No excuses, I haven't made the time to blog lately and find myself sitting here at 6am in the van on the way to school with a moment to reflect. 

What I've been up to:

School:

All of a sudden the last two weeks have been packed! Our school is hosting the regional basketball tournament and this year we're going to try and live stream the games as well as have students commentate them live. When you have 5 teams flying in from 5 different countries not everyone can travel with them, so streaming the sports has become almost expected by spectators back in their home countries to keep up with the action. We'll be live February 2,3,4 here in Bangkok and you can watch the games and see how we set this up using Ustream, Google Docs, and a blog here.

Also on the school front, I took advantage of the holiday season knowing that teachers were going to come back to school with new toys; iPhones, iPads, Android Phones and new computers. I saw an opportunity to provide some training to teachers around their own personal use of technology. We know that if you start using technology in your personal life where it's meaningful to you that those skills and understandings transfer over to your work life as well. Learning to take a video of your kids and e-mailing it to family is the same as taking a video of your students and e-mailing it to the parents. 

The after school sessions were the best attended sessions I've had so far this year even with the power going out during the Android training, we found an emergency light and carried on. 

People are hungry for information, especially when it relates directly to their personal lives....make trainning personal!

Ninja Program:

Logo for our T-Shirts @ ISB

The Google Apps Ninja Program that I started back in September and blogged about here has completely taken me by surprise. There are now over 150 educators who have access to the Google Docs. Seeing that there might be something here that I can support long term I decided to move all the files to their own Google Apps domain. So the Google Apps Ninja Program is now officially found at www.ninjaprogram.com the website isn't finished but after reading this blog post if you are interested in using the files and helping to keep them updated, fill out this form and I'll get you in. I'm excited to focus on this next year as one of my projects.

COETAIL Online Cohort:

As I blogged about here a couple weeks ago the COETAIL Online Cohort will be kicking off February 5th and I've been hard at work preparing for the almost 50 International Educators who have signed up to take the course. WOW is all I have to say about that! I was hoping for 25 (one full cohort) and have 42 people registered with the February 1st deadline just a few days away. If you're interested there are still a few spots left. 

Update: I did get clarification from Buffalo State - SUNY that Canadian Educators living in Canada are eligible to take the program.Basically any educator outside the U.S. is eligible to take the program (don't ask me why...some Higher Ed thing).

I'm looking forward to a great year of learning with these educators spread all over Africa, Asia and the Middle East. 

That's what has been keeping me busy these past few weeks. I'm finding myself in this weird place of starting project and preparing for all the things I want to do next year as a consultant and starter of cool stuff and the full time job I still have. It's leaving very little time to do much else....but I can't complain because I'm doing what I love! 

As the van pulls into school....let another day begin. 

It's been about two months now since I've switched over to my standing desk here at school...and although the view of the white wall in front of me along with the discarded non-fiction books that are heading to better places isn't the best view....the standing has been fantastic.There is a lot of reading out there about standing desks. I particularly like this one with the links in it as well. After reading this article I contacted B&G here at my school and had them move in this fantastic table. Each of our classrooms have a table like this that can be raised and lowered to any hight you want. It's really the perfect size and I might just take it with me when I leave.

My setup (all school issued):

A Henge Dock for my MacBook Pro (A bit fussy but the best thing out there I think)

A LED 21-inch LG monitor 1920x1080px. Fantastic and not that expensive.

Computer Speakers, keyboard, bluetooth mouse.

The box my computer is sitting on was just here in the office so I'm using it just to get my monitor up to eye level.

The Benefits I'm seeing:

More active: For me there is something to already standing to do the little things such as drink more water. The water cooler is maybe 15 feet away from my desk...now that I'm standing I'm drinking more water. I can click a link, wait for a page to load walk over fill my water bottle and come back. The walk feels good on the legs and I'm already standing...there is something mental to it....for me anyway.

Less Shoulder Stress: I get massages at least once a week (don't judge me I live in Asia). Before standing I use to have big knots all along my upper back and shoulders. Since standing they have all gone away and my back overall feels better.

Knees and Feet: The first week my knees and feet ached along with parts of my legs I didn't know existed. But after about a week they don't bother me anymore. The body has adjusted and I'm feeling good standing for most of my day. Everything I read said be prepared for this. I was and was able to battle through it. 

Appreciate Sitting: Meetings aren't that bad anymore...I welcome the 30 minute meeting as it gives me a chance to sit and relax. 

Walking is key: When my legs or feet start to ache I know I've spent to much time at the computer and not enough time out and about. Because of my job of helping teachers in their classrooms I'm walking a lot anyway, but if I'm at my computer for too long my feet let me know about it.

As I think about my office setup in my new life I'm definitely going to be sticking with the standing desk.

How about for kids?  As I've been standing I've been thinking why we don't allow kids to stand if they want. Kids in Middle School or High School probably sit for 4 to 6 hours a day and many times for 60-90 minutes at a time. It wouldn't take much to put a tall desk or two in a room in the back in case a student wanted to stand through a class. Would it really be that bad? Anyone doing this already?

Nothing more to say.

Created by Benya Kraus 10th Grade Student at ISB and CEO of Kraus Productions

It has been a few weeks since we were in a virtual school situation here in Bangkok. Although the flood water continues to slowly move South into Bangkok our school has reopened with no immediate threat to flooding in sight if at all.

SOME RIGHTS RESERVED BY MITH17

Some rights reserved by mith17The school was closed for a week, along with all schools in the Bangkok area, by the Ministry of Education. ISB is lucky in did not get hit by the floods. Not all International Schools were as lucky.I have done presentations throughout Asia on preparing for school closure as it seems they follow me where ever I am in the world. Saudi Arabia with terrorism, Shanghai with Typhoons, Bangkok with riots and flooding, and even Washington State with snow and earthquakes. Depending on the situation many times schools try to move into an virtual school situation. Here are some things that no matter why the school closes seem to be factors in having a successful virtual school experience.Blended Classrooms to Virtual Classroom is an easy Transition  Those teachers who use technology on a daily basis in a blended classroom environment have the best success when it comes time for virtual school. The technology is already in place and more importantly the students know where to go to find information and what the expectations are. The students and educators who struggle the most are those who have to try and set up the technology at the last minute….it just doesn’t work.

Virtual work isn’t Homework Virtual work is different than homework and both educators and students need to understand this. Many teachers not being trained as online educators have a hard time understanding what kind of work can be done other than just “busy work” or homework type of assignments. Creating lessons that are interactive, that are deeper in meaning then what educators are use to giving online is PD time worth spending.

Videos are Good Students like videos. They really like videos that their teachers have taken the time to make. Quick 3 to 5 minute videos (no longer then 10 minutes at the most) seem to always get high marks for students. A good YouTube video isn’t bad, but there’s something about a teachers touch that kids still enjoy.

Preparing Students for the Future

Lastly I think every school should follow the lead of Idaho and require every high school student to take classes online as a graduation requirement. If for no other reason than to prepare them for the university that awaits them. The lastest research from universities shows that online classes in undergraduates is still on a very steep raise with over 500,000 more undergrads taking at least one online course last year than the year before.

According to the Going the Distance: Online Education in the United States, 2011 report, university presidents view online learning as a very significant part of their future school plans, which means more and more students will be taking classes online. The key finding in the report were:

• Over 6.1 million students were taking at least one online course during the fall 2010 term, an increase of 560,000 students over the previous year.
• The 10% growth rate for online enrollments far exceeds the 2% growth in the overall higher education student population.
• Thirty-one percent of higher education students now take at least one course online.
• Reported year-to-year enrollment changes for fully online programs by discipline show most are growing.
• Academic leaders believe that the level of student satisfaction is equivalent for online and face-to-face courses.
• 65% of higher education institutions now say that online learning is a critical part of their long-term strategy.
• There continues to be a consistent minority of academic leaders concerned that the quality of online instruction is not equal to courses delivered face-to-face.

With the economy where it’s at, online schooling also makes fiscal sense for many families. As a university student you can take your classes and still live at home saving anywhere from $10,000 on up in room and board cost.

If we believe that part of our job as educational institutions is to prepare students for their future then I believe we need to prepare them to learn online.

Those who know me well and understand the international teaching world knew this was probably coming soon. I mean I've been here for four years...in Jeff's world that is an eternity. In fact these four years are the longest I've held a job at the same institution ever....as in....ever in my life.

I want to get lost by Xabier.M

Those who don't know me very well or the way international teaching works are wondering why I would resign from a job that I'm perfectly happy at during a time when educators are being let go left and right in the States. I have to say that's a good question....a really good question.

The answer is I'm ready for something new....something different.....as I wrote about four years ago after resigning from Shanghai American School and eventually ending up at ISB.

But this time I think my something different won't includie working full time in a school. Not ruling out any options at this point but there are so many things I want to do that don't include working full time in a school. There are so many teachers, so many students around the world that need support in the changes that are happening in education because of technology that I'm finding my passion leading me in that direction more and more.

The COETAIL program that was started at ISB and has now spread through the Asia region continues to grow. Currently there are about 125 educators enrolled in the program in 5 different cohorts. With e-mails coming in almost daily now of people asking how they can join, I want to be able to support these teachers and their students. If you take the rough estimate class size of 20 (class sizes are typically smaller at International Schools) then we're effecting the education of some 2,500 students. That excites me and I want to dedicate more time to the program and to the teachers in it.

Google Apps in schools continues to take off as well around the world. I believe at this moment in time it's the best set of tools out there for educational institutions and organizations as a whole. I want to help them learn the full potential of these collaborative tools.

There are all the workshops and presentations I've been giving over the past couple of years that have fueled my passion and my thoughts. I simply enjoy learning with others.

I've been doing all of this while also working full time at ISB. Living a crazy life that has left little time for family and friends. I'm out of balance at the moment working harder than I'm playing....and that's not good.

There is also all the stuff I haven't been able to do that I really would like the time to work on.

I want to start podcasting again....I miss the conversations.

I want to write more. Reach needs updating and there's two other books in my brain that need to find their way out in some form or another.

I want to spend more time with you....the readers of this blog and my network at large. The last two years my contributions to the greater educational conversation aren't what they should be and I need to give more back to the network that has given to me so freely and openly.

In the end....I have no idea where I'll end up, what I'll be doing. Which is both completely scary and completely exciting.

I do know one thing for certain though. No matter what happens, what's next for me in life, I know my social-network will play a large part in defining that for me. That's how I ended up here at ISB (Thank you Dennis, Kim and Justin) in the first place.

So I turn myself over to you social-network. The human connections that make this world the amazing place it is in helping me define what's next for me.

More to come as the next chapter unfolds.

As I've been helping students get going with their gmail accounts and blogs over the past couple of weeks I've been joking about the "old school" e-mail systems that some of you still use. Hotmail, Yahoo...and seriously....AOL...come on.....

But there is another old school tool that I think has seen its best days behind it. Microsoft Word....oh how we loved you back in the day when you were really the only word processing program we needed. But times are changing and it's time to move on to new and better tools.

Google Docs is a very powerful alternative to Word. Here are 10 reasons to consider using Google Docs the next time you need to do some writing.

1. No more corrupt files

Nothing worse then staying up all night to finish an assignment only to quickly drag it to your flash drive and turn up at school with a file that won't open on a teacher's computer. With Google Docs access to your file is only a click away and you never have to worry about your file their corrupt. 

2. No more corrupt USB Keys

Of course if your file is not corrupt then it's your USB Key that fails you when you need it most. Using Google Docs as an online storage locker means never having to worry about a corrupt or even lost USB key again. Simple download the documents you need when you get to school. With 1GB of space you can store a weeks worth of work easily.

3. .doc .docx who cares!

Nothing worse then having a file you can't open or giving someone a file they can't open. With Google Docs simply share the link to your file on the Internet. If they have a web browser and an internet connect they can view the document.

4. Work Collaboratively

By far the best feature of Google Docs. Work collaboratively with others in your class. Missing a day because of IASAS? No problem! Have a friend take notes in Google Docs during class and simply share the notes with you. Just don't forget to return the favor. 

5. Share and Share a Like

Simply create documents to share with team members, club members, or anyone else you need to. No more worrying about the latest versions of the document or how many times you've revised. Allowing everyone to work on the same document at the same time can increase productivity and save you time.

6. Export to PDF or Word no problem

Still need to hand in the Word or PDF version? Not a problem File - Download As allows you to download Google Docs in a variety of formates. 

7. Make it Public

Proud of a piece of work that you want to put on your blog or share with the world? With a couple simple clicks turn any document or presentation into a viewable web page. If you can click you can publish.

8. Work from any computer with Internet access

Never worry about leaving your USB or computer at home again. Any computer, or mobile device for that matter can access your files. From an iPad to a Blackberry it might not be the best view in the world but you can still see your documents.

9. Work on the Go

If you have the Chrome browser installed (and if you don't you should) install these apps to allow you to work on the go. Turn your bus time into work time.

10. Because it's the future

We're headed into a fully web-based world. Even Microsoft is working to make Word fully online in a few years...see I told you they were old school. Get a jump on the future and get use to working on the web now so you're not playing catch up later.

Those are my 10 reasons....what would you add to the list?

One thing I'm focusing on this year is creating what I'm calling a Virtual Bulletin Board for our high school students. A place where they can find and post announcements in whatever format they choose. 

Here's the site: http://inside.isb.ac.th/high

Audience: High School Students at ISB

Purpose: To get announcements out to students, information from the office, campus updates

Once we have defined the audience and purpose we can then start to create and mold how the site will work. I know there are probably better bulletin board systems out there than a blog....but I'm committed to showing teachers and students just how flexible the WordPress platform can be.

The platform of WordPress is so dynamic, so powerful and so customizable that really your imagination is the limit.

If you have clicked on the link above to the bulletin board site you'll be thinking to yourself "it still looks like a blog to me" and you're right...it does for now and probably will for awhile yet. 

Steps to making it a virtual bulletin board.

Step 1: Every school computer in the high school has this page as its default start page for every browser. So we are forcing eyes on the page to begin with. It becomes crucial that we spend this year gaining the trust of students and showing them this is the place for them to come for information. Next year we roll out 1:1 in the high school where we will no longer control the home page of the browser. We need to get this right or we'll loose them.

Step 2: We have created the "quick link" section that links students to all the other applications they need in the high school.

Step 3. Work with the high school administration to push announcements and updates to students on the site.

Step 4: Train students to post things to the site

Step 4 is what I'm most excited about and I think shows the true power of WordPress and going with a blogging platform.

My idea is that we'll have students post announcements on their own blogs (every student already has one) and then have them tag the announcement with the word "hsannouncement". Using the AutoBlog plugin I'll then grad the RSS feed for that tag and pull that into the Virtual Bulletin Board site. This way students can post an announcement about a club, upcoming activity or just a thought out to the rest of the high school by simply writing a post on their own blog. They then keep ownership of the announcement. I'm hoping this will be useful for clubs, sports teams, athletics, and kids and general.

What I also like is that because our container is a blog, we're not limited to just text. Videos, audio, images....kids can decide which medium best gets their message across. We can easily embed videos in the sidebar, in posts, in pages. Making the site even more unique and engaging. 

In the end it needs to engage them...students have to see it as a place to go to get information that is relevent to them. If we can succeed in that then I'll have met one of my goals for the year.....wish me luck!

Still trying to remember where my summer went, I find myself back in Bangkok and preparing for the year ahead. This could be a big tech year for my school. Things are in place to start really using technology in some innovative ways. Not that we haven’t in the past, but the systematic changes we’ve made this year will definitly add some ability to use technology in much more authentic ways. 

We continue to roll out our 1:1 program this year with all 6-8th graders getting a MacBook Pro to start the school year off. Next year will be 9-12 and what excites me is we have 5th and 4th grade teachers already asking ‘how about us?’. 

We’ve continued with our stratagy of building our online communication and blended learning enviornment around three key tools. Google Apps, WordPress Blogs, and Moodle.

Google Apps:

We’ve just finshed rolling out Google Apps to all teachers on our main domain so all students and teachers are now officially on the Google Apps platform making the ability to use calendars, docs, and sites that much easier and much more powerful. What is also great is the resources around Google Apps for Education, Google has done a good job of getting videos, handouts, etc out there for others to use…and at the same time keep innovating with their apps.

Speaking of which another Gmail Lab extension hit sometime last week I think. It’s called Preview Pane and basically gives you the 3-column view like Outlook. Another great feature to help those who are use to this view make the transition. If you’re a long time gmail user this might not be a big hit…but for teachers transitioning from a desktop client it could be a stepping stone. 

 WordPress Blogs:

I’m excited each year now as we continue to grow how we’re using blogs at our school (download the free PDF to the right for more info). This will be our 4th year using blogs. What I love most is that the blogs and blogging has never been a focus of the tech team or the school yet this year every 3-12th grader will have their own blog. My school does have a definition of learning though:

Learning is the primary focus of our school and we recognize learning as a life-long adventure. We value meaningful learning where students construct enduring understanding by developing and applying knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Increased understanding is evidenced by students who:

- Explain its relevance
- Describe how it connects to or conflicts with prior learning
- Communicate it effectively to others
- Generalize and apply it effectively to new situations
- Reflect critically on their own and other’s learning
- Ask questions to extend learning
- Create meaningful solutions

There are at least four bullet points that I can specifcally tie to blogging and even show evidence of over the past three years. What I love is some of our students are starting to connect posts together of their prior learning (point 2). When you have four years of thinking, artifacts, pictures, assignments all in one place it makes it easy to reflect on your learning and tie that to prior knowledge you have. That….is powerful learning!

Moodle:

As we continue to roll out our 1:1 program Moodle has become the foundation for our blended leanring enviornment. It’s great to see the administrative team on board with where we’re going as this year all high school and middle school teachers have a manditory 2 hour Moodle training to start the school year. A chance to really look at the design aspect of courses and give the teachers some time to create their content for this year. I’m excited to see if we can take Moodle and Blended Learning to the next level…..maybe even flip some classrooms.

Any school looking for an online blended learning enviornment I have to say this is a pretty powerful one. These three tools together give us a lot of flexability with our online learning space. I’d be interested in hearing what other schools have set up for their blended learning space. 

Accomplishments:

by Aidan Jones

First and foremost are the relationships I’ve built this first year. This really is the foundation to a Technology Integration position. Whether your first year in a school or just a new division building relationships, understanding the systems, and building trust and confidence with the facutly is in essential part to the first year.  

I feel I had an advantage coming into the high school this year as teaching the CoETaIL Program for two years at ISB allowed me to meet and collaborate with faculty from all three divisions. So transitioning into the high school, I wasn’t coming in as an “unknown” person from the elementary. It helped that I had some established relationships but I still had to “prove” that I knew what I was doing in the high school. Overall, I feel like I’m getting into departments more and have laid some great ground work to take the use of technology to a new level next year.

Building on the back of those relationships I was able to support teachers in taking some risks and rethinking some aspects of their teaching. Jim Fitzgerald, who I’ve blogged about before, took on the reverse instruction challenge, and we saw great success in redefining the role of the teacher and student engagement. The ideas that we proved posible in his class are now slowly spreading through the rest of the English Department and into other departments as well….a great foundation to build on for next year.

In December I was given 5 minutes at a faculty meeting to talk about technology in the high schol. The timing was right having been able to build relationships first semester and proven myself. I challenged teachers with ideas of small changes they could make that might just lead to great learning gains. One of those challenges was to think through how we have students present information.

Dave Krocker, another English teacher, took on the challenge and together we looked at the presentations students were doing in English class. We decided that there was learning in the process of making a presentation that we were not tapping into and we needed a structure that would make the process of building a presentation powerful. We decided to have the students do Pecha-Kucha presentations. They turned out amazing, and Dave was sold on the power of visual presentations. These presentations led Dave to re-exam other areas and tap into the technology skills that our kids already have, and students ended up producing some amazing products, including this video from Sarah on an interpretation of Romeo and Juliet.

Other accomplishments include continuing to use the blogs as reflecting web-based portfolios in Theory of Knowledge classes and Senior Seminor classes. A great foundation on the use of blogs that we can build on next year.

Failures:

by bjornmeansbear

Ah….the failures. If you’re pushing, thinking, and discovering there are bound to be failures along the way. If you don’t have any failures then you’re not pushing hard enough. 

One semi failure was the wikitionary project we did in English as an Additional Langugage (EAL) class. It sounded good, looked good, but in the end I think it was a failure. The kids weren’t as motivated as I thought, and the wiki community we choose to be a part of was not welcoming to the fact that we had students who were helping to build a wiki for EAL students when they themselves were EAL students. The project become frustrating both for teachers and students. The teacher, asking students to do specific things, soon found out that the wiki community didn’t believe the things she was asking kids to add were appropriate for the wiki. The kids adding things to the wiki would find that before the teacher had a chance to check their work, that the wiki community had deleted their hard work. 

In the end we learned how important it is that you choose to join a wiki community/project that truly supports your learning goals. 

Another failure was the Radio Club for the second year in a row that I have been trying to get started. This year we made some head way in that we actually produced a couple shows and had some fun. The problems started to mount up when our equipment which I had thrown together from pieces around the school (including a computer with a half working screen) started to break. Our sound quality wasn’t very good, and that frustrated the kids as they wanted to create high quality material. Also the promise of being able to be live on the Internet didn’t work out as all the live streaming services were blocked here in Thailand up until about three weeks ago. 

By semster it was getting harder and harder for me to motivate the kids to produce shows, and the core group that stuck with it were all seniors, which meant come Feburary they became focused on graduation and their senior year and the club took a back seat. My goal of producing three quality shows a week turned out to be 13 shows total for the year. I still think we could make a Radio Club fly here at ISB but I have to find a way to get quality audio equipment to create quality audio that the community wants to listen to. All year I’ve been trying to find funds, and hopefully by the start of next year I’ll be able to convince the powers that be somewhere that this is good for kids.

The Future:

The future is bright here at ISB and I’m excited in the direction we’re heading. Our 1:1 program expands next year from Grade 6 this year to Grades 6-8 next year, and then 6-12 hopefully the year after that. 

Our complete adoption of Google Apps for both students and staff will streamline a lot of our communication within the school and with our community.

The continued use of blogs as web-based portfolios as teachers now in 2nd Grade want to start blogging with their students next year. Meaning every student grades 3-12 and half of 2nd grade will be creating a web-based portfolio via their blog. 

The idea of reverse instruction continues to be a conversation in the high school and I’m looking forward to continuing to push teachers to look into it as an option for teaching content outside the classroom.

Personally I’ll stuggle agian to balance my 90% time here at ISB with my consulting and presentation work with schools, organizations and conferences. My calendar for next year is filling up fast and I’ll once again have to walk the fine line between being here for teachers and following my passion for teaching teachers the power of these tools. This year under a 100% contract my life got way out of balance and was unhealthy tipped towards my work. I’ve been able, with the help of a supportive wife, to step back and get refocused these last couple of months. You are only as good as the support system around you and I’m lucky enough to have a strong one!

All in all it was a great first year in the High School. People ask me if I like if better than the elementary. I’m not sure you can compare the two…they are so different as the kids have different skills and are in different place when it comes to using technology in their daily lives. I love all of it…the kids, the thinking, and the learning. As this year comes to a close I’m already excited for what next year will bring.  

Step 2: Read the reflection

Step 3: Ponder the creativity and the ideas that come forth when we empower students and then get out of the way so they can learn.

Step 4: Leave Sarah a comment. 

I’m once again left thinking about Dan Pink’s book Drive and the power of Autonomy, Purpose and Mastery in education.