Week 4 - Reading - Telling the WE Story

This week I read about the power of WE. In the Art of Possibility, by Benjamin Zander, he presents the following thoughts on how to achieve the WE.

1. Tell the WE story - the story of the unseen threads that connect us all, the story of possibility.
2. Listen and look for the emerging entity.
3. Ask: "What do WE want to have happen here?" "What's best for US?" - all of each of us, and all of all of us. "What's OUR next step?"

I found this chapter to be very personal to me as a former athlete and now as a coach. Many of speeches provided by former head coaches or evan myself have involved this promise of WE. Yet as I have learned, the real WE in these case evolve from the I. Zander asks us to take a different approach. An approach which is free of fixed wants and desires and is replaced with not a compromise but rather a vision of mutual fulfillment. This shift happens when the conversation moves away from the I and is replaced with the WE. Even in writing this it sounds simple and almost commonsense based. However, I can recall several occasions in which my speeches on WE have really been embedded in the I. As coaches, we ask so much of our players. We ask them to put their health, trust and at times, lives in our hands. This upcoming year I will begin the task of coaching the freshmen football team. I have been asked to take over as head coach and bring some new life to the team. See in the past, the coaching staff before lived for the I. What was best for them, not the players. Students have since transfered or stopped playing the sport and now the head of the program is asking me to bring back the WE that Palma football stands for. Hopefully I will be able to take much of what Zander has presented in this book and apply it, not only to my personal life, but also to my new life as a head coach.


Reference:

Zander, R. & Zander, B. (2000). The art of possibility: Transforming professional and personal life. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press

Week 4 - Response to Therese Josephson

Therese wrote:

Based on the feedback I’ve received from critical friends and colleagues, I have decided to go with what I thought was my first choice last week. Teaching Music magazine.

I feel like this venue is the best way for me to demonstrate that what I did with my Action Research Project works, and is doable. I’m excited about the possibilities.

I think my article is in pretty good shape. I need to add some screenshots from my web page, as suggested in Monday’s Wimba. But I’m happy with the content and organization of it, and have received positive feedback from my critical friends.

My Response:

I have really enjoyed your AR work and your article. I have been following you throughout our course work and think that your project has had a real effect on your students experience. Since we are usually paired up in sections, I always like to look at see how "Therese has done it". Your work throughout all of Full Sail is top notch and it has been a real honor to work along side you. Your passion for teaching and music has really shinned during this process and I hope you are very happy with the journey you have made at FSO. Your kids are very lucky to have such an inspirational teacher and I wish you continued success in the years to come.

Week 4 - Response to Alicia Kalb

Alicia wrote:

My Response:

I think we all work with those that we would refer to as "blamers" of those people who seem to think everyone else is responsible for the problem. They never think that they have done anything wrong and most truly believe that it is everyone else's problem or fault. I truly feel sorry for these people, especially when it comes to teachers. I have so many at my school who are on the last couple of years in their career and they have simply given up. The passion and has left them, their classes are jokes and the majority of their day is spent complaining about everyone else on the campus. Whether it is the administration, students or even other faculty members, the burden and responsibility for the failure is believed to lie with them. It is a shame and sad to watch because the good in me believes these very same people are trying to call out for help. Attempting to get anyone to save them and help them restore the order they have lost in their lives. Yet, like everyone else,  I simply walk away and blame them for my problems.

Publishing/Leadership project part 3 of 3 - A decision has been made

Image from: http://www.springerlink.com/content/119978/cover-medium.jpg

Today I can finally breathe a sigh of relief. First off, I have finally finished my article and after much debate and research, I have chosen to submit my article to Tech Trends, a peer reviewed journal focusing on technology integration in education and training. In the beginning I was looking into larger publications like Edutopia, but ultimately I felt that my article needed to be submitted to a journal for proper review. While Edutopia is popular, it just didn't seem fitting to an article so deep in research.

With that said, I still have some areas that I have marked down to focus on within my article. First, I have to create an abstract at the beginning of the article. I have never written one before and am looking into examples of how to write an affective abstract. The next area that I want to review is my results and conclusion section. Right now both of these seem a little weak and need more focus on future development. Finally, I also need to figure out what images I should include in my article submission. Since I did not have a ton of people respond to my survey, the charts and data appear weak. While the images of the students working on their projects are great, I don't know if they fit. I am hoping that my wimba session with my peers will help answer some of these questions and help me create a final article that has a chance of publication.

* UPDATE
Last night I had my wimba session with my peers and instructors. They provided some very insightful information that I believe may help my article get published. One of the best bits of information they provided was that of including my future/cycle 3 work. In talking about what will happen beyond Full Sail, many of my peers felt I should add this to my paper and I think it has made a huge difference. Our instructor also gave me some really good advice on how to write an affective abstract and I even had a few comments on grammer issues to fix. The area that I still need some work on are the images to be included in the article. I have added three thus far and know of at least one more that will be added but is at school on my work computer. I believe the images I have added show some of the experiences the students and teachers have gone through, but unfortunately, I did not take any images from the training portion of my cycles. However, I am considering taking some screen shoots from the videos created by the teachers in one of my cycles and adding that as well. 

Week 4 - Free Response - Hey, hey, hey...goodbye!

Image from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Kissing_the_War_Goodbye.jpg

This could be the most anticipated blog of the year for me. It is the start of the end. The end of a year at school, the end of my role as a teacher and most importantly, the end of my journey at Full Sail. In many ways, I can not believe that a whole year has already gone by and that this experience, which seemed to begin only yesterday, is almost over. What started out as simply a process to "move-up" the salary ladder has now created a whole new direction for me and my life. Because of Full Sail I have been hired as a full time Technology Director and am now planning on continuing my education in pursuit of a Ph.D/E.d.D. This will ultimately be determined once Full Sail decides to either offer such a program or completes the accreditation process so I can continue my studies somewhere else. However, I am very much hoping that the school considers offering a doctoral program as I have grown very accustom to the teaching and learning style that Full Sail operates under.

While I am ecstatic that this process is almost over, I am also very sad to be parting with such a wonderful group of instructors and classmates. I have made so many friends and connections that I hope will last a lifetime, but just like high school, there is always the fear that communication will be lost and little will be heard from any of these dear friends I have made. Hopefully I will see and finally meet in person all of my peers and faculty members as I plan on attending graduation in July.  Unlike any other graduation, this one is very special for me. It will be the first in which I am financially responsible for the burden of my education and it will also be the first in which I excelled in a program. I was never a scholar and as little as GPA means in real learning, I have the opportunity to complete my studies with a 3.98. I never in my lifetime would imagine a day when I would be near the top of my class and graduating with two course director awards. Especially in such a talented pool of individuals who seem to defy the very idea that technology in education isn't thriving or needed.

Finally, it seems only fitting that on the weekend in which fireworks will fly around the country, me an 80 other fine students will be taking that one last step in a monumental event in which we all can proudly call ourselves alumnus of Full Sail University.

Week 4 - AR Project - Publishing

Today I begin to put on the finishing touches to my article that I plan on submitting to a peer-reviewed journal. What began as a chore and an ultimate fear of rejection has turned into an excitement about the possibility of someone actually publishing my work. While I am not holding my breathe and know that the possibility of rejection is more than likely, there is still a slight chance that someone will be crazy enough to publish my article. I am hoping that the group who will be sitting in on my wimba session and Joe, our course director, will be able to offer some insight on what modifications I can make to improve my article. Some of the questions I have developed so far are;

1. What can I do to improve my results/conclusions? 
1. I feel like there needs to be more. There is a lack of body to what will happen or change. I feel like I am saying here you go, I am done and nothing more will happen after the article is submitted.
2. What images should I attempt to use?
1. During my cycles I did not take any images of my workshops. I did capture some images of the students working on their projects but even then, I don't have many that show the teacher interaction. Many people have attempted to use charts and graphs, but my data collection (survey) was very weak and the graphs look worse included with the text than the text left on its own.
3. How can I formulate a good abstract?
1. The journals I have looked at publishing to all require and abstract and most are limited to 150 words. I am hoping someone will be able to provide me some positive direction on how to write the most affective abstract in the short amount of words.

Publishing/Leadership project part 2 of 3 - Change of plans

Image from: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/56/Change.jpg

After much debate and guidance from my good friend Ashley, I have decided to move forward with the publishing route for my project. Due in large part to time and the fact that I would need to almost create everything from scratch for a presentation, I have decided to give in. A large reason for this was something written in the directions for this assignment. In the instructions it said " As much as this might seem like a new writing assignment, it should be more a case of copying and pasting and re-editing what you’ve all ready written for your Action Research Project, if you’ve completed your Action Research Web Pages. If you look at the AR Web Pages that you’ve created, each page should neatly fit into the structure required for most journal articles". I have to overcome my fear and realize that time is not on my side. My biggest fear of the publishing route was pure rejection but I have now realized that this is a part of life. In my article I hope I can demonstrate that the idea of a "knowledge broker" is necessary for technology to flourish in the classroom and that my cycles simply prove this. As of right now, I have decided to pursue initial publishing with Edutopia but would like to investigate others including Technology & Learning. My goal now is to look into places to publish as well as begin the writing process.