Category Archives: engagement

engagement, Leadership Perspective, OSSEMOOC

innovators blog hop #3 – what if

March 1, 2016 markwcarbone 1 Comment

That is certainly a great list of “what if” questions to ponder (see below). After some consideration, I would choose “what if we promoted risk taking to our staff and students and modelled it openly as administrators”.

I landed on this selection because I believe risk taking is a necessary ingredient connected to other elements of progress including culture shift and change of practice – both key elements of educational progress in my view as nothing is gained by protecting the status quo.

Within this framework, all of these ‘connecting notions’ come into play: experimenting, remixing, retrying, reflecting, (rapidly) iterating, continuous improvement and continuous learning. I think a healthy dose of open sharing is needed too.

A work and learning environment that draws on risk taking and creativity fuels engagement and satisfaction. What are you waiting for? Take a risk and engage!!!

bloghop3

bloghop3-2

~Mark
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engagement, Interview, Leadership Perspective, ProfessionalLearning, The Virtual Coffee Shop, WRDSB

Digging into Change

January 22, 2016 markwcarbone Leave a comment

This is such an exciting time to be working in education. We are learning so much more – not just more about learning, but more about the change process and how some of the critical elements of culture, relationships, space, choice, technology, empowerment, and of course learning itself play key interactive roles in making real change.

On a recent visit to Queensmount Sr. P.S. I enjoyed the opportunity to have a deeper discussion about this with Principal Kristin Phillips as well as see things in action. We captured our conversation in this video.

I have personally noted a few things that really stuck with me from our conversation will write another blog post to focus on that topic along with what I learned from the the tour.

I am wondering what part of the conversation jumped out at you? Care to share? I invite you to leave a comment or share via Twitter: @KristinPhillip3, @markwcarbone.

Resources

Read Kristin’s blog: EduBits

Krisin’s thoughts on our conversation: Letting go of teacher control is not chaos

Keep sharing your learning.

~Mark
markicon2

engagement, reflection, student voice, WRDSB

Remembering and Making a Difference

November 12, 2015 markwcarbone Leave a comment

Today’s post shares the Cameron Height CI staff and student prepared Remembrance Day Service recording of the livestreamed version.

I was impressed with the service because I thought it pushed the boundaries on the traditional service, was relevant to students and provided meaningful options for students to be involved in impacting people’s lives.

Well done CHCI !!!

~Mark

Connected Learner, engagement, Library Learning Commons, student voice, The Virtual Coffee Shop

Rethinking Learning Spaces

September 26, 2015 markwcarbone 1 Comment

I closed out the week by collaborating with Jamie Reaburn Weir and Alanna King for an insightful conversation on redesigning learning spaces.

I think you will appreciate the viewpoints and early observations they share from their work in this area.

I wonder what you will explore?

~Mark

engagement, Just pondering, Leadership Perspective

Lessons from Disney

July 22, 2015 markwcarbone 2 Comments

In my reading last week, I came across an article from the Disney Institute titled “Leadership Lessons From Walt Disney: Perfecting The Customer Experience“. As a connected learner and leader, I am always interested in ideas for improving improving service. The interesting part is taking time to consider how new ideas can be applied to another setting – K12 education in this case.

Consider these two quotes from the article:

“At Disney Institute, we were recently reflecting on the phrase, “simple is the new smart,” and it reminded us of a leadership philosophy we share with our clients and training program attendees – keep it simple so that everyone understands.”

“Walt Disney was a master at this. One of the simplest, yet most powerful and timeless leadership lessons we have learned from Walt is: “You don’t build it for yourself. You know what the people want and you build it for them.”

     Photo by Stephanie Schmidt (my daughter)

If you consider education through the perspectives of “simple” and “build it for them” (the students), what would be different in education? My initial thoughts include:

increase in play based learning
more creating and making
increase in choice
more self directed
multiple paths to experience learning, and a
focus on making technology (and I mean the whole area – hardware, software, access, digital resources) easier to use

What would you add to the “K12 by Disney” list? Please share your insights to this idea by leaving a comment or connecting on Twitter.

Additional Resources:
Read the full Disney article: Perfecting the Customer Experience

~Mark

Connected Leader, Connected Learner, engagement, Leadership Perspective, ProfessionalLearning, SAMR, student voice, Technology Enabled Learning

Breadcrumbs and Ripples

May 8, 2015 markwcarbone Leave a comment

The 2015 WRDSB learning carousel day focused on Innovative Change was a great day of learning and connecting for me. I was impressed with the quality and quantity of the sharing sessions and loved the energy in the room. As a reflection, I wanted to share a few things that resonated with me by bringing together ideas from two conversations.

Each year, we have been purposeful about initiating targeted new projects to model change, inform our collective practice and leverage opportunities to share and role model. Some of our projects from the last few years are captured in this whiteboard ‘clip’.

Along this journey, we have learned some important items or “breadcrumbs” as I like to call them, that should be applied to new projects and scaling up strategies as we move our innovative change agenda forward.

Some of our breadcrumbs include:

learning IS messy. We need to accept this and continue to play in this space.
co-learning between teachers, and teachers & students is a really important element. It is OK to fail.
shifting writing from paper to digital spaces makes a difference
student voice and choice are motivators in the learning process
using technology as an enabler creates new possibilities to be explored in the context of the C’s and the SAMR model. Think about boundless and joyful learning.

In my view, as we look at a path forward, each of us has to own our piece of the collective through our own actions. I like the question, what is your next? Creating a culture where:

conversations of change and identifying entry points are ongoing and natural
we celebrate small steps forward with joy and encouragement
the process of nudge, encourage, give/have permission and expect is openly explored
we continue to be intentional and
we share our experiences in open and easy to access ways

are all important elements in sustaining the synergy and energy of forward movement.