Monthly Archives: December 2014

21st century learning, CATC, Interview, Leadership Perspective, ProfessionalLearning

Celebrating Future-Ready at WRDSB

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I have been a longtime believer in a self directed job embedded approach to staff development.  For several years I have had the privilege of working with a dedicated team in IT Services  at the Waterloo Region District School Board to design and deliver staff development programs fitting this ideal.

Last fall I participated in the 2013 Connected Educator Month activities which included an opportunity to complete an interview and submit documentation about our CATC Camp and CATC connections programs along with information about the WRDSB Futures Forum Program.

Celebrate

I am honoured and thrilled that  our WRDSB submission been selected  as a part of the Future Ready program as an international case study and is published on the US government Tech Ed website as a one of six case studies selected.

OET_logo

A special announcement was shared with over 12,000 US based school superintendents.

Learn more about the Future Ready program.

The case studies, including our WRDSB submission  are online here.

View the Future Ready professional learning toolkit.

I want to acknowledge the team of Rebecca Rouse, Harry Niezen and recent retirees Ron Millar and Anita Brooks-Kirkland for their insightful and collaborative work with me in on our ITS staff development program.  I also appreciate the on going support and collaborative work of Mary Sue Meredith and Ken Whytock.

~Mark

Leadership Perspective, ProfessionalLearning

CMA: Connecting more dots

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Yesterday I had a chance to hear Simon Breakspear (@simonbreakspear) deliver his “Learning Redesigned” presentation. I thought the dive into deeper learning for all, and HOW was brilliant and thought provoking.

I have shared a simplified sketch of few key elements of the CMA model from my notability musings.

CMA

I am really interested in what Simon identified as three key aspects of change:  start small,  move fast, and  iterate frequently. Clearly, these are aspects of change that big organizations such as K12 institutions do not excel at.   As I was reflecting on his message over the day, I got to thinking about other connections within the K12 structure.

I don’t see this insight limited to learning and instructional practice. IT departments need to operate in this way too.  I can envision many benefits of striking more quickly with technology change and implementation – especially with the ever increasing rate of digital change.  The rapid iteration notion would apply to developing support models, tweaking networks for optimum performance and perhaps dynamic agile assignment of people resources to deal with trending needs re help-desk support models etc.

I wonder if the real quest is for instructional change & digital change to be working through this process at the same time for a more harmonious, rapid and positive change.

I love the AMPLIFY element of Simon’s model. There is no replacement for nurturing others, starting conversations and sharing your thinking and learning. PERIOD.  As part of the go forward process, in my view it is critical that we, yes we – all of us, take the time to share our experiences in ways that are findable, sharable and provide forums for comments and questions: blogs, videos, chats etc. – we must leverage the learnings from the journeys we each experience.

~Mark