The ISTE Certified Educator

This month, I received my ISTE Certified Educator badge. The process involved a two-day seminar, face-to-face, in Arlington, VA, back in August. This was followed by a month-long online program.

The tasks were not too daunting. The hard part was the portfolio requirement which asked participants to generate artifacts covering 24 of the ISTE for Educators standards elements.

I missed one or two and the points were fair(ish). For the standard covering Digital Citizenship, for example, I shared work my students did such as the development of TED-Ed Lessons. I was critiqued for embracing the "old, fear-based" approach to Digital Citizenship. Well, good call, I guess. Teacher Candidates need to start somewhere and need to have an idea of what to do when a student comes to them in crisis. But ISTE has a point that good Digital Citizenship should be more than a list of DON'Ts.

The certificate is good for two years.

Safety in Cyberspace

With Saline High School requiring students to have their own computers or Chromebooks, we have the potential to transform the way we teach and the way students learn. We also have the potential for additional headaches with damaged machines and drained batteries just the beginning.

Saline is a G-Suite school district. That means students and faculty have access to a full suite of Google applications. If you haven’t been paying attention you may be surprised at all the varied applications available to students and teachers that are from Google – from Docs and Sheets to Slides and Maps, the Google brand is hard to escape in the landscape of learning.



But each week we read of another breach of security and resulting leaked data, often affecting millions of users. The numbers can be numbing yet many users are still careless and fall for phishing scams or hand over our passwords far too readily.

Adults are slowly learning to hold our personal information closer to our chests and have embraced a new caution. I have seen longer passwords and two-factor authentication (where you log in once and then log in a second time through your smartphone). I have also seen people simply abandon social media entirely.

In September, Google quietly changed the way it had people sign into their popular browser, Chrome. When Google automatically signed you into Chrome just by using an application like Gmail, without any notification, that got the attention of cybersecurity experts around the world – including a few in our own backyard.

Google has since fixed that issue – or appeared to fix the issue but the whole experience has since made security experts increasingly leery. That said, after hearing from Saline’s own educational technology specialist and from members of a Michigan Ed Tech Specialists group, I feel a little better about the experience our students will have.

Chrome, with its helpful extensions, add-ons, and bookmarks is still relatively safe for students especially considering that using a Chromebook in school means they can only function with the permissions and tools allowed by their system administrator. I'm comfortable with that.

Published also in The Saline Post October 16, 2018

ISTE Certification

ISTE is promoting its new certification for Educators using their Educator Standards. Last week, Dr. McVey attended the mandatory two-day training session to become part of the first class of ISTE Certified Educators. This first step will be followed by 4 weeks of online training then he will have to put together a portfolio.

He is looking forward to sharing details of the process and perhaps even making EMU a Certified Authorizer Program. This article provides even more information about how ISTE is focusing on teachers and collaboration, rather than devices or software.

Upcoming: 2018 Chelsea Innovation and Technology Conference

This year's conference will focus on integrating technology into the K-8 classroom as well as focusing on innovative teaching practices.

 

When: Monday, August 20, 2018

Time:  9:00 - 3:00

Location: Beach Middle School, Chelsea, Michigan

Registration:$50. 

For more information, go to https://sites.google.com/a/chelsea.k12.mi.us/ectc/

Flipped Classes

I came across an article called, "Are you Flipping the Wrong Way?" It is a fair question. I had three takeaways from the article.

One. There are some best practices when it comes to flipping our classroom instruction and the early days of simply having students watch an instructional video before class is not sufficient.

Two. There is a group working on developing standards for Blended instruction, the Flipped Learning Global Initiative.

Three. There is a great illustration of the fast pace of research on Flipped Instruction. If you pick up a book on the topic from 2012, argue the authors, and model your teaching after it, you may be missing out on 90 percent of research on flipped instruction.

So keep reading, keep challenging your teaching, and keep moving forward.

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Are you interested in the online LTEC Master's of Arts? Complete this form.

Call for Speakers for MACUL

The call has gone out for speakers for the next MACUL Conference which will be held in Detroit (March 20 - 22).

We have had students in our LTEC program present in years past and hope you will consider presenting some of your ed tech insights to teachers from across the state.

The proposal form is online and the deadline is July 20. If you need any help in organizing your presentation or want to run it past one of us, we would be delighted to help.

Dr. McVey presenting on drones at MACUL 2017

CS [Coding] Fundamentals Intro Workshop

Code.org is hosting a CS (Computer Science) Fundamentals Intro Workshop, Tuesday, May 7-8:30-3:30p @ Washtenaw Intermediate School District1735 S Wagner Rd, Ann Arbor, MI  48103, United States. It is free!

For more information or to register, go to https://studio.code.org/pd/workshops/3783/enroll