Once again this year I had the opportunity to go to a special kind of PD called #CUEBOLD. Two days of awesome learning around Blended, Online, Lesson Design. I wrote about my experiences last year, when Mike and I went and had no real focus or agenda, we just went to experience BOLD. You can read about it here. Out of that experience was born the new Flexible Learning Space at the BIC. You can see a tour of the BIC here.
This year, I went back with some specific questions, needs and objectives. I wanted to find out more about OER and other resources because our district is currently rushing headlong into an NGSS adoption that I think we can more feasibly build curriculum for ourselves. I also wanted to go to Jonathan Nalder’s session on Ready for Anything, as I think his FutureWe concept is awesome and wanted to hear from the man himself. Lastly, I wanted to connect with some awesome edufriends and get some ideas for being back in the classroom next year.
Day One was awesome, a great opening by the CUE staff, Corippo, Blass, Tolnai and Seliskar. Really got us pumped and excited for the day. Over half the attendees had never been to a CUE event before, and about 75% had never been to BOLD, so this was a great first experience to these teachers about the CUE culture and community. After a bit of energizing, we were off to our sessions.
My first session was an hour-long session on Rethinking Instructional Materials, by Kristina Ishmael. I attended her session last year on OER (open educational resources) and needed to go back now that my district is in the midst of rushing to adopt a NGSS (next generation science standards) curriculum. There is a desire from a few administrators to explore creating our own curriculum using OER and other resources that are out there, but they don’t really know where to start. This session gave me an awesome intro to what OER is, how it is being used around the country, and some really kick ass resources that I can bring back to my district and get the conversation started about OER and how we write our own curriculum. Kristina is a passionate speaker and is so helpful and open to continuing conversations to help us see what is really on the table and what are the proper ways to go about instituting some OER or writing our own curriculum. This session alone was worth the price of admission. Thanks, Kristina, for all your help and your willingness to extend discussions outside the session.
Next up was Jonathan Nalder and Ready for Anything session. This was an hour-long session, and it was an eye-opening session about how we get our students prepared for jobs we don’t know exist yet. He shared some awesome facts and figures about what life will be like in 2030 (like most kids may not need a driver’s license) and some insights into how the gig economy of today is shaping our economy and work force of the future. His session was filled with some great resources (like willrobotstakemyjob.com and whichfaceisreal.com) really getting the attendees thinking about the future and how we as educators can tackle these seemingly daunting problems. One thing that struck me was that according to studies, many of the cashiering jobs are steadily getting replaced, and what was once a great starter job for someone in school is no longer going to be done by people. He introduced us briefly to the FutureWe Readiness framework, and how to leverage that info for our classroom teaching. It was an awesome session, very entertaining and informative, and I am glad I got the chance to attend.
After lunch, I attended Sonal Patel’s session on UDL (universal design for learning). I hadn’t leanred much about UDL, but it was something that has been floating just on the fringes of my radar for a while. Sonal did an awesome job of walking us through the approach one on of her Greek Mythology lessons, and it was a great introduction to a concept that I have been wanting to learn about. Because some of the BOLD session are only a half-hour, Sonal provided us with some awesome next steps to take to help us get better acquainted with UDL and how we can apply UDL to our own lesson plans. Awesome job Sonal!
Day two started with the awarding of the Blended and Online Teacher of the year award, and that went to a good friend and awesome teacher, Ben Cogswell. Ben exemplifies all that is awesome about education. He is always willing to help and share what he has, he is passionate about learning and making sure his students succeed, and he works tirelessly to bring experiences and challenges to his students. He also teaches kindergarten, which already makes him a saint in my book. He went from classroom teacher to TOSA and now back into the classroom, and he works hard and excels at everything he does. I am proud to call Ben a colleague, a friend, and a drinking buddy. Congrats Ben on your awesome year and this award!
I went to my first half-hour session of the day in David Platt’s session on Audio in the classroom. As you know from this blog, I am heavily interested in audio in the classroom, and David had some great new techniques, tips and tricks for me to bring home and implement. One of my favorites was 123apps.com. It works great on chrome and has a bunch of tools that you can use right in the browser, like an audio cutter, audio converter, recorders for video and audio, and an audio joiner to put some podcast episodes together. It is robust for a free tool, and it is something that I can see using in a classroom with students. Thanks for the tips, David!
Last session I attended was another Classroom design session from Rebecca Hare. Her book, Space, was the impetus for our changes in our office, and I wanted to go to another session to see if there were any updates or more information for us so we can best maximize the use of our space we have. It was a great session that taught me about teaching in a flexible learning space, something that I will be having the chance to do soon in summer school. There were lots of pratical and easy to implement ideas, all based around the “why” of classroom design. Doing something as simple as mapping out what your day looks like, and what activities are happening at what time of day can prove to be invaluable when choosing things like furniture for your space. I am going to steal an activity we did in that session to start summer school, and that was the “My Job, Your job, Our job” protocol. It is about building a shared vision of the responsibilities (jobs) in the room. When you take the time to build this shared understanding, especially with the high school kids I am teaching this summer, things in class can smoothly. The simple question of “are you doing your job?” can serve as a refocus for them and we can get back on track. Thanks, Rebecca, for this awesome tool!
Well this post is getting long enough, but I’d like to lastly give a shout out to all my edupeeps that make these days away from family more enjoyable! So thanks to all the above mentioned lead learners and to Ed Campos, Martin Cisneros, Cori Orlando, Judy Blakeney, Veronica Godinez, Andrew Arevalo, Amanda Fox, Jody Green, Crystal Villegas-Chavez, Brent Warner, Chris Flores, Valerie Sun, Kristan Morales, Kim Voge, and many more I can’t think of right now. Until next time, keep on learnin’! #WeAreCUE