Major Initiatives, Beautiful Fall, Relevant Assignments, Challenging Balance = What a semester!!!!!

BLOG fall 2016 KSU-EDL 7105

     I had a very difficult semester balancing life and school.  It was an incredibly "Real" look into the inner workings of Administrative life through a school's starting a new school year, its implementing a huge new initiative with our 1:1 device roll-out, and what goes on behind the scenes concerning strengths and challenges of technology support, staffing, PD, and school governance.  The assignments around our Strategic Plan, Technology Plan(which we are still formulating), Shared Vision, SWOT, and Action Plan were very “Real.”  Thank you for your patience and support.

Well, the beginning of this school year as a teacher and the start of my fourth semester at KSU started off smoothly enough. Needless to say, I am a very supportive husband and have always tried to put my family first.  When I first talked to Meredith about getting my masters degree, I promised her to do my best to not allow my studies to interfere with “Family Time” or unfairly impose extra burdens on her.  The first 2 semesters I was lucky to not have too many choices to make between project deadlines or time with family.  However, this summer was a battle.  I was convinced that this fall would be much easier.

Both of this fall’s classes had delayed starts due to technical issues, so I had more time to prepare to use organizational tools, like creating a KSU digital calendar and creating pages in my OneNote digital notebook to store assignment directions and work… BUT THEN…  the events/ celebrations/ distractions began.  

Last spring, it was announced that my wife, Meredith Tongue was selected as the Fulton County Teacher-Of-The-Year.  This was extremely exciting, but this title comes with many other responsibilities.   Starting off was Meredith addressing and welcoming the 1,000 or so teachers who were new to Fulton County at the beginning of August.  She did an amazing job speaking and represented our district, community, school, and our family very well.  She then had two additional speaking events to prepare that bookended November.  In the first week of the month, she addressed 2,000 or so Fulton County administrators, teachers, support staff, business partners, city and county leaders as well as friends and family of the celebrated Professionals, Administrators, and Teachers Of The Year. To close the month, she is MCing the “State of Our Schools” event that highlights the strategic plan for the county and allows for various department leaders to share their vision for supporting the county’s direction.  So, I obviously sacrificed work/ reading time to help out with our daughters. 

Speaking of daughters, we had family come into town at the beginning of the semester for our oldest daughter , Maya’s, birthday.  Her celebrations over a couple weekends and then my bday a week later which spanned two weekends as well.  In fact, I was looking forward to the weekend after my birthday as a work weekend, but as I was walking out of school that Friday, Meredith was there waiting for me with the girls in the car.  They had planned a surprise weekend retreat in Helen.   It’s funny how things come in bunches.  I was then invited by 3 different groups to go up to the Blue Ridge area 5 times throughout September and October.  I simply chose to spend time with my family and friends enjoying an uncharacteristically long and beautiful fall.  We even had camping trip up at Carter’s Lake.  I had to drive from there all the way past the Harstfield/Jackson International airport that Saturday morning of the camping trip to take my Tennis team to the county tournament.  It was freezing, but surprisingly when I returned to Carter’s Lake, the water was so low that when you went down to hangout right by the water, there was no wind and tons of bright warm sun.  I went from lower 50’s at the top of the campsites to upper 70’s by the water.  It was an oasis of warmth.

So, other responsibilities I took on at my school besides Coaching tennis for 7 weeks were: starting an on-line PLC for my class, Adventure Quest, with a couple other AQ teachers in Fulton County, helping with the 1:1 “Roll Out” committee planning, the actual “Roll Out,” Getting MIE(Microsoft Innovative Educator) trained, attending 3 days at GaETC through being a Vanguard member, leading 2 training sessions for colleagues at Elkins Pointe, and championing an 8 month long cross curricular PBL project to build a torii gate at the entrance of our Titan Nature Trail.   So, this semester has had me stretched thin to say the least. 

I am very blessed and fortunate to be a part of KSU and their understanding faculty.  This semester’s assignments have also been very eye-opening and helpful to me as I adjust from being teacher-minded- to a teacher leader- to ultimately me being more administrative-minded. The assignments have helped me to start to realize many of the behind the scenes executive and collaborative decisions that a school leader will make.  Through some of our assignment like investigating school’s technology plans, school strategic plans, learning and applying ISTE standards to various school roles, learning about budgeting and grant writing, school safety and nutrition plans, and opening up deeper discussions with administrators due to these assignments. 

It also helps to have a very supportive administrator.   I have tried to protect her time by reaching out to other of our A.P.’s but on all three requests, I have only received emails saying they will try to find time for me, but then I get no further communication.  So, really, I just needed to go to my Principal the whole time. 

Reflections from Experince Log KSU-EDL 7105 Dr. Ribble

1. Briefly describe the field experience. What did you learn about technology facilitation and leadership from completing this field experience? This fall’s field experiences were by far the most relevant due to the immediate implementation of my PD to using what I learned to help train colleagues.  I was able to have an inside look into our school making a major transition into a 1:1 school.  Getting to see all the planning and work pay off with an effective “Roll-Out,” was great to witness for future idea employment in a school setting.  I have seen how so many facets inside a school can work together with effective communication and a clear vision.  I feel that this is an invaluable lesson to learn early on this EDL path that I am on. Also, several of these experiences became a “real view” into what Educational Leadership looks and feels like.  I give credit to my principal, Mrs. Kindra Smith, for inviting me to be a part of SGC and Principal’s area meetings.  It is so very important as a leader to encourage and help grow future leaders in your building.  My principal knows that I am not necessarily following this path to go into Administration, but she keeps encouraging me because she sees my heart and passion for students.   I made a promise to myself and my family to get my master’s degree 20 years ago, and I do want and need to learn more about leadership in order to develop more young leaders. I am really getting my master’s degree to open up new unknown doors, and I really do not fully know what doors this degree may open.  The doors that I know it will open do not necessarily appeal to me, ie. Admin.

2. How did this learning relate to the knowledge (what must you know), skills (what must you be able to do) and dispositions (attitudes, beliefs, enthusiasm) required of a technology facilitator or technology leader? (Refer to the standards you selected in Part I. Use the language of the PSC standards in your answer and reflect on all 3—knowledge, skills, and dispositions.) This course’s required learning goals were: • To gain          a deeper           understanding of         the       field     of         educational            technology,     including         the       history of         the       discipline,        future            career   options,           and      professional     organizations/resources           to            support            ongoing           learning. • To     develop           a          vision   for       technology      use       in         K-12    schools            and      a          research-based rationale          to         support            that      vision. • To     understand      and      assess   essential           conditions       for       effective            technology      implementations          in         K-12    schools. • To     develop           a          school-level     strategic           plan     to         strengthen            the       essential           conditions       and      to         realize  students’         vision            for       technology      use. What an experience??!!  What a combonation??!!!  Learning from this course readings, videos, and assignments, then developing skills that allowed me to be a more competent stakeholder in my school, and finally be a real advocate for change and witnessing the enthusiasm, doubt, fear, frustration, and ultimately the pride of achievement that we all shared, will not soon be forgotten.  Combining these goals with the skills of interviewing, documenting digital data, collaborating, problem-solving in real time and monitoring the dispositions of in real situations, under real deadlines, for a real “Roll-Out” was a true lesson of taking the tasks of this course and really making a difference to my home school. Also, being able to use these national standards directly at my school due to supportive administrators who supported and invested in my own advanced training to allow me to personify and awaken these 2 dimensional standards to allow me to design, model, facilitate, and promote learning and positive attitudes in the face of a daunting program implementation.

3. Describe how this field experience impacted school improvement, faculty development or student learning at your school. How can the impact be assessed?  This field experience impacted school improvement by being directly involved with the 1:1 roll out plan and event.  This process of having an implementation of a program coming your way, allotting appropriate time and collaboration to prepare, effectively managing people and resources, and trusting all stakeholders in this process to do their job, was a beautiful thing to be a part of. My trainings in both Vanguard and MIE have been directed towards my ability to pass on this knowledge to make the shorten the learning curve with Office 365 tools and other effective ways of using our Dell latitude Laptop devices.   My trainings at the GaETC will continue to impact the education and classroom management at my school as I and several other Vanguard members design future PD for our colleagues and hopefully for other schools’ faculty too.