Category Archives: Leadership Perspective

Connected Leader, K12 Online Conference, Leadership Perspective, TEDxKitchenerED

Getting Connected With Purpose

October 29, 2014 markwcarbone 2 Comments

Whether you know me personally, are a reader of this blog or have connected online or F2F, you know that I am passionate about connected learners needing connected leaders, and this fuels much of the work I do.

Today’s post features a video prepared in collaboration with Donna Miller Fry for the K12 Online Conference as part of the OSAPAC sponsored OSSEMOOC project. Special thanks to Silvana Hoxha, Brenda Sherry, Wayne Toms and Ken Whytock for their willingness to share their getting connected journeys.

Related Resource: Fostering Connectivity TEDx Talk

~Mark

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective, ProfessionalLearning

Scaling factors at ON21cLearn

October 23, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

Today I am attending the Ontario 21C Learning Journey event hosted by the Ministry of Education. As we consider the path forward with professional growth, change of practice and technology enabled learning, and scaling, important points to are:

and

Happy reflecting.

Follow the twitter discussion at #ON21cLearn

~Mark

21st century learning, Leadership Perspective, ProfessionalLearning

Just in time I.T. Support

September 16, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

One of the highlights of last week for me was kicking off our Tuesday ITS teams meetings. The room was filled with great people, energy, enthusiasm and anticipation. We kicked off our meeting with a “state of the universe” with our Google Apps (GAFE) environment.

In the big picture – all good: things are working well, great adoption during our first year, synergy for change, excitement about Google Classroom … and the list goes on.

We started to talk about goals for this year which led to discussion about the need to further develop our support model. Sounds easy. Seems traditional. We want users to feel well supported and offer timely assistance as needed.

Then it happened, THE disruptive question: Where is this all going? Then more questions: On what timeline? What can we stop doing? How do we improve ‘this’? How do we solve ‘that’?

The broad strokes answer is we are going to the cloud where we have anytime anywhere access, device agnostic functionality and no dependancy on any particular OS. At what rate? With what feature set? With what issues? — the bottom line is no one really knows. Things are changing more rapidly than ever before — and certainly faster than traditional support mechanisms can be designed, learned, documented, workshopped and people can be ready to answer help desk tickets with tiered support levels can be put in place. In my view, this journey is much more like building the plane while you are flying it. Support in this rapidly changing state might mean best effort or we are researching — a far cry from the comfort of a more traditional and methodical approach.

Finally someone stated “but we haven’t functioned or learned in this ‘just in time’ mode before.” BINGO! – it is new and and feels uncomfortable, really uncomfortable. IT staff are supposed to know all the answers. Yet, I believe being in this is the new fluid “technology existence” is the new norm.

I emphasized a few key points to help the conversation end in a good place. The bottom line: the smartest person in the room IS the room. This type of scenario is a great chance for an IT department to play, learn together, collaborate and share — ultimately put themselves and their learning out there to give students and staff the opportunity to use the latest tools to support learning.

     Image from: chdairiesdiary.wordpress.com

I hope that our user community appreciates the balance of risk taking and just in time learning to offer great technology enabled learning environments.

~Mark

Leadership Perspective

A Perspective on “RESET”

September 2, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

There is something about the start of a new school year that seems to put me an a place of both wondering & reflection. In some ways, the start of the school year is in effect the pressing of the big ‘RESET‘ button — everything starts fresh with new: timetables, class groupings, introductions, friendships, experiences, chances to make a difference … Well, the list could go on and on, but you get the picture: opportunity and hope. Hold that thought.

This weekend I attended a memorial service and left feeling inspired. Why? The service was very personalized with music performed by family members and the stories about what was important in their Dad’s life. Then it happened — the part that really stayed with me. A few key elements of their father’s life were highlighted as “lessons learned”.

And there it was – underscored, wait, make that underscored: the importance of reflecting. The “lessons learned” in this case applied to both school and life in general. Paraphrasing in my own words now, the lessons focused on relationships, boundless learning, growing without limits, the importance of sewing seeds to nurture encouragement, and, to share.

Without doubt, this is a powerful message, and so appropriate for the beginning of a school year.

Photo credit: my own

What new perspectives will you bring to the 14/15 school year? How will you foster and role model boundless learning, positive relationships, sowing seeds and sharing? What impact will your actions have on the opportunities and hopes of those around you?

Recommended Related Reading: Who are you leaving out? by Donna Miller Fry.

~Mark

Leadership Perspective, OSSEMOOC, ProfessionalLearning

Just Make it Public

August 5, 2014 markwcarbone 5 Comments

As things continue to evolve in education, I have been very encouraged by continued and growing dialogue around the importance of sharing professional practice(s), resources and personal reflections. I support this thinking and practice whole heartedly.

However, from my perspective, there is a BUT. Make that a giant

I am concerned that many of these conversations continue with the notion that some private structure or service should be created to house this information.

Sharing should be personalized! — put your thoughts, reflections and ideas ON YOUR OWN BLOG. Allow the global community of educators the privilege of searching, finding, reading, re-reading, sharing, curating, linking and commenting on your blog posts.

Your thinking MATTERS. Period.

Not blogging yet? Sign up for one today.

Want to change practice and blog with other educators? Watch the OSSEMOOC website for opportunities this fall.

~Mark

21st century learning, Connected Learning, Leadership Perspective, ProfessionalLearning, Social Media, Technology Enabled Learning, TEL

Sharing your Learning: Collaboration

June 24, 2014 markwcarbone 1 Comment

This year, WRDSB teachers Alison Bullock and Andrew Bieronski ran a very successful cross curricular and cross panel collaborative project with grade 4 and grade 10 students.

Full project details may be read [here]. A “quick peek” overview of the project is included below as a point of reference.

The Collaborating

The grade 10 students will provide mentorship to the grade 4 students as they research, plan and write the scripts needed for the audio guided tour files. Students will be collaborating through the WRDSB Google Apps for Educators (GAFE) environment. The role of the grade 10 students will be related to their civics and English courses.

All students, in both grades, will share about their experiences in this collaborative learning project through their blogs. Blogging platforms may include Google, WordPress or Weebly.

As part of the professional learning with this project, Alison and Andrew met with me for a live streamed interview to share their learning and reflections on collaboration, student voice, engagement and professional practice.

~Mark

21st century learning, Digital Citizenship, GAFE, Leadership Perspective, ProfessionalLearning, student voice, Technology Enabled Learning, TEL

Digital Learning Carousel Reflections

May 27, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

I had the pleasure of attending the WRDSB Digital Learning Carousel event today along with 400 educators and students from our Board. The event provided opportunity to share our collective insights around digital learning, changing practice and planning next steps forward for our organization. The carousel sessions I attended included online novel studies, innovative practices with math, inquiry approaches and the Futures Forum program.

Three aspects of the day really struck me. The positive feedback on the interest in using Google Apps for Educators (GAFE) and the high rate of adoption on our roll out was awesome. Secondly, I was intrigued to hear some of the educators sharing the benefits of enough technology to support small group instruction over a 1:1 approach. The ‘just enough’ model allows technology to be used as a learning support as needed while fostering opportunities for interaction, conversation and sharing. A 1:1 approach can result in students being self focused or isolated. This feedback validates our decision to roll out our iPad program in a way that avoided convenient the “portable lab pack” allocation. Finally, so many discussions touched on the idea of the right mobile tool for the learning, teaching or assessment task at hand. I felt proud that our IT department is deploying and supporting iPads, Chromebooks and Windows mobile devices to support learning at WRDSB.

My Session Highlights

The online novel study group talked extensively about taking a proactive approach to digital citizenship before moving into online activities. Their approach included googling yourself to find out what is actually online, reputation management, managing your digital presence and building relationships. Tools used in this program included Google Apps for Educators, Today’s meet, blogging, skype and collaborative web page designs. An impressive approach indeed!

In the math innovative practices session, I noted that educators were really digging into teaching collaboration skills. What does collaboration look like, sound like, feel like? “Look fors” would include accountable talk, building on the ideas of others to highlight two attributes. Digital tools used in this program included Explain Everything, GAFE, GeoBoard, Notability and iMotion.

The inquiry stream focused on the relationship of two key elements:

1. What do students need to learn and what do I need to learn as a teacher?
2. If I do this as a teacher, then students …

The final session featured the Futures Forum program, which I am very familiar with due to my involvement with the program. Presenters emphasized the importance of a growth mindset for both staff and students. The approach used this year involving SparKW really engaged the students in a meaningful way.

Clearly, all of the presenters I saw today demonstrated a high level of professionalism and a growth mind set. Thank you for sharing your learnings!

~Mark

Connected Learner, Leadership Perspective, OSSEMOOC, ProfessionalLearning

Connect2014 Reflections

May 12, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

The day I spent at Connect2014 last week was very valuable. I really enjoyed reconnecting F2F with so many online colleagues at Dean Shareski’s session where he lead a two hour in depth discussion on the topic of connected learning.

The discussion was rich as educators shared personal stories of making connections, the impact of the connections in terms of learning, sharing, collaboration and changed practice – talk about POWERFUL!!!

One idea that captured my interest from the session was the idea of recording a learning or change and attributing the connection that “made it happen”. Attendees joined forces to illustrate the power of helping people with professional learning this video which was produced that day during our time together.

Learn, connect, reflect and share !!!

~Mark

Leadership Perspective, OSSEMOOC, ProfessionalLearning, SAMR, Technology Enabled Learning, TEL, Todaysmeet

EOIT2014 resources and reflections

May 5, 2014 markwcarbone 1 Comment

I enjoyed my recent opportunity to present a session on ever changing EdTech world in K12 education at EOIT2014. Three points from the various conversations over the day captured my attention.

Limestone DSB, CIO Wayne Toms described how becoming active on Twitter has “changed his approach to PD forever”. He emphasized the importance of having access to a stream of current information and thinking to shape one’s perspective underscoring the importance of connected learning.

If fact, this coming weekend, two Ontario based EdCamps are happening on May 10th as per the “Tweet captures” below. Connected learners can participate by following #edcampsault and #edcampisland.

IT leaders Ron Plaizier and James Proulx openly discussed the challenges of “all the moving pieces” – technology changing at a rate much faster than classroom practices shift and support models can be adapted. There are no easy answers. The best strategy is to bring people together for conversation and time to play in this “change space”. Agreed!

The third conversation focused on a notion I would call the software “power” gap – the difference in capability when comparing a desktop application version against the corresponding web version. This power gap differential exists in many applications. In my view, the critical piece of this puzzle is at the intersection of desktop > mobile, local > cloud and minimal NEEDed functionality vs extra features. One “crystal ball” question is how long might it take to reach the ideal cloud based offering of a particular application?

I also wanted to share of few highlights from the back channel related to “What is the most important aspect of your work?”

Participants stated: