Your brain is literally wired to wonder, question, reflect, and be curious.  Just think about how many times a day you have moments where you get off track and start thinking about other things.

Sometimes we’re reflecting on a past experience, questioning our decision making or the decision making of others, or perhaps we’re wondering about something in the future.  At times we’re wondering about possibilities.  Those moments where we’re thinking, “I wonder if anyone has thought of this…?”

We can all strengthen and grow our creative thinking skills, and like getting in better shape at the gym, if we do it daily and with repetition, we’ll see the results!  Often these “off task” moments are the start of a potential workout set for our creative thinking muscles.  The initial wonder (ex. “I wonder if anyone has thought of…”) is like your very first rep in the set.  If you stop there, you won’t see any results and won’t develop your creative thinking skills.  Allowing yourself to go “down the rabbit” hole so to speak (focusing time and energy) empowers you to develop your creative thinking skills.

The internet is full of great resources that can support us as educators in developing creative thinking skills in our students.  Cheryl Wilson (K-12 Teacher Technology Consultant) has a great compilation to get anyone started: CLICK HERE.

Do you know what the legal minimum age requirement is for most social media sites?

• Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Google+, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit = 13.
• LinkenIn = 14.
• WhatsApp = 16.
• Vine and Tinder = 17.
• YouTube, Kik, and WeChat = 18.

Despite all these legal minimum age requirements, a shocking number of children under the age limit are actively using social media.  An article on MailOnline from over 2 years ago estimated that more than half of children use social media by age 10!  So while these social media sites have put these requirements in place, they are clearly just words on the “easy to click” user agreement that are being greatly ignored.  From my experience, many adults (parents and educators) are well aware of children using these social media sites despite being under the minimum age requirement.

So where does this leave us when it comes to legality vs. reality?  Well, clearly reality is winning (and winning big).  Educating people about the legal age minimum requirements seems to do very little.  Over the past 2 years we’ve held several sessions as part of our iPLAN (Parents Learning About the Net) Network in our school district (click here to learn more) and shared these legal requirements with parents that have attended.  While some parents leave and decide to have their child wait until he/she is of age before using social media, many acknowledge their child’s use and realize it’s quite an uphill battle when so many other children are using it that are under age.

So in concentrating on what’s in the span of our control and what we can positively influence, we’ve spent more time focusing on how adults can support children when it comes to social media use.  Many of these best practice tips have been adopted by participants that have attended our iPLAN sessions.

Just some of the strategies we’ve shared during these sessions…

• Be a friend on your child’s social media account.
• Model the way!  Consider having a family social media account and together with your child practice positive digital citizenship in your posting.
• Discuss positive and smart posting (think STEP = Stop, Think, Empathize, and then Post).
• Do not try and learn about the plethora of social media sites out there (there are new ones almost every day).  Instead, invest your time to learn about the sites your children are most interested in.  Just ‘Google’ it 🙂
• Take a curious stance.  Don’t ask questions in an accusatory way (ex. “What are you doing on there?”)  Instead, ask questions to better understand how and why your child and other children use a specific social media site (ex. “How does it work?  Why do people use it?”)
• Remember that mistakes are incredible learning opportunities (both mistakes your child may make and mistakes that others make).

In the end, the reality is that children (younger and younger) are using social media.  Perhaps this is a blessing in disguise, in that it provides us an impetus to teach our children and help guide them (which can often be easier when they are younger vs. when they are teenagers).

Let me paint the scene.

You recently heard about a cool new web tool or piece of technology that you think may be able to enhance student learning in your classroom.  You are new to this web tool/technology and perhaps have some of the following questions:

• Is there a better (or perhaps free) version of this web tool/technology out there?
• What if we can’t afford it?
• What if it’s not compatible with our current technology?

These (and many more) are all great questions.  Even with all these lingering questions, you are still thinking…

“I want to use       (new web tool/technology)     in my classroom”.

To help you open up more doors and broaden your ed tech possibilities, simply add the word TO and state what you hope to accomplish with this new tool/technology.

“I want to use       (new web tool/technology)     in my class TO      (accomplish this)    .“

Identifying what you hope to accomplish with a certain web tool or new technology will greatly increase the scope of what’s “out there” for you to consider.  Simply google what you hope to accomplish with your students and you’ll find a plethora of tools/technology that can help you.

Do you want to help your students collaborate?  Collaboration Tools

Do you want to help them brainstorm? Brainstorming Tools

Maybe you want them to share ideas throughout a lesson… Backchannel Tools

Shifting your focus and asking yourself what a given web tool accomplishes, will go a long way in providing you many more tech avenues worth exploring!

When it comes to supporting our children in the digital world, there are so many great analogies to guide us along.  I’ve heard many great ones over the years that help us develop they right mindset and approach in supporting our children to be both positive and safe in the online world:

Digital parenting is like…

• Teaching your child to ride a bike… the only problem is you don’t know how to ride the bike yourself! (*my personal favourite)
  • Just like teaching your child to ride a bike, you do it in a step-by-step, gradual release fashion. You start with training wheels… then no training wheels with you hand on the back… then allowing your child to ride around cul-de-sac… It take lots of support and time before you even let them ride out of your sight!  Since many of us aren’t as confident about how to ride a this “digital bike”, our best approach is to learn how to ride it alongside our children.
• Teaching your child to swim.  You can’t do it by simply putting a fence around the pool.
  • All the “blocking” software/apps/programs won’t build the digital citizenship skills your child needs to make smart choices and build a positive digital footprint.
• Giving your child the keys to your car.  You wouldn’t do it without going over your rules and expectations.
  • Too often when kids are given their first phone, it is given with little conversation around expectations.  We wouldn’t take this approach when letting our children use our vehicles for the first time.  Remember smartphones pose just as many dangers as a car… if not more!
• Letting your child sleep at a friend’s house.  You would check in, but you wouldn’t secretly watch them from outside the window.
  • Tracking your child’s activity is a great approach to helping keep them safe and positive online, but doing it covertly is setting them up. This can make a child feel resentful and not trusted (which unfortunately can often lead to a child going about their digital activity in a secretive way).

I’m always looking for more great analogies when it comes to digital parenting. They can be great to help us develop the right mindset to support our children in the complex digital world.

Have you heard any worth sharing?  Would love to hear them!

“Can educators be lulled into a false impression they have been developing creativity in students when using technologies that produce brilliant-looking results?”

This powerful question was posed by Doug Johnson in, “Power Up! Technology and the Illusion of Creativity.”  I took a real step back when I first started reading his article.  I’ve always believed that technology (paired with meaningful learning activities) can be breed powerful opportunities for students to be creative.  I’m glad I didn’t just glance at the title on this one and read it all the way through.  Johnson goes on to share that we need to be critical and mindful of the ways our students are using technology when our goal is to foster creative thinking (spot on)!

I’ve witnessed this first hand.  In previous years, I’ve had students create a product in minutes that looks great, but little thought (especially creative thought) went into the product.  In fact, I have a challenge for you… try and see how quickly you can create a product using technology that looks great, but may have very little meaning behind it.  

Here are some examples I made in just a few quick minutes:

(I made this image by simply highlighting all the words in one of my previous blog posts and entered them into the word-cloud creator on the Wordle website… no major thought in the process).

(I took this picture from the camera roll on my phone and quickly ran it through a couple nifty filters in a free photo editing app… again, no major thought in the process).  

A key approach I believe is that we must focus on process over product.  It’s becoming easier and easier to make a product that looks great, but may have little substance.  Now this isn’t exactly a problem, until you are looking at a product to assess a student’s work.  If we instead shift more of our assessment focus onto the student’s process, we’ll have a much more accurate sense of the student’s abilities (and more importantly, we’ll be better able to engage them in critical feedback on their strengths and their next steps in development).

Welcome, everyone, to the Digital Learning Culture.

Learn, Share, Lead… that is the goal of this blog: to share insights and ideas, as well as stories, best practices, and examples of ways educators in our district (and elsewhere) are effectively integrating technology for their students.

My name is Jordan Kleckner and I am the newly appointed District Principal of Learning Technology in the Central Okanagan School District (SD No.23) in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada.  Previously I was an administrator in an elementary school in our district, and prior to that a teacher at an alternate school (doing everything from supporting at-risk students to teaching in both online and blended learning environments).

As the District Principal of Learning Technology, I am honoured to be a part of a highly skilled team of technicians and educators.  We strive to purposefully and meaningfully integrate technology into our classrooms and our schools by growing a Digital Age Learning Culture.  A culture where all stakeholders (teachers, administrators, support staff, community members, parents, and students) work together to build our capacity to leverage and infuse technology as we empower students in deep and meaningful learning.

Learn, Share, Lead… that is the goal of this blog.  Inspired by George Couros and a recent blog post of his: 4 Reasons People Don’t Blog and Ideas to Help Change Their Mind.   I am hoping to share insights and ideas, as well as stories, best practices, and examples of ways educators in our district (and elsewhere) are effectively integrating technology for their students.  I am reminded of the same powerful quote from Derek Sivers that George Couros mentions in his article above (it’s also something I heard Bruce Bearisto share at a conference I attended a few years back). “What is obvious to you, may be amazing to others.”  The notion that one of the most powerful ways to build our understanding around educational technology is to simply share what we are doing with others.  You may think it’s fairly basic and straightforward, but even as someone who is a passionate learner in this area, I’m constantly amazed around what others are doing with educational technology (things I didn’t know were possible or even existed).  It opens up new doors and breeds new ideas on how we can create powerful and purposeful learning for our students.

So let’s inspire each other!  We are all learners and leaders when we share and collaborate.