The Small Ways We Build Lasting Relationships In Education

My mentor said to me at our last meeting, "The only true measure of greatness is consistency." If we as educators and administrative leaders want to be great, we need to do the small things consistently each day. This quote applies directly to one of the most important functions of education and life, relationships. In education, we must not forget that we are in the business of building relationships, serving others, and creating pathways that inspire success. 

It is easy to fall into the "same-old" trap. We start the year strong, but after two months we forget to do some of the things that make our students love having us as their leader. This post is meant to serve as a reminder of the small things you can do each day to inspire others and build lasting relationships.

1. Smile & Greet: One of the simplest ways to brighten anyone's day and mood is with a smile. Do you sit behind your desk as students walk into your classroom/school or are you at the door welcoming them with a big happy grin? Student's notice when you are excited to see and teach them! BE VISIBLE and PRESENT.
2. Ask questions that don't require one word answers: How often do we ask our students and teachers how are they doing and they respond with a uninformative "GOOD?" If we want to build stronger relationships and get to know those we work with better, we must ask better questions and listen more than we speak. HERE are 101 fun and engaging questions to ask people to spark a better conversation.
3. Drop notes and compliment: When students and teachers are caught doing something positive, write and drop them a small note. Your words of acknowledgement and encouragement may mean more than you will ever know.
4. Listen and care: As educators, we are multitaskers. We have an amazing ability to listen to a student's question while doing three other things at the same time. Are we really listening or are we going through the motions? It is OK to stop what you are doing for a minute, turn to the person, make eye-contact, smile, and genuinely listen to what they have to say. This builds trust and respect.
5. Laugh and tell stories: One of the best ways we learn and grow from each other is through authentic stories. How often do you use story telling with your students or staff? The more we laugh with each other and use storytelling as a part of the way we communicate, the stronger relationships we will form with those we serve.

These seem like simple tasks that educators and administrators should do each day as good instructional practice and leadership, but if we have a ton of things to grade and hundreds of emails to answer, they are the first to go out the window. Never forget, it is the small things that are done consistently each day that inspire greatness. Are you doing these in your classroom and school? Dare to be above the status quo!

Episode #25: ToonDoo & Speed Presentations

On this weeks segment of the Donatelli Edzone, learn how you can use ToonDoo to create innovative comic strips, help students imrpove their communication skills with speed presentations, and laugh/be inspired with a joke & quote!

If you liked this weeks video, please subscribe to my YouTube channel HERE. Thank you!  

Episode #24: Piktochart & Multiple Intelligences

On this weeks segment of the Donatelli Edzone, learn how you can use Piktochart to make visually stimulating infographics, get a better grasp of multple intelligences, and laugh/be inspired with a joke & quote!

If you liked this weeks video, please subscribe to my YouTube channel HERE. Thank you! 

Episode #23: Google Keep & Behavior Modeling

On this weeks segment of the Donatelli Edzone, learn how you can use Google Keep to save notes, checklists, videos, and pictures, be an edcuator who models what they want their students to do, and laugh/be inspired with a joke & quote!

If you liked this weeks video, please subscribe to my YouTube channel HERE. Thank you! 

Boogie Into Failure & Risk-Taking

As I sat reading a book at the beach while on vacation, I looked up to see one of the most natural things in the world; kids playing, failing, and learning from each other. In-front of me formed a natural tide pool from the ocean and kids from the surrounding area began to flock to it with excitement and enthusiasm. Before you knew it, there were fifteen or so kids diving into the small pool, splashing around, and trying to zip their boogie boards across the water like a sled in the snow.

The first couple of kids who tried to slide across the water standing-up fell off of their board onto their butt and failed. Even when they "failed," they laughed, shook it off, and tried again without feeling sorry for themselves. The "innovators/leaders" set the example while the other kids learned from them, saw it was "fun to fail and try," thus creating an environment of ingenuity and innovation to figure out the best ways to slide across the water without falling off the board.

Watching this take place got me thinking about some important questions we need to ask ourselves in education...

As educators, where do we encourage our learners to fail in order to learn? Is this built into our lessons and curriculum? Do we challenge them to solve problems or spoon feed them everything?

Do students learn from play or is that taken from them by the time they get to middle school? Kids, no matter what age, need to play and find joy in their learning in order to get the most out of school.

Administrators, are you leading like an innovator with a growth mindset? Are you taking risks and demonstrating to your staff that it is OK to try new things, fail, and grow from them? In schools, just like in many organizations, the 80/20 rule applies. 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. My point being that most educators are the kids on the sidelines of the pool wanting to watch and learn from the 20% of leaders and innovators. When the 80% sees something that works from the 20%, often they are willing to give it a try and learn.

Whether you are an educator or administrator, I challenge you to answer and reflect on these questions before the start of the school year. Your students and teachers deserve leaders who model innovation, creativity, and risk-taking. Boogie into the school year with a fresh and open mind!

The Power of Snapchat in Schools

In education, it's as important as ever that educators continue to grow and meet student's where they are. In order for our lessons to best "stick," we must understand our students worlds, their likes/dislikes, free time activities, and how they prefer to communicate. When we know these things, we can be creative in our lesson planning and make our content come to life!

Snapchat is one of the most popular social media platforms used by teens and adults today. The app allows users to send and receive short "visual" messages from each other that disappear in time. The "Snaps" can include a picture with text, audio, filters, drawings, geofilters, and bitmojis.

If new to Snapchat, want a more detailed explanation, or you just want to see how it works, CLICK HERE for more information.

Students and adults alike a lot of fun with Snapchat and have gotten very creative with it over the years. When used appropriately and professionally, it can be a fantastic tool for learning and collaboration.

In 2016, Matt Miller, founder of Ditch That Textbook, wrote about 15 ways to use Snapchat in the classes and schools which is awesome! After engaging in a terrific #tlap chat in July 2017, many educators shared ways they use Snapchat in the classroom which inspired this post. One of the people that I met through that chat was Tisha Poncio, Innovative Learning Coach in Texas. She and I decided to collaborate on a post and share other unique ways you can use the power of Snapchat to increase learning, engagement and excitement in schools!

1. Classroom/Organization Snapchat: As educators, we are always looking for professional ways to communicate with our students and parents but no one wants to use their personal social media account to do so nor should they. Why not create a separate Snapchat account for your classroom, department, club/organization, or even sports team to share all the great things that are happening?! Meet them where they are. This year in our business department, we will be using Snapchat to highlight student projects, promote our school store, and showcase the community service our FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) are doing. You never have to follow students back, everything you choose to share gets posted to your story for others to view, and it builds the brand you are proud of in a positive light. Follow us @ "dtbusiness" to see what we are up to this school year.


2. QR & Snapcodes: Did you know that Snapchat has a built in QR reader?! No longer do you have to download an app that reads QR codes. How can you use this in the classroom? Scavenger Hunts! Fact: Kids sit most of the day in schools. Why not take that biology lesson on squirrels and spice it up a bit. Send them on a quest in teams around the school to find Snapcodes that take them to videos, pictures, and websites. What is a Snapcode? It is Snapchats version of a QR code! No longer do you need to go to a website to make them and print. They can also be shared digitally.
     
3. #BookSnaps & Twitter Chats: BookSnaps have taken the education learning World by storm this Summer! A BookSnap is when a user takes a picture of a passage in a book they like with Snapchat, marks the image up with drawings, filters, and bitmojis, saves the image, then shares it digitally with others to learn and debate from. To learn more about these and how to create one, CLICK HERE and follow the "Mother of BookSnaps" Tara Martin. When having students read an article or section of a book, have them create a BookSnap of the most impactful snippit to them, save it, and share it on Twitter using your class hashtag. This can be incorporated into a Twitter chat discussion in class! See below on the reasons why you should create Booksnaps.
    
   


4. App Smashing Snapchat with Flipgrid and Shazam: Students love using all of the filters, stickers, and bitmojis when making Snaps. Why not appsmash while having fun?! Let's say you want students to respond to a question towards the end of the lesson. Instead of having them write it, why not have them make a 10 second video using Snapchat and the filters? When done, have them save the video and upload it to your class Flipgrid.
   
   There, as a class or individually, you can watch, listen, and learn from everyone's responses. Powerful! Also, the app Shazam (ability to instantly recognize any song in seconds) is now built into Snapchat if you hear a song you like but can't figure out the title of it.


5. Creating a PLN: When Tisha and I brainstormed this post, she mentioned "many educators are using Snapchat for fun, but it can be a powerful tool to connect with others to provide encouraging and thought provoking material." At times, teachers can feel isolated in the profession and connecting with other like-minded educators can help them remember their WHY and grow on a deeper level.


6. Geofilters: Want students to work on their  creativity and
   
   design skills? Geofilters are screen overlays that capture where you are or what you're up to in a Snap! Students can create them for the community, school, birthdays, parties, weddings, stores, and restaurants. They could make for a great outside the classroom project or partnership with a business

Have more ideas on how to use Snapchat innovatively inside schools? Please leave a comment below!

5 Creative Ways To Use Weebly In Schools

Weebly gives millions of people a surprisingly easy and affordable way to create a website that is as unique as they are. With a Weebly site, people can start their own business, communicate with their clients, showcase their achievements, and be an authority on personal and professional interests.

In 2015, Matt Bergman and I gave a presentation at the PETE & C (Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo & Conference) to showcase how Weebly can be used by educators and students to create organizational websites, digital e-folios, teacher class websites, summative projects, and district resources for schools. Here is the link to the (FREE GOOGLE DOCS RESOURCE) sheet from our presentation. Please explore the examples and let me know if I can answer any questions for you regarding how you can use this awesome software in your classroom  to engage students in project based learning!