Joel Zehring

My district is shopping for a student email solution, and I think Google Apps Education Edition should be at the top of our list of possible tools. The following is an email draft that I’m planning to send to the members of our district technology advisory board prior to their next meeting, where I’ll give my Google Apps presentation. Cold-start meetings waste a ton of face-to-face time, so I’m hoping this email will give us some runway to launch into discussion about the best tool to meet the needs of our students and employees.

First, I’d like to frame the problem: We need a tool that engages students and employees in online collaboration. There’s a cost to using any tool, including time investment or financial investment. We need a tool that delivers extensive benefits to students and employees with minimal investment of time and money.

Next, the pitch: Google Apps Education Edition is the best solution I’ve seen for our problem. The suite includes applications for email, calendar, word processing, spreadsheets, and website design. It’s all web-based, so users can access the full-featured tools from any computer with internet connection.

Google Apps are designed around collaboration, rather than just providing individual productivity. Conversations over email are threaded to show the back-and-forth dialog. Multiple users can edit a single document or spreadsheet simultaneously. Internal and public publishing is built in to every application for quick, secure sharing with a class, a school, the whole district, or the whole world. Best of all, Google regularly updates its applications with new features and improvements, so we know that we’re investing in a tool that will grow as our needs grow and change.

I’ve included a few links below if you would like to learn more before our meeting:

Information and examples:

• Google Apps for Education – Free email and apps for schools
• Google Message Security for K-12 Powered by Postini
• My class blog (created with Google Sites)
• IDEAL portal (Teachers can try Google Apps for free through Arizona’s Department of Education.)

Video links:

• Why Google Apps for Education? Overview of Gmail in Google Apps
• Share a Calendar Google Apps Education Edition
• Google Docs in Plain English

If I’ve missed anything, make sure to straighten me out in the comments.

Planting and nurturing a healthy professional learning community requires that every teacher (and employee) in a building arrive at three conclusions:

1. I am a professional. My mission is to ensure learning at high levels for every student, measurable by objective evidence.
2. I learn and I help others learn. My students learn more when I collaborate and learn with other teachers, sharing strategies and comparing evidence.
3. My school is a community, greater than the sum of its parts. It is built out of collaborative teams and disciplined professionals that share and learn from their failures and successes.

It’s not enough to adopt two out of the three conclusions. It’s all or nothing.

Because these conclusions aren’t just benign, buzzword statements, adoption can be pretty arduous. Teachers need time and patience to hash through the implications of these terms with other teachers.

Teachers need time to air their concerns, fears, and insecurities before they really assimilate these beliefs.

Teachers need time to struggle and even fight through the process of letting go of longer-standing beliefs that conflict with these conclusions, without feeling like they’re forfeiting their souls and their individuality.

For leaders, the whole process is less like building a tract house, and more like planting and growing a forest. It takes strategy and experience, nurturing and pruning, and time.

Bill Ferritter is hosting an online discussion with Rick and Becky DuFour, the creators of the Professional Learning Community model. It’s definitely helped me to develop a more balanced view of PLCs in schools and how they might function to improve student achievement. While I don’t yet consider myself a PLC fanboy, I do agree that breaking down the isolators between educators in the same building remains the single best way to improve student achievement. Look for the Wiimote avatar to view my text comments.

As for Voicethread, I’m not sold. It feels a little clunky, but I definitely see the benefit of audio and text intermingling for conversation. I posted all my comments as text because my son was sleeping, and I think overall, I prefer the speed of reading to the fidelty of audio. I’m happy to interact with Voicethread, but I’m not itching to use it for my own projects or use it in my classroom yet.

VoiceThread - Revisiting PLCs at Work

In teaching, we must break down isolators to share each other’s burdens. If you can’t make it, we can help you get through. If you’re at the end of your rope, we’ll wrap our hands around yours to strengthen your grip.
No where is this more evident than in our child success team. A teacher refers her student because she recognizes that her services in the classroom are not enough (a terrifying admission). The teachers on the team sit around the table, listen and ask questions about the case, and then pour out ideas about how they can support this teacher in the education of her student. No judgment, no criticism. The student gets the benefit of multiple teachers’ perspectives, and the teacher gets the benefit fresh eyes, new strategies, and emotional support. And everyone has a ton of fun, because teachers love helping students succeed.
This doesn’t have to be an official child success team meeting to generate this collaboration. It can happen in grade level teams, mentoring teams, professional learning committees, or on virtual teams across the internet. It just takes a few professionals to agree to show up and take turns talking and listening about things they can control.

Tags: plc, cst, community