Two nights this week, I taught sessions on creating with thinglink and they were both probably two of my favorite sessions this year. Let me be clear in saying that as much as I love thinglink…a 90-minute to 2-hour session on basically pasting a link on an image is pushing it and can be a ridiculously boring few hours so, I did some homework on my own and made sure that the session was taught to not only be interactive but useful for the teachers in my session. "Blerding" Out My Session: Making Boring A Bit More Fun and Playful 1. Eliminate the "10-15-minute" Login Time I provided a link in my session description for teachers to pre-create their teacher accounts. Doing this saved about 10-15 minutes of talking them through finding the login on the page. I may have had 1-2 teachers that did not take this step but the others did and also explored prior to class. 2. Share Resources Up Front and Communicate that You Encourage Play!  In lieu of a ppt, gslide, prezi, smore or tackk…I made a one pager using onepagerapp.com. This site is totally meant for people who really want to make ONE page as that is the limit on a free account.  So, this is my ONE.  I also created a thinglink with tons of information which is embedded in the one pager. Making learning as interactive as possible ALONG WITH your bubbly personality makes for a session that teachers LOVE. 3. Speaking of Canva…Share Other Stuff Too! The moment that I started talking about canva, teachers were creating accounts and creating their own graphics. This surprised the heck out of me and I totally had a "Sheldon loves trains" moment. It was like a ripple effect, started from 1-2 and then grew to almost the entire room of canva creations to thinglink! Any time that teachers can walk away understanding about another idea is a win. The fact that this session was built to be one that encouraged up front creativity made sharing crazy fun "thinglink add-ons" such a fun experience. 4. Go Crazy Over Teacher Work! I was dying with excitement over my room of autonomous learners. They started with creating graphics about themselves and grew to designing for their classes. We shared, followed each other and made a big deal over each creation. The image below was created during the session. 5. If the Opportunity Arises, Challenge Thought on Student Learning Who doesn’t nerd out over student brilliance? My session ended up going over a bit over as we discussed what students could and could not do. Truthfully, I could talk about this all day and we almost did! It was especially refreshing to hear their thoughts while also sharing my own experiences. Rome wasn’t built in a day but any time that we have to deeply discuss is an opportunity to change minds. There is nothing more exciting than learning from a place of joy and fun and that is what "nerding out" or "blerd-ing out" is about. I’ve found that teachers are rarely bored to pieces if they get to make, do and create. More of that…More Nerd-Outs…daily!  

Anyone that knows me knows how much I loathe self-promotion. As a matter of fact, I wanted a long hot shower yesterday just to wash away of all remnants of "promotion" after having to post the "vote for me" link in order to go to Canada for SMART. I probably just might need votes as I am not on a campus to place this in the hands of my students…which I would never do. To be fair, the SMART vote is probably more "timeline spamming" than "self-promotion" but that too is somewhat loathsome in terms of how I roll in my connected life. It’s just not me. As I talked this out with a friend, because of course I needed "therapy", she reminded me… "In this field, there has to be some type of self-promotion. Who will come to your sessions if they don’t know what it is that you do?" At that moment, it clicked for me in a major way. I may loathe sharing parts of myself on twitter but to be in this field and to continue to be able to open doors for myself, I’ve got to let certain hang-ups go. To be honest, whether I like it or not, in the world of edtech…what you do only matters if others benefit and you can show it. I would not have my job without self-promoting in some way. I realize this. I often complain about conferences only gravitating towards the same featured speakers but when you think about it, those are the people that promoted themselves so much that they no longer have to self-promote, others do it for them. People show up to hear them even when the entire presentation is a duplicate of the last 10 events and they tweet it like it’s all brand new. As much as I detest this entire practice, it’s a part of the game and to be in this world, you have to play it. If you’re not going to play it…why are you here? With that said, I am not going to be all "hey look at me" repeatedly all over my timeline because I have something else that I’m quite proud of and that is integrity. (I’m talking major…major…major flooding…not mild. Mild is good…Major is not so much) I look at how much I share about my nephew and one of these days, that kid will owe me 10% of his earnings for all of the Braeden-promotion that I’ve done! (I’m kidding) I said that to point out that I am, by nature, someone that would rather amplify others than myself and it’s time that I learn to share more of my own expertise while still maintaining the core of who I am. While I promise not to flood timelines with every honor that I may have, I will do more of sharing my work because at the end of the day…that’s what I want to be known for. That is who I am…my brand.

Yesterday, my nephew along with another student, were assigned a day of ISS for a "lunch infraction". My nephew’s principal took the time to call my sister and basically back up her decision with part of the story… including an admission of guilt that was more coerced than bribing a kid with candy in a candy store. This is my open letter to her after hearing from Braeden. (She won’t speak to me…trust me) Dear Principal, I know that every parent says that their kid is innocent in school infractions and typically, especially in the case of the other children in our family, we take the punishment…suck it up and learn the lesson. Today was different and not because it was Braeden but because you didn’t even really bother to investigate beyond your own agenda. Your decision to send both children to ISS was a cop out and yet another poor decision on your part as a school leader. Had you taken the time at all to get to know the students in your school, you would have known about Braeden’s character. He doesn’t speak often and not because of your "fear tactics" but because he’s often analyzing who you are in his head while you speak. Yesterday, you were Judge Judy…his words…and that wasn’t a compliment. It’s interesting that you made a point to tell him that you didn’t know him because you’ve never seen him in your office. You claimed to have watched a video, yet you admitted that you couldn’t really tell from the video who did what so you immediately told Braeden during "interrogation"… "It had to be you. You were the one responsible. You were the one bothering her. You did it, didn’t you?" He didn’t speak up so you took it as a sign of guilt. You had an agenda and you wanted this situation to go a certain way…so you made it so. Had you taken a moment to really look into this you would have known that all year long, this little girl has harassed my nephew so much that she has been told time and again to NOT sit near him in lunch. Had you watched the tape closely, maybe you would have seen her repeatedly kicking him under the table so hard that he has a bruise on his leg. You would have seen him raising his hand multiple times and being ignored by your staff because there is a thing against tattling, right? If you had a relationship with our child and talked to him in lieu of AT him, you would have heard how he kept trying to look around and ignore her to avoid being in trouble while she kicked him. You would have heard him say…"I know that she wanted my attention because she wouldn’t stop kicking me but I kept trying to ignore her." Just to be clear… A little girl, with a history of harassing a boy, sits across from him at lunch and repeatedly kicks him. She calls him bipolar to which he retorts back…"no, you’re bipolar". She continues to kick him. He looks around to ignore her and tries to tell. He’s ignored. She continues to kick him and with one hard frustrated kick, he lifted his leg back in reflex. He raises his hand to tell and she lifts hers right after. A teacher comes over and takes the little girl’s words as law. Both children are taken to you. You watch the video and see nothing. So, you interrogate and place your own ideas of what happened into the equation. Not one time did you seek the actual truth before deciding that both children would spend a day together…side by side…in ISS. Even with what happened, this would have been a great moment to discuss conflict resolution where both children could walk away learning a lesson instead of being locked up…in a room. Braeden has never been in trouble a day in his life and you’ve accomplished nothing today but further breaking his spirit. The boy who is so meticulous about the details in his homework, being on time to school, playing by the rules and trying to do his best on everything that he does….gets to spend a whole day in ISS for something that could have been settled outside of that system. Mission accomplished…right? Signed Aunt Advocate

If you ask most habitual "twitter using" teachers about social media, they pretty much swear that any changes in their classroom that have occurred happened as a result of twitter. I can’t argue with that statement either as my own life and career has been greatly enhanced by the addition of social media. We’ve even made a point to include social media sessions at almost every educational event…as we should. Twitter has been amazing in communicating the great things of edu but after talking to a few struggling teachers who are also on social media, I have to wonder if the "one-sided" shared positives are painting pictures of perfection that rarely exist. Has the socially connected teacher and classroom become one big stock photo? The Perfect Images of Twitter EDU Yesterday, I had a long discussion with a group of connected and non-connected educators about social media in our classrooms. The connected educators swore by it but admitted to feeling less than capable compared to every other teacher that they followed. The words…"no one else seems to have kids that struggle" resonated with me. However, the most cringe worthiest statement was this… "It’s like every classroom is a stepford classroom and mine doesn’t fit" Ouch! The Socially Painted Picture When my kids take selfies, they take as many as 10-15 images just to capture one. I’m just as guilty in doing that. The perfect filter can add even more dimension to a shot. It’s human nature to only share the parts of us that look great because struggle may show weakness and that is often hard. That’s the perception anyway. From a classroom perspective, we share the lesson that worked. We share our best that our kids have done. Our work, our "selfies" are no different than those of my teenagers and that includes filtering. As much as we know that "it’s not about the tech, but the learning" and that "technology doesn’t make a bad teacher a great teacher"…most only share the tech. Sharing a great tool is more comfortable than sharing a moment of impact from instruction. Of course, I understand what can and cannot be shared in the social realm. However, I think that we can only help further our cause of improving classrooms if we expand on sharing beyond the perfect shot. We can choose to not share only the "selfie" version of ourselves and share what really matters…how we are truly impacting kids…ALL of them. They all have a story…the good, the bad and everything in between. When we leave those stories out, we are in essence saying that the "imperfect parts" matter less. Your Challenge: Talk About Something Else Whether in twitter chats or blogs, we’re not changing anything by only looking at the "shiny tools" and learning that results. There are other factors of edu at play. Let’s talk about… How to address needs of diverse learners Working with struggling students Reaching gifted kids in a mixed ability class Teaching children of color Challenges with girls vs boys Technology divide (BYOD is NOT for everyone) Addressing Learning Gaps Motivating the "I don’t want to be here kid" Children of poverty Teaching in a "disconnected" environment Teaching & remaining sane amidst a plethora of mandates Difficult parent/teacher conversations Being a rockstar even if you don’t feel like it (because we should all be this) (I could go on and on. You get the idea) Education isn’t perfect and it most certainly isn’t all about the technology. It’s time that we expand these conversations. I don’t want the "stock photo" of education. I want the real deal.

This morning I looked at my twitter profile and felt sick inside. It was literally a paragraph largely defined by tools. Not to take anything away from my inner tech expert, but I am much more than the tools that previously defined my profile. The thing is that in this field, we are all pretty much experts of the same thing…figuring out how to do stuff really well. Here’s the million dollar question… In the big scheme of things, does it really matter if my twitter profile reads that I am a tech specialist, haiku deck guru, smart exemplary educator, common sense media educator, den star, google educator, blogger…etc It most certainly does not. I am proud of all that I have accomplished. I am even more proud of the lives that I know I have touched and I’m not done yet because I’m still living and learning which, to me, is a much bigger deal than every tool that I know really well. One might say that the "commercialized titles" (credentials) increase your visibility in the field. I disagree. What increases your visibility is what you share, how you share and how often you do it. Submit proposals, speak at conferences, blog, host or participate in hangouts. Collaborate. Be true to who you are. That is what matters. I have a blog and an about me page. I also have a resume…a CV to house all of the honors. I even added a side bar linking to those spaces where applicable. I work towards additional certifications and "commercialized honors" because I want to be the best at what I do. However, what I do is not who I am and to me, that is what a "profile identity" is about. It’s about me….not the things. Be all that you are for the YOU that loves it. Learning isn’t about the tech and who I am isn’t about a single honor that I hold. At the end of the day, the words on my profile are just words…taking up my 160 characters of space. I love and adore every community to which I am a part of and again I am incredibly proud that I have been able to accomplish what I have so far. I am an instructional technology specialist. Yes, it’s my passion. It’s my career. It’s my job. I am more than my job. At the end of the day, the most important characteristic of who I am is the one that is written first…LEARNER! Signed… Rafranz Davis LEARNER! Math and Tech Geek! Disruptor of Ridiculousness  

Yesterday, I had to remind myself of Amanda Dyke’s great post from last year, "What’s Your Job". It’s still one of my all time favorites. I was sitting at my desk revising my narrative and redoing my Haiku Deck for my NCSC14 Ignite talk. Up until Sunday, I was supposed to be in New Orleans to give this talk live but that trip was cut because I needed to be at work to do my job with my team. I will admit to being upset, but as I settled in on the importance of what I was doing and how it was impacting kids, I stopped pouting because there really is nothing more important than that. Besides, doing my part to support our student media fair is so rewarding that I could just hug every one of those children whether they win or not. To see the work that they’ve created proves how valuable technology is for their learning. Speaking of NCSM14…when I told Suzanne Alejandre of the Math Forum, that I could no longer participate in the ignite, the idea of doing it virtually just came out of nowhere. Without hesitation, I agreed because anytime that I can share tidbits from my math classroom, I am all over it! I recorded my session using movenote, which is an incredible application for storytelling. I tried to adhere to 15 seconds/slide which would have been easier with a built in auto-timer but I’m proud of the end result. Teaching to the Kids in the Back of the Room The Bammy Awards Nomination Yesterday, AFTER submitting my ignite, I happened to check my spam at work and came across my Bammy Award nomination email which was such a timely surprise. As I sat there overanalyzing while trying to determine how on earth anyone got my school email (It’s not hard) and thinking that I clearly needed to change my LinkedIn picture…I understood the significance of the nomination itself and I am deeply honored to be recognized amongst my peers who happen to be amazing technologist and members of my PLN. I’ve watched the Bammy awards in the past and I will still struggle with the whole "vote for me" part. During the last run, I can’t tell you how many DMs that I received from people asking me to vote for them and I will stand firm in NOT doing that because to me, that took away from the honor itself of being nominated and rated by your peers. The significance of the Bammy’s, in my opinion,  shouldn’t be about the ranks of popularity but should be about the quality of work that we do. I share my life, every twist and turn, because of how I have been impacted by others who do the same. If my writing, sharing and connecting has had any impact on anyone else, that is my award in and of itself. The Bammy nomination is a nice bonus. With that said, this is a great platform to honor your peers and whether you vote for me or not, I encourage you to nominate those who have impacted you.

There is a myth that technology experts/specialist have all of the tech answers. We don’t. As a matter fact, if it were not for collaboration and google search, my trainings would be a black sheet of nothing…well, almost nothing! I do have SOME innovative ideas of my own. Technology is an ever-changing bowl of vegetable soup. What worked today may not be there tomorrow. Heck what worked 10 minutes ago, just might be working differently! We have to constantly stay on top of changes, trends and even ideas. That is literally a part of the job. We can’t know everything but we can know how to find what we need. Personally, I rely on resources shared by many of my friends as well as ideas that we collaborate on. I’ll be honest in saying that at conferences, I rarely learn anything new because before it’s at a conference, it’s been on twitter and that is typically where my learning occurs. Yes, I’ve Gone Google! My school district is a GAFE district so it’s been really important to me to learn deeply so that I can be more effective for the teachers that I support across the district. I decided to take the Google Educator certification exams and to start, I took the "Chromebook" track. To become a certified google educator, you must take 4 core exams and one exam of choice. I think that I got a bit ahead of myself and tried to take my last two exams in the same day. I didn’t go through the entire chromebook course content and there were questions that I did not know or didn’t read thoroughly. I did not pass my chromebook test the first time and while I was upset, I learned that I needed to be more mindful of taking the same advice that I would give students… You don’t know everything. Take your time to learn even if you think that you know it! I could’ve given up but I didn’t. I actually bought the chrome browser test a few days later, passed and earned my certification. Of course, I couldn’t just go without passing my chromebook test so after 7 days, I took my chromebook test again and earned that endorsement too. The bottom line is that while we do not know everything, we are always looking to be better at what we do. We should anyway. When you don’t know…search for it. If you can’t find it…ask. By the way, We have this amazing image hanging in our office … "how to be a tech expert". I found it online at https://xkcd.com/627/. Enjoy!

When I was in high school, I was an officer on the dance team. We had strict requirements to adhere to regarding appearance. One of those requirements was that we all had to wear the exact same color of tights for performances "flesh tone" rose. Our director was adamant that our legs had to be "uniform" which meant that regardless of skin tone, every girl had rose colored legs. She said that it created a visual feel of one single unit…that we were all the same. She defended her decision by saying that she didn’t see race and that all dance teams wore the same attire. Yeah…ok. I remember my mother, along with a few mothers of other black girls on the line, fighting to allow us to purchase tights that matched our own skin tones. They were denied. If we wanted to dance, we had to wear the tights…and so we did. It was an odd thing to be embarrassed about the color of my legs when I was so proud of the color of my skin. I think that this is where my mother coined her famous Friday night phrase… "Smile baby! Act like you own the place!" In those moments, I didn’t think about the tights, my rose legs or the embarrassment of them both. I thought of smiling for my mother and the little girls that stood along the rails watching me…looking like me…and wanting to be me…tights and all. Learning through a Rose Colored Lens I thought of this story after I read Jose Vilson’s piece, "Your Kids Don’t Actually Feel Like They Belong Afterall". Day after day, I watch conversations that place kids in a box of the same unit. Yes, kids are kids and learning is learning but they are different and to deny that is denying them to be them. I thought about culturally responsive teaching which is actually a gradable component on many educator evaluations. It’s not about changing a few names in a word problem to be more "cultural sounding". It most certainly isn’t about including specific stereotypical moments in a lesson either. (saw a math lesson last year about a gangster getting arrested…yep…it happened)  It’s about making sure that the experiences and perspectives of students are a purposeful and integral part of learning. My mother taught me that the tights were like a mask, shielding who we were from our teacher, as she was unwilling to see. She taught me that small minded people could not define who I was and if I had to dance in purple tights, I’d still own it. I was lucky in having my mother…someone to instill a sense of self-worth in me. Let’s hope that the rest of our kids have that too.

I love when I run across tools that are quite useful…completely by accident. I found embedly as I was working on a post about digital storytelling with instagram for secondary students. (posting shortly after this one) Embedly is a tool that allows users to embed any linkable content to a website with an interactive responsive card that is then easily sharable across networks. I no longer have to grab an image, edit it and upload it to my blog. I simply paste the link into the blank on Embed.ly. A card is generated that I can then edit further to upload to my blog. Of course, if it is content that is already set up to easily embed, then I’ll just embed from that site but for resource sharing, embed.ly is kind of cool! Embedly makes your content more engaging and easier to share | Embedly Here is another for the storehouse story that I created from a previous blog which does not have the capabilities to embed. Creativity by Rafranz Davis Here is an embed for Canva, another of my favorite tools! Canva - Amazingly simple graphic design for blogs, presentations, Facebook covers, flyers and so much more.

When most teachers hear the phrase, "digital storytelling", they probably think of telling a story as it would be in a book. For that reason, many teachers struggle with understanding what this is or should be. Stories that are similar to those that students would read in books are only one type and may not apply in every content area or lesson. There are other types as well. Digital storytelling in my classroom was rarely the "storybook" kind. They were almost always a collection of details that allowed students to bring content together and into focus from their point of view. It was about their curation of things that they created which included how, why, what if and what now. Storytelling enabled students to look at math from the perspective of their world and formulate their ideas about it. Student stories could be anything from video to slideshows, posters, audio recordings, screencast or even physical printed stories. Below are a few tools that you may already be familiar with including my insight on each one which I have embedded in the descriptions of each card…a cool feature of embed.ly 1. Tackk.com (image, text, audio, video, websites) < Log in with Google Acct Tackk - Content Creation + Sharing Students can log in with their google accounts. Students can connect instagram to pull images and video. Includes free image search from 500px. Simple to set up and use 2. Padlet.com (image, text, video, audio with link, websites) Log in with Google acct Paper for the web | Padlet Padlet is awesome for bringing content together. I love that it too integrates nicely with instagram. Students can connect with their google accounts and also create custom urls to make their content searchable. 3. Storehouse (Ipad Only) (images, text, video…import from instagram) Ipad ONLY: Storehouse: visual storytelling I love the interface of storehouse. I do not like that it is ipad only. I also do not like that accounts can only be create via facebook connect or email. With that said, high school students with email accounts will love being able to pull from almost every sharing site and also add text. 4. Thinglink.com (image, text, audio, video, websites) Log in with Google acct ThingLink - Make Your Images Interactive Create a custom image first. Students can then add their images, video and text to bring their ideas together. Honestly, as much as I love thinglink, it really is a more effective tool if students are linking their own content. 5. Tapestry (image and text) Tapestry: Beautiful Storytelling Remember, it doesn’t have to be a "storybook" story but tapestry works now on any device and allows users to build beautiful slideshows. LOVE this for poetry/creative writing. 6. Haiku Deck (images and text) Presentation Software that Inspires | Haiku Deck Web and mobile creation. Make slides but add more using notes! 7. ExamTime (mindmaps and notes with images, video and links) I really do wish that the name of this product was not "examtime" because it truly is an amazing tool that goes well beyond use for exams. I like that students can build their own mindmaps and take notes which include images, video and links. I also like that students can create their own quizzes to share along with sharing their interactive mindmaps. I do not like that email or facebook is required to login. ExamTime - Changing the way you learn 8. Google Apps Google Apps for Education What better way than using the tools of google to build a collection of learning? Using docs, spreadsheets, slides…etc…can only be more powerful by allowing others to add content as well. 9. Movenote Movenote I can’t stress how much I love movenote enough because it’s use is too simple NOT to love. It’s simple. Make something that is not a video. Upload it through the app or web and record a video to talk about it. 10. Blogging with any blog site of choice I can’t stress enough how powerful it is for kids to simply blog. To have a place that is their own where they can share as they choose as well as reflect on life, learning and everything in between is a great thing. How they do that could be any site. Below is kidblog which is what our students use if they aren’t using blogger. Kidblog | Safe and simple blogs for your students.

Tonight, as I was going through my training events from now throughout the summer, I had to laugh at the number of events that I plan to go to that are coming directly from my pocket. I laughed because I know that personally paying TO PRESENT professional development is just a normal part of what we do sometimes. Some schools will cover expenses but for many of us, that doesn’t happen unless there is funding. It most certainly does not happen for out of state events. There are events like, Educon, that I would pay for in a heartbeat because I will leave that place as a better human being. Having said that, tech events are not the same. I rarely learn anything new that I could not have learned through twitter, blogging or a google hangout…so why on earth am I paying out of my pocket to go? Events can be hundreds of dollars to attend…and that’s just registration. Add airfare and hotels and that means that our out of pocket expenses could be over $1,000 per event. By the way, when I say "our", I am 100% referring to those of us that present on the basis of submission. There are a few who have "earned" featured spots and for the most part, those speakers are there expense free…other than meals maybe. Those spots are typically the exact same people conference to conference because those are the people that draw a crowd and get others to pay to attend. They’re typically people who have a resume of great sessions, a reputation, have an insane number of twitter followers and who have extreme visibility. How and Why I will say that without the relationships formed through twitter, travel such as this would be financially impossible. Typically if a group of us are going to an event, we’ll split the cost of lodging. It’s those relationships that keep us paying to go teach because those events are where we typically connect face to face. The learning, for me, happens in those conversations and not necessarily in a session. Honestly, I kind of despise sessions that are not conversations. I’m a bit "edcamp-spoiled" in that aspect…which is why I LOVE Educon. Free Registration This summer, I’m presenting at TxGoo, Ipadpalooza and iDesign Coppell. Each event gave free registration to presenters, which should really be a no-brainer! Why aren’t they all this way? Hello TCEA, ISTE and Miami Device! I’m attending Discovery Ed Summer Institute as well as the SMART Global Summit in Canada. Aside from travel TO Tennessee, both of those events are free events but both required an application and acceptance. Anytime that we can get PD at zero cost, we’ll try our best to do it. (Edcamps are awesome for that) Paying to teach? No Really…Why??? I hate sessions yet I love teaching with a passion! I will even say that I’m pretty good at it and I’m not going to back down from that statement either. I also love seeing new faces and places. I’m not complaining about selling my left kidney to teach because it is a choice. We don’t have to go. We choose to do it and largely because we’re just that passionate about what we do. I also go because as someone who has a great deal to say about lack of diversity at these events, I think that it’s necessary to be present, counted and heard. One last thought… At some point the "featured presenter" page needs to not be void of color because there are plenty of us in this edtech world with just as great of credentials as the typical faces that appear.  

It may have been two weeks ago when Michelle Baldwin‘s class tweeted that they were inspired by Braeden and making puppets. We’ve shared every bit of his process in doing this across twitter, instagram and facebook. One thing that I did not consider was putting the entire story together in one place to make it accessible to anyone that wanted to read it. So, when I saw the tweet from Michelle’s class, it was a no-brainer that this one last component needed to happen so I created the TACKK below. TACKK is a simple FREE tool for creating digital posters. For our students, it’s one of the goto tools since kids can create their accounts using their non-email google logins. In addition, users can customize every aspect of their poster in so many ways…from choosing a custom url to adding a background image. Every piece can be customized to the user’s disposal. I loved that I could easily import images from instagram as well as instagram video. I had so many images that I had to choose as there is a limit of I believe 20 imports from that service. After I reached my limit, I was able to save and upload with no problem. My favorite parts about TACKK are the sharing features. Check out the video below as I take you inside our TACKK to learn about sharing! Sharing TACKK

There are moments when it’s difficult for me to have certain edu conversations. I would love to drown my thoughts in twitter chat hoopla but it’s not happening…not today. Today, I get to deal with real life and not to say that what we discuss in the edu realm isn’t real…but this is the stuff that we never discuss…the real stuff that children face when they leave our schools. Yesterday, I watched a young single mother clutch her children as her belongings sat on the side of the street of the home that she could no longer afford. We stopped to help them pack and move them to her grandparent’s home. I did not know this young lady nor did I know her children but I knew the pain in their eyes all too well. Her babies were 5, 6 and 11 years old and this is the memory that they will carry with them…their things on the side of the road. By the way, they will all walk into a classroom Monday morning with these memories…their baggage. We don’t know what kids go home to. We know what they allow us to see. We think we know but we really have no idea. Even when we do know, some issues are out of our reach yet the children that deal with them daily are well within our hold. I’m not talking about situations where children are in danger. I’m talking about those moments when parents are doing all that they can…yet life for them is just much more difficult than most. It’s hard to get a kid to care about math when he’s worried about where he’s going to lay his head at night. It’s hard to get a kid to care about science when his only meal, which happens to be at school, was missed because the cafeteria ran out of food. For older kids, especially those accustomed to struggle, it’s even harder to get them to envision a life beyond high school where they would leave their parents to seek higher education, because through all of the struggle they just want to stay and help at home…which is typically what occurs. On a personal note, it has been an incredibly difficult 8.5 months watching my sister struggle to make ends meet while dealing with the disruption of her family. What I could do is what I did. We make sure that the 9 year old is ok…that he has an outlet to create and deal…that he can still see the light through darkness. His puppets give him that. Today, as I sit and watch him dance around and sing "The Circle of Life", ironically in spite of life…I know that in doing all that we can do, we are doing as we should. Now, we just have to find a way to make sure that the rest of these kids have this kind of access to "light in life" too.

Yesterday I taught what was supposed to be an intro session to google forms in my school district. I wasn’t scheduled to teach but a peer took sick and of course I volunteered to teach the class. I’ve taught google forms quite a bit so teaching on the fly wasn’t that big of a deal. Typically when I teach a class, I pre-send resources to attendees. This can be anything from a video to simple "getting started" instructions. In the case of this course, I went to the google forms article below written by Beth Still for Connectedteachers.org which really is a brilliantly thorough guide for those getting started. Google Forms Sharing resources such as this actually help to accomplish three other intended yet unintended goals. 1. I get to provide my teachers with another way of learning…a new resource or blog post. 2. I get to share a new person to learn from socially. In this case, it was Beth Still. 3. When teachers have tools like this ahead of time, they actually spend the time going through them which save time during sessions as I did not have to repeat basic information. I believe wholeheartedly in the power of social learning and sharing from my peers gives me room to communicate that. In addition, I did not have to recreate the wheel on a resource as it was already done. It’s important that we do this as it communicates to teachers about the power of sharing. I don’t "re-brand" the work of my peers as my own. Teachers need to know that there are other resources out there for anything that they want to learn. It was great seeing teachers walk in, get on their computers and pull that resource up. Quite a few of them printed it and were not just making new forms but were embellishing the ones that they started earlier in the day. My session was no longer a "basics" but a "What do I do now to apply this knowledge" session which meant that we were able to spend time on add-ons like Flubaroo and Autocrat which we would not have gotten to otherwise. I owe a huge thank you to Beth Still because her sharing made my session an amazing learning event and our teachers were pretty ecstatic! If you have not connected with Beth, you should! Beth Still (BethStill) on Twitter The latest from Beth Still (@BethStill). Wife & mom - Nebraskan - Founder ISTE Newbie project - Difference maker - Love to empower teachers and students. Sharing is an important part of what we do. Truthfully, there are so many new tools out that one cannot possibly be the expert of them all. Whether admitted or not, we are all sharing a piece of someone else. I believe that it’s equally important to say, "I didn’t create this, but this person did and it’s amazing" as it is to say, "I created this for you to use." because both of those statements lend themselves to… "You can create this too"…which is where we should be aiming to be.

For the past week, I’ve been trying to brainstorm my GTA video and thinking about how to best tell a story in 1 minute. I sat down and wrote a script, recorded a movenote and sent it to a colleague. It was still very "vanilla" to me meaning that it sounded more "teacher voice" instead of conversational. It’s like I was reading what I wanted people to hear instead of saying what I believed in my heart…if that makes sense. I hate talking in my "teacher voice" because it can often come across as "plastic" and I’m definitely not fake. The thing is… we can all attest to the tools that we use in the classroom. We can talk about how we train teachers. We can talk about how we use the suite of Google Apps. We’ll throw in words about Docs, blogger, groups, google+, chrome, chromebooks and even youtube. However, can we attest to the impact that these tools are having at home. How are kids really using them in their world after the bell rings? I took a step back from my "fake cue card read video" and looked at the kid right in front of me. For months, I’ve shared and talked about my nephew and his puppets. He’s not in a google school. Heck they can’t even use "google search" but he’s definitely a "google kid" meaning that the apps are a part of him. As I was coming home to excitedly talk about what we were doing and sharing…he was learning. He picked up on tools through conversation and watching me work. He learned about tools as he needed to accomplish a goal and sometimes he’s even taught me a thing or two. Everything that he has learned has come from a google tool. I’ve watched him take a flat sheet of foam, design a pattern and give it curves. I’ve watched him watch youtube videos for hours as he honed in on his techniques. He’s using docs to write scripts for his videos and sharing them with me to gain feedback. He’s blogging using blogger. He even makes google forms in order to collect data on his puppet types as people request them. Last week, he learned about spreadsheets and now maintains one where he’s keeping track of his savings in order to purchase a few Axtell puppets. He is 9 and if he is owning these tools as they relate to his normal life, I can only imagine what our kids are doing when they go home. How we use technology shouldn’t be some abnormal event but should be a part of our "normal" just like it is for him. The same rules apply to our kids in our classrooms and that is what our kids are exposed to as we integrate with google apps. In the past, I didn’t apply to GTA because I honestly didn’t "get" it. I wasn’t in a google apps district and I wasn’t effectively using these tools. Yes, I am all about community, learning and growth but I also have to believe in the power of the purpose. It seems only fitting that at this stage, while I was thinking through ideas, they were right in front of me all along. No, I’m not going to talk about Braeden but I’m a storyteller and through him, I "feel" the story and that’s important.

Today I decided to complete my application for the Google Teacher Academy and anyone that knows me knows how much of a big deal this is that I did it so soon as that does not typically happen. Yes, applications are due in May but with a media fair, after school sessions and a trip to NY looming, I knew that today was the day…now or never. I didn’t have the luxury of a classroom to include, students or other teachers. Correction: Had I waited, I’m sure that I could’ve rounded up a few people but today was not feasible and I was determined to get this done. I was appreciative of the required reflective questions as they forced ME to think about why GTA mattered. This time last year I could not have answered those questions. I definitely get it now. After recording, re-recording and remaining in that cycle of uncertainty for a while, I went back to my blog post from yesterday and in one shot ended up recording the base of what I needed…the story  

Last year, I watched the Bammy drama unfold from afar…begrudgingly fielding 12 different "vote for me" twitter DMs and cringing throughout much of the telecast that I could stand to watch. From my seat, it looked like a show aimed to recognize the closed circle of twitter edu-stardom. (not to mention that the show itself was in poor taste) But then…what did I know? I didn’t know the stories behind the nominees. I didn’t know the impact of what they had on their school communities. I didn’t really know if the job as promoted online represented the one in school. No ones knows that. How could we? I knew that I was seeing people who I have grown to appreciate through twitter being honored on a grand scale…the same people who are honored for everything because reach matters…at least according to this. Fast forward to a few weeks ago…I checked my spam and saw that I had been nominated for a Bammy by "the academy". My first thought was a sarcastic "oh great" (flashback to last year) and my second was, "the academy…who the heck is that?" Then I clicked the link and allowed myself to be proud of the honor because for some reason someone thought enough of me to grab the "about me" from my blog…click my linkedin profile…save my image to their desktop and upload to recognize their perception of my work and I knew that doing that took time. In addition, the email came to my work email which meant that they had to take the time to search for it because only a few people contact me at work and most of them are Discovery Education and SMART. So, naturally I took to my SMARTee Google+ community to thank whoever submitted my name because it was nice. It had to be someone from that community…right? From that, people started "voting for me" by adding reviews and as nice as it was, I reminded them that it was not about me but to please nominate/review others who have impacted them either online or in their schools. I nominated another person, Lisa Johnson (@techchef4u), because I know how collaborative she is and I also know how much the "internets" borrow from her work. She is amazing at what she does and inspires so many so if anyone needed to be "honored", she did. I literally went through the process of adding the nomination…"borrowing" her profile pic and writing what I knew to be true of her. It all felt kind of sketchy to do but it felt right so I proceeded…and told her through FB message. Of course she was skeptical but she was okay with the "shout out" in the end…even if it meant that we were in the same category. (Again…who cares? I never viewed this as being competitive) A few days later, I received the clarification from The Bammy organization about what the honor was about. The spirit of the Bammy’s, as it said, weren’t about "me" but "us". It also stated that you could not "win" a bammy and using that term would go against what it was about. There was even a line about revoking nomination. In other words, it’s supposed to be an honor…not an award. If you get caught talking about "winning a Bammy", your nomination could be pulled. To be clear, if a person(s) is called out as "the honoree" amongst a sea of nominees…it’s an award. (Emmy’s, Grammy’s Oscar’s, local/state teacher of the year, Denny’s, Webby’s…Bammy’s) [Just Saying] With that said, I am okay with honoring those that have had impact on education. (which is every educator…good or bad) I was and am proud that I nominated Lisa because aside from my constant face to face and twitter love, it gave me a chance to honor what she does on a larger scale. I was excited to see that people from her school reinforced her nomination with actual in-school feedback as that was huge. Of course her school had to be "notified" with the link that she was nominated but even with that…those people KNOW her and their comments are real. I imagine that the community nominee/vote portion is meant to help "the academy" determine who the September honorees are and I can appreciate that as long as it’s not based on number of comments but magnitude of contribution of the person. I can appreciate that as long as the honorees represent a diverse cross-section of edu…and not only the same faces that we always see. If we are truly honoring positive collaboration, this should be a no-brainer. As for last year’s antics… So far I have gotten 5 different "vote for me" DMs and each time I could do nothing but cringe as it’s just an odd thing to do. To add insult to injury, most of them were of the "you vote for me and I’ll vote for you" kind. Again…Really?? Is it really that serious??? I know that once you are an "Oscar nominee", you retain that title forever…but do we really want our conferences to be "featuring Bammy nominee" ahead of the person presenting? (Dear conferences that are doing this now…STOP…Really??) …Because now the worst part of what we do takes this thing that could be an honor and turns it into a fiesta of business and self-promotion….BACK END DEALS…money That’s the part that I am not okay with. That’s the part that sucks the life out of honors in education. Forget the "spirit" of the Bammy’s. It’s not in the "spirit" of Rafranz. If this is what it’s going to be, I won’t play this game and you shouldn’t either.    

One of the highlights of my rebranding of all of my social spaces has been receiving positive feedback from visitors and collaborators. I love that people actually think that my blog was a big ordeal to design. It was not. I run a self-hosted wordpress blog which means that I run the wordpress software on my servers. It’s a choice that I made once I understood how blogging worked. The beauty of self-hosting is that you can choose your own theme or in my case, framework, and customize it however you choose. My blog is running the Headway theme, which is basically a blank canvas that lets me build whatever I want on every page. Seriously, if I wanted to make every page look different, I could. Headway Drag and Drop WordPress Website Builder Once I chose my color landscape, I partnered with a design friend, Social Ink DFW, to create my banner which now serves as my backdrop across almost every network. We collaborated on the banner but as far as the rest of my blog, I did it all on my own. socialinkdfw (socialinkdfw) on Twitter The rest of my blog is all about widgets, plugins and placement. Themes, Themes and More Themes… What if you are not okay with crafting your own design? There are plenty of places that have these done for you! Below are a few places to start. I will say that unless you are running a framework which lets you control the design and structure, you might still need to know a bit of coding in order to tweak certain things here and there. I relied heavily on wordpress forums and also on just "playing" and to this day, there are still small things that I have to google, but I do fully understand how wordpress themes work and can pretty much call exactly which file and code needs to be tweaked for certain actions to occur. WordPress Themes Loved By Over 230k Customers WordPress Themes | Website Templates | Create a Website | ThemeForest Chrome Extensions for Blogging Inspiration comes in all forms. What if you wanted to know more about a blog page that you are on? What if you needed to find the measurement of graphics for a page? If you’re using a tool like Canva, you might even need the hex color! Well, there’s an extention for that! I have three Chrome extensions that I use frequently. Check them out and also watch the video below as I share how to use them and what I use them for! BuiltWith Technology Profiler MeasureIt Eye Dropper

If you follow any of my other social feeds, you know that Braeden made a new Bunny puppet for his mother. So, naturally I used TACKK, an amazing digital storytelling tool to share the story. I love Tackk because it’s the perfect way to share the details beyond the images and videos that I load across the web. I especially love the instragram integration. If you haven’t checked it out…you should! I’ve embedded it below. You can also view it on TACKK, here.

Today, as we were prepping for Sunday Morning service, I stood watching my niece do her hair. I had just arrived at their home after a store run for hair products…a trip that I’ve made many times over the years. I had "a moment" at the store upon finding the one small corner shelf for products meant for ethnic hair. It’s amazing how much of the world is blind to us when we aren’t "in a place" to see it. One shelf…amidst an entire aisle… When my daughter was younger, we had many disagreements about hair. She didn’t live in a world of noticeable differences. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t use the latest fruit flavored scents from the other shelves. In her mind, she was no different than her other friends…why would she think any differently? One moment between us gave me pause. We arrived home after her getting yet another relaxer and a friend invited her to go swimming. Even with the tightest of swim caps, there was no way on earth that she could swim in a pool of chlorine after her chemical straightener. She was 16 and we had a nice long discussion about her hair compared to her friend’s. After a few minutes of talk, she looked at me and asked… "Are we really having this discussion about hair mom? I’m not going to limit my life because of my hair." Amazing how much life was loaded into that one statement. One small shelf….amidst an entire aisle No daughter, you are not your hair…

Tonight, I read an article that gave me pause on the use of the word "articulate". I believe that the intention was to pay a "compliment" to students at a conference who were speaking up about their needs for technology in the classroom. Aside from the fact that students pictured were of color, which I knew had no real correlation to the meaning, the implications of the word in the sense that "students were actually poised and articulate" rubbed me the wrong way. I cringed upon reading the word. It bothered me and I needed to explore why. (I actually started this piece and restarted this piece on several occasions throughout the night. I talked to members of my family and had deep moments of pause…and enlightenment.) Some Personal Background Both of my parents attended segregated schools and in both of those schools learning to speak articulately was embedded within the curriculum. My mother says that this was the case because her teachers understood the world that they would face if they did not have this skill. My father agreed. Growing up, my mother trained us to be "speakers" too. It was important that we understood how to speak with authority, eloquence and clarity. We learned this skill through church and community speaking events. To my parents, being "articulate" wasn’t a choice. It was a necessity. They also BELIEVED it to be a compliment Reflecting on being Articulate Neither of my parents have ever really been immersed in professional circles. My mother is a retired educator but our circles of involvement were much different. Our experiences are not the same. My mother even echoed the phrase, "Being articulate is a compliment. Maybe it’s you. Why does it bother YOU? Maybe this is something that you need to have reflective pause about?" I told her the story of our family friend who upon being appointed HS principal at a nearby school was cackled by a group of admins about being a "rapper" principal who would probably walk the halls of his school sagging. Upon meeting him, they’re tune changed to "Oh, he’s actually pretty articulate". It was as if they heard him speak and decided to accept him. My mother was shocked. I told her about the times that I listened to a state winning UIL speaker speak amongst a group of speakers. He was the only black speaker and the only one that members in the crowd referred to as articulate. Again, my mother was shocked. I told her about the times that I spoke and was met with, "oh you’re so articulate" and the time that even my nephew spoke followed by, "wow, he’s articulate". Shock…not compliment. My mother said that maybe this has more to do with the obvious rift within our own race…that we have some who are very articulate and some who are not. Like it or not, there is some truth to this statement. Within our own race, there is often an aura of "class" associated with articulateness. She reminded me that for years, black folks had to learn such skills in private because it was frowned upon publicly. Not everyone learned how to speak. Not everyone could. My mother said…"Maybe people still expect us to not speak well." The more that we sat and talked, the more that she realized that sometimes this phrase was filled with more condescending tones than even she recognized. We also agreed that even with a "racial divide", we don’t refer to each other as articulate. There is a sense of pride but not one of shock. This phrase is almost always one that is used from a place of "privilege" to one of "less privilege". It’s the black exec in the office, the leader, the student speaker, the keynote, the teacher or even the brand new principal. It’s too often the person of color sitting in the gray area where being "articulate" becomes the "pass key" to acceptance…privilege. No one calls the white speaker articulate. They expect him/her to be. No one calls the white quarterback "well-spoken". It’s expected. Yet, when I speak…you feel the need to "compliment" my articulateness. Oddly enough, when I speak…I do so with the echo of my mother’s voice demanding that I speak with purpose and clarity. I guess some might consider this as articulate. I consider it an expectation and maybe others should do the same.  

I’m working diligently on a book about the missing voices of edtech, which is a look at diversity from multiple lenses. Every time I think that I might just be finished, a new layer shows itself. A few weeks ago  Stephanie Sandifer, in all of her twitter "rant" greatness, kicked off "INVITE", a facebook group aimed at tackling the issues of diversity at edtech conferences. There was no way that I could publish a book without including this because the impact of that conversation was so hugely inclusive and important… that leaving it out would have been blasphemous, in my opinion. I love that fact that others are coming out of the woodworks to say that not only were they thinking the same thing, but they wanted to help by finding ways to help our community be more inclusive. I also love that so many have said that they had not even realized that this was an issue and were willing to listen. It’s easy to sit and complain about what’s wrong in a situation but to purposefully discuss and listen is the only way that change begins. Warrior Women in Tech A little over a month ago, another tech in my office told me about a new high school tech club aimed at women in technology. I made contact and through twitter connected with the student initiator of the group. She’s an amazing young lady who loves technology and had her own vision to change the landscape of it. With the encouragement of a teacher, she started a club at her school aimed at women in tech. Thinking that very few girls would show, she was pleasantly surprised to find that 24 girls were interested. 24 girls from disproportionate computer science classes were not only interested in the club but also wanted to change the world. Their first order of business was to encourage more girls by reaching out to their junior high feeder schools. Once a week, the ladies of "Warrior Women in Tech" teach coding to a room full of junior high girls. You could not sit in that room and NOT "get" why such a venture was necessary. The conversations that these girls were having, the relationships that they were building and the skills that they were learning…were possible because of being in an environment created to cater to their needs. I have never been as inspired in my entire life at seeing a room full of middle school girls learning to code apps from high school girls. I talked to them about blogging and sharing their story. Last night, a blog was created. We even talked about video which I’m sure will be on the way. Another project that the ladies of WWIT are doing is building an app aimed to have impact on their community. This is a part of the technovation contest where teams of girls compete in coding activities. Technovation How can you NOT be inspired? Perhaps my greatest takeaway from the entire evening was learning that 24 girls got together to change the world and they are doing it with skills that their passions have led them to learn…on their own. Empowered by one teacher and their google apps account, the world became their classroom. The world, within reach of the tips of their fingers, is theirs to disrupt and we all get to witness it. So, maybe the answer to getting more women in tech was right in front of us all along. They’re sitting in classrooms waiting on permission to be the change. Now, with pleasure, I get to rewrite this portion of my book.

My son has always been a bit of a deep thinker when it comes to world affairs. As a matter of fact, we could talk for hours on end about pretty much anything…as long as it didn’t relate to him personally. There was always an understood wall guarding that part of him. Yesterday, this conversation took place…   Rap Communication I had no idea that my son was "free-styling" every night before he slept and probably throughout the day. The other night, he decided to type his thoughts into his phone. He’s never done that. He said that as he was sitting there, the words kept coming and he had no choice but to write them down. He said that writing felt like the right thing to do. He could focus more as he typed words into his screen. (apparently paper and pencil is not a thing) What my son did was bigger than what he even realized. Growing up, rap held such a negative connotation in our home. My brother wrote songs and rapped but his life was filled with so much negativity, that rap music often carried the blame. If we knew then what we know now, I imagine that our approach to my brother’s music would have been vastly different. The pain of our lives…his life…was deeply intertwined in his music and we didn’t listen. I regret that. For my parents, it was easier to blame the music than to look at the truth of what was happening. I wouldn’t make that same mistake. So when my son sent that text message announcing that he had written a verse, I felt nothing less than the need to hear what he had to say. He wrote… "I remember late nights talkin to granny about life. Bout how I was doin mama wrong when dad wasn’t treatin her right. How I ain’t been to church in a while and I needa see tha light. Steady arguin wit dad bout it but it ain’t worth tha fight. Seein momma struggle man that was the final strike. That sparked somthin in me man it made my heart tight. They say the sky is the limit but I’m tryna reach new heights. Hopin that I make it, motivate me more when people say I might. Nowadays you looked down on if you ain’t white. But it’s been like that forever it’s been like that forever. Been feelin sick lately but I gotta get it together. So I can get my momma a new roof for that bad weather." In one verse, I understood my son more than I had in months. This wasn’t just about artistic expression. This was him channeling his emotions into rhymes and rhythms. I wouldn’t make the mistakes that we did with my brother. As difficult as even the rest of his piece was to hear, I needed to know. My son sent me the rest of his work…his heart in rap. In two verses, he was dealing with not only the pressures of growing up but also how the divorce and tumultuous life that we lived prior… bothered him. I promised him that I wouldn’t share the rest of his words but I will say that somewhere in the craziness of adult actions was a teenage boy trying to figure out his place in life and how to handle the pressures of being him. There is a rhyme and reason to this moment and it’s wrapped in a cloak of words with rhythm. My son would go on to ask me what I thought about his work. My reply was that I was deeply touched and that I loved it. His reply, as simple as it sounded, also carried so much meaning… "Thank you mom. That means so much hearing you say that" He’s talking…I’m listening… (On another note, I’m glad that my son has my brother to help him understand how to manipulate his words. This was the first real connection that they’ve had and they both needed that.)

Anyone that wonders why technology access is important hasn’t spent time with a 9 year old driven by his artistic passion and goals to create the world that he wants to live in. They have no idea what it’s like to watch from afar as he searches relentlessly to learn something that sparks his "wonder"… only to then be captivated by an entirely new idea. Then, the cycle begins again. When the world is your classroom, you don’t see things as they are. You see things as you can create them to be. Pinterest isn’t just a page full of stagnant ideas. It’s a page full of things that people have created, shared, revised, re-created and shared again. It’s the idea hub of idea hubs and the beauty of it is that its growth is astounding. It’s not just normal for one to search a site like pinterest for ideas to create…it’s understood. When the world is your classroom, you have no problem with trying something new even without written instructions. You know that there is a "help" website, blog or in most cases…a youtube video. The other day, I handed my nephew a new app and I didn’t need to sit beside him to explain how to use it. I showed him one thing…layers. He learned everything else through youtube and trial and error. I didn’t even have to tell him that there were youtube videos…it was understood. When the world is your classroom, there are no boundaries to sharing what you do. An upload button is not cloaked in fear. It’s a window to teach someone else as you have learned. My nephew, at 9, will grow up understanding the power of blogging, sharing and publishing. Once he found search, his first thought was that he wanted people to be able to find things that he has done on the web too. This didn’t scare me at all because I knew that as we taught him to publish, we would also be teaching him about digital citizenship. His blog and my instagram feed are full of his work because when he creates, publishing isn’t a question…it’s understood. When the world is your classroom, there is no waiting on someone to grant permission to learn. There is no book or timeline specifying when the learning occurs. It’s not a matter of "can I". It’s a matter of "when" and "for how long". Every moment is an opportunity to be inspired and through that comes even more chances to try. Failure happens often and it’s a simple shrugging of the shoulders because when the world is your classroom, it’s understood that these things happen. They just do. When people say, "it’s not about the tools", I hope that they really mean that because when the world is your classroom, it really isn’t. It’s about passion and a need to share it. It’s about using what is necessary to accomplish a task. It’s about learning something new that you never even considered. These are the moments when learning isn’t a question of "tested" or "not tested". Learning comes from this unknown place called….fun When the world is your classroom, it’s understood that you can do five things… Learn Curate Create Collaborate Publish No directives…Understood Simple