I just re-read this article "When School Leaders Empower Teachers, Better Ideas Emerge" because I am personally struggling as a teacher in a school where I don't think this is happening.

If I were a principal I would view my position as the educational leader with responsibility to see to the education of the students, the professional development of the teachers and the management of the school. These are all my responsibilities, but I cannot (and should not) do it all on my own!! In all schools there will be many people there to help me. I would delegate the power to individuals for certain jobs or tasks. By doing so I will increase the leadership in the teachers and staff as well as improving the idea that it is “our school”. I will delegate the authority and lend support, but I will never forget that I am the one stakeholders will hold responsible and accountable. 

It is this "delegating power" that gets tricky. In the article,Chris Lehmann, principal of Science Leadership Academy, is quoted stating "Distributed leadership is not ‘I empower you to do exactly what I say,’ ”it is a way to give the teachers the power to make decisions and affect change. The article goes on stating "For teachers to buy into a system like this, which asks more of their time outside class, they must feel they are professionals trusted by leadership" and "teachers have to know that support from leadership won’t be pulled away at the first bump or disagreement. There has to be space for different perspectives." 

Trusted by leadership. What a concept!! Too many times has an administrator asked me to do something or lead something without empowering me. It is frustrating because I do everything I can as a teacher, but without the principal's empowerment I can only do so much. 

Now to the the one line I don't like. It really is only the word "responsibility" in the first line of the following excerpt  I don't like:

“Just because you are empowered to take responsibility, there’s still that need for support,” said educator Lisa Williams. “That has to come from on top, on bottom and from left and right.” Other educators acknowledged that when power is distributed and then ripped away, it often results in disenchanted teachers disinclined to participate again."

It really should be "...your are empowered with the authority...". This comes from my Marine Corps days at NCO school: "You can delegate authority but you cannot delegate responsibility". The responsibility for everything about the school remains solely with the principal. Period.

"When done well, distributing leadership creates a community of people on the same page, working hard toward defined goals". Isn't this what a school should be like? As a hopeful future administrator it is what I will strive for!!

And I have to differentiate?!?!?

If you are like me, the word "differentiate" drives me crazy!!  I have been teaching now for 17 years and this one still gets to me.  I hear it used most by administrators and curriculum directors.  You know, the ones that don't need to actually do it!!  I am sure many of you have been to a workshop (or 2 or 3) and have participated in many professional development activities about "differentiation" and have learned how it is "the way" to teach!  However, if you believe JAMES R. DELISLE differentiation doesn't work.

WHAT?!?!?  How could all those experts be wrong??!!? Mr. Delisle states:

Although fine in theory, differentiation in practice is harder to implement in a heterogeneous classroom than it is to juggle with one arm tied behind your back.

He goes on and further states:

The biggest reason differentiation doesn't work, and never will, is the way students are deployed in most of our nation's classrooms. Toss together several students who struggle to learn, along with a smattering of gifted kids, while adding a few English-language learners and a bunch of academically average students and expect a single teacher to differentiate for each of them. That is a recipe for academic disaster if ever I saw one. Such an admixture of students with varying abilities in one classroom causes even the most experienced and conscientious teachers to flinch, as they know the task of reaching each child is an impossible one. 

Now fair is fair so here is the definition of "differentiation" from Rick Wormeli, one of the leading experts in differentiation:

Differentiation means we do whatever it takes to maximize instruction over what could otherwise be achieved through whole-class, one-size-fits-all approaches. It's teaching in ways students learn best, not just presenting material and documenting students' success (or lack thereof) with it. 

My problem is that no matter how much I understand and want to do what Mr. Wormeli is asking me to do, I just have to agree with Mr. Delisle.  So, like most teachers, I feel that since I don't "differentiate" I am a horrible teacher and doing my students a disservice..... at least that is what I thought....

Have you ever helped a student on a test?  Have you ever allowed a student to use a calculator but made another student do the math "in his head"?  Have you ever answered a student's question with a question while answering another student's question with a specific example of where to find the answer? Have you ever allowed a student to use a word processor so they can use the spell check feature?  Have you allowed a student to create a poster instead of writing a paper?  If you have done any of these, guess what, in my eyes you have differentiated your instruction!!

Whoo hoo! Pat yourself on the back because I am sure many of you have done some the things I stated as well as countless others.

If you keep the following in mind, I have the utmost confidence that you will be able to "differentiate" your instruction (from Katharine Jacques and Eric Dextradeur: Managing a Successful Differentiated Reading Classroom)

There are three main areas of instruction where differentiation occurs. They are:
Content: what the students need to learn. Generally, content is determined by local, state, and national curriculum standards.
Process: The way students arrive at the content is referred to as process. The term process is often used in exchange for activities and refers to the activities the students take part in to gain an understanding of, or make sense of, the content.
Product: means in which the student expresses a culminating understanding of the content. 

 How can technology be used to help us?  One way to help us teachers create activities is to use "The Differnentiator".  This is a web based tool that will help you change up the "content, process and product".  Also, take a look at the image below, it does a good job of showing what different technologies can be used to help you differentiate:

So, let me repeat myself to help you feel better as a professional educator: if you have done any of the thing I stated earlier to help a student learn,  you are  differentiating your instruction!

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Some resources:
The Differeniator
Differentiation in the Classroom
Managing a Successful Differentiated Reading Classroom
Differentiation at the Secondary Level

Using Smartphones in a smart way

To give away my age a little bit, I remember writing and using note cards in high school.  I hated it.  I had (and still have) horrible handwriting, I could not keep them in order and cards from one class would invariably end up in another class.

As a physics teacher I allow my students to use an "equation card".  This can be a note card or a piece of paper where the students can write equations and definitions.  They can use this on test and quizzes.  I try to stress to my students that I am more interested in how they solve the problem than their answer.  As many of you are aware, many physics problems require multiple steps to solve, especially projectile motion problems.

I have tried many methods do help my students become proficient at solving projectile motion problems with varying degrees of success.  This year however, I stumbled upon an idea while observing my students as they were taking notes, more specifically how they were taking notes: they were using their phones and taking pictures of the board!! What a concept!

So, I quickly came up with an idea.  I used Google Docs and created "note cards" that had all the individual steps needed to solve a projectile motion problems.  I then printed them on business cards and had the students arrange them in the correct order.  Then, they were to take their phones out and take a picture!  Welcome to the new face of note cards!!

I have embedded a little video I created using WeVideo that shows how the students completed this activity.

For those who are interested here is a folder with a completed problem as well as the cards: Projectile Motion Docs

ZamZar turns Documents into MP3s!

Yes, you read that right... ZamZar can convert text documents into MP3s!!  Now, if this is not news to you, then I apologize.... But it was fantastic news to me!!  I have a large number students with IEPs this year and this is going to help quite a bit.  

All you do is go to ZamZar, upload your document, choose MP3 and wait for an email with the link to download your file!!  Now, it is not perfect (think about the two different ways to say the word "read") and it sounds like Stephen Hawkings but it is a whole lot easier than trying to record the document myself!!

I only tried it with a Word document so if anyone tries it with other types of documents (or have had success with other types of documents) please pass on the good information!!!

By the way, I found this out looking through the site called 21things4teachers. If you have never looked at it, it is worth a look!

Google updates sheets to allow inserting Trendlines

Today ladies and gentlemen I am happy and sad at the same time.  As many of you are aware, I created an "add on" for Google Sheets to allow for adding trendlines to graphed data.  I recently made version 2 public (here is link Trendline Add on Ver 2).  In this version I included the statistical analysis to include showing the "r^2" value as well as the slope and y intercept.

I just learned today that Google has updated Sheets to allow.... wait for it.....  adding trendlines to a chart!!!

Here is a link to a GoogleGooru video that discusses adding trendlines: Adding Trendlines to Charts

Something that the video did not cover is how to show the "r^2" value and the equation of the trendline.  The "r^2" value is easy: there is a box that you can select to show it.  To show the equation you need to select the "Label" dropdown and choose "Use equation".

So, I am a sad that Google added something that I spent a lot of time and energy working on... but happy that they did so!!!

New way to locate files in Google Drive!

I really just uncovered this wonderful feature of the new Google Drive interface.  I love the search capability of Drive but as a teacher I usually have other docs that correspond with the doc I am looking for so I need to know what folder it is in.  I know I can look at the details but there just needed to be a better way.  Well today I found it... do a search for your document, in the results you can right click on a file in and select "Locate in My Drive"!

I don't know about you but this is going to be a wonderful tool for me!!

Change the background of a PDF?

Excellent question.... and this was asked by Stephen Colley in a recent  Google+ post 

I know that you can use Micro$oft Word to convert the PDF to a Word doc, then change the background then re-save as a pdf but this requires Word. If you convert the pdf to a Google Doc then all you have is an "image" of the pdf and changing the page color does no good.

So, I went to my trusty pdf editor known as PDFEscape  and I found out something very interesting... I can open the PDF, add a rectangle over the whole page, set its color and, wait for it..... change it's opacity!!  I found that if the PDF was on a white page then an opacity of 30% makes it look great! I then took it an extra step and tried it with an image, and guess what.... it works!! Here is a link to a the pdf that I edited (note that it will show up in PDFEscape's read only viewer) Change the PDF background

My only compliant with PDFEscape is that it is not connected to Google Drive (at least as far as I can tell) so you have to do a "download - upload" dance.  But for me, it is worth it!!

Let me know what you use to edit PDFs or if you have a better way of changing the background of a PDF.