Student creation is about more than just creating to create. You should want to create for a purpose. You should want to create for understanding and meaning. You should want to create to make the world a better place, and it all starts by building a scenario for the creation. Scenarios should always be your starting place.
      What do I mean by that? I see student projects all the time that are “just create something about the topic.” That topic could be anything, but what the teacher is going to get is always the same: bad power points and bad videos. What if you actually made them create for an audience? What if you made them solve a real-world problem? You could get more than just bad tech tools with regurgitated information. 
      To me, this takes me back to my days in the Social Studies classroom. In Social Studies, it’s so easy to fall into the trap of just having kids do a presentation to regurgitate information You have seen them a million times. They tend to have bad backgrounds, arguably plagiarized text, and images that just look weird. I thought there had to be more, and what I came to is that there had to be a scenario to create to. Instead of just giving them a topic, I gave them an audience. I put them in the history. They had to critically think like the people they were studying and like they were there.
      Does this sound hard? Well, it isn’t. There are thousands of scenarios you could use in any topic, but I found one that was always a good starting place if I got stuck: The United Nations. Think about it, they have a hand in everything. They work with plenty of data to tie math in. They are worried about the planet which ties in Science, and they are involved in politics which ties in Social Studies. With ELA, you can adapt grammar and writing projects to almost anything. It means you can have all four CORE subjects covered in one audience.
       The UN has even made it easier. They have published a set of 17 goals that they have for the planet by 2030. These are a great starting place! It sums up the world's problems beautifully and gives you a great place for kids to start solving them. There is also a massive teaching community around them, so you don’t even have to create all of the activities yourself!
      These can even be used for coding scenarios, and Tynker has done just that. Check out the Hour of Code projects based on the SDG's at https://www.tynker.com/hour-of-code/

      This blog is for my friend the Social Studies teacher. Many times your the red-headed stepchild of the core content group, but if we can take anything from the current state of affairs, you are so important. You might be the last ones to get new standards, but you are going to be the first ones that kids actually use coming straight out of high school. 
      This isn't to say the others aren't important, but think of the first ways someone can participate in the greater society. It's things like registering to vote, registering for selective service, and getting into the federal student loans program. All of them are things that may need advocacy, and we have to teach our students to advocate and participate.
     No matter what you believe with the current state of the US government the abundantly clear thing is that we need to do an even better job of teaching civics. The impeachment inquiry is s a perfect example of this. It's clear that many Americans don't fully understand that process, and that lack of understanding is helping both sides manipulate both the process and messaging with it.
      We are constantly hearing a lot about the process. The thing to understand though is that the process right now is like a grand jury. It's about finding enough evidence to see if you can take it to trial, but because it's already being tried in the public conscious people think that things should look like a full trial. That's the not the way things are laid out in the constitution, yet many Americans don't realize that. It allows both sides to manipulate the message to benefit their point of view.
      We hear the argument of fake news and bias all the time. In reality, it's there on both sides of the argument. The problem we are all having is that we aren't teaching civics well enough which makes it almost impossible for folks to decipher what is real and fake. We have to keep up that fight because in an age of endless media, knowing civics is the only thing that will let you know what is real and true.
         We are getting to a point where teaching civics is going to be the only thing that saves us. The old saying ignorance is bliss does not apply here. If you don't know how things work you just can't decipher through the noise.
​         Civics Teachers: Keep up the fight! You don't know how important you are!

      So last week was all about academics and colleges. The blog for this week is all about athletics. The NCAA needs some changes. I have seen the need for change at every level; first as an athlete, then as a high school coach, and now as a parent. Is change likely, no, but we can always hold out hope.
      I have a daughter who is interested in playing a sport that's going to require her to be on a club team to make her high school team.  That's crazy, right? There's a whole lot of money involved there, but it's also the place that she would have to go to be seen by colleges. It's crazy to me that we have to think about that in seventh grade. The problem is that if I don't, it's highly likely we are putting her in a place where she won't make her high school team. I have to keep up with the Jones, or my daughter may not get where she wants to be. As a parent, I feel like I have to try and help her do that, even though I may need to give them both an arm and a leg. 
     There has been a lot of talk about reforming the NCAA to benefit the athlete today. Just recently, California passed a law that gives athletes the ability to benefit from their likeness. That's a slippery slope. While the NCAA is a huge business, there won't be enough to go around to make that process very fair or equal. It's easy to be the Quarterback at Alabama and profit, but what if you are the Volleyball player at that same school? Those sports don't tend to be very lucrative and the group that will let you make money off of your standing as an athlete is very niche. I think there are some ways to reform that process and I include it below, but I also include 4 other things that will make a real difference.

1) Take Club Teams Out of It
      I don't necessarily have a problem with club teams as a whole. I think getting extra practice is not a bad thing, but the NCAA can make one small change that lets every kid have a chance to be successful. They need to force NCAA coaches to recruit from high schools.
       We want athletics to be about learning life lessons, and we have worked our selves into a place where they learn a lesson that isn't positive: obtaining your dreams is infinitely harder the less affluent you are. Club teams are ridiculously expensive, and unless it's a sport with a lot of potential money in the future, the cost is going to be incurred by the parent. The sports that have that potential money in the future (like men's basketball) have 
       This is especially prevalent in sports where the “sponsorship money” just isn't there. Think about where the state champions in sports like baseball, volleyball, soccer, and swimming are in your state. I can guess with almost certainty that they come from affluent urban areas, and there is a reason for that.
       Those kids are playing a crazy number of games on traveling club teams, and that gap is just going to keep growing as the NCAA loosens rules on recruiting for club events. Parents will do it because they want kids to play at the level and they dream of having the crazy cost of college paid for. It's a matter of weighing your options
       Do you know what sport has the smallest amount of this and the most parity? It's actually football. College coaches still have to recruit from high schools because playing that many games in a contact sport just isn't feasible. It's the sport where the gap between the have and have nots is the smallest, but the scary thing is the rise of 7 on 7 tournaments and special camps may be changing that. The NCAA can head that off by simply making coaches recruit from high schools. Maybe they can do that for every sport.

2. Spending caps
       One of the scariest things that is happening to the sport today is that the financial gap between certain programs is starting to trickle up to colleges. It's always been there in high schools as the parents of affluent schools can make their programs whatever it hey want, but now it's trickling up even more to college athletics and the effects can be a little scary
      Take college football as an example. There is a reason Alabama, Clemson, and others are winning. They are spending folks under the table. Their coaches have ridiculous salaries, their facilities are insane, and they have extra staff that isn't necessarily what others have across the board.
       Why if the NCAA put a spending cap in place? The NBA and NFL have them and their parity could never be better. MLB doesn't and the big teams dominant. If the NCAA had spending caps it would improve parity, and it would also redirect funds to actually educating kids which makes us all better.

3. Get the shoe and apparel companies to cool it
      Again, the money tap is open and it's hurting the sport. The shoe/apparel companies are in a mad rush to get every team they can to sign up, and that money means they can dictate what they want. The scary thing is it keeps trickling down to high schools.
     I have seen a growing number of high schools in the past couple of years take money from shoe companies, and I honestly don't blame them. They get better deals on uniforms and apparel. It brings brand value. The problem is though, is it's continuing to add to the haves and have not mentality of society. No apparel company is going to put its name on a high school that has a poor reputation. They want a nice suburban school. 
     You can also see the influence they have over the major money sports. Football and Basketball both have apparel money pouring into them, they want that next major star to start with them from a young age, and they are doing anything they can to make that happen. They also know those suburban kids they are sponsoring at a suburban high school are much more likely to have the affluence that it takes to be future customers. Is that really fair?
    The NCAA can curb all of that. I am not saying that they have to end it. Just curb it. Put some restrictions in place on what Universities can do with the shoe companies. Restrict how coaches recruit from their events. What they do, tends to trickle down.

4. Paying athletes (Sort of)
       There are lots of conversations going on around paying college athletes, but that is an incredibly slippery slope. It's easy to say pay Tua Tagovailoa at Alabama because the university is already making a killing off of him, but how do you pay that swimmer at the same University where there is very little money coming in?
     I think the key is to walk a really fine line. You need to give them the chance to make money off their likeness, but there also needs to be rules to keep outside influence out, to prevent the shady agents, friends, and keep away the other hanger ones. These are kids and the NCAA must protect them.
      It means that the athletes should be able to hold a job, they should be able to get an appearance fee for going to a car dealership, and they should be able to make money off YouTube content. They should not, however, be able to just get paid for their skills. There has to be a transaction of some service. They have to do some type of work to actually get the money. Having to do something will teach them better lessons for the real world, and isn't that what the NCAA is supposed to be.

5. Improve Real-World Training
     The goal with NCAA athletes should not be to get to the pros. It needs to be to get out into the real world and make a difference. Athletics teaches all kinds of lessons about life, yet the NCAA doesn't require any expansion on that.
       Schools do things like teaching their players about financial, literacy, the law, and making a difference in the community individually. The NCAA can make a huge difference by just making that a requirement. They could require pieces of training that really set these kids up, and they can even go as far as making something like community service an eligibility requirement.
      Getting those kids to have a huge heart to help people will make a huge difference in our world. No matter what sport they play, some people look up to them. Maybe the NCAA can help us build that type of community 

     The blog this week is all about failure. It's something we all hate, but in the end, it makes us better. It also means we have to take the time to give a person enough space to make sure they can recover and improve from that fall. It's going to happen, so why not use it as a learning experience rather than a judging experience. 
     The idea for this blog really started with my beloved Florida State Seminoles. I did not go to school there, but they have always been my team. Both my parents were graduates, and the only reason I did not go, there was simply because I was not good enough to play there. 
     If you have not seen, they are failing. They have a new coach, Willie Taggart, who is in his second year, and it's easily the hardest to watch Florida State team that I have ever seen. Folks are calling for Willie to get fired. 
      I know college sports are a ruthless game but is this fair to him?  He has not had time to implement his ideas fully. He has not had time to fail and learn from it. He has not had time to take what he learned and apply it for the better. He might have experience, but each new set of people and places brings its own challenges.
     Being the educator I am, that lack of rope Willie is getting led me back to both education and my own career. I think we as both a society and in this education field that we have all chosen, don't let folks fail enough. We judge people by their failures when really we should judge them by their progress. You can tell the real winners by the ones who do everything they can to not fail the same way twice.
  Is there a place that shows this more than in the education field? If you are or were in the classroom, think back to your first days in the classroom. Where you good at what you do? I know I wasn't. I sucked. I had a great student teaching year, and I thought I could just conquer it. My first year was alot of failing though. 
I did not want to fail.  I was not satisfied with being bad or just average. I tried to make things better continually, and those little improvements got me to a point where I was somewhat (are we ever fully?) satisfied after ten years. Yes, it took 10 years.
     Teaching is a hard profession, yet right now, we judge people based on data and numbers. If we keep doing that, we are going to continue to drive educators out of the field. Educators should be judged on their ability to improve. If they have that want to, they will be fine. They may need a little guidance (that's what a good administrator does), but they will eventually get there. 
     Students are the exact same way. We repeatedly give them numbers and data that signify if they are good or bad. Why do we do that? Think about the student who regularly gets those bad marks. It's easy for them to fall in the trap of not believing and not caring. Why can't we have a system that lets them know they made a mistake or got something wrong, and then allows them to fix it. We need to let them grow, not take away their spirit.
       This is something that even society needs to take hold of. Unless someone is super well trained, they are going to do a lot of failing at first. If they have the right drive that won't happen for long, though. They will learn from their mistakes and try new things. We need to give everyone the ability to do that. 
     Let's change society. Failure isn't a bad thing. It only becomes bad if you don't have the drive to change it. We should remember that we deal with both students and teachers.

     Google is taking over education. The Chromebook is everywhere, and so many students now have access to Drive. The collaborative features, ease of use, and availability make Google products a favorite of lots of teachers. It's also a favorite of administrators because it's so simple to manage.
    What can you do to take it to another level, though? Sometimes it's all about the little things, and that's what this blog is all about. These are five little tips and tricks that will take your Google game up a level.

• Converting to Google Products

     Let's face it; many teachers are coming to the beautiful world of Microsoft. Google has only been taking the education world by storm for 10 to 12 years. Many teachers have been teaching longer than that, and they have a whole host of resources that are in the Microsoft format.
     There is an easy way to fix that, especially for Word. Start by clicking the settings wheel in the top right, and then check off the box that converts everything into a Google Doc. As soon as that's checked off, every time you upload a Word Doc, it will automatically switch to a Google Doc. For Slides and Sheets, you will need to upload first and then hit the button that says convert to the corresponding Google product
     If you use Google Classroom, this trick is a MUST. It makes the workflow in Google Classroom so much easier. If you don't use Google Classroom, it's still a great thing. It allows you easy sharing and collaboration. You can easily share it just by changing the last word in the URL from edit to copy 

• Easy Sharing

​      That brings me to the second little tip that is incredibly helpful. Google is easily the sharable collaborative format. You can change how you share things out by simply changing the end of a Google URL. This great graphic from Tony Vincent will show you some outstanding ones.

​

• Drive is more than just Docs, Slides, and Sheets
  

​     Every time I deliver PD in Google Drive, it amazes me how many folks don't know this. If you click new and then more, there is a button that says connect more apps down at the bottom. This feature opens Google Drive up to a whole other set of apps.
     There are great educational tools in there like WeVideo, Kami, Pear Deck, and more. You might also find that tool that lets you do that one thing you have always wanted. The overall beauty though is that if it's in Drive, it makes the Classroom connection easy!

• Forms Differentiation
  

      Google Forms is more than just a place to do quizzes and surveys. It's a place where you can differentiate and personalize learning. You can literally build quizzes in forms that are impossible to fail. It's super easy.
      It all comes down to adding multiple-choice questions and sections. At the bottom of each multiple-choice question, there are three dots in the bottom right corner that you go to section based on a response. Sections are basically new pages. It allows you to send students to one page if they get the question right, and a different one if they get the get the question wrong.
     It allows you to add a video or a different question if they get it wrong. Where it really can be great, though is that you can insert a live URL to take kids anywhere on the internet. You can do things like adding a HyperDoc link that asks students to complete an activity if they get it wrong. It means the possibilities are endless.

• Google Drawing
  

​      Google Drawing is one of the most underused apps in the Google Sphere. The possibilities of use are endless. The whole idea is that you get what amounts to one slide with space on either side, and you can use shapes to build things like mind maps, comparison maps, and magnetic poetry.

An excellent resource for this is Eric Curt's site which can be found HERE.

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        I don't typically like writing about politics, especially since the politics of today's world are so toxic, but I think this week is an exception. U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson announced his retirement this week, and I want to tell you about an educational experience I had with him that changed my life. We get so tied down to what's going in our class, that sometimes we forget how much an experience matters. Hopefully, this post will show you why.
    My family has known Senator Isakson since the early '80s. My mom was in Junior League with the Senator's wife, and we have been following his political career since he was a Georgia State Representative. In 2003, I had the honor of being selected as one of his summer interns in Washington, D.C. At the time, I saw this more as something fun, but as I reflect now, the effect it has had on my life is incredibly profound. 
    When I went to Washington in the summer of 2003, Senator Isakson was a representative that was running for U.S. Senate. It meant that most of my job as an intern came down to giving folks capitol tours. It used to be that people could move across the capitol freely, but since the attacks of September 11th, it requires having a staffer (either a tour guide or intern) with you. Since Senator Isakson was running for Senate at the time, it meant he could never turn these down, and it meant they fell to me.
     The experience of leading these tours set me up incredibly well for my future. At the time, I only had one semester left to get my degree in Social Studies education. By touring the capitol each day, I was getting to experience one of the things I would teach about for the next ten years. I was able to take groups into the galleries of both houses of Congress, and literally sit there and watch them work. I developed stories that I used with my students for years. It was learning by experience, but it wasn't the only great thing about it.
     While I knew of Senator Isakson and I had met him a few times, I had never really talked with him. This internship gave me a chance to, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that he is just a great person. Think about that for a second. In today's toxic political environment, I know from experience that I can trust in the humanity of one of Georgia's only two Senators.  Can you say that about your votes? If we all could say that, would we be in the political climate that we have today?  I may not always agree with the Senator's stand on the issues, but just knowing him personally made it the most comfortable vote I ever cast.
     I can also say this experience changed my life in a very profound way. I met my wife while I was an intern for the Senator. She was interning at the same time for a farm lobbyist group, and we actually met on a bus. We spent the entire summer together, seeing the sites, and now we have four kids. It all came off an educational experience.
     If you are in a classroom, you may not be able to offer trips to D.C. or meeting a future spouse. You can, however,  facilitate an experience that changes a kids life. You could have the next broadway star sitting in your classroom, and your field trip to the theater is what sparked that curiosity. It could be bringing in a career day speaker whose ideas were so profound that one of your students changed that career path. It could be setting up kids with local internships that turn into future jobs. You never really know, so trying new things is what can make an incredible difference.
    I think as teachers, we get tied up too much into content, and we don't stop and take a look at the things that really matter. We in this field to prepare kids for the future, and we never know what they will really use. Why not give them the experience that lets them make a better decision?

      I have meant to write this post for several weeks, but life got in the way. I went through what this post is all about July 14-19, but then I went on vacation, had a few speaking engagements, and I had to play catch up, so it's not coming till now. It might end up perfect, though.   As you start the new school year, make this one about finding your tribe. I know I added to mine July 14-19, and I want to tell you about it.
     Last October, I joined the team at Tynker, and it has been an exciting ride when it comes to finding my tribe. I have been in the EdTech community for several years now, and I have a vast swath of friends and colleagues that I can depend on.  They have been built through years on the conference circuit and participating in things like Twitter. I lacked a tribe, though around what I actually did at Tynker. That all changed in the middle of July.
     I have learned over the years that my favorite PD's are the ones that let me pull out with a group of like-minded people. Spending that quality time allows you to not only work and grow together, but it also allows you to socialize.  It's a time to get close, and I had the privilege of leading something like this in the middle of July thanks to the Infosys Foundation.
One of the Infosys Foundations goals is to enhance computer science education across the country, and one of the ways they do that is through a summer institute called PathFinders that becomes summer camp from teachers. I helped lead a full week of PD for those that signed up for the Tynker track, and I am so happy that I did.
      We repeatedly talked during the week about coming to PathFinders to find your tribe, and I think our group for sure did. Sometimes in schools, that can be incredibly hard. Just because you teach the same thing or the same grade level, does not necessarily mean those folks are your tribe. I know from personal experience I struggled with that because I was the teacher doing video and creation projects. There just weren't many Social Studies teachers that thought the same way I did. I needed to go outside my school to find the group that I could learn and associate with, and finding that tribe is especially essential when you are talking about coding.
     Coding is at a place where so many know it's essential, but there aren't necessarily set standards for it everywhere, and a large swath of teachers don't know how to integrate it. That's why this week was so important. We were able to give almost 40 teachers background and experience with both coding and Tynker, but the best part might have been giving them the group that they can continue to collaborate with and feel community. That's what is going to carry them.
     If your reading this and you feel like you don't have that tribe, start going outside your usual circle. Things like PLC's and grade level committees have their place, but they aren't always the best place to get you where you need to be. An excellent place to start would be to begin participating in Twitter chats. They are discussions on a specific hashtag (# and a keyword) that put like-minded individuals in the same place. You never know who you will find, and they may become a fast tribe member.
     You also can get yourself out there. I started speaking at conferences, and you quickly find like-minded people who are doing the same thing. All it takes is applying. You can also apply to academies like PathFinders, Google Innovator, and Raspberry PiCademy. I have done all three, and they were some of the best PD I have ever had.
      Don't hesitate to find the tribe. Education is one of the most rewarding professions you can be in, but it can also be an incredible drag. You need that group who thinks like you and who can pick you up. It's just a matter of finding them.

​     So, to start, this is my experience. I know others approach things differently, and it's ok that I don't understand that approach.  With that out of the way, let's talk about summer. Schools are off, and so are teachers, right? I know that in my time in the classroom that certainly wasn't the case, and I am going to use this blog to convince you that it isn't. If you're a teacher, summer should be a time for work, but it's finally time to work at your own pace. If you use summer correctly, it also means that some of the garbage that you have to do during the school year is worthless. Maybe if we change the perception, we can change that.
     In all my year's in the classroom, I only came into one where I was not a coach. I coached football, wrestling, and one fateful year of lacrosse. I also wanted to be a good teacher, though. It means that if I did not plan in the summer, I was pretty much screwed. There was no chance I could plan effectively during the school year and put in the time that I needed as a coach. It meant summer was work, and I accepted that. I could finally make my own schedule.
      I don't understand the teachers that take the whole summer off, and I think the number of ones that do who are also good at what they do is limited. Summer absolutely needs to be a time to decompress, but if I can take some of that time to create original experiences for my students, I am going to do that. I want to do that. I want to get ahead, so I am not scrambling during the school year. It doesn't mean I won't have to make some adjustments, and it doesn't mean I will finish my lesson planning. It just means I will have a great head start.
     If everyone took the summer planning approach, though, it means administration and leadership teams would need to look at things differently. PLC's have some value, but they also take away creativity. Forcing teachers to "co-plan" in them means they could lay out the best-laid plans in the summer to just have them thrown out. Why are we forcing them to do that? Teachers have different strengths, and they should be able to use them to get the most out of their students.
      It doesn't mean PLC's don't have value though. To start, they should be almost entirely virtual. Why are we wasting teacher valuable time during the year when we could set them up in a great virtual way that lets them share with each other even in the summer months. Yes, it takes training for folks to do it effectively, but it would also make them better using virtual platforms which every school now has with Learning Mangement systems.
      I also think PLC's need to do a better job of getting together like-minded teachers. Just because teachers teach the same subject, it does not mean they teach the same way. I know I had a PLC one year where I was having students create with video, and I had to partner with a teacher who had just gotten their first cellphone....in 2010.  I would have benefited much more from being with a teacher who thought the same way I did about student creation. It could have even been a teacher of a different subject. With all the practical methods of connecting, why aren't we letting teachers do that?
     I also think we need to have a renewed emphasis on teacher PD in the summer.  Guess what? Most teachers aren't going to give two thoughts about PD that comes in and tries to happen during their regular school process. There just isn't enough time, and they have too many other cares (I don't include coaching in this as it's a different kind of support.) You have to be able to pull out of the environment and focus on your own learning. 
     What better way to do it than the summer? We need to provide teachers the opportunity to do it. It could be as severe as finding the money to send them to a big conference like ISTE, or as easy as setting up ways for the best teachers to show off what they are doing. It's really up to you.
     With all that I am trying to say make the most of your summer. Use it to be less crazy during the year, and to make yourself better. If your admin doesn't support that, then you need to tell them why they should.