As the poet Ice Cube once said, "Today was a good day" I feel that statement undersells what happened to me day. I promise I will go into more details with separate posts on these various events, but I just wanted to share everything thing with my PLN.
1. I picked up a student and took him to see a panel discussion with Governor Rick Snyder; state Superintendent Mick Flanagan; Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Roy Roberts; Keith Johnson, the president of the Detroit Teachers Union; Sharlonda Buckman, executive director of the Detroit Parent Network; Dan Varner, the executive director of Excellent Schools Detroit and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
2. My student and I rode on the #EdTour11 bus from Detroit and had a chance to interview Secretary Duncan for about 10 minutes. (Look for a post from my student on TheTowerPulse.net and a future post on how this all came about in the near future.)
3. Had a tech meeting where I requested the following unblocked for High School and Middle School students:
YouTube (High School Only)
Flickr
Google Images
Weebly
Drobbox
4. Twitter and Facebook are pending. We have some policy language regarding Social Media that needs to be addressed. I will be tweeting out Twitter requests asking for policy languages from districts that allow Facebook and Twitter.
5. Funding for my iPad Pilot was approved and the order will be placed in the next day or so.
6. My wife made chili for dinner and it was really good.
This was all on my 3rd day on the job as tech guy. I really hope that it isn't downhill from here.
I still have tons of work to do, but I need to thank some people.
I wanted to thank Justin Hamilton for connecting me to Cameron Brenchley. Cameron made it possible to have my student on the bus for a once in a lifetime experience.
I want to thank Secretary Duncan for taking 10 minutes out of his hectic schedule to answer questions of a high school teacher and teenage journalist.
I want to thank my wife for supporting me on all of the things I have done and been part of the past couple of years.
Lastly, I want to thank all of you. My PLN made this possible. When I started this blog and Twitter account 2.5 years ago, I never thought it would take me to a face to face meeting with the Secretary of Education. Thanks for all of your support and I promise to keep doing whatever it is that keeps you coming back. I look forward to sharing today's events in more details in the coming weeks.
- @TheNerdyTeacher
Congratulations Nick! Can't resist one little addition: we don't block YouTube in my elementary school and many people use it from kindergarten up for all sorts of rich learning experiences - so I'd say "high school only" is a start (but push it later on for the younger ones, 'k?)
ReplyDeleteWe are right on the teetering point of opening up YouTube district wide. Last year it was open for staff only k-12 and it was a great addition to our teaching tool kits.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest thing for me (before opening it up to k-12 kid use) is the education of the staff more than the kids as far as being able to set consistent and workable expectations and consequences that they convey to the kids. A lot of easy to distract material and we have to make sure kids stay where they belong on Youtube. It makes me thing of what a field trip to Times Square might be like...all kinds of great stuff to see and learn but a seedy underworld is just a couple of steps away if the teacher doesn't have a good handle on supervision.
As for the rest of your day Nick, awesome! Can't wait to see your interview and your student's work.