September Library Happenings

Gamifying PD

Why? After observing the success that another teacher had with gamification, attending several conference sessions, and reading the book, Personalized PD: Flipping Your Professional Development by Jason Bretzmann, I decided to gamify PD this year for our staff.  Holley Fontenot, an English teacher at my school, inspired me to gamify because of the success and motivation her students experienced in class.  After gamifying, she had students who wanted to edit their papers and beat a grammar quiz even though they could have moved on to another activity in order to level up.  


How?
For the first draft, I used Holley's template. She adapted it from a presentation by Jared Colley and Seth Burgess at the Lausanne Learning Institute in Memphis, TN.  I used the template to organize the activities I wanted to make available to teachers. Each activity has a corresponding number of XP (experience) to earn.  Our teachers are required to earn at least 15 hours of Tech PD each year and record it on a tech journal. This year, with gamification, they will earn XP but still use the tech journal to keep track of what they earn. Before proceeding with faculty-wide implementation, I asked two teachers to review the gamification template and make comments.  Since I use a OneNote Class Notebook with teachers, I was able to easily share my first draft and get feedback (see image below). 

For the second draft, I incorporated the suggestions but still was not satisfied with the template. It did not look fun and seemed complicated.  I came across something called PD Bingo from a blog post (http://technicallyteamann.com/no-teacher-summer-slide-fun-summer-pd-teachers/) and loved the simple form.  I decided this was the route I needed to pursue, so I started making a similar template with the activities from the second draft.  I called it PD Bingo, but it wasn't really making sense to me.  I thought about renaming it PD Building Blocks or PD Puzzle.  I wanted it to have a positive title where one is motivated to complete the "game" after reading it.  I began thinking about the word "Tech" and games and finally put together TECH-TAC-TOE. Teachers can play TECH-TAC-TOE to complete levels!  Because we are a 1:1 school, new teachers to our school will be going on The Amazing Journey.  They will still play TECH-TAC-TOE but will reach levels by meeting with me to learn about a part of The Amazing Journey.  All materials needed will be in the OneNote Class Notebook for easy access.  

Click the links below to access the templates.

• TECH-TAC-TOE (Levels 1-3)
• Tech Journal 

My hope is that PD Gamification will make technology integration more meaningful for both teachers and students. Gamification allows participants to choose their own path, and it will be no different with Tech PD Gamification.  Each teacher's journey will be personalized with student needs at the forefront.  I look forward to teacher feedback to make it better, and I'm excited about rolling it out this week and letting the games begin.  

Hacking PD at ISTE

This year I was fortunate to co-present a session at ISTE on "Hack Your PD to Engage Teachers and Save Time." Ever since I hosted a viewing party at our school for Microsoft's Hack the Classroom event in the Fall of 2016, I have used the "hack" model to help promote tech integration at my school.  I started using this model in faculty meetings by asking teachers to show hacks that were working for them.  This was so successful that teachers began asking me if they could present hacks!  Not only that, but they were talking to each other after and asking questions such as "Is this really something that will benefit my students and me?"

According to a Microsoft presentation on teacher hacking personas, a hack is defined by the Urban Dictionary as a "clever solution to an everyday problem." In the same presentation, a classroom hack is defined as an "innovative, possible solution to a common classroom problem that can be universally implemented."  For our ISTE presentation, we focused on Professional Development (PD) hacks. 

We provided 1-2 minute hacks that support each component of a successful PD program, which my co-presenter, Sandra LaGrange, identified as the following:

1. Time - Make time for PD
2. Inclusion - Include all stakeholders (Teachers, Students, Parents, Support Staff)
3. Choices - Personalize PD
4. Support - Give encouragement
5. Accountability - System of planning, tracking to see where one is going or what one has accomplished
6. Sustainability - Keep the learning going

The following Microsoft tools were featured in our hacks during our ISTE session.

1. OneNote Class Notebook - PD class notebook that I used to curate hacks at faculty meetings as well as other information so teachers can easily review; also use with OneNote Student Avengers (student tech mentors) to plan, record help given, share instructions
2. Office Mix - flip PD
3. Microsoft Educator Community - resources, lessons, etc. for teachers; used this summer to share specific courses with teachers & a place for them to turn in badge for credit for our PD program
4. Sway - create training guides, newsletters, etc.
5. Snip - share information in 3 easy ways (includes ability to ink)

We all left the session with a padlet full of hacks to possibly add to our toolbox for the new school year. To see how the "hack" model generates ideas, click HERE.

While at ISTE, I also attended a TeachMeet and Microsoft's Hack the Classroom Live.  It recently occurred to me that TeachMeets have elements of the "hack" style because topics are presented in 2, 7, or 20 minutes.  I believe TeachMeets, Hack the Classroom, and similar events work because they provide people with the big picture of tech integration in a style that is not overwhelming.  If you can show something in a couple of minutes then it helps people realize that the implementation may not be difficult.  If something catches their attention, they can get the how-to details later or become inspired to make it their own and integrate the technology in a meaningful way.  Let's all continue to share hacks in order to inspire, discover, and learn.

OneNote Student Avengers

What are OneNote Student Avengers? Basically, they are students who have demonstrated how to do certain tasks in OneNote in order to become trainers and mentors for teachers and students.  OneNote is the most heavily used program at our school. You can learn more about the Student Avenger program and how we started it here.  

As of today, we have 12 student avengers and they are doing great work! They each have a training journal in a OneNote class notebook that I shared with them to record the mentoring and training they are doing. The training journals will help us determine the issues students encounter most often as well as help us prepare training for the next school year.  

One Avenger's Training Journal

I know our training program for the students is going to get even better with the Avengers' help. They have such great ideas. One student had the idea to put a section in the collaboration space of the class notebook so all of us can put tips & tricks or instructions for certain fixes. I will also meet with the students periodically to update them on new features or fixes and get their feedback. 

Our administration is very supportive and tomorrow the Avengers will be able to wear their OneNote capes all day! (group picture coming soon) This was our IT Director's idea. A list of the students with email addresses will be available for teachers and students so they know who to contact for help. We are also in the process of setting up a skype with a member of the OneNote team so the Avengers and other students in the Computer Architecture class can ask questions. The @Microsoft_EDU team and @OneNoteEDU team have been amazing, and their encouragement made this all a reality. The Avenger badges they created for the students are fantastic! There's only one way to go from here. As Superman would say, "Up, up, and away!"