to listen first, those who feel listened to will have gained trust in you, stay focused on positive intentions and maintain rapport, a good morning and smile each day can go a long way. Leading by example goes a long way in my opinion! If you're going to advocate something, you have to back it up: model examples of good practice. I think the main motivation to move something in a group is to give a role to everyone that suits their person and character, everyone can enrich the group with his personal skills. I have encouraged teachers to take their stories to conferences. I do small app groups to teach them about an app, make clips to show how something is done, literally stand next to them in class and help them, give the instruction myself as many times as needed untill they can do it themselves. Have a vision and share it, show others of the work that kids have done, get the students talking to staff about using digital technology, share, listen, support. Regular emails with tips and ideas. Remember that the CPS you offer has to fit the needs of the teachers - offer a menu and realise that teachers as well as students have different learning styles: No significant learning can occur without significant relationship. We have a weekly newsletter with tips&trics and '1-in-3' during staff meetings. Encourage staff to enter local competitions to showcase their work and their students work. You've got to make any CPD supportive, engaging, fun and relevant, it helps if you differentiate in the same way you would for children, everyone is on a different journey so be prepared to be support them at every point in their adventure. Most teachers believe that what they do is pretty insignificant compared to what they imagine others to be doing, working across lots of schools enables me to share good practice but als to help others recognise it! Critical part of any strategy for that is create/foster a culture of sharing of pfride in your effort. Students also are great indicators of 'What works', have them share their experiences. I think it's really important to remember that all the roles are important, those holding the palms, swimmers and lookers, we need identify them and give them a task. I'm trying to make CPD a priority and support teachers to build their own networks, the twitter wall will defenitely help. It's important to talk about the benefits of certain approaches to teaching, and of course it is also important to celbrate successes and talk a lot about ways to improve. Plain old rewards works as well. I try to explain or write directions in simple to understand steps for student and staff and not use lots of tech terms, Keep It Simple so everyone can understand and use the info. Share, support, collaborate, we try to take part in conferences, post articles in newspapers and journals. Not that many schools do it, but recording (parts of) your lessons where you successfully use tech and share these as examples are a great way. As a school leader, I lead by example, showing respect, regard, understanding, appreciation and empathy are key to staff happiness and wellbeing. Celebrating our AppleTeachers encourages others, also keeping things simple and highlighting easy wins which makes teaching more time-efficient, being careful not to overwhelm with too many apps.
Q3 What has been your biggest success story? Why do you think this happened?
A3 Students who know how to help other students! This gives me such a good feeling. Also teachers who share their stories with each other.
Other answers: Biggest success to date hase been the 1:1 deployment at previous school and also being part of SendItplus project. Both have engaged staff and pupils alike made a real difference to the learning of the children. Have students share their expierences with our staff and the parents. Biggest success would have to be seeing the students leading on digital integration in school on their placement, not fully qualified yet but happy to take a leading role. For me personally the fact that I got parents involved and let them play with our technology, and how they rated our developments very positively in a research about how happy they were about our school, also: walking through our school and seeing teachers using the iPad and pupils working with it and showing their learning, always very proud of that! Stuff is happening! And sometimes just helping them a bit furhter by taking away some obstacles so they can get there easier the first time….and after a while helping them through the obstacles. Not one story, but many: the positive feedback I get from colleagues who leave chocolate on my desk as thanks. A student leading the app development class where teachers and students were the students. I think the biggest success would be NTLTiPadBand - over 20 schools all working together on a project to bring our NTLTLearningTrust schools together to showcase the talent of our children!. Being part of the digital leader team in my schooll and helping it become the first Apple Distinguished school in the Middle East. Not really the biggest success but always proud to see that the first school Twitter account I created as an ICT schoolleader is still going strong and fulfilling the original vision, 10 years after leaving school. My biggest success stories are the colleagues in my last school who have a thirst to try out new things and learn more about the difference using the iPad can make to their students. We have seen a huge increase in engagement, excitement and transformatoinal teaching and learning since the advent of our differentiated CPD, we are blessed with a staff that take simple ideas and make them their own to suit the needs of the children. Seeing our iLeaders blossom and teaching others, including staff, these children are our future. Getting almost 90% of the colleagues on the right track, them being open + using the advantages #edtech can bring to everyone's teaching. It happend because a very small team was able to convince them that the students will benefit, a lot. At my new school (not so new now) we are just starting on our journey but the enthusiasm of staff to give stuff a try has been rewarding, we are trying iPad band soon and today my staff digital champions met for the 1st time. My biggest success was to lead a disabled student through the help of technology to graduation, a fabulous student! Hearing the words: "I didn't know it was that easy" . Our schools biggest success Story so far is the journey we started 5 years ago with iPads and resulted in Apple Distinguished School recognition last year. We have 100% Apple Teachers on our school, we had a day when that was the only thing the teachers worked with, we also have a lot of success stories working with CBL where students get more creative every time. It's also great seeing how many have become AppleTeachers on their own after the initial lecture about it. Self directed learning that we then see in their practice. I've worked with a number of schools that eventually got to their own innovation and their integration of tech. Creating the iPad Lab as a specials rotation class! Our students do not have smart technology at home so this claas was created to bridge the possible learning gap, now we are creating movies and animating in Keynote, we have all come a long way in 4 years. My biggest succes is when I lose a customer because they don't need me any longer. My biggest success story was a teacher coming to me and showing me a stop motion video they had created, two of my 2nd year students taught her how to make it, those students strutted around the school for weeks. It was when my pupils parents and some teachers supported my desire to use iPads and after seeing the resultas our headmaster agreed to support us too ans bought school iPads. Our maths concepts books have been our biggest success: a whole school strategy, simple and has clear benefits which are outcome focused, we are so used to them now but when sharing with other schools, we are very proud of what pupuils are able to demonstrate. It's going to sound cheesy, but my biggest success was a couple of weeks ago: my students succeeded at downloading planner 5D, I asked for a house of two rooms and a kitchen for next day, but I got some amazing stuff: the showed grit, curiosity and creativity. On the other hand, I wrote the digital plan for my community, next week will be the last session with all lead teachers and after that it will be official, it includes all the knowledges students need to have according to the new Swedish curriculum. My own biggest success story was the fact that I the way I like to teach #mywhy fits the vision of the school. Tech came at the right moment otherwise I wouldn't be at this school today, the last 5 years I have been growing as a teacher. I had a moment on Monday, our awesome science lead demonstrated Padlet QR-codes and Curiscope in the space of a one hour meeting, to all staff, following a few CPD drop ins, amplification, impact AND technology not coming from the geeky guy. Staff coming to me to share their positive expierences with my students from the previous year when integrating tech; cultivating conversations about expierences both successes and failures to develop practice and want to experiment. The transformation of tech in the early years at our school: the staff has been overwhelmed with discovering how competent and capable these young innovative learners are through making, tinkering and engineering. The best results have come when I'm leading group CPD and without prompting a teacher shows others examples of what they have already done linked to our topic, #changeculture. Watching the progress of a teacher from digital dinosaur to them leading New Tech CPD.
Q4 How do you convey the message to parents? Particularly the reluctant/difficult ones?
A4 Parents are not involved in our project, this is a huge mistake and I'm ashamed by this fact. Long story will get back on that……sometimes….
Would love to invite the parents to school and let them expierence the lessons their childs are getting in our school, with the use of technology. I'm not sure what is holding me back?
Other answers: Being trasparent with parents, explaining the use (creators NOT consumers) finding parental champions is keyto a successful technology implementation, this can help with those difficult parents. I haven't really encountered parents being against it, Seesaw is a great way for parents to see their children's creations with and through technology, it shows it's purposeful. The most opowerful way to communicate changes and developments to parents is often via their children, get the children talking about what they have learned (not just done) in school, even if you prime them before they leave the classroom. Clear communication that your blending the tech in where it enhances the learning. Being open about your developments, showing them the vision and the why, being open to their questions and giving them honest answers will usually do the trick. Tough one in the beginning back then, but getting easier over the years, what really helped is inviting them to talk to students already using iPads in 1:1, let them discuss things they do, show them how productive and creative it can be. Showcase students work often. As I said before: get them acquainted with the materials , let them play with it, show an interest to their concerns and try to work through those concerns with them, take them along on the journey. Parents and teachers need to work together so it's important to show parents that we are both interested in a successful student, this also makes it easier to convey unpleassant news. We have been lucky to date and haven't had any difficult parents. I have my students create portfolios of their work that they have signed by their parents, I have gotten great feedback from them, they love seeing the work the students do. School open days where new parents can see how school has changed since they were there. We hosted a parent information evening showcasing what students do with their iPad in class #bullseye. Tell them the Why and let students show them what they do in classes and what they learn, show them the work flow, let them participate in tech lessons and be honest. Quite a few schools organise Parent Learning Nights or Bring Your Parents to School sessions where they expierence learning with iPad. Most parents I've worked with have been really supportive, I think being open, honest and transparent goes a long way and dedicating time to ensuring that their voice is heard and their concerns are listened to. It really helps getting parents on your side….they will ask the teacher of their childrens class the difficult questions, so you don't have to. It's important to show parents how the world has changed. Show them the resultst of their kids work and listen to them, sometimes they can't even imagine what their kids are capable of. Thankfully I haven't found any, obviously, seeing what their children do in class and the way they're learning is key to that. I think there is a tendency for some parents to be suprised their children are using screens in school time as they haven't necessarily joined the dots between learning and technology, if that makes sense. Frankly, parents often don't have the faintest idea of how tech can deepen learning experience, it's like arguing with a history book. I've loved showing parents on a 1:1 basis iPad features and creative uses they didn't know about - for example: showing how accessibility features can make such a big difference to their children. We amplify the work of the children through newsletters, film Anson radio and tekst messaging, when we show student voice and impact on a global scale and this is key in showing that we are not consumers of technology but creators of content. Might be worth while to share with parents the books Apple Distinguished School make to show them the impact of learning with tech. We have just started to use ParentsAppUK, and it's looking really positive, we are just getting lots of parents onboard. I always explain to parents that technology in the early years is focused on building collaboration, creativity, communication and critical thinking. Using tools like Showbie or Seesaw that give parents access to student work helps too, show, do not tell about the digital work students create. My school is a private school without charge but with a music profile and the parents get informed when they apply on how we use ICT, we also have parent education 2 times in the autumn term in iTunesU, our other digital platforms and they bring their kids iPad.
Q5 with a limited number of devices, how do you decide where the devices would be best used?
A5 We are now in a 1:1 situation but the previous years we had a couple of class-sets. We decided that the best place was in class where teachers want to learn with iPad, now we have the benefits from the early adopters.
Other answers: setting up as shared devices within Apple Classroom is a great way of deploying to a variety of year groups select the most confident teachers that woulallow for the greatest impact. We have a set of 16 iPad minis, which currently can be booked for classes, I sort of think it would be better to have a smaller number shared between a few classes permanently. Interested to hear the answers to this. I had a huge fight with a teacher about resources being used by the one who needs them the most, this person just didn't understand the iPad didn't belong of the desk, so I asked an ally for help, I got the ipad and placed where it should be: allies! Planning is key, knowing exactly what the device is being used for and what the students are going to create is essential, ensuring staff & student knowledge of the app or assignment so as to maximise time. I shared the devices evenly in our PLC's and after that I observed where they we're being used the most and best and tried to give that PLC some extra devices, but an even share to start with so everybody had a chance also i tried to see what PLC's we're doing with them, for instance for our youngest children 3 devices per class were enough, for our oldest we needed some more. Planning is our everything, I would start with something I am confident about: if it works, go on, if it doesn't: change the model. We create a culture of collaboration, not just between students but between staff this allows us to be 1:1 when the session fits, innovation doesn't need to be penalised because of the budget. Use it where the device is the most suitable tool for the pedogogy/activity that's we have designed. Biggest need = available resource, it could be a device, but also physical space and all technology. Had to chuckle a bit, we have a (typically German) "first come - first serve" approach here, you can book 1-4 mobile units, the colleague who is the fastest get hist cart(s) with the 16 iPadsm would like to read better solutions. Very good question: often in these situations you become a victim of your own success: the more you share, the more people want to try and the harder it becomes to book the devices. I give the most devices to the groups who struggle the most to ensure as many as possible can have a go. Our PLC's are very good in sharing amongst themselves by the way, If one teacher needs some extra devices for a lesson, they will easily get them from the others. Hmm, tricky question: I think I's use them wher they can be most transformational for student learning and/or where teachers can use them to teach better because now they have tech. So important to link deployment of limited devices to the visions and school priorities, schools often opt for fair deployment for example all have equal access, which can also dilute impact, remember why you bought them in the first place. I often say to my schools if they have class sets that are hard to manage to put a few in each classroom - the enthusiasm and opportunity to use them becomes greater if they are always available rather than 'just once a week' that seems to work well. This year we have almost 500 students in our 1:1 program and about 80 shared iPads, teachers can sign in to shared iPads to use them in lessons when their are need for more shared devices, we smile and ask the principal if there is budget for new devices. This is always so hard! Our teachers all want more and are super keen, i've tried to spread them as evenly as possible to give all teachers equal opportunity to use them effectively. We have 1:1 iPad so no fighting for us! Since the dialogue with the family in having support at home is vital for the positive outgoing using those devices, we choose also looking fot this, of course we think to the students, but we also must to be wise in distribution. We have online booking form that staff use to book the class set of iPads, if more than one person wnats to use them at the same time they normally try have split them evenly, it works well when you have a staff that is collaborative and willing to compromise. Extremely important to remember that the teacher is the most important resource and that they need to learn for the devices to do any good. By the way, not having a multitude of devices in the beginning has given teachers a real drive to show me how much they use them to get more and somehow this became their practice, now the will be rewarded with more. Wa had class sets in all years, tow years ago, I made recommendation of taking iPads out of Early years, prioritising the children we felt were getting the most out of technology, this has allowed us to go fully 1:1 throuhout the rest of the school, we then looked at ways of utilising the teacher iPad in early years along with other ways of experiencing technology, older pupils also often use their ipads to collaborate with younger children. Use a google calendar and colour code system, can only book 2wks ahead and no repeat bookings, usually works smoothly except during the summarize assessment weeks. We have 15 iPads for 1.000 students, they can be booked like a resource, first come, first served. It works! If anyone feels like sponsoring more iPads, feel free!
Q6 With hindsight, what would you do differently? Why?
A6 I made mistakes and a lots of stuff end in a failure…..but I learned from all this stumbling and it makes me the teacher who I am now, so, I wouldn't change the appraoch….. I whish there was more time for me to sit next to my colleagues to help them move forward. And: in the case of iPad cases, I would search by myself and not trust on someoneelse's idea (budget!)
Other answers: I would always schedule more time for reflection and build CPD that caters for issue that may arise because of this, it will improve everyones practice and is great for me to know what holes to need plugging. Probably give more instructions on how to functionally use the iPad I basically thought it spoke for it self, and it took me a while to get over the hurdle with teachers, i thought they were more advanced than they actually were, maybe try to explain better why we are doing this as well, or repeating it some more, I do that now though, and listen more to their concerns, some I discarded too quickly. When i first tried introducing to school 5 years ago, wasn't brave enough to keep pushing to SLT and show the impact. I certainly don't think that way anymore, I felt like I was on my own then, now I have this amazing community, still get opposition but keep going. Would try hardet to enlarge the number of 1:1 classes, we opted for smaller group of 1:1s to the benefit of mobile carts, asked again I'd go for more 1:1, it makes just such a difference, there's so much more improvement among students. With #edtech, I believe one should think Different Think Different also means we should ecourage, no persuade them to vocalise their WHY on innovative teching and learning tech's role in it. . I'd have differentiated CPD a long time ago, it takes up so much of my time (7 and a half extra hours of support this term) but it's totally worht it because it saves time in the lon run as teachers are so much more engaged and empowered. Not so much what I would do differently but I have found that the addition of apps to iPads can take time if the school has no way of putting apps on the devices themselves is when a third party is responsible for administering requests. A silly thing But I'd label all plugs and wires, for some reason they seem to vanish. I would have launched my school STEAM room years earlier. Try to focus on small meaningful things - we don't need 100's of apps just a few that aid and help learning. I'd have made even more time to actually be with the teachers in the classroom as the put CPD into practice, so Important. I should hvae included the SEND sectoin of the school in my initial change, now they are behind, they got macs for the start and when I got involved realized it was stupid not to have given them iPads, so forgotten the SEND school was a mistake. Get the WHY clear for everybody, and encourage the staff to stand for the vision of the school, else I think I won't do anything different, you need to reflect every time and eventually change plans in PD. Invest more time in CPD and collaborative planning of resources. Anticipate why people might resist change…so that you're not shocked ot caught off guard when they do…some teachers can seem to be blocking for no reason, but dig a little deeper and there often is one. At the start I was a bit excited and was showing people everything you could do with technology, I know I scared people off from using it, I would start by showing them simple changes they can do and slowly build up their confidence let them dictate the pace. For support: from day 1 get people in that know their shit, I've seen too many schools struggke with bad infrastructure, poor reseller support and lametable professional development. It is easy to focus on quickly assisting or helping, but truly focusing on empowering other teachers, this is what will bring about the most success, There is no I in team. I spent lots of time intitially looking for apps and at apps, I whish I would have focused on the creative apps built in an iPad from day 1, now I focus on training other teachers around my district to use these apps 1st. A cannonball in the sea, may be thrilling, but spend a little time to take a breath may be useful, often I'm too excited about something new so I invest too much on it, probably if I could, I would say less yes on picking up new activities . I'm hoping to go a bit more 'back to basics' next week and use numbers for maths because it does everything i need it to and the learners are not particularly familiar with it, keeps it exciting for them. Remember: not everyone wants to be at training or wants to engage with ipads, be aware of dynamics & use them to your advantage, I often used to (and still do!) take it to heart when training doesn't appear to be well received, it's not always thta that's the issue. Our one challenge is our deployment model, our parents own 1:1 devices afte P5, it does make device management a little more challenging, we are looking at ways to make this easier though.
This tip came from Liesbeth Heijman:
Someone once told me about the Z: my colleagues are at the beginning, I'm already further at the bottom of the Z, I have to climb my way back to get where they are coming from, because I've forgotten all the steps I took to get where they are coming from, because I've forgotten all the steps I took to get to the bottom.