Antonio Viva

A Conversation About Social Media in Education from Antonio Viva on Vimeo.

I was invited to speak with administrators from the Asheville School this week by my good friend and colleague, Peter Baron from Admissions Quest. The conversation lasted about 30 minutes and we discussed a variety of topics including; using social media in the classroom, understanding how to leverage the potential of social media technology in your communication strategy and changes in school culture.

I hope you enjoy it!

To find out more about Admissions Quest visit http://www.admissionsquest.com/

For information on the Asheville School, visit their website at http://www.ashevilleschool.org/

This presentation was made at EduCon 2.1 in Philadelphia on Saturday, January 24th.

Can we harness the power of social media to provide students with a vehicle for exploring and creating original content? WA Mash (Worcester Academy Mashup) is an online magazine where the power of social media is captured to provide creative writing students with a platform for exploring ideas and fostering and contributing to the larger global conversation. By exploring the possibilities offered by the use of social media tools, we explore how one teacher is defining the New Humanities at the secondary school level. Built off the work of Richard E. Miller at Rutgers University, students blog in a timely fashion about a wide variety of cultural, political and economic issues. Most importantly, it is about creating original content and redefining the role of student and teacher. They compliment their work with audio, video, photos and micro-blogging by integrating social media tools like YouTube and Vimeo, Twitter and Flickr. Think Slate or Salon for high school. The conversation will explore the nature and role of the New Humanities in education. How do we define it? What does it look it? What role does it play? And how do we move forward with implementation?

The resource wiki for this presentation can be found at educon21.wikispaces.com/211-3

Using Social Media to Define the New Humanities Classroom from Antonio Viva on Vimeo.

This is my first time attending EduCon and I must admit that it has on the whole, delivered in every way. As I sit here in a Starbucks trying to catch my breath and enjoying a Vanilla Rooibus Tea latte I am thinking about the depth and breadth of conversations I have been able to have over the last two days. From our arrival on Friday afternoon, our tour of the Science Leadership Academy, the panel discussion at The Franklin Institute, the Saturday sessions, my presentation, the networking gathering and Sunday morning panel, the experience has been superb. Read the rest of this entry »

We recently held a professional development day where a portion of the morning program was devoted to the topic of differentiated instruction. Our very talented and capable Center for Learning Director worked with her equally talented and capable staff to design an hour long presentation intended to serve as a follow up to their presentation at our pre-sessional meetings in late August. Differentiated instruction is not a new concept to those of us in education, and its underlying premise is that rather than expecting students to fit their learning to the curriculum, curriculum and instruction are flexible so that they can better meet the individual needs of individual students. Teachers who are practitioners of DI believe that their teaching is shaped by the students they have in their classes. Read the rest of this entry »

Last spring I worked on a weekly series called “Monday Morning Meditation” where I would try to connect some thoughts, ideas and perspectives about leadership to the teachings of Zen. It is my hope that by devoting some time to the complex and very human interactions associated with leadership, we can find new ways to approach our work as leaders and help us on our journey towards reshaping our schools.

On Balance

Gaoan Said:

“What students should keep in mind are balance and truthfulness; even though thwarted in a hundred ways they will remain serene and untroubled. But if they have any inclination or bias, and spend the days and nights in petty striving with gain as their aim, I fear their enormous bodies will not fit between the heaven and earth.”

I am sure that many of us in leadership positions have found ourselves looking for that perfect balance. In our professional and personal lives, in our ability to deal with the stresses of work and home. It never seems to be fully possible to find that perfect balance because those of us who work in schools are keenly aware that the nature ebb and flow of the school year comes with moments of rest and reflection while at other times, the pace feels frenetic and out of control. What I find interesting in this passage is the notion that balance and truthfulness are linked together. Our inability to find balance often comes from our unwillingness to be truthful with ourselves. Why do we prioritize certain things over others? What drives us to make the decisions we make? What frames our way of thinking about our work and our relationships with our colleagues and direct reports? Remaining free of bias, keeping an open mind and perspective are often challenges for those of us in leadership positions. We can quickly become thwarted by a variety of factors that can get in the way, for example making decisions based on seeking personal gain.

Finding that perfect balance in life may seem a lofty aspiration but if we take the time to recognize that our approach to our work, our colleagues and our personal lives can serve as the vehicle towards finding more balance in our life, the challenge may not seem as difficult as it once did.

Namaste

Photo Credit: pshutterbug

One of the first things I remember learning in my graduate work in education was that no matter what I did or how well I planned, there would simply never be enough time for me to get everything done. It just wasn’t possible, there were too many demands, too much work, not enough time. In the 14 years since, not much has changed. Regardless of the school you work for, or whether you are a teacher or administrator, the same mantra pervades most discussions that there is just not enough time to get everything done. The demands on students have not decreased, if anything, they and/or their parents inflict additional stress to be in every club, to compete at the highest athletic levels, to take 5 AP courses. It feels like not only has life gotten more complicated, but we try to pack 27 hours worth of “stuff” into a 24 hour day. Read the rest of this entry »

When I started teaching in 1995 the faculty room was the epicenter of conversation among colleagues. You would walk in, there would be a half pot of 3 hour old bitter coffee, folks grading papers, a water cooler and the drone of a photocopier working diligently in the background. Meetings took place in the library or in classrooms and occasionally we would head out on Friday afternoons for some pool and wings at a local spot in town. I remember clearly that some of the best talks I had were with a colleague named Pat Smith as we sat at the end of a long hallway on “hall duty” during lunch period. Pat was a music teacher who had toured with Barry White during the 70’s and he was a smooth, old school daddio who knew how to make kids and colleagues laugh and he loved music and teaching. He shared stories about touring in the 70’s, his experience as a teacher and he provided insight and mentorship on challenges I was experiencing at the time developing my own, young teaching practice.

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Occasionally I find time to browse through some of my favorite websites looking for some good reading or an interesting resource I have yet to encounter. As I browsed through the NAIS website, I came across a letter written by John R. C. Sumner, who in 1951 was a teacher of modern languages at the Webb School of California (Claremont). That winter, he gave a talk in the school chapel which was entitled “Of Course the Future is Uncertain.” In it he describes how at the time, the uncertainty of what the future held for this chapel full of boys (Webb has since continued single-sex education in a co-educational setting by adding a girls school in 1981 ) was not an excuse for inaction.

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I have recently found myself needing to reaffirm my belief that comprehensive school reform is a failed concept. In my previous work with the US Department of Education, I worked with schools that had been identified as low performing and as such, in need of comprehensive school change. While the goals of this project were admirable and in many ways, would have resulted and did in some cases, improve the experience of teachers, students and parents, the overall approach in my opinion is flawed. Mandating substantive change to occur in our classrooms by expecting that the approach be universal and common fails to recognize the unique nature and culture that is a school community. Walking into a school community is different than running a business or company. Many of you who read this blog will say, but wait, did you write about what schools can learn from Google and Apple? I did, you can read it here and I do believe that schools can draw from innovative and creative companies a great deal of inspiration and new ideas. However, when it comes to making school wide mandates that are intended to foster change, in particular, curricular reform, the whole school, comprehensive approach just doesn’t work.

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This presentation was done on December 6th, 2008 at The Association of Boarding Schools conference in Baltimore, MD. We had a great group of 12 independent school administrators and teachers. Thanks to those who came and enjoy!

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