It's Leadership Day - 2009

"Today is LEADERSHIP DAY 2009. This is a day in which Scott McLeod, a professor at Iowa State University, invites educators to share why and how we use technology in our careers." (Theresa Reagan one of many of my PLN twitter friends.:)

As a self-proclaimed technology advocate I believe that technology is only one piece of really big leadership puzzle. Throughout my technology learning I have probably done a little of a disservice to my teachers. One of the main reasons I began to use technology is to make my life run more efficiently and to help other principals. I have always said that teachers have the teacher right next door that they can go to at a moments notice. A principal on the other hand does not have a next door principal.

The most powerful benefit I found in all the Web 2.0 tools is opening the door wide to your school. If you use these tools to their potential Web. 2.0,1, 3.0 (whatever everyone wants to call it now) it can be like having a window into your child's day at school. There is absolutely no excuse for a parent not to know what is going on in their student's school....if the school is using these tools(or any webbased tool) to their advantage.

The future is today! I no longer have a tolerance for a fear of technology. Our students have figured it out so it's time to buck up!!!

Twitter Addiction - How bad have you got it?

How addicted to Twitter are you? Are you willing to admit it? I actually just saw a tweet by @stevejmoore regarding a twitter addiction quiz. I don't really need a quiz to determine how bad I am.
Not so much that I actually "tweet" very often but I have to load whichever twitter application I am currently using on my iPhone, constantly, just to see if I missed anything. (Kind of like being back in HS again. Just had my 20 year reunion:)
Back up applications - "just in case:)"
iTweet
TweetDeck
Tweetie
TwitterFon - This is my current application of choice:)
Twinkle
Twitterific

It is quite ridiculous to try to "catch up" on tweets when they are coming in at 200 per 20 min.. Yet I find myself trying to scroll down through all of them at every chance that I get. That is only because I am "following" a lot of people.
I think I hit the twitter "tipping point" about 6 months ago where I really "got it." Not sure people are going to give it the old "college try" before they get to their own "tipping point." At least I can say I was a tweeter and Skyper BO! (Before Oprah)
What will be the next technology time-suck/addiction? Please don't tell me!!!

*Disclaimer - Blogging with children. Please forgive grammar and typos.

Crazy Easy Podcasting!!! OMG!!!

Okay this has a waaaayyyyy cool factor! Crazy easy!

Set up a phone.io account. Call your number and leave "voicemail." Embed in blog.

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Why my presentation totally TANKED!!!

Have you ever presented to an important group of people to get them to think passionately about something and make a hard decision?

Well I did tonight and...IT TANKED!!!!

The purpose of my presentation was to persuade. My task was to persuade the school board to take action/make a decision on something?

My advice:(I am taking full credit for the ultimate demise of the presentation.)

• When presenting in an innovative way..explain to the audience that the presentation is going to be different than presentations you have seen before. (You need to also know your audience. I think this group would have preferred bullet points, whiz/bang, charts and graphs, small print and lots of color mashing. BUT I AM NOT BITTER!!!:):):)
• Explain that the handout includes the words and information, but the presentation is going to be just that, a PRESENTATION NOT A READ-A-LOUD!! (Once again, less bitter.)
• Read the expression on your audience face. I probably should have stopped after the first two slides and asked for questions. The topic was a controversial topic so it really wasn't that the presentation actually tanked. The audience didn't "get it" because there were other "issues."
• Pauses ??? In my research of good presentation design with PPT, I read that you should pause to let the slide speak for itself. That was awful!!! I should have just whizzed right through it after seeing the expressions on their faces. The pauses were like black holes of silence. (Ok, the other elementary principals were laughing hysterically in the back of the room. They "got it.")
• Know when to use humor. Clearly I should have STOPPED and just opened it up for questions and turned the presentation off.
  

Regrets/reflection/reactions:

• No regrets. You have to start somewhere. "Digitial immigrants"(for the lack of any newly adopted terms) need to be introduced to engaging presentations at some point. Especially if they play powerful rolls in education. It gets boring after months of "death by ppt."
• Reflection - I think I am going to call in sick for the rest of the board meetings this year:)
• Reactions - There were about 10 staff members in the audience that this was going to directly affect and they had the wind knocked out of their sails. I need to wake up early and buy donuts for them in the morning.
  

Good Night!
Melinda:)

iPhone + Document Camera - My 2 Best Friends

This is my first attempt at using the document camera. Oh my gosh!
Some teachers were asking how they could use their iPhone to log their career ladder hours so I used this experiment as my first document camera recording.

*My husband calls at the end of this video. Oops:):):)

Reflections for Missouri Principals Conference

This is the 2nd year that the Missouri principals conferences offered an Internet Cafe. The hotel charges $10 per day for internet connection so one day of the conference we sponsor a wifi room. This is an 8AM - 4PM open room with 3 workshops and open lab time to come and check email, get online etc.

8AM Workshop on Blogging - Poor attendance. Principals up too late the night before:) My loyal followers from my district did brave the early times and come heckle me:) Only 3 others joined us but seemed to enjoy the time.

9:00am-11:00am - This is sacred time that we cannot offer workshops so that principals have time to visit the vendors in the exhibit hall. This was open lab time and we did have some principals come in and out. I think they are considering moving this to 10:00-12:00 and offering a 9AM session. Might get more participation at a later time.

11:00-12:00 - PLN workshop - I felt this was over their head and I didn't do a very good job presenting. My thoughts were all over the place so was my presentation:) I am pretty sure not many understood Twitter at all but signed up for accounts. You have to reach a "tipping point" in Twitter to understand how powerful.

Noon - 2:00 Open Lab - Lots of people were here at this time. Some working on their own stuff but MANY wanting to know more about things I have done or was doing. This was a GREAT collaborative time. A college professor hung out for about the whole afternoon and we had awesome conversations. He just got a Mac so we were learning from each other. (Just realized I need to do a sign up sheet and start a contact list next year. Don't remember his name:))

2:00-3:00 Google Hype workshop - TOO MUCH FOR ONLY AN HOUR! I should have just picked one thing. I think I overwhelmed them and I didn't even get to everything. Principals LOVED Google but couldn't wrap their heads around it.

EXHAUSTED - Next year some other principals offered to help. This was my 2nd year and I don't schedule a break for myself or get to go to any other workshops. It is hard to give up being their for open lab time because that is when the collaboration is the greatest. But I do need to get some PD for myself. There were really good RTI sessions.

This summer I will be offering longer session of a blogging workshop and Google workshop for Admin. Seem to have a lot of interest so far. We will see what the summer brings!

Any suggestions for the future?

Principal Miller VP - Episode One

Okay, I am really going out a limb here to post a video of myself. I am trying something a little different. This is taking forever to upload but says I can continue to edit while the video is uploading. I am actually alarmed by how long a 30 sec. video is taking to upload. Would love your feedback for using a something like this. Not sure how time efficient it is going to be.:):)

Didn't expect the video pic to look like this at the start:):):) Oh well.