Sven Fechner (@simplicitybliss) writes about productivity and OmniFocus on his blog. A recent post contained this thoughtful item which will speak to anyone in a position of educational leadership, but also to teachers and students:
‘Failure is always an option’ is what I preach to my team… I am convinced that only if you remove fear of failure you unlock the possibility of true success and — even more important — the possibility to innovate.
Source: Simplicity Bliss
After a bit of a false start with OmniFocus, I am back on track and using it to manage all of my tasks for work and graduate school. I had originally started using it in January but my task list turned into a jumbled mess as I was trying to learn the ins and outs of the program at the same time. I spent some time a few weeks ago reorganizing things and rewriting my tasks in a more helpful way. This time, I also set a few restrictions on myself.
I stopped flagging things because it made me stress out too much. I stopped assigning due dates to every single item. The only due dates I have now are for tasks that have actual deadlines – a tip I picked up from David Sparks (@macpsarky). I also stopped using so many folders. This saves me a bit of time when navigating through everything on the iPad and iPhone.
One of the most helpful things that I did is to create a project called Planning. In this single-action project, each action represents a project that has not yet been fully planned. In nearly all cases, I have done some thinking about these projects but my thoughts are not yet fully formed. I place my ideas in the notes field of each action. Then, when I have some time, I go through and flesh out the full project and then remove it from the Planning project.
I also have a project called Ideas that include things that I am considering doing, or things that parents or teachers have recommended. In the past, these were scattered all over the place. Now, I have them filed in one location.
When writing tasks, I am also now consciously starting each of them with a verb. I have found this to be very helpful because it gives me more direction. This also allows me to search by verb if I want to. If I am in the mood for writing, I can simply search for that word and I will see all of my tasks that involve writing. The same is true of verbs like call, tweet, read, email, etc.
Finally, I have taken a different approach to contexts. Though many of the OmniFocus power users that write about this stuff swear by contexts, I find adding them to be a source of friction that gets in the way of putting information into the system. Right now I am only using one context, called Waiting. I add this to a task when my portion of a particular action is complete, but I am waiting on another person to do their part. For example, if I assign this context to the task, “Get draft of next year’s budget from Bill,” it means that I have asked Bill to do this, but I am waiting on him to fulfill his part of the bargain by actually giving me the draft of the budget. When Bill provides the information that I have asked for, I will mark the task complete. This context allows me to see, at a glance, everyone I am waiting for. I have also set a few location-based contexts but haven’t really had a chance to utilize them yet.
These changes have been successful, and this whole process is starting to stick. I feel like I have a better handle on my work and I’m juggling all of my responsibilities successfully right now.
Though this was written on a tech blog by Jason Fried (@jasonfried), it can apply to anything. I think it’s particularly relevant for education and technology.
Dismissing an idea is so easy because it doesn’t involve any work. You can scoff at it. You can ignore it. You can puff some smoke at it. That’s easy. The hard thing to do is protect it, think about it, let it marinate, explore it, riff on it, and try it. The right idea could start out life as the wrong idea. So next time you hear something, or someone, talk about an idea, pitch an idea, or suggest an idea, give it five minutes. Think about it a little bit before pushing back, before saying it’s too hard or it’s too much work. Those things may be true, but there may be another truth in there too: It may be worth it.
Source: 37 Signals
In a plot worthy of The Wire (season 4 in particular), an investigation into standardized testing in Atlanta culminated yesterday with the indictment of former district superintendent Beverly Hall and 34 other educators who changed students’ answers on high-stakes standardized tests. Pressure from investigators eventually caused teacher Jackie Parks to come forward and blow the whistle. Parks then wore a wire and recorded conversations between her and other teachers which helped the investigation.
From yesterday’s New York Times article about the scandal (which I would recommend reading in its entirety):
It is not just an Atlanta problem. Cheating has grown at school districts around the country as standardized testing has become a primary means of evaluating teachers, principals and schools. In El Paso, a superintendent went to prison recently after removing low-performing children from classes to improve the district’s test scores. In Ohio, state officials are investigating whether several urban districts intentionally listed low-performing students as having withdrawn even though they were still in school.
I hope no one is surprised by this. I am not a cynical person, but when so much hinges on one test, there will be cheating. Add this to the long list of reasons why high-stakes testing is fundamentally flawed.
Source: Ex-Schools Chief in Atlanta Is Indicted in Testing Scandal
This quote from Robert Slavin (@RobertSlavin), Chairman of the Board of the Success for All Foundation, perfectly describes my approach to classroom management.
Motivated, engaged, challenged, and successful students are well-behaved, not because they’ve been threatened but because they are too busy engaged in learning to misbehave. The goal of classroom management is not quiet classrooms, it’s productive students. Using pizzazz to motivate and engage kids in learning valued content is the way to manage classrooms toward accomplishing the real goals of education.
Source: Education Week’s Sputnik Blog
I realize that I may be the only person who needs this, but I thought I would publish it anyway. This is a bookmarklet to send links from Google Chrome to OmniFocus via the Mail Drop feature. You may want to use this if the following conditions apply to you:
To set this up, create a new bookmark and provide a suitable title (I use “+ OmniFocus” since I’m adding to OmniFocus) and then enter the following in the URL field:
javascript:window.open('https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=1&view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&to=yourmaildropaddress@sync.omnigroup.com&su='+document.title+'&body='+document.location, '_blank', 'toolbar=0, location=0, menubar=0, height=500, width=500');return false;
Next, replace the first part of the email address in the code above with your unique Mail Drop address, and you’re all set. When invoked, the bookmarklet will pop up a 500×500 Gmail compose window. The “To” field will be pre-filled with your Mail Drop email address. The subject line will be the title of the webpage you were viewing when you clicked on the bookmarklet and the body of the message will contain the URL of that page and you can edit both if you want to. When the OmniFocus sync server receives the email, the title of the webpage will become the task title and the URL will appear as a note in the task.
Pressing send (or TAB and then ENTER on your keyboard if you have keyboard shortcuts turned on) will send the email and the task will be waiting in your OmniFocus inbox the next time you open the app.
I first heard of Scott McLeod (@mcleod) in 2011 when he presented to a group of principals and teachers from the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis. He did a tremendous job of evangelizing for technology and I left with lots of ideas crashing around in my brain – which to me is a sign of an inspiring and knowledgeable speaker/presenter/teacher. I subscribed to his blog right away and have been following his work ever since.
Last May he wrote the following which I immediately clipped and saved in my “quotes” text file:
I can’t tell you how many schools I’ve visited where the principal proudly tells me, “We’ve got a lot of technology here,” and notes the presence of a computer in every room and a handful of computer labs or rolling laptop carts. There’s rarely mention of how students are using digital technologies and there’s never mention of how regularly and often students get to use them. I don’t care how much technology is in a school if the students don’t get to regularly and frequently use it in meaningful ways.
Source: Dangerously Irrelevant
Former New York City school’s chancellor Joel Klein and Rupert Murdoch launched a new tablet computer last week through Amplify, the education division of Murdoch’s News Corp.
I listened to and read this news through two left-leaning news sources: NPR and the New York Times. The NPR story questioned the motivation for Murdoch’s tablet, citing his criticisms of teacher’s unions as evidence that he may be trying to reduce the role of the teacher in education. The New York Times story focused a bit more on the tablet itself but more on the economics of Amplify and News Corp. and the connection to Joel Klein.
I have many questions about the Amplify tablet but I am definitely intrigued. Amplify has some basic information on their website including information about pricing ($299 plus annual $99 subscription fee for early adopters) and a promo video. I’m sure many additional details about this tablet will emerge in the coming weeks but I’d like to offer a few rough thoughts from my perspective as a K-8 school principal.
The biggest upside is that the tablet is specifically designed with education in mind. In theory, this means that a teacher and his students can pick up the devices and start using them for educational purposes right away because that’s what the device is designed for. Though it’s far too early to say for sure, this will probably give the tablet an edge over the iPad. With a device like the iPad, it is basically left up to the teacher to determine the ways that the device can be used in the classroom. Many teachers find this to be a steep learning curve and some never move past the “I’ll buy an app for this” phase which means they are not using the iPad to transform their instruction. I would imagine that Amplify’s tablet has more obvious educational uses, since that’s the purpose of the device. In theory, this means that a teacher and her students can get up and running more quickly.
Since I am the administrator of the 25 shared iPads that we have at my school, I was pleased to see that Amplify’s tablet will likely be easier to manage. With the iPad, we are using Apple’s Configurator to manage the devices. Though the software works, it can be very clunky and frustrating. Amplify is promoting the ability to administer all of their tablets through the cloud, which is a huge plus. Though I’m sure Amplify wants to have a tablet in every students’ hands, I’ll be curious to see if the tablet would work in a multi-user situation. If so, this would be another advantage over the iPad. Of course, to take full advantage of these features, each Amplify tablet comes with an annual subscription fee of $99 which will add up quickly, especially if one still has to purchase software. We have no such fee with the iPads (though we have spent a few hundred dollars on apps in the first year).
The biggest downside of this device is that it runs Android which is the malicious software developer’s biggest target. If students can install any Android app that they want, this could be a huge problem. If Amplify’s tablet can overcome this Android weakness, or limit what students can install, this will become less of a concern. Being able to regularly update the OS on the device will also be essential.
At first glance, the tablet looks like it could be a winner. However, several big questions remain:
In the education and tablet markets, more competition is good. The educational thrust of Amplify’s tablet will definitely make Apple take notice, and the competition between the two should lead to even better mobile devices for our teachers and students.
Now that I am back in school, I have mentioned that I plan to use Evernote much more frequently. This began in earnest last week as I started reading one of my first texts, “Leadership and Organizational Behavior in Education” by William Owings and Leslie Kaplan.
I will be using Evernote for materials that I may wish to reference later; a personal reference library of sorts. This will include clipped articles from the web and notes from my reading, and perhaps even the readings themselves.
Last night, while reading, I discovered a handy feature of Evernote that I think is worth sharing, as other students may find it helpful. I was finishing the first chapter of the book mentioned above, and came across the six standards of leadership published by the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium in 2008. The six standards are handy items to have nearby, as I will be referring to them frequently, but I didn’t want to write them all down, as this would be a waste of time. I figured I could find them somewhere on the web, and then cut and paste them into my notes.
After a quick search, I did find the same list of standards duplicated, word for word, on the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) website. Using Clearly, an Evernote-created browser extension for Chrome, I stripped away all of the fluff and advertising on the page, then clipped the content. This sent it directly into my Evernote account. I switched to the Evernote application, found the note, filed it in the correct notebook, and then right clicked on it and selected “Copy Note Link” from the contextual menu. Finally, I navigated back to the note which contained my notes from the text, and inserted the link in the appropriate spot in my notes.
So, what is the point of all this? Having the standards in Evernote means that they instantly become searchable and I can easily find what I am looking for. It also means that I do not have to open a book or search the web for the standards when I need to refer to them, saving me valuable time.
One thing that has become increasingly clear with the integration of technology in education is that certain types of learners can reap huge benefits through said technology. No matter what the learning, mental or physical disability a student might have, there is probably something out there that has been designed to assist him.
A good example of this is OpenDyslexic, a font that has been designed to increase readability for readers with Dyslexia. I first heard about this through Marco Arment’s (@marcoarment) Instapaper app a few months ago when he included OpenDyslexic as a font choice. The font uses thick lines at the bottom of the letters to add “weight” to each character. The added weight helps to anchor the text, and increases readability for students with dyslexia.
For those of us who aren’t dyslexic, it’s easy to forget the power of technology for improving our lives. Sure, we use technology to do some neat stuff, but we should also remember that technology can be transformative. As educators, we need to stay up to date on new developments like OpenDyslexic, so that we can continue to assist our students who struggle with disabilities.