Chapter 1 Summary: To Sell Is Human... by Daniel Pink

As a instructional technology coach, I spend most of my days trying to convince teachers and administrators to integrate more technology effectively into their lessons and their schools.  In other words, I'm trying to sell them an idea or a new way of thinking.  I truly believe that integrating technology effectively into everyday lessons is imperative if we live up to our goal to produce lifelong learners and productive members of our society.  The difficult part is getting my message through to the teachers and administrators that I work with.

Daniel Pink has written a new book which deals with all of us, especially in education, are salespeople of ideas.  Each day we do our best to convince young people that reading, writing, arithmetic, social studies, etc. are important to their lives.  In his new book, To Sell is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others, Daniel Pink explores the idea that most of us are sales people.  In the Introduction he states, "But all of you are likely spending more time than you realize selling in a broader sense-pitching colleagues, persuading funders, cajoling kids.  Like it or not, we're all in sales now." 

 

Part I "Rebirth of a Salesman", Chapter 1 "We're All in Sales Now" 

 

Mr. Pink begins the chapter by telling the story of Norman Hall who is Fuller Brush Salesman.  Now being 42, I should remember a Fuller Brush Salesman coming to my hometown in Greene, New York, but the memory escapes me.  However, I do remember vacuum cleaner salesmen, the Charles Chips guy, and the two encyclopedia sets my parents bought.  Norman, as a door to door salesman, must convince people to buy brushes in his catalog, and it is a lost art.  As Mr. Pink points out, whatever I want to buy in 2013 I go to the Internet and buy the item much like I bought this book.  I read reviews online, saw posts on Twitter, and purchased the book through Amazon for my app without ever having to leave the comfort of my home.


The next part of the chapter reveals stats of many sales people are in some countries around the world.  Mr. Pink references 1 in 9 Americans are in direct sales, but as he points out, most of the rest of us are in indirect sales for example, "Teachers sell students on the value of paying attention in class."  In a study he conducted, 40% of us spend our time at work persuading, influencing, and convincing others but more powerful, we consider this time crucial to our work. (Chapter 1, "The Rise of Non-Sales Selling").

I'm looking forward to reading the next chapter and the ones after.  After all, my job and responsibility is to sell to teachers and administrators the value of effectively integrating technology into the classroom. 

Two Tools - One Presentation

This post will feature a video of how to embed the HTML Code from a Voki Avatar (www.voki.com) into a Weebly Webpage (www.weebly.com). The cool thing about this is that it allows you to use one tool to create a talking avatar, and then use it as a part of another Web 2.0 Tool by putting the Avatar directly into your Weebly Web page.

You will need to have created the Voki ahead of time...and be on an already created Weebly. Once both pieces are in place, have both the Voki and the Weebly tabs available so that you can move easily between the sites.

1. In the Voki: After you have created a Voki Avatar character and given him or her an audio message to relate. Then click Publish. On the right side you will see a box that gives you an Embed Code. Click into the code and then click the Copy button right above the box. You are now ready to move to the Weebly.

2. In the Weebly: While on one of your pages, click on into the "Elements" tab. On the top left you will see the word "Basic" under the Weebly Editor. Click to make sure you are in Basic. Then on the far right, you will see a box called HTML. Drag and Drop this box into you page. Wait on it to settle...then click in the box and Paste the Embed Code from your Voki into this box. Click outside the box and wait a few seconds. You should see your Voki inside your Weebly.

Good luck.

Follow me on Twitter @Bdy4Lyf

Tech-ing the High School Research Paper

Writing an effective research paper is an important skill for a high school student for a number of reasons.  Students learn…

1) research skills

2) to cite sources and give credit where credit is due.

3) to analyze information, make an argument, and support the information/argument with sources.

4) to organize their ideas.

5) to write as academics in the field they are studying.

 

However, too often we ask students to complete the process using the same techniques I was taught in the 80’s.  Students go to the library and get a demonstration of where to find the books on the shelf.  They are allowed to use the Internet (didn’t have that in the 80’s) but are not taught how to do an effective search.  Sources are organized onto note cards and the final paper is turned into the teacher to correct.

I recently completed graduate school from a local university and had to complete one research paper in most of my classes.  However, I could not give you directions to the library and have no idea where it is on campus.  Why?  Because I used the library’s database of information and did effective searching for articles on Google.  Let's teach students to complete research papers using the tools available to us in 2013 from choosing a topic, locating sources, organizing thoughts, publishing their work, and marketing the final product.

Below are steps to the research paper, and how I would "tech" the steps up.

 1. Pick a topic.

                Wallwisher - This is a great site for brainstorming.  Students can post to the wall any idea they have for a topic.  Could be used as whole class or in small group to brainstorm topic ideas.

 2. Find sources, both primary and secondary. 

               SCDiscus - SCDiscus is South Carolina's public library system online and is a free service to all residents of South Carolina.  According to its "About" page, "DISCUS - South Carolina’s Virtual Library is the “information place” for all South Carolinians. DISCUS – which stands for Digital Information for South Carolina USers – provides free access to an electronic library that’s available 24/7."  For users in other states, check with your media specialist to learn what state library resources are available in your state.
              
                Google Advanced Search - Most students I've observed using Google only go to Google's homepage, type in a search term, and choose one of the top ten results.  However, Google's Advance Search can be very helpful.  To use them, go to Google's homepage, type in a search term, and search for results.  On the right hand side of the page, there will be a gear symbol, and one of the choices is Google Advanced Search.  Some of the great options in advanced search is the ability to search by key words, phrases, domain (.gov, .edu, etc,) and reading level.

                Google Scholar - Google Scholar is an excellent search for engine for your honors and AP level students.  "Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature."  I used this search engine a lot in my graduate studies when articles through the library were insufficient. 

               

 3. Organize the ideas and sources.

 

                Symbaloo - I would use one of the online bookmarking sites like Symbaloo. Symbaloo allows you to save links in a matrix, and each link can be color coded and given symbols for better organization. Symbaloo is free, and students under 16 need written consent from a parent to use.

                Livebinders - It is another online service to store all of your ideas. Think of Livebinders as 3-ring notebook with tabs and sections. Students can upload their materials, pdfs, links, word documents, etc to their Livebinders. Livebinders expects its users to be 13. 

                pbworks or wikispaces - With pbworks and wikispaces, students can create different pages for source information including quotes, citations, etc.  With both services, teachers can create accounts for students, so under 13 are welcomed.

 

4. Organize the research paper.

              Popplet - Popplet is an online web making tool.  Students can use the service to organize their paper and how the ideas will flow.  If it is a group project, other Popplet users can be sent invitations to work together.  Popplet expects its users to be 13.

5.  Publish the research paper.
                Kidblog - In the past, the only person who saw the research paper was the teacher.  Kidblog is a blogging service that is free where a teacher sets up a classroom and has many privacy controls which is great for younger children.  Students publish their research paper as a blog-post and other students, teachers, administrators, parents, and professionals in the field can read and comment on the papers.
 
               pbworks or wikispaces - In my graduate studies, one professor had us post our research papers to a wiki so others in the class could read our research papers.  On the final exam, questions came from the research papers posted.
 
6. Market the research paper.
               Twitter and Email - We did not market our research papers in the 80's so this is new.  Share student research papers for others to read, comment, and learn from.  Mitch Resnick, an MIT professor stated, “We wouldn’t consider someone literate if they could read but couldn’t write.  Are we literate if we consume content online, but don’t produce?”

Enjoy "teching up" the research papers.

Student Poetry Gets Animated

Students have been reading, interpreting, analyzing, and writing poetry since the beginning days of education.  The problem is we still ask students to do all of this using the same strategies for centuries.  With technology, we have the ability to get our poetry animated and allow it to come to life.

South Carolina English Language Arts teachers recently had their conference at Kiawah Island, South Carolina.  A teacher who attended the conference heard of animated poetry so we did some investigating.  At first, we thought the presenter had used Adobe Flash, but I am not a fan of it simply because it is a pay program.  Next we looked at Animoto and it seems to be a good solution.

First Animoto is free.  Educators can get an education license which allows them to create full length movies plus the the teacher can create 50 student accounts.  The promo code for the student accounts will be sent to your email.  Your education license plus the 50 free student accounts allows you to create full length videos and download them.  Your education license is good for 6 months then you must renew.  The normal free license only allows 30 second videos and no download. 

With the Animoto for Education service, students under 13 may use the service.  Before using however, I strongly suggest you read the terms of service for Animoto for Education first.

Creating an animated poem is fairly easy.  First, we read our poem, Cross by Langston Hughes, and did a voice recording using the free software Audacity.  Audacity allows you to turn it into an mp3.  Next, we gathered our images then uploaded the images and mp3 track to Animoto.  I suggest playing around with the themes in Animoto because it really brings your poetry alive, or should I say ANIMATED!!

Here is the link to my Animated Poem, Enjoy!!!

P.S. I made the video before registering for an education account, so I was limited to 30-seconds.

http://animoto.com/play/m10jfA4J1KrjoYsxqoMCGQ

Get Students to Be Creative Simply with PhotoStory 3

Giving students the opportunity to express their creativity and knowledge using technology is essential in this century.  However, the problem is the learning curve and and the time associated with it. 

There are many state standards to teach and learn so having technology that is simple to use and efficient is a must.  One such technology is Photo Story 3 for Windows.  It is free as a software download and can be taught in 10 minutes or less.

Most movies can be completed in two one-hour periods or less.  I recommend students write their storyboard and locate their images on day one and create their movie on day two.  Frederick County Public schools has a storyboard I like to use.

No Paper Needed Teacher Observation Form for FREE!

A lot of school districts use a triplicate form for teacher observations, or they pay very good money to a company to do the observations online.  Like most districts, we do not have the dollars to pay for an online observation form but want to move to paperless.  We now have a solution.  We use Google Forms with Google Drive.

Administrators will now have an option to take a laptop pr tablet into a classroom and complete a teacher observation.  There are three large advantages to this.

1. The administrator completing the observation does not have to fill out paperwork later about what he or she remembered in the classroom.
2. The observation data is stored in a Google Form spreadsheet that can be sorted and filtered to analyze data, powerful data.
3. Our process goes one step further.  Upon submission of the observation an email of the data is email to the teacher being observed and administrators (principal, assistant principals, curriculum coach) in the building. 

Below is a video on how to create one for your school.

Solve Your Communication Problem with Parents and Students

Teachers and Administrators,

It is halfway through the school year, and it is time again for report cards to go out.  Inevitably you will have a parent or two come see you and ask why her son has such a low grade.  The parent doesn't understand the grade because her child states there is never any work to do in your classroom even though you regularly give homework, quizzes, and tests.  How will you improve your communication with the parent?  I have the perfect solution, and it is called Remind 101.

Remind 101 is exactly what its name states; it is a reminder service.  Texts messages go from you the teacher to the students and parents.  You are probably saying something sarcastic like, "Great, I will have parents' and students' phone numbers, they will have mine, and worse they will be replying to me all night.  No thank you!!."  Remind 101 does not allow any of this which is one of the reasons I recommend the service.  Here is a list of reasons to use it.

1) It is FREE!!!

2) It is an opt-in program.  You create groups, get unique codes for each group, and share with parents and students to sign up.

2) Remind parents and students of upcoming tests, quizzes, etc.  It has a schedule feature so you can post your comments and have them sent at a later time.

3) It is a reminder feature so it is one-way traffic.  You text them, but they can't reply to you.

3) No phone numbers are shared.  They do not see your number, and you do not see their number.  You do see user names in case you need to delete a user.

4) Let students and parents know that standard message rates apply so they should only use the service if they have an unlimited plan because you plan on communicating with them a lot!!

5) There is an app for that.  Both iPhone and Android has an app you can use.