App Fatigue

When we first heard about Zoom fatigue we may have let out a little snort. Yet on reflection we probably realised we had Teams/Zoom/Google Meet fatigue too! That feeling of, not another meeting! In summer 2020 a leader asked me for top tips to help her manage her workload as she felt that she was sinking. I'm a huge fan of a coaching process and, although informal, we worked through and identified that it was continuous meetings that were the biggest issue. The jumping back to back between calls leaving no time to action anything from the previous meeting. She identified that a 15 minute buffer after every meeting might be a solution, she trialled it and when we chatted agin she extended it to 30minutes after every meeting. 

In my calendly I too have a gap after each call, time to gather my thoughts for the next meeting. Time to make notes from the previous one or fire off some emails and await responses whilst I hop on the next call. Yet zoom fatigue still happens on days when I have 5/6 calls a day. Sadly this is common. So I also actively manage my calendar with my calendly. If it looks busy on a morning next week I will book out the afternoon for admin/catch up time. If something urgent crosses my desk that time is available but otherwise it's time to catch up on the busy morning.

App fatigue is something I have seen in colleges I have been working with recently. Staff openly telling me that they cannot learn another app. Now I'm not sure this is true but I take their point. They cannot take on anything else new at this time as they are so busy. Catching up on missed practical activities or the dreaded TAGs that are thankfully now over! I get it.

Sheep dip cpd was introduced to me by Chloe Hynes from PD North. I chatted about it on my appearance on the Edufuturists podcast too. I've even spoken about it on the FE show on www.joyfm.co.uk as well! It is when we 'dip' staff into our agenda CPD. We have decided staff need to have this training, we dip them in and hope it sticks and becomes their new way of delivering their practice. Unfortunately sometimes the dip doesn't stick and there are no changes to practices. Sometimes with educational technology we are guilty of this too. We show staff a shiny new tool and hope it will appear in their lessons tomorrow and everyday there after. Delivery and approaches to CPD are not where I'm going here but will happily blog those too if you give me a nudge.

App fatigue has come about through this dipping of staff into training for new apps. We have dipped them in Wakelet, Edpuzzle, Flipgrid, Nearpod, Adobe, Canva, Kahoot, Kami and more! How many are staffs go to tools now? How embedded are they? Have staff had time to develop their skills further? Have we re-visited to support them? I was at a college recently and I showed a tool and the attendees finished my task really quickly. When I asked how they had managed to finish so quick they told me they had had this training before. So I asked, why haven't you continued to use it? Have you found your why? Answers varied but time and not finding their why were the winners.

Finding your why is when you find your why for the tool/thing/approach that you are being trained on. Why would this work for you and your students? Why would you change your approach? An example is British Values from my own development. It was an add on to my lessons but I went to some training that showed me that by embedding it I would be able to have richer discussions with my students and I had found my why, I changed my approach.

I was asked by a college recently to upskill staffs digital skills and I asked what training had gone before and a long receipt roll of training was reeled off. No wonder the staff have app fatigue. I decided to narrow the scope. With a working party we selected 6 core apps that worked for that college and those students. I'm not listing them all hear as they may not be right for you. We looked at each tool and identified all the possible why's for using each of them. Although some dipping still happened we took a variety of approaches and there was a shift. 

Revisiting apps staff have seen before will divide an audience, some will need a refresher and some won't, but by sharing why's and use cases rather than the clicks and bricks the sessions take on a different flavour. Clicks and bricks are when I show staff where to click and the features of a tool, not how it would look and feel in a classroom. In sharing the whys of a tool with staff you hope they come with you and it will be wonderful. It isn't always, but I have had more success with this approach than continual dipping.

I will share one tool, Slido. It doesn't have to be Slido you may prefer another audience response system but Slido is my preferred tool. Slido inserts into an existing presentation, on either PowerPoint or Google Slides. It is one of the simplest ways to integrate technology into an existing lesson. Staff at one college couldn't believe how easy it was to set up and it did (after a quick dip and a workshop!) become their normal way of working. Every lesson has 3 Slido interactions now, 1 at the start, 1 in the middle and 1 at the end. Students engage on their phone via the camera with he QR code, minimal set up and training needed. In the simplest way a rating Slido can be used where learners evaluate their own progress and inform their teacher. I've seen word clouds used and the distance travelled in the lesson is shown by the increased use of technical language from the students in the word clouds. Gamification via the quizzes means Slido wins for me. 

There will (hopefully) always be shiny new things in the educational technology world, but that doesn't mean we need to show them off all the time. Beware of app fatigue and look for ways to support staff with their own EdTech journey, meet them where they are and show them the tools that will help. Dipping can be distracting.

Conscious Conversations

 How many people have you spoken to today?

Did you see someone whilst walking the dog? Did you bump into parents at the school drop off? Have you rang your mum? Did you chat to someone on the train through your mask?

When we were face to face in a pre-covid world. I don't think I counted these conversations. I live in Yorkshire so it isn't uncommon to strike up a chat with a stranger on public transport or in a coffee shop queue. I would love to know if this was uncommon where you live too?

When in college in the pre mask wearing days you would often find me chatting in corridors, bumping into colleagues as I went about my day. If I am honest those conversations probably made my day. Our college had campuses across the city centre and one of the highlights of the week would be wondering who you would bump into either to or from one of these cross campus jaunts. The journey often felt much shorter if you walked and talked. It was also especially joyful if you hugged a colleague as you dashed across the city square racing in opposite directions.

Yet at the end of the day when I came home to debrief to my partner I don't think I counted these encounters. But now I am mainly online I do. I daily update my partner on the 20 minute chat with a colleague, the hour meeting with a new team and the multiple whats app chats I have had with my friends. I am conscious of these conversations.

Conscious conversations has become my new thing on my to do list every day. To make sure that I have these interactions for my own wellbeing. I have discussed this concept with colleagues who have all made agreeable sounds and nods. Is this a concept for us all in this covid world?

Are we meaningful in our interactions? 

I would direct you to this great piece on consciousness and intentionality here

Are the two dependent? Do we need to be intentional to be conscious? Especially in our conscious conversations?

We learn more when we have other voices in our lives. A wider network informs us of wider perspectives and helps shapes our views, positives and negatives. How do we bring reality to some of these online conversations? Perhaps we don't need to? Many, if not all, of my new friends and colleagues I have never met face to face. Of those I have it has been briefly. Yet the bonds and connections that have been formed between us over the past year and more has had a significant impact on my life. Not just my well being but my professional life and my personal thinking. Because I can engage more globally I have. Broadening my spheres. This is all with intentionaity as I have found my why. See my blog about finding your why here.

Welcoming other voices and actively engaging in spaces are two different things. You can say you are open to all but inviting people to share with you is different. Take the practice some people adopt that when you follow them they RT your name or they send you a DM to thank you for following them. That is actively engaging with new voices. Following back is showing that you are open. There is a difference between being open to others and actively inviting others to share with you. This is intentionality. These are conscious conversations.

There is a difference between intentionality and conscious conversations. I am intentional if I follow back. I am opening a conscious conversation if I DM or tweet your name. SJ @WhatTheTrigMath

Conscious conversations are the process I take now making sure I am intentional with my time. It brings joy to chat to so many wonderful people all around the world, hope we can connect soon!

Wakelet for CPD

This has been quite a week with the launch of JoyFM and starting mentoring the Google For Education Google Coach UK Cohort. In both these spaces I shared Wakelet for CPD and it seemed useful so am blogging about it here.

Wakelet is and isn't what you think it is. Yes it is a kind of noticeboard that you pin useful treasures on. But it is SO much more too! I'm going to start with the Twitter integration.

Twitter has become a key part of my own professional development. Rightly or wrongly. For all its flaws Twitter is where I find new templates and new ideas. I magpie from other teachers all over the world and adapt ideas for my own teaching. Hashtags and communities that share are great for this. #ShareStuffSunday by @i_teach_things is a great way to see ideas from different education phases. The #APConnect community share great ideas from the FE classroom. #AmplifyFE alerts you to big news in FE. Not forgetting #UKFEchat. These are my key hashtags and the age/phase/subject will have their own too #CASchat and many more.

Twitter is also the place where I see academics sharing journals they have written. Just this morning I read a wonderful blog by an academic on unconscious bias of accents. This is my kind of CPD. Experts in their field sharing their work for us all to benefit. I love being signposted to a journal I've not read before. I enjoy reading a peer reviewed piece on a subject that sparks my own journey of discovery of a new perspective.

Twitter is the place where I meet authors of books. I hear about launch events. I see Twitter chats to launch pieces. I engage directly with authors. I then build a deeper understanding of the book they've written. I discovered the launch events for The Manifesto For Teaching Online  this book challenges my thinking so the launch events helped clarify some viewpoints for me. This book is now my go to text and informs a lot of my current work. Had I not been on Twitter I would never have heard of it.

So what about our colleagues who aren't on Twitter? I only joined 9 months ago and engaging on Twitter has provided me with a treasure trove of activities and ideas. How do we support teachers not on Twitter? Could we share what we find? Absolutely! This is where Wakelet wins!

When creating a Wakelet collection you can click +Apps and the Twitter icon. From here you can add in a Twitter handle or a hashtag. Wakelet then pulls through what it has found! That simple! You can then curate through its finds or bulk add them to the Wakelet collection. 

I recently did this for #APConnect21 and these are some of the highlights that capture the Wakelet feature. Staff who are on Twitter can see new names and faces to connect with. Staff who aren't on Twitter can see resources, articles and YouTube links to access Twitter CPD.

The new emoji reaction feature in Wakelet takes this to the next level. Staff who view your Twitter Wakelet collection can react with a thumbs up or a heart. Double curation can then happen. You curate the Twitter posts that pull into the collection and colleagues curate the collection you created by leaving reactions meaning that the next person who sees the collection can easily identify the go to posts.

Here I have made a Wakelet collection on #ShareStuffSunday. Step by step on the app, I described how to do it on browser above but here it is via the Wakelet app

Create a collection and click add an item, select add from Twitter.

Type in the hashtag or handle of who or what you want to pull in.

Curate which posts you want to add. Here I selected all tweets.

And here it is the collection created all ready for you to leave emoji feedback on! Wakelets can be shared via links, QR codes, Teams, Google Classroom and so many more ways. You can also invite contributors to your Wakelet. This way asking others who are on Twitter to run the hashtag at a different time. Or added contributors can add more emat to the bones and articles or resources that link to the Twitter posts shared. The possibilities are beyond my introduction here.

Ultimately, if you find Twitter valuable CPD for your subject and you know colleagues who aren't on Twitter, perhaps you could make a Wakelet to share some of the good stuff you see?

PS you can find me on Twitter @WhatTheTrigMath 😉