BTC chosen as one of 10 CTE Makeover Challenge Grant Winners!

What a privilege to lead a team and author a proposal representing Burlington Technical Center in the CTE Makeover Challenge Grant.

Our proposal was one of ten selected Nationwide as grant winners!

My thanks to the development team, the students, BTC, Burlington School District, for helping build this innovative concept.

The grant was built off the foundation of work I did with students in the rLab years ago.

Our work builds from a few essential concepts...

• Collaborative Maker Space where all tech center programs collaborate and help students create individualized learning plans. This design creates cross curricular (program) collaborative learning opportunities.
• Artist in residence program: Brining in community expertise with stipends to share their innovation and creativity with students and community
• Community Learning Center: Hosting community events and building explorations to connect the school to innovative people

Here's a caption from the announcement from the CTE Makeover website:

"We are thrilled to share that today the U.S. Department of Education announced the ten prize winners in the CTE Makeover Challenge. Johan Uvin, Acting Assistant Secretary for Career, Technical, and Adult Education, announced the prize winners at the White House Champions of Change for Making event this afternoon. The Challenge launched in March, calling on high schools to design makerspaces that strengthen next-generation career and technical skills. Over 640 schools from all 50 states and Washington, D.C. entered the Challenge. Eligible schools were invited to participate in a 6-week Bootcamp program to further develop their makerspace ideas, and submit their final plans to be considered for prizes. 

Join us in congratulating the prize winners! 

• Burlington Technical Center, Burlington, VT

• Capital City Public Charter School, Washington, DC

• Carl Schurz High School, Chicago, IL

• Clearwater High School, Piedmont, MO

• Dominion High School, Sterling, VA

• John H. Reagan Early College High School, Austin, TX

• Palisades Charter High School, Pacific Palisades, CA

• Theodore Roosevelt High School, San Antonio, TX

• THINC College & Career Academy, Lagrange, GA

• William B. Travis Early College High School, Austin, TX

The prize winners were recommended by a panel of judges composed of high-profile leaders in maker education, tech, and industry. Each winner will receive $20,000 in cash and a share of in-kind prizes from the $375,000 sponsor prize pool to build or renovate their makerspace. Please check back here later this summer for more information on the prize winners’ makerspace plans."

We're excited to explore the proposals from all participating schools and to work with the array of organizations who've donated expertise and materials to the 10 finalists.

Our thanks to the CTE judges, facilitators, and sponsors for recognizing our work as innovative. We are thrilled to begin collaborative efforts.

Development is underway... along with an array of facility renovations at the Tech Center over the Summer too.

Keep moving forward... indeed. ; )

Common goals... in Vermont education

I worked with a group of 50-ish great people today in Berlin, VT to dive into what Open Education Resources ( #goOpen ) could mean to Vermont education.

I was tasked with presenting to the group at days end... summarize discussions that took place during the day and cast ideas on how to move forward.

It's a lofty challenge, actually. 

It's not just about #goOpen (Open Education Resources). It's about how to fit many, many gears together. What's preventing something like #goOpen from moving forward?

Here it is, the speech and slides... in all it's oddity ; )

To boldly go... requires a sense of adventure

I was lucky early on in my career in education to work with a lady named Val Gardner, the Principal at the time at Champlain Valley Union High School.

I decided to leave CVU and dive into the unknown as a Network Administrator for South Burlington School District. SB was launching into the networked and Internet world. You know, the shift from dial up internet to the wired and wireless internet and all that went with it.


I was excited but also very nervous about the shift. Val wrote me a card as a parting gift that said...

"To boldly go... requires a sense of adventure."

I still have the card to this day.

I think of that card often and it's message, and speak to it often in my work in education.

The methods of 'same old' or 'add it' are not fiscally responsible or sustainable. They lead to broken systems and burnout... the results you don't want or need.

I'm not talking about 'change for the sake of change' here. I'm talking change that's needed. Change that makes sense.

In visiting and collaborating with so many schools over the years I've found three constants...


1. If you've got problems that needs solving they will not be remedied with the same thinking and a 'business as usual' mentality.

Build on systems that still make sense. Make a list and start moving what doesn't.

In so many schools I work with it's easy for people to identify what doesn't work. But... problems linger year-to-year and often for a decade or longer.

2. Core values. Develop them and make them simple and sensible. Then stick to them. The elegance of simplicity will draw people into the cause and then the complexity of the work behind those goals will have purpose.

3. Time. Shift time in schools to unlock innovation. Promote the use of time toward thoughtfulness and a better sense of pace and purpose... toward collaboration.

People often want to change for the better but are unwilling to make those leaps. See, our patterns provide comfort. Changing systems we're comfortable with and simultaneously bored with is still... unsettling.

Along the way it's easy to get complacent, to get too comfortable, and ultimately to get institutionalized. And as we do... it's easy to get too negative.

It's better to feel the butterflies of risk and innovation and than to feel bored.

"To boldly go... requires a sense of adventure."

Yup. Sure does.

Thanks, Val. I've lived it and keep preaching it.

#TeacherAppreciationWeek

What does the SBAC data actually tell us?

As schools in Vermont wade through the SBAC test for 11th graders...

I'm still waiting for any compelling evidence on what these tests really show. How do they inform practice in some meaningful way?

Take the test. Get the results a year later and view results that... ?

Evaluate the content of the test related to instructional goals of the school / district, perhaps, and... ?

Use the test as a baseline to... ?

My thanks again to the Vermont Secretary of Education, Rebecca Holcombe,  for clarifying Vermont's role.  My hope is that other States will be so lucky.

The SBAC test has certainly interrupted a lot of creative and innovative work. My hope is that we'll all look at the data and check it's value... and determine if the test should continue or just simply be abandoned.

Dig deeper on calls for 'grit' in education...

_______

Grit isn't about just about 'doing more' or 'enduring' more work, more homework, more rigor, and at a faster pace...

We send messages like buckle down, work harder, faster... at the expense of higher level conversations.

Defining more clarity of purpose and exploring quality is, um, sort of left out sometimes.

Grit can be ignited best by passion and purpose.

It's important to ask...

Is 'grit' a call for some students and not others? aka is your call to 'have more grit' elitist?

Are schools just asking students to get grit so they can work harder to fit into their system? What if the system doesn't ring true?

Sometimes, yes, grit is about survival and enduring hardship. It doesn't have to be in education.

Focus on building grit as a noun (descriptor 2, in the pic above) instead of a verb (descriptor 1).

Introducing Admins, Teachers and Students to Twitter

I jumped into the #satchat discussion this am and the question popped up again:

"How can I get new teachers and admins using Twitter?"

Here's a few tricks I've used for that group, and for students too.

It's not about 'getting them into the club' so to speak. It's about showing them value. Without showing them value it'll be another thing to do and people will lose interest. It's about community building, connections, awareness... and learning.

Start slow, create meaning, build curiosity.

Inquiry teaching, right? Create questions to get them curious about what's out there.

Share...

School / district hashtags
School hashtags are about finding another way to connect with your audience and to share great stories. Of course it can also be used for announcements... but I've found it's best when creative stories are shared. It can help combat that "wow, I had no idea that was going on' factor compartmentalized schools often face. If you don't have a school or district hashtag... create one ; ) Post tweets with your State Ed hashtag and the State tag as well to help spread the word.

Example: Announcement, link, school hashtag, State hashtag, and State Ed hashtag

Maker Space Dev is underway! https://t.co/cHyMyXuI4N #bsdvt #vermont #vted

— Adam Provost (@batman44) April 2, 2016

Right... State Ed hashtags!
Most States now have hashtags dedicated for Ed news. In Vermont it's #vted. Moving out of facilitation mode in school administration and teaching and into storytelling, innovation sharing, and community building, both local and State is a good thing. It's a 'building a PLN' thing, an age old acronym, from a couple years back ; )

Relevant connections with 'their' peers
Share local admins on Twitter with your admins. Share innovative local teachers with teachers in the same subject in your school / district. I've found students are pretty curious what other schools are tweeting out.

Town Hashtags or Town Government
Many towns are posting events and important discussions via Twitter these days. Try to find one in your town.

Community Building
It's pretty cool how many schools have built connections with their local (and State!) community. There's great power in being informed, right? ; )

Bigger discussions on important social issues
There are incredible conversations going on via hashtags. #educolor is one of my favorites. There are many people doing great work here to build a conversation. "A movement, not a moment."

Connect them with innovators making great Ed shifts
There are a ton of folks out there who are posting inspirational material and who are making positive changes.

Find some of those innovators and seeing who they are following always helps too.

Connect them with subject learning via Search
Use Twitter to search for #hashtags in education. Here's a lengthy list of Ed hashtags from teachthought.com

Use search to find other groups discussing subjects. Take a topic in culture, news, tech, history, literature, science, math, business... and give it a try.

Admins, Teachers and Kids as Publishers
Taking the challenge to share your work, build connections, and do so within Twitter limitations is a great learning experience. Encouraging students, admins and teachers to share innovative ideas is a win!

Sounding Board
I've hear many people say that they fear publishing on Twitter. Shift them into the idea that they can ask questions too! Post a question to an Ed or subject hashtag and you'll likely get plenty of responses with great resources or opinions.

Digital Citizenship...
I write often about how schools usually handle this 'digital citizenship' thing poorly. I still find many struggle with one and done conversations - usually over 'good passwords' and predators and then it's back to the regular 'academic' flow. Many are still stepped in reactionary policy and procedure to problems. And... social media restrictions, outright denial of service approaches, still do seem to dominate all too much in the Ed realm.

Getting kids and adults involved in the potential, power, and social activism is a higher goal.


So, Promote...

• meaningful connections and things will take off
• peers, community engagement, local and State
• social activism and awareness
• a place to publish, search for, and ask questions
• a place to learn. Find great resources and participate in the conversation when and if you're ready

Twitter has been a great source of PD for me. It's helped me make and maintain some incredible connections locally, Nationally and Internationally... and hey, even in the same building sometimes ; )

Of course... learning to manage information flow is a good lesson we all learn on Twitter too ; )

The spice of innovating!

It' been a busy couple months since Educon in Philly.

I've been working on:

clearing up a nasty lung infection. Not for the faint of heart! Ok, that's not really 'innovating'... but it's taken up some serious time.

working in Burlington School District in Vermont on many innovative projects

and also this...

I'm helping VITA-Learn (Vermont educator professional development) again to renovate it's conferences, social media approach, and Statewide PD initiatives. Here's the latest entry...

The Dynamic Landscapes 2016 conference in Burlington is shaping up to be one of the best VT conferences to date!

We've added a thread called Immersive Workshops this year. Small workshops are great to explore innovation and gather many ideas, but... what about the idea of working for a half day or full day on one topic... with people from other schools with similar interests? it's something we, in practice, rarely get to do. So... Immersive workshops do just that. Dive in for an extended period of time in a discussion facilitated by some heavy hitters.

We're once again doing Ed Camp sessions, have more affordable housing options, and a new social event. We keep expanding the Maker / Innovation space, advanced Maker classes to build skill... and more. We've added some group pricing as well to make it more affordable to send teams.

Of course, I'm not alone in the planning! Diana Laufenberg, Jess Wilson, Lucie deLaBruere, the VL board, Ed Barry, and Paul Irish are all all part of the organizational team.

Check out all the updates on Dynamic Landscapes 2016 and see for yourself. Every time I look at that Immersive workshop list I smile ; )

We're off and running.  Just getting started!

Hope to see you there!

Adam