Us older folk have been waiting for 3 decades for the first decent new Star Wars movie to hit the big screens, and with the Force Awakens, we finally have it! (yeah, there have been the prequels too. Key word: decent). Millions have seen the movie already, and millions more will be seeing it during the rest of its screening weeks, therefore, we wont go into any spoilers. Instead, we’ll give you a Yoda-approved list of things Star Wars can teach you about eLearning (and/or life in general). 1. Don’t fall for the Dark Side This one is kind of obvious, isn’t it? And yet, it’s very easy to be tempted. After all, by choosing the dark side, you become part of a much more powerful organization than the Rebel Alliance. With much more powerful weapons, better spaceships and better working hours. Plus, you get to use the Force for fun immoral stuff, from making girls give you their numbers to cheating on snooker. It’s equally easy to fall for the Dark Side with TalentLMS by omitting crappy content, cutting corners hoping that the learner’s wont take notice, feeling carelessness towards users’ experiences, stealing copyrighted material, spamming people to convince them to sign up and so on. But as in Star Wars, just like in reality, people will rebel and demand improvement, and the good guys will eventually win. You must then ask yourself, Is the quick and dirty profit you obtain by embracing the dark side of TalentLMS worth risking your good name by associating yourself with the scammers of the internet? Heck, if it didn’t work out for Darth Vader, what makes you think it will work out for you? 2. "Judge me by my size, do you?" That’s, of course, what Yoda says, when Luke seems to doubt that this vertically challenged elderly man is a real Jedi master. Luke’s shortsightedness is a common mistake people make in evaluating software too, including LMS platforms. Instead of actually testing a piece of software in real conditions, and seeing how it works as a whole, potential users merely compare spec sheets and functionality matrices. The problem with such an approach is as follows; First of all, not all features are created equally. The fact that product A and product B both allow you to create "courses" doesn’t inform you on how productive, robust, intuitive and efficient each product is when it comes to their performance Second, it’s not always better to have more features. Especially when you need to cut corners to fit them all. For example, a regular laptop might have both a DVD drive AND a floppy drive, whereas a Macbook or a VAIO might have neither. But what the feature matrix doesn’t show is that the former is 1kg heavier and 1cm thicker, full of mechanical parts that can malfunction, with a 3-hour battery life. It’s the same with software. Comparison matrices only tell a skewed story, and only tell the parts that software vendors want to tell. You should evaluate software as a whole package, (instead of just as a list of features) and you should also pay attention to how it feels being put to actual use. The features you need and how well they are implemented is more important that the presence of 100 other features you don’t need which sound appealing but in reality, won’t be used in practice. That was true for the Millennium Falcon (which, as Solo put it: "She may not not look like much, but she got it where it counts") and its also true for TalentLMS (though, in its case, it looks good too!). 3. "Do or do not. There is no try" Another Yoda quote from the original trilogy. This one can be slightly deceptive, as it’s not actually against trying new things. What Yoda wants to say is that you should fully commit to what you do (in this case, your eLearning portal), instead of half-heartedly trying this or that to see what sticks. In other words, you won’t be able to build a great eLearning experience unless you’re really determined in building one so much that you’re not deterred by any difficulties you face early on. Nobody picked up a skill by trying to see if they were good at it — they did it by staying on the course with determination and patience, practicing as long as needed. A lot of people start a new eLearning business with unrealistic expectations of gaining quick money and easy success, only to quit the industry and try any random thing when those aspirations don’t pan out immediately. In startup terms, the urge to "try something else" is called "pivoting", and while it sometimes works, it’s more often than not the sign of an early quitter or a last desperate measure taken that is doomed to fail. 4. The universe is diverse. So is your audience A lot of sci-fi has been too human eccentric, faced with stereotypical perception that everybody in a future galactic civilization will be human, white and English speaking. As for aliens, when they appear, they are more often than not, monsters (like in the movie of the same name) or violent intruders (like in countless sci-fi flicks). Star Wars, on the contrary, paints a diverse galaxy, full of people of all kinds, colors and shapes. And while some "aliens" are clearly portrayed as the bad guys (e.g. Jabba the Hutt), others are equal and important members of the cast, from Yoda and Chewbacca down to the Rebel Alliance generals. Plan for your learners to be a diverse bunch as well, because in most probability, they will be. There’s a huge world out there, and an equally huge market of opportunities, to cater to the needs of learners globally. At the very least, your eLearning portal should accept payments from all over the world. After all, a web-based LMS like TalentLMS let’s you target the whole world, so why limit yourself? Then, after you’ve made sure that there’s an international interest for what you’re selling, you could take advantage of your LMS’ localization options to offer courses in different languages. 5. It takes more than a single person Han Solo might work, well, solo, but in the end, even he came back to help the rebel fighters in their fight against the Death Star. And while the story places emphasis on Luke Skywalker as the chosen one, fighting the Empire is always shown as a team effort, where everyone, from Luke and Admiral Ackbar to Jar Jar Binks is equally important (though we could probably do with less Binks). Case in point, just imagine how much better the prequels would have been if George Lucas had brought some other director (like he did for the Empire Strikes Back and the Return of The Jedi), instead of insisting them all to be completed by himself. Delivering a great eLearning experience, whether in an enterprise or a commercial setting, is also a team effort. If you have the right budget, you’ll get much better results by bringing other people in (graphic designers, content creators, instructors, etc.), and letting them input their best assets and contributions without micromanagement. Conclusion And that concludes our set of five pieces of eLearning advice slightly stretched and twisted to fit into a Star Wars narrative. Because (and that’s a sixth, free, Star Wars-inspired lesson for you all) if you mix up what you want to say in a nice story, people will pay more attention to it. Now go see the new movie — and may the force be with you! The post 5 things Star Wars can teach you about eLearning (no spoilers) appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

eLearning is big. "$120 billion dollars of revenue per year" big, at least as of 2015. And it has plenty of headroom to grow too, as in most industries, including the education industry, adoption is just getting started. Plus, with people warming up to the idea that eLearning can be just as efficient and valid as traditional learning, it has never been a better time to get in the business. If you’re tempted yourself, but unsure about how one should go about starting their own training business, then relax and read on, as in this post we’re gonna tackle exactly that. It’s not that hard First of all, you should know that it’s not that hard. If anything, maybe it’s too easy, as eLearning companies are appearing left and right, and are not always up to par. Modern technology, high speed internet and the emergence of turn-key full-featured LMS platforms like TalentLMS, have leveled the playing field so that a small two person company can compete with a big established training provider, if not in breadth of content, then surely in quality and presentation. Know your audience First though, you have to do a little market research. If you have a specific target audience in mind, you should first try to determine whether it’s large enough and whether online training would interest it. That’s something you should do before you commit your time and money in building your training company. You’ll only be able to tell with real certainty after your business opens doors, but at least this would help you rule out some impossible markets. For example, just because you’re passionate about a subject (e.g. latin) it doesn’t mean others are too, especially in large enough numbers to sustain an online training business. And you should approach equally cautiously subjects that are trendy now, but might not be two years down the road. If you can afford it, have a market research company assess the viability of the training business you’re considering. If you can’t, talk to people, run an informal survey, or put up a simple "sign-up for updates" form in your Facebook or landing page to gauge people’s interest. There are other factors that come into play too, besides whether your training courses cover popular enough topics. For example, are you targeting your local market (which, in countries like the US or China can be more than large enough in itself) or an international one? eLearning platforms like TalentLMS allow you to easily target an international audience, but, depending on who you want to reach, you might need to format your content appropriately (e.g. offer localized courses). And, obviously, you’ll also need to have payment methods that are accessible to them. How large you want your business to be (and how fast) is another important consideration, as it affects the required investment, your technological choices, and the size of your team. It can be much harder (and costlier) to scale later down the road if you haven’t made the right choices from the beginning. Another consideration is whether you are targeting the general market (that is, J. Random User on the web) or businesses. The latter, offering enterprise training as an outside contractor is a wholly viable business option, as not all enterprises have internal enterprise training programs, and even those that do, don’t cover all their training needs with them. That’s where you, as an independent training contractor could come in, offering them a complete training program without the hassle of deploying and maintaining it. It’s all about the content, baby Gangsta life might be "all about the Benjamins" (at least according to Puff Daddy), but eLearning is definitely all about the content. Whether you’re offering arabian flute lessons to whoever will subscribe or Economics 101 to enterprise audiences, your content needs to be top notch as it’s your number one differentiator. While traditional training establishments can differentiate themselves by the quality of their instructors (which is why universities pay top dollar for well known scientists), in online training it’s your content that the learners come into contact with first and foremost. You’ll need to have polished, professional looking content, with a high enough production value. No sloppy writing, no boring PowerPoints, no boring videos of talking heads. Take the time to do it right yourself or, if you can afford it, hire a talented writer, and learn about all the trade tricks that can increase the perceived (and actual) quality of your content (e.g. consistent typography). Run it like a business This goes without saying, but if you want to start your own online training business, you would need to treat it like a business too. First, you need to learn about revenue, taxes, pricing, elastic goods, and all that — in other words you’ll need a quick starter course in economics. Don’t just assume that you already know these things and that running a business is intuitive. Some economic concepts are, but most will come as a surprise, or maybe a revelation. A lack of understanding of notions like sunken cost, opportunity cost and price curves has hurt far too many businesses to mention. You’ll also need to keep up with the bureaucracy (especially the IRS doesn’t joke around), keep an eye on your competitors, and be on the lookout for business opportunities and partnerships. If you have in mind the cliche image of a boss that doesn’t do anything but collect his profits each month, you better forget it. Running a business is a 24/7 job. Pick the right technology For a successful online training business it’s important that you pick the right technology. eLearning is 50% the content and 50% its delivery (speed, UI, ease of use, intuitiveness, features, etc) — which is all about the technology used. The technology choice also affects your scalability options — how big your business can eventually get. Of course you probably want it to be infinitely scalable from day one, but that’s not easy (or cheap) to achieve if you’re building the learning platform yourself. It’s also something that’s not necessary to address when you start out: when you get to the point that your over-capacity, you can solve the problem then, albeit at a cost. Using a cloud platform might be the best solution in this case, as essentially you offload the scalability problem to your cloud provider, and you’re free to increase your plan (and reach) whenever the need arises. This flexibility will usually come at a small per-user fee paid to your Cloud vendor, but, unless you’re at Google scale, it’s still better than paying a huge amount upfront for building your own server farm plus the salaries to maintain your own IT team. Market it If you have your business license at hand, your content polished and loaded, and your LMS ready to welcome your learners, you might think that you’re ready to go. But that’s just the first part of starting a training business. Maybe even the easy part. The really hard part will be to market your training offering so that enough people will sign up. This all depends on your marketing budget and your ingenuity. At the very least you should give your website and service a professional and memorable look based on your corporate branding. Your target audience will also determine how you should market your eLearning offerings. E.g. if you target a niche industry (e.g. music production courses), then it would be a good idea to advertise in trade magazines and websites. If you’re competing for enterprise training contracts, you should target places like LinkedIn, talk to enterprise executives directly, etc. Of course if your business is unique enough and your content good enough, it might market itself, through word of mouth and favorable online reviews. But don’t depend on that being the case — you should, to paraphrase Glengarry Glen Ross, "always be marketing". Conclusion In this post we covered some of the considerations, decisions and prerequisites involved in starting a training business. Some of the things we mentioned you’ll already have thought on your own. Others, we hope, gave you some new insights on the process. We’d just like to repeat that there has never been a better time for starting an online training company. And it’s not some "gold rush" type of situation. eLearning is here to stay. And with the right business plan, you can really go no wrong. The post How to Start a Training Business appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

2015 was a good year for us, and we wish you have shared the same level of success. During the last year we experienced exponential growth with TalentLMS, we re-positioned our enterprise offering eFront and we released a new mobile app. Along the way we also got some important awards. Our restrengthened goal for 2016 is to excel on what brings value to you; to build usable and innovative learning tools that help you be a bit more productive and a lot more successful. We started as a technology driven company and we still carry a very strong technical DNA. We consider technology as the gatekeeper for greatness. And we spend most of our work time iterating over ideas that produce tools that people actively use, as the balance between usability, simplicity and fit-to-purpose is a moving target. We would like to use this opportunity to discuss what happened in Epignosis this year and our plans for the next one. So take a deep breath and let’s get started. The products TalentLMS is now over 32,000 learning portals strong and it grows at a pace of around 1,250 learning portals per month. On the infrastructure front, we experienced an up-time of over 99.99% which is among the very best in the industry. We also responded to 8,118 support messages. That’s up 68% over the previous 12 months. Within 2015 we had 4 major product releases. Those releases added the ability to build a custom homepage, offered ample opportunities for blended learning, minimized the administrative overhead with automated actions, let you schedule reports delivery, introduced subscription payments and the calendar. The last release also introduced the mobile app. Altogether, there is no sign of slowing down for TalentLMS’ improvement. This sets the tone for 2016 as well. eFrontPro had its own share of important milestones. The product is now a complete rebuild that shares little similarity with the original eFront. Here is a link to this year’s releases for those of you who have some time to dig into the details. This year we also took the hard, but necessary decision to discontinue the open-source version of eFront. The reason behind this can be found in this post. Finally, this year we introduced a micro-learning mobile app, called Snappico. The product uses the metaphor of cards to tell interesting stories, a card-per-day. Snappico is available for iPhone as we are speaking so go grab your copy. Currently there are over 350 topics to discover from English Civil War to how Aging works. We consider micro-learning an important part of the future learning landscape. The micro-learning concept is still in its early stages, a bit clumsy and immature, but we’ve seen a number of products lately that share the same enthusiasm about its potential. For example, check Primer, the Google’s app for Marketing micro-courses. The people We grew considerable. We are now 25 people strong. I would like to welcome Eleni, Angel, Haris, Yannis, Chris, Alex, Maria, Thelxi, Simon, Lisa & Manolis. We keep hiring for next year so if you are into programming, marketing or sales check our open positions. The content Last year we accelerated our effort around content, with an emphasis on eFront’s and TalentLMS’ blog. Our posts are about eLearning topics spanning from tips to build better courses and eLearning industry coverage to new product releases and use cases. Altogether we released around 200 posts, accompanied with around 40 eLearning related videos (check them on the related TalentLMS’ and eFront’s YouTube channels). We even created an elearning tips podcast series! The integrations 2015 was heavy in integrations. First of all, eFrontPro got integrated with OpenSesame. This opened a number of opportunities for reusing ready-made, professional courses within eFront with minimal effort. eFront got integrated with Connections as well, the business social network platform from IBM. We are demonstrating this integration on IBM Connect conference from January 31 to Feb 3. TalentLMS integrated with Shopify and Woocomerce among others. The misfortunes Of’course, nothing is perfect in a non perfect world. This year we experienced a catastrophic failure of our official Youtube channel that took some time to recover from. This was an interesting lesson though you might want to read about. Next year and beyond… We have big plans for next year and with a bit of (always needed) luck we will deliver. Some things that are being "cooked" at the moment are native mobile apps for all products & H5P support for rich, interactive content building. Regarding our long term plans, rest assure that we are here for the long run, making a sizable dent in the universe. Here is a post from Signal VS Noise blog that summarizes our view of doing business better than I would ever did. And finally… We would like to wish all of you the very best for 2016. Life is a journey and it always has some marvels across its path for everyone. Enjoy each moment! The post Wrapping up the year appeared first on TalentLMS Blog.

2015 was a great year! Challenging at times, but still pretty solid. I learned a lot this year, worked with a ton of amazing clients, and I look forward to seeing where 2016 takes me! 2015 RECAP: Let’s see how I did with my 2015 personal goals: With that being said, my goals for 2015 are mostly personal goals: Begin therapy to conquer my social anxiety (or at least learn how to cope with it); Maintain a consistent exercise schedule and run a half marathon in May (and possibly another in September); Take positive steps toward becoming the best version of myself I can be; Spend more time with my husband and our family; and Travel to Europe with my husband, taking a proper vacation. As for business goals: Complete both books and have them published; Present and KILL IT at Learning Solutions 2015; Continue networking with colleagues I respect; Continue working with clients I respect; Conduct various workshops at the university and encourage growth within our distance offerings; Overhaul my portfolio; Participate more actively in the ELH Challenges; Continue blogging regularly; and Begin authoring my third book. Overall, I feel like I did pretty good with my 2015 goals - I also completed the Online Learning Consortium’s Teaching Certificate, 19 E-Learning Heroes Challenge entries and wrote 38 Terminology Tuesday posts. However, there’s still lots of work left to do in 2016. 2016 GOALS Personal goals: Slow down and take more time to enjoy the present; Maintain a consistent exercise schedule; Rehabilitate my jaw; Spend more time with my husband and our family; and Travel to Colorado and Iceland with my husband. Business goals: Slow down, take on fewer clients (than in 2015), and work on fostering long-term working relationships; Continuing networking with colleagues I respect; Speak at 1-2 e-learning events; Publish my 2nd book; Conduct more workshops and speaking engagements at the university, continuing to promote online learning; Learn a new skill; Participate regularly in the Articulate E-Learning Heroes Challenges; and Blog regularly.

In the 1980s, there were a lot of high expectations of elearning and this new thing called the Internet. This marriage was going to open up a world of learning opportunities that weren’t available to us before. As a result, the pendulum swung towards elearning, but a lot of money and effort went into initiatives that often didn’t deliver, for all kinds of reasons: The technologies and tools were immature. L&D (and other learning institutions) weren’t skilled at applying the new technology. Learners were still shy of the relatively new technology. In short, elearning got a bad rap, and the pendulum swung sharply away from elearning in many quarters, back to an instructor-led mode. But over time, technologies and tools improved, and L&D recognized that learning doesn’t have to be all elearning or all instructor-led. They realized that it was possible to mix the two modes, and the term blended learning was born. Why blended learning is important Not only is it possible for a single learning initiative to have elearning and instructor-led components, but it’s often better than using only one approach or the other. By taking the best attributes of both approaches and applying them in ways that maximize their respective benefits, learners can be more engaged, learn more, and learn in less time. For example, imagine a conventional one-day workshop for managers on Handling Difficult Employees. This would probably work well enough. The problem is that it takes managers away from their desks for a full day. Two hours will be used to bring participants up to speed with the terminology and background knowledge on which the rest of the day will then build. And then the rest of the day will be taken up with doing things around hypothetical situations that may, or may not, apply to all of the participants. A blended approach to this same event would see the managers do all of the terminology and background learning via elearning before they attend the workshop. This elearning could include video and activities to demonstrate to the managers how important this training is. Perhaps the elearning would also include activities where managers could practice some of the skills that they’ll be refining during the workshop. The elearning could end with a questionnaire asking the sorts of situations the managers are most likely to encounter or feel least prepared to face. These could feed through to the workshop facilitator, who could then tailor the workshop scenarios around these pain points. Now, when the managers attend the workshop - which is only half a day because the participants are already enthusiastic and primed - they can spend their time practicing nuanced soft skills customized to their needs, which might be more difficult to practice with elearning. This is liable to stimulate conversation and to leverage the learning, as learners ‘compare notes’ on their real-life challenges and exchange what has or hasn’t worked for them in the past. On returning to their desks, the managers would also have some online interactive resources to help them through tough employee situations that they may face. It’s easy to see that the blended model gives a more customized experience that’s more efficient, comprehensive, and powerful. Blended learning best practices Knowing what to put online and what to put into an instructor-led event in a blend can be tricky. Often the deciding factors are whether a piece of content is something that people need to know or need to do, and whether it’s a soft skill (e.g. people handling that has lots of grey areas) or not a soft skill (e.g. using a piece of machinery that you either do correctly or incorrectly). The table below summarizes how this information can be used to see where it might fit best in a blend. Another way of looking at this is as a flipped learning approach. To understand where the flip occurs, let’s consider how a conventional instructor-led event would work: learners come to a training event and get told how to do things by an expert. The learners then go back to their work stations and (hopefully!) practice it by themselves. In a flipped approach, the learners effectively teach themselves how to do something via elearning, online readings or activities; then, they go to the expert and practice with that expert to get finer points and pick the expert’s brain. This uses the expert’s experience and expertise to best effect. A side advantage of this is that the elearning can be reasonably straight-forward to build. Simple branching scenarios and responsive job aids available on learners’ mobile devices, using built-in tools like Elucidat, can be created quickly and with very little technical expertise. Related: Stay on top of the latest elearning ideas, trends and technologies by subscribing to the Elucidat weekly newsletter. In conclusion Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but it makes you wonder why it took us so long to see the power in these simple approaches! And as the elearning authoring tools get easier to use and learners’ appetites for engaging learning grows, incorporating blends into your learning offerings only makes more and more sense. Have you seen any good examples of blended learning initiatives? Share how these worked in the comments section below. The post Blended learning: What it is and why it’s important appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

The ASSURE model is a natural fit for blended learning environments, as it gives corporate trainers the opportunity to integrate technology into their ILT (Instructor-Led Training) classrooms while still personalize the corporate training experience. In this article, I’ll explore the basic principles of the ASSURE model, and I’ll offer 6 tips that can help you […] The post 6 Tips To Apply The ASSURE Model In Blended Learning appeared first on PulseLearning.

Dear Readers, Thank you for all of your comments and re-sharing of my blog. I’m so humbled to have such a growing readership. I hope I have created some useful content for each of you. Let me know if you have a topic of interest that I might can blog about. I also renewed my […]

I remember my personal "teaching mindshift" as if it were yesterday. I was walking through the halls of New Tech High in Coppell, a project based learning school. I was shocked at seeing kids roaming about, working in small groups, discussing, debating, working in classrooms with cell phones out, laughing, making videos to share with the world…ON YOUTUBE!! In my school, that didn’t happen…at all. All of it seemed to be against policy. All of it. I left that school that day as a different teacher and never looked back. I wanted IN…because what grabbed my entire being wasn’t even the aforementioned things but the pure joy that kids had while learning and sharing their school community. That was new…Community. The other day, I started re-reading Chris Lehmann and Zac Chase‘s book, Building School 2.0: How to Create the Schools We Need. There is one quote that specifically struck a nerve with me as it took me back to years ago at New Tech High, where what kids were doing and learning was more evident through the work itself than it was as an isolated phrase on the wall. (see the image below) It’s also the type of learning that one experiences at Science Leadership Academy, in Philadelphia…the school that serves as the inspiration from which the book was written. (You too can experience this by attending Educon in Philly 1/29-1/31…and you should.) Making the switch from traditional practices to inquiry isn’t easy. As a matter of fact, it is downright hard…especially when you’re the only one in the school doing it which is why I love Building School 2.0 so much. If we all are in this academic world to help our students be better people, no teacher should feel alone in this work and this is a book that entire communities can use as a catalyst for discussions. It can’t be just one teacher. It needs to be a community (which you need to build and that’s in the book too). This book didn’t exist when I was in the classroom. I wish that it did. I’m thankful that it exists now.   There were quotes from the book that spoke to my own beliefs as the ones below. (If you are wondering, I used an app called Adobe Post to craft each image) Click to view slideshow. Then, there were moments (and plenty of them) that made me think deeper such as learning about Consensus-Driven Decision Making. I will say that this one seemed most difficult for me. I posted a graphic to instragram and one of SLA Beeber’s Teachers, Mary Beth Hertz, commented my image to assure me that while consensus-driven decision making was hard, it was certainly worth it. My struggle here was in achieving this magical place called "consensus" when many in my environment struggle with connecting with the outside world. Mary Beth’s advice to identify questions/needs specific to our environment and make research a part of the process was a true awakening and what I needed to truly embrace this idea. A photo posted by Rafranz (@rafranzdavis) on Jan 1, 2016 at 4:41pm PST     The greatest part of Building School 2.0, other than all of the words in it, are the "Theory to Practice" sections that are placed at the end of each theses. These are meant to drive conversations that hopefully lead to more questions and thoughts. These were the moments of reflection for me as it is where I saw my areas of growth the most and where many of my own questions derived. Building the school that we need isn’t easy and the text doesn’t allude to a simplicity of growth but when we do what our students need, what is hard is just something that we’ll all work through because our kids and our teachers are worth it. We’ve just got to. And I’m only on theses 43. Tip: Even if you are reading this book alone, you don’t have to. Find #school20 on twitter and connect with other readers! Or, nudge people in your building to read with you. I went on a sharing rampage on social media…all channels because I wanted to make sure that people in my circle knew that they needed this book too. I was pleasantly excited to hear of teachers in my own district that bought it because they saw the postings so we’ll be discussing it at length. Also, follow Chris Lehmann and Zac Chase on twitter. (@chrislehmann and @mrchase). Engage with them.

In a matter of hours, I’ll be back in my work space…planning, organizing, listening and teaching. For the past two weeks though, I didn’t think of any of those things. Instead, I used my break to play games, sing loudly, dance terribly, smile until my face hurt and have conversations with the children in my life. I was on a break…a real one. It wasn’t that I decided to just "be on break". Instead, I decided to be in the moment…a goal that I plan to make real every chance that I get regardless of where I am. "Being in the moment" is my greatest weakness but my greatest strength comes from being a mother and aunt to the kids in our family. We operate as a village which means that technically "mother and aunt" are one in the same. It is through the time spent in my primary "family" role that inspires my educator life. There’s a joke amongst those of us in tech that our own personal kids become our "guinea pigs" for tool testing. (So so bad!!!!) That is not the case in my family. I feel like I learn more from them than they could ever learn from me and none of those lessons have anything to do with tech. It felt good to not have a lengthy twitter chat, voxer chat or any of the sorts. (I did chime in to a few but immediately left as I felt myself leaving the moment that mattered…the moments at home) My son is 16 and maybe he’ll look back on the night that I wasn’t too pre-occupied in my technology to chase him down the road (long story)…saving him from a night of regrets…and another the next night. One of his friends was stabbed at a party where adults, who should have been examples, were instead supplying weapons & encouraging violence. As the news began to hit our phones, we had discussions…lots of them! I worry about my son. Thankfully, he wasn’t there but perhaps if he is invited to another outing, he’ll remember why it’s important to "choose your right place and time". Maybe. He is human & engaging in his vulnerable humanity reminded me of that. My nephews are all different ages but maybe they’ll cherish that all of our fun didn’t occur with our faces in devices but also through talking, singing, building and inventing. And Star Wars…lots of Star Wars Days ago, John Spencer posted the vine video below. I immediately pushed back on this idea about needing to recharge and I have to say that as someone who has been known to live and breathe education (like many of us)…John was right. I don’t think that I see family time as a "recharge". To me, it’s the battery that keeps me going and makes me whole. Everyone else can look to the work that we do and feel that it encompasses who we are. I hope that people, specifically the array of younger humans in our family, always hold dear that the Davis/Carroll kids came first and that it didn’t matter what was or wasn’t accomplished in my career…they mattered more. A smile and calming moment courtesy of a former mid-tantrum 2 year old…who developed an obsession with Fallon’s Star Wars sing along. It was the only thing that dried his tears. 

Remember back in the day when television sets had rabbit ear antennas? Chances are that if you do, you also remember the set of pliers that replaced the channel knob, the wire coat hangers that replaced the antennas and the extensive amounts of tin foil that covered the wire hangers that extended into the sky just so that the television could get a sub-par picture.  This is how we grew up. When something broke, and you did not have access to a repairman, you found a way to fix it. We learned how to deal with problems and make it work because that was our only option. If you’re wondering how this even remotely relates to classroom technology…bear with me for a second. As a classroom teacher, I remember those moments when my projector started to die, printer stopped working, accounts were locked out and even the occasional ridiculously slow PC that took forever to load. The truth is that in most cases, those issues went on for months because instead of contacting tech, creating a ticket or taking the time to fix it…it seemed much quicker to just deal. I had my reasons for not doing a ticket and if I am to truly confess, most of those reasons were just that it took forever to enter them and I did not feel like spending the time to do it. Well, here I am on the other side of the table and we are encountering the same issues. Except it’s not that teachers find bandaids and quick fixes. More often than not, they just stop using the tool or as things stop working, frustration enters. Earlier today, I had a good laugh with one of our technicians about televisions, tin foil, coat hangers and pliers. We both agreed that we cannot fix what we do not know about whether that issue is an account not working, which is in my domain or a computer not working, which is in his. The automatic response is that teachers should just enter a ticket in the tech system but my question to him was that perhaps we needed to identify the actual root of the problem. Why are teachers not letting us know when there are issues with their access or tools? Is the system that is being used for tech help accessible for all teachers? (You can’t enter a ticket when you can’t get in the system to do it) What type of information is being collected and how much of that can be automated? (This is important especially when in a school where there is no campus tech support and also no time to spend on entering a 15-20 minute ticket which I am not saying is our issue but I have seen some doozies!) Do teachers have faith that their issues will be addressed and in a timely manner? Were teachers involved at all with the planning of how this system works? In other words, what can we do to make sure that the system works as it was intended to work in the best possible way?   The answers to these issues can’t always be as simple as "they need to enter tickets". If we aren’t truly trying to understand why our communication channels aren’t as effective as we would like and ask important questions of the system, we will continue to encounter teachers who will fix their own issues (cool of them to do that if they like)…teachers who will just stop using things (some of which I’m ok with)…and teachers who survive on rabbit ears, tin foil, pliers and bandaids.