Partner Spotlight

Many of us spent the month of October celebrating Connected Educator Month.  Over the last four years, the grassroots push for educators to engage in professional learning opportunities on their own – outside of school requirements – has increased. Last month, many organizations organized and sponsored professional learning opportunities including webinars, virtual conferences, book studies, virtual field trips  and twitter chats. All were designed to help educators learn from each other and engage in collaborative activities that have the potential to transform teaching practice and change what education looks like in classrooms around the world. Now that October's flurry of activity is over, you may be asking "what next?" Or "how do those who have just begun connecting continue to move forward?"

Here are a few tips inspired by the book The Relevant Educator by Tom Whitby and Steven W. Anderson. I read the book with a group of teachers last month as part of the TeachersFirst #CE16 celebration:

• Get in the habit of reflection. Consider starting an online journal where you can reflect on your learning experiences. Penzu is a great tool for this. With a free account you can make an unlimited number of entries and share selected entries by creating a public link. Use the public link when you want to share your reflection via twitter, Facebook or Google+.
• Envision your PLN. Use a drawing program (such as Google draw) to create an image of what you would like your PLN to look like. Include as many details as you can – names of blogs or podcasts, communities, twitter chats, people or hashtags to follow, etc. Once you've mapped out what you have or would like to have, you'll have a better idea of how to move forward making connections and building out your PLN.
• Find and attend an Edcamp near you. Edcamps are a great place to get involved in teacher-to- teacher collaboration. There is no pressure to remain in a session that doesn't meet your needs, and best of all you can attend for free.
• Join an educator community. There are a number of free professional learning communities you can join. The EdWeb platform has a number of free communities where educators actively share with each other. Classroom 2.0, English Companion, and Flipped Learning Community are a few free communities that you can find on the NING platform. In addition, a number of  professional organizations, including NSTA and ISTE, now sponsor free educator communities on their websites.
• Create a plan. Recognize that building a PLN is a process and not a race. Decide when and how you will continue the process. Plan to spend 15-20 minutes a day engaged in reading blogs, listening to podcasts, or searching twitter. Create a schedule of activities for the next month, and see how it works out for you.  You can always revamp as needed.

As you continue your connected educator journey, be sure to follow @SFLOK2Ask to learn about free  professional learning opportunities sponsored by The Source for Learning.

Ruth Okoye
[email protected]

With the 1 to1 initiatives and the distribution of ipads, chromebooks, and laptops, how do your students get the use out of them during their daily travels?

Well first, let’s define a connected bus.  A connected bus isn’t just a Wi-Fi signal for the student.  You can’t just plug in an access point with a 4G card.  Well you could, but you wouldn’t do it in a classroom without proper security and management, so why would you do it on the bus?  The “infrastructure” on the bus needs to be planned and managed just like it would in the classroom.  Protecting the student is first and foremost.  Protecting them not only from bad sites and cyber security hacking but also, once you have Wi-Fi on a bus, there are so many things to consider!

• Consider a solution that can integrate with other technologies on the bus. As technology evolves  GPS, video Surveillance, Telematics, Virtual Routes, Driver tracking, Emergency Services Integration are all pieces to consider and making sure all of your solutions integrate and are secured equally.  If the technologies are implemented in silos, it not only becomes a management nightmare, but also a cyber security one.  Your student’s safety will depend on the security of the bus overall, and just one unsecured system could lead to disaster down the road.
• Student Safety. Wi-Fi on the bus leads to op
  tions that can enhance the safety of the students and communication to the parents and staff.  Options include:
  1. Video Surveillance that can be accessed when needed
  2. Geo-Tagging with an App that can track the bus and give the ability to see where the bus is.

 

• Swipe cards when the student gets on and off the bus. Alerts can be set up to go to the parent when a student does not get on the bus or gets off on the wrong bus stop.  This can save critical minutes in a missing child case.

2. The driver takes roll when they get on the bus with their tablet. This is especially good for K-2.

• Plan for the future. You probably are wondering where the budget will come from?  You are budget bound, but sitting down and planning the future of your student's connection is very important for when funding can be planned.  Consider a workshop with the key players in the room, this not only includes the schools but even the city and public safety.  How can the connected bus play into your community?  How can the technology integrate with the city/county and Emergency services?  It can even generate revenue with cameras that can record and Geo-tag offenders that don’t stop for the bus.
• Lastly, don’t expect the world! Connected Wi-Fi in the bus means a Wi-Fi connection for the student to do homework, not to watch Netflix and play PokemonGo!  Devices are connected to support the students in their homework effort.  These devices should be an extension of the classroom and part of your extended network and security.  Planning for a future solution is key, if not the pieces may not fit or be secure.  It’s the Internet of Things (IoT)!

As the Digital Conversion progresses and the students day gets extended, utilizing their daily commute as a resource is a good move.  Presidio can help with that first workshop to determine what the future may hold.  We look forward having the discussion!

Monica Curry

[email protected]

www.presidio.com