Request Read Receipt in Gmail

Sometimes you simply want to know if someone has read the email you sent or not. Gmail has this feature and it is called Request Read Receipt. It was formerly in the labs section, but now has become part of the standard Gmail. You can find it in your compose window in the more options drop down menu.

Sharing Settings on a Google Form

Today one of our English teachers, Jim Burwell, stopped by the EdTech office with a great question. His problem was that everyone had permission to edit his Google Form. After some hunting around on Jim's part, he discovered the the share settings for Forms work a little differently now. Now that the spreadsheet and form are completely separate from each other, the Form settings assume that you would want people to fill it out, so you can embed or email it to people without making it public, because the public refers to who can edit the form. Let me write that again, because it is very important -- public means people can edit the form. If you don't want people to edit your form, make it private or share it to only the people you want to collaborate with. This is a large change from the way forms perviously worked, so please be careful. Now go forth and collect data!

2013 Summer Bucket List

House in BozKoy, Karaburun, Izmir, Turkey.

I've been noticing some folks in my PLN sharing out their 2013 Summer Bucket List and the idea intrigued me, so here goes my list. We will be heading to Turkey for the summer to finish furnishing our house. I will begin the list there:

1. Furnish the house in Bozkoy. It seems like a lame task to many people probably, but it is very important for us to finish. The good news is that we should be finished with everything in a week or two and then we will be able to enjoy the house for the rest of the summer.
2. Begin the landscaping around the house. For this summer, I don't expect to accomplish too much, but it would be great to get some top soil down and have at least 7-8 trees planted around the house. In addition we want to add some cacti along the back wall near the road to act as a natural fence.
3. Finish reading Schooling by Design. The Leadership team at KIS has been reading the book this year and I'd like to be on the same page as them with regard to planning the future of KIS's EdTech team.
4. Reflect on Out of Our Minds. Several of the faculty at KIS formed a think-tank to read Sir Robinson's book and discuss how creativity can be merged with the culture of learning at KIS. Due to several projects and conferences, I was unable to attend many of the meetings, but I want to take some time this summer and reflect on the book and what it means to us as educators. I'm envisioning some blog posts about this topic in the future.
5. Study my Turkish more diligently. I have several relatives and friends in Turkey and now that I'm also a home owner, it is time to get serious about learning this language. It is nice to be able to get around and order things, but I want to be able to hold an actual conversation with someone. There is no better place than the village to do it, because nobody speaks English out there. My goal for the summer is to be able to communicate with a local villager that I don't already know for a full three to five minutes in Turkish. I have a great app for this by the way that works on both iOS and Android.
6. Music and Movie production. Everybody needs some down time to engage in hobbies and creating music and movies are mine, so I'm giving myself an opportunity to do both as part of my summer bucket list. I will create at least five completely new songs inspired by Karaburun and I will create two three-five minute movies about the villages and/or village lifestyle. I've actually wanted to make a couple of short films about Bozkoy and Karaburun for years, but whenever we are back, we are always too busy doing something; this time I'm going to do it.
7. International Ethical Educational Leadership website. This is something I want to plan during the summer and then launch in the fall. Sadly, I've seen some fairly dubious behavior in international educational leadership. Don't get me wrong, I've seen some amazing leaders, too, but I think overall international educational leaders could really step up their game with regard to ethics. The plan is to form a website community that would share case studies about situations with ethical dilemmas and then discuss our solutions to the dilemmas to encourage discourse and pre-reflection. Pre-reflection? Yes, to think through or role play a scenario that could happen to consider better solutions and alternatives before an actual problem occurs. This way, when a sticky situation does happen in real life, you can stop and reflect on things you role played before and have a better list of options to choose from than the ones that come to mind in the heat of the moment. I know, I'm a nerd.

If I can accomplish the seven items on this list, I will feel like it has been a very productive summer and I will return to KIS renewed.

The Importance of Communication -- Football Analogy

Thanks DustPuppy on Flickr for this photo.

On a football team, when the huddle is called and all eleven offensive players gather together, the quarterback announces the play to the entire offensive -- not selective members. The transparency of communicating with all members of the offense at once allows the entire unit to execute the play seamlessly. Imagine the chaos that would ensue if the quarterback only communicated the play to the fullback and/or tailback. How would the linemen know who to block? What  patterns would receivers run? Now imagine the scenario if the quarterback only told the play to the linemen, but not the other members of the offense. Where are the fullback and tailback going? As you can see, the quarterback needs to communicate with all members of the offense in order to execute the simplest play in the playbook. Without communication, nothing productive happens. Within organizations, leaders need to communicate with the entire organization. The leader communicates the vision, mission, and knowledge to the entire team, so that everyone can execute the play together.

But you ask me, "What about when the quarterback improvises?" Glad you asked! The quarterback improvises based off the original play communicated to the entire offense. As the leader on the field, the quarterback needs to react to changes and problems that develop during executing the original play. The quarterback may decide to throw the ball to the wide receiver running the post route, because he sees that the player is open and will be able to score a touchdown; where as, the original intended receiver is double covered. This is a modification to the original play, not a different play. Leaders need to be able to modify and adjust plans as problems occur, but based off the original plan that was communicated to the entire organization. When a plan needs modifying or adjusting, the leader communicates the changes as quickly as possible to the entire organization, so that everyone can execute the new plan seamlessly and without confusion.

Is your organization trying to run a play but the play has only be communicated to certain members of the offense? How can you get all team members executing the play seamlessly?

Twitter Feed on Blogger

Once you follow the steps in this blog post, you will have a Twitter feed in your side navigation bar.

Do you want to add a Twitter feed on your Blogger? If the answer is yes, then this is the blog post for you. There are several steps in the process, but the reward is having a Twitter feed in your Blogger sidebar. I have added several screen shots to walk you through the process. Good luck!

Your journey begins at Twitter. You will need to log in to your Twitter account and then go to the following URL http://twitter.com/settings/widgets.

Select the type of widget that you want to create. You can make a feed that follows one person, a list of people, or hash tag. Hit create widget and you will receive the embed code you need for your Blogger.

Your embed code will magically appear in the window. Copy it! Now you are ready for Blogger!

In Blogger, go to Layout. You will now click on the Add a Gadget button in the side navigation bar.

The list of Gadgets will pop up and you will scroll down to the HTML/Java Script. Pick this option.

Give your Gadget a title and paste the embed code into the window. Hit the save button and you have a Twitter feed on you Blogger site. Congratulations!

Attention Posterous Refugees -- Posting via Email with Blogger

If you are a Posterous refugee as I am, you are probably missing the old ability to post via email. Guess what? You can do it in Blogger as well, you simply have to turn the feature on. The attached photo should help explain this, but go to your Blogger Dashboard. On the left navigation bar, go to Settings, and then to Mobile and Email. You will need to add some secret words between your username and @blogger.com for it to work. Now go write an email and send it to that email address and you are blogging via email again.

Enjoy! 

ELCC Standards for Educational Leadership as a Professional Development Tool

As I finish my MSE in Educational Leadership from ASU, I am busily working on creating my portfolio as part of my internship. The seven ELCC standards are mostly focused on students demonstrating competency in the various areas of school leadership. But once your internship is over, then what? This got me thinking about professional development for educational leaders. Are any schools, associations, or individuals using the ELCC as a vehicle for professional development? Because on the international school scene, I'm not seeing it.

It would be easy to do. As a school, the Leadership Team could focus on one of the standards they want to improve for a school year. They could develop a Leadership Portfolio as a team and include their artifacts that demonstrate forward progress in this area. Another option would to to create a portfolio for yourself as an educational leader. The same basic principle as the group portfolio would apply -- choose an area you would like to develop and include various artifacts that demonstrate your growth within that standard for the year. Making this portfolio public and open for faculty and peer review is an important idea. A blog would be an excellent method for sharing your portfolio with colleagues.

Professional development is an important tool in education and all members of the faculty and staff, including administrators, need to work on continual growth. The infamous life-long learning we keep hearing and talking about -- time to walk the walk! Be a real leader. Don't accept excuses from yourself that for too many educational leaders fall into. You know the ones I'm talking about.

• I'm too busy to create a portfolio.
• Everyone is too busy! Make time, be a leader, be an example, be a role model. It is your job!
• I'm not a "blog" guy/gal.
• It doesn't necessarily have to be a blog, but a blog is an easy and powerful tool for doing it. If you want your faculty using technology, you need to use technology. Finally, don't think of it as a blog, it is a public portfolio.
• Portfolios and professional development are for my teachers, not me.
• If you don't take ownership of professional development, how will your faculty? Your faculty and staff will work as hard as you do. If they perceive you are slack, they will be more slack. If they perceive you are a professional engaged in improving yourself, they will as well.

Three Take-Aways from Alan November's (@globalearner) TCIS Visit

Over the weekend Ben Summerton (@bensummerton), Steve Katz (@stevekatz), and I (@tsbray) had a chance to go to TCIS and listen to Alan November (@globalearner) talk about education. Many of the thoughts and tools that Alan shared weren't new to me, but it was great to hear a noted speaker and educational guru confirm what we are doing at KIS. The three main take-aways for me were -- the importance of having students ask their own questions, the importance of effective and efficient searching, and the importance of authentic global audience. I'd like to thank Joseph Fambro (@krea_frobro747) and all the teachers who helped from GSIS and TCIS to make the Alan November event happen... And of course, I'd like to thank Alan November.

The importance of asking questions: 

Students certainly don't need us to spoon feed them answers to questions, what they need to be doing is generating their own questions and finding answers to those questions. Innovation and creativity will never truly develop, if questions aren't asked. Sadly it is difficult for many students to ask their own questions, because they have never been taught how; or, they have had the fear of not being correct forced down their throats. Learning is about asking questions and learning how to find answers to those questions. In order to compete in the modern world, students will need to understand how to learn and that won't happen unless they know how to question. The people in my generation were expected to change careers seven times during our life times -- that involves learning new skills. Students from the current generation will change careers even more, because in the future many current jobs simply will not exist. If you can't learn new skills, you won't have work.

The importance of effective and efficient searching:

Just Googling it isn't quite good enough anymore. If you have seen Eli Pariser's TED Talk about how search engines are tailoring your searches, then you will understand why this issue is major in education. If you haven't watched it -- YOU MUST! Seriously, go watch it now and if it doesn't scare the life out of you in some way, then you have some major character flaws. Students are going to need to know how to trick search engines and luckily Google allows us to do this by using Search Operators. The operators help you better define exactly what you are looking for and who you are getting it from.

The importance of authentic global audience:

I've been a huge proponent of this idea for years, but Alan turned me on to something I hadn't really thought about -- the importance of anonymity as well as audience. His example is the website FanFiction, which has thousands of contributors who all use anonymous identities to share their writing. One example we looked at showed a list of people who had written short stories in the style of J.K. Rowling  (famous for the Harry Potter series). There were thousands of stories by hundreds of writers and some were 400,000 or more words in length... 400,000 words! When was the last time one of your English students wrote something that long? I bet the answer is never. I'm right, right? No one is getting paid; everyone is anonymous -- so why? These people are simply sharing their love of writing with each other for pleasure, but they do it anonymously, because that way the critique is about the writing, not about them as a person. I remember working in Turkey our English department would trade (or share) grading of exams -- that way students didn't feel that one teacher was grading too easy or too hard, because their exam was graded by everyone. This trading allows someone completely objective to view the work and the students don't take the comments personal, because they don't know that person. This allows the regular teacher to help the students understand the critique without emotions getting in the way as much; furthermore, it doesn't make difficulties in the student-teacher relationship.

What is on in Math with EdTech at KIS?

Chrome App: PDF to Word File Converter

So you have a PDF file and you want to edit it. What do you do? Nothing, because PDF files convert poorly into Word or Pages files, right? In the past, yes, but now you can! The Chrome App PDF to Word Converter will convert the PDF file to a Word file and keep the formatting. Your old problems are gone -- now you can convert any PDF into a usable document file that can be edited. The user interface (UI) is simple and easy to use (image below). 

iPad App Review: Action Movie

I plan to add more content on my blog about iPad and Chrome Apps that have useful features for educators, but this time I have something that is simply fun. Although, for your students that like to create movies, this app will certainly inspire them; especially the boys, stereotypes are sometimes true. Action Movie FX is a free app that operates on the in-app store model. For those not in the know, apps like this are free to download and provide free features, but you can expand the apps abilities by purchasing within the app. In this case, you can purchase more effects in sets of two for 99 cents. Not a bad price considering what you get, because this app is tons of fun.

The UI (user interface) looks a little busy at first, but it is simple to use. Clicking on the effect will provide a preview of what it does.  When in preview mode, click the preview screen and you are ready to shoot your film clip. In the filming UI, you will have a target to guide you. Place the target on the object you want to destroy and tap the record button in the lower right side of the screen. A red edge will appear around the perimeter of the screen and when you have captured enough video, it will change to green and you can stop recording. Your video clip will process and you will be able to watch the destruction you created. You can share this clip to your iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone camera roll or Facebook. Through the camera roll saving you can use it in iMovie on your device or load it to iPhoto on your computer for use in your laptop/desktop iMovie. I have added a couple of examples to this post, but these are low quality versions, you can export the clips in HD. Let the good times roll!