Leadership Day 2010 - Call to all bloggers

For the 4th year, Dr. Scott Mcleod is calling all bloggers to participate in Leadership Day 2010 on July 30, 2010. Everything you need to know to participate is available in the Calling all Bloggers - Leadership Day 2010 blog post.  

From Dangerously Irrelevant

Dr. Mcleod provides you with prompts to spark ideas, a checklist, history of the Leadership Day blog challenge, a badge, and instructions on how to participate in the Leadership Day 10 blogger challenge post. Leaders come in all forms, all ages, and all levels of technology experience, we learn from you, because of you, or in spite of you.


For those who choose to "lurk and learn" review ISTE NETS-A, search for the official hashtag #leadershipday10, comment on someone's blog post, forward links to friends, tinker with something in technology, or NOT. For those who share knowledge, skills, and experience...thank you, continue doing what you do.


Last year for Leadership Day 2009, I did a blog post asking the question, "What are you doing? Leadership Day 2009", this year I continue to challenge you to do whatever you can...with and for our replacements...at some point you will be replaced. 

If our learners are our credentials...how is that working for you?

Regardless of your role...you are a stakeholder, whether you work for, live near, pay taxes for a learning environment, whether you are one, know one, want to be one from a student, administrator, educator, parent, support staff, parent, guardian, business owner, community member, concerned citizen or a combination of the above...do something.


You play a vital role in the unity of a community, observe, assess, adapt, implement, overcome, self educate, encourage others to share what they know and from Steven Covey's 7 Habits, "Seek first to understand, then be understood".


Look how far Google Apps Education Edition has come in the last 4 years.
From the Oregon Dept of Ed and Google Apps presentation as Oregon became the first state to allow districts to implement GAEE:
The published slide presentation
The Question and Answer session
Oregon Department of Education Google Apps Case Study
Google Moderator Questions and Answers for the ODoEd webinar
Colorado and Iowa opt for Google Apps Education Edition (June 2010)

In June 2009, PBS Frontline Digital Nation did a piece titled, How Google Saved a School? Principal Jason Levy used Google applications and a 1-to-1 laptop program to turn around Intermediate School 339.
IS 339 Dot-to-Dot A digital celebration program June 16-19, 2010
Presentations from the 2009 Dot-to-Dot program
Follow Jason Levy, Principal of IS339 on Twitter
About Dot-to-Dot A Global Learning Reception FAQ

Prince George's County Public Schools (PGCPS) Project Plans for Google Apps.
18th largest school district in US, 209 Schools, 129,500 Students, Over 22,000 Employees, Over 60,000 Computers. Change from previous presentations 20K more computers, 6K less employees.

Prince George's County Public Schools (PGCPS) has been Googlized and subsites of presentations at CloudCamp, CoSN 2010, Gartner 2009, NECC 2009, MICCA 2009, ASBO 2009.

Dr. Helen Barrett's ePortfolio Mash Up with GoogleApps (2007)

Save the time and energy wasted on complaining, banning, and ignoring it and take some time to listen, understand, learn, then share it with someone.

Thanks to Dr. Scott McLeod for taking time from his own busy schedule to keep the Leadership Day blog call to action a positive and shared learning experience and thanks to everyone who does something to support Dr. Mcleod's reminder, "because , I promise you, if the leaders don't get it, it isn't going to happen" (2010).

Student Opportunities, ISTE NETS-S, Self-Assessment and Empowerment

Do you or your students visit the OPM Student opportunities site? This site allows students of all ages, in all levels of education to view the requirements and apply for jobs, internships, scholarships, fellowships, grants, and apprenticeships within the federal government. The jobs, internships, scholarships, grants, fellowships, and apprenticeships link to the educational opportunities available to students high school through doctorate level and career professionals.


Learning how to fill out applications for the different programs requires students of all ages to self assess their personal and professional achievements, collect information for human references, and learn how to write about their achievements while analyzing different application requirements and deadlines for each program.


The links below allow one to view the diverse opportunities available which they may not be aware of in or out of high school. Visit the site to review the opportunities from NASA, CIA, Departments of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, FDIC, FCC, and many more.


Call to Serve - A joint initiative between the Partnership for Public Service and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), is dedicated to helping you learn more about careers in the federal government. To date, more than 642 campuses and 75 federal agencies have joined together to form the Call to Serve network.


Additional opportunities for students (eScholar)
Jobs, Internships, Scholarships, Fellowships, Grants, and Apprenticeships 


Federal Jobs by Major - A list of popular jobs filled by individuals with degrees. This list is not all inclusive and some job titles and fields are new to high school students whose environment, family, school choices may be limited. Great discussion opener for students who are thinking about future opportunities.


Student Temporary Employment Program (STEP) information
Student Career Experience Program (SCEP) information


Presidential Management Fellows Program and Application information - 2 year paid fellowship for graduate students.


Federal Career Intern Programs:  Individuals interested in Career Intern opportunities must contact specific agencies directly. Today, 80 opportunities are listed under the Internship link, listed below are a few of the agency specific internship opportunities.


Department of Education
CDC Department of Health Promotion and Education
Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) Congressional Internship Program
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Congressional Internship Program - Summer, Communications, and Emerging Leaders


Exploring opportunities is a great way to help students empower themselves whether they are seeking local job opportunities or want to do great things in the world. When we listen to students discussing their dreams of what they want to do in life, one thing that is missing is their plan to achieve those dreams. Not all students attend resume writing workshops, career information seminars, or have encouragement from community members, and the OPM Student Opportunities site allows them to explore opportunities from their mobile devices, homes with Internet access, and local libraries with computer labs while learning to compile personal and professional information. While they are conducting self assessments, students may discover that they need to make different choices in their educational pursuits, become involved with community volunteer activities, and build their network of human references.  


Encourage and challenge students to explore the requirements for a particular career field, internships, apprenticeships, cooperative learning, and scholarships. Exploring the diverse opportunities allows students to apply ISTE's NETS for Students: (1) Creativity and Innovation, (2) Communication and Collaboration, (3) Research and Information Fluency, (4) Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making, (5) Digital Citizenship, (6) Technology Operations and Concepts as independent learners.

FAQs:

What are the eligibility requirements?
Each program has different requirements. Most programs require that you actively pursue a degree, certification, or diploma. In addition, you need to be in good academic standing at your school, a U.S. citizen, and able to meet security requirements. Check specific programs for eligibility criteria.

What can you do when you create a USAJobs account?
Build and store up to 5 distinct resumes, save and automate job searches, save and apply for jobs, learn how to use USAJOBS, learn about the federal hiring process, discover special hiring programs, search by Agency, Occupation, Location, see which jobs are in demand, and apply to Federal Agencies.

Create an account here.
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Comments, recommendations, or checks in the reaction boxes are always welcome.

Essential conditions for ISTE NETS

A discussion centered around the ISTE NETS for students (2007), teachers (2008), and next year for Administrators (2009). The standards, essential conditions, and profiles are available from the ISTE NETS website: http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=NETS

From the ISTE NETS site, "A major component of the NETS Project is the development of a general set of profiles describing technology (ICT) literate students at key developmental points in their pre-college education. These profiles are based on ISTE’s core belief that all students must have regular opportunities to use technology to develop skills that encourage personal productivity, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration in the classroom and in daily life. Coupled with the standards, the profiles provide a set of examples for preparing students to be lifelong learners and contributing members of a global society" (ISTE, 2007).

The discussion centered around what else can we do to help our students, teachers, and administrators when a student has the essential conditions at home, the library, but not at school.

If the essential conditions do not exist: Shared Vision, Implementation Planning, Consistent and Adequate Funding, Equitable Access, Skilled Personnel, Ongoing Professional Learning, Technical Support, Curriculum Framework, Assessment and Evaluation, Engaged Communities, Support Policies, Supportive External Context. What else can we do?

Stay involved. Encourage our students to start or participate in a movement through organizations like Do Something! or What Kids Can Do. We continue to support our students by volunteering at the local libraries and conducting the computer workshops to enhance the skills of the students, stay involved with our students' computer activities, and encourage our students to be proactive in learning something new with their technology gadgets and continue to share the knowledge, digitally or F2F (Face to Face).

I empathized with my daughter and her friends and felt their frustration when her educators feared or refused to do anything with technology. I stepped up and volunteered at the local library to conduct computer and scholarship workshops. Now as my student begins college and has a requirement to log in to her college website even before school starts I am confident in her ability to embrace the technology that was banned or neglected at her last public school. I am concerned with the students still in the system.

An external audit provided recommendations to the school district with an entire chapter for technology, but technology touched every portion of the the recommendations. With so many free tools available, and sites and projects like Vicki Davis' Cool Cat Teacher Blog, the Flat Classroom and Horizon Projects demonstrating what is being done with students on a global educational level, why is it that our students are not keeping up globally, not just in core subjects by technology as well?

Your feedback, success stories, and shared links are always welcome.