Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Oh, in stem stories with Mr Ewing.
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Welcome to installment number 10.
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Our last installment.
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I wish I should have.
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I feel like I should have a party hat and
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streamers and balloons.
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But I want to talk about collaborating and this is
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all about how do we find balance?
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How do we find that work?
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Life balance and the biggest tool that we have is
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collaborating with our team, our school and beyond.
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Now what does that look like?
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Teaching as a whole is that isolating job.
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A lot of us come to work.
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We go into our classroom, we shut our door and
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we spend the day.
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But in this virtual world, it's been a little bit
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more isolating the normal.
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If you haven't had an opportunity to reach out and
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collaborate and you know, you probably a part of a
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team at your school and maybe not a great level
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team. Maybe there's a group of people you know that
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you can actually team with.
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But the first start is looking at your grade level
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team. Share the workload.
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Each one of you brings an important puzzle piece to
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the day.
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You know what you don't have to do it all,
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especially in a virtual world or 50 50 model or
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blended model.
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Whatever, you're gonna be work together, All right, find your
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peace. That is your specialty and work as a team.
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Share that information and build it together.
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Now look at our school.
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There may be people around that building that you, from
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years have really respected, and maybe you've never even told
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them. Reach out to them, work together, share ideas, share
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information, share tools.
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You know what?
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This past spring, I actually went and visited other people's
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classrooms just to see what they were doing.
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Or I heard they were doing using a tool that
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I had USIA and I reached out and said, Hey,
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can I come into your classroom and just observe and
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watch? And every single one of the people I've asked
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said yes.
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So again, use the tools that we have right in
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front of us with us, because together were so much
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stronger than individuals isolated in your own classroom.
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Now, my biggest key for collaboration is my professional learning
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community, which spans the globe.
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I am connected with educators from around the world, just
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from my years of experience and different things that I've
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done and participated with, and I reached out to so
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many of them to collaborate with, create lessons with I.
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You know, teachers across the country that I've built lessons
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with its It's important and more now than ever is
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this key.
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The cool thing is because so many of us have
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the opportunity to be working in a virtual world.
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We actually have the time to make this happen and
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because it doesn't have to happen right then they could
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be that, you know, creating their parts, this part of
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the world, that part of world, and you bring them
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all together for a really cool lesson.
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We're in our normal classrooms.
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If I wanted to work with another teacher, bring someone
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in, it was a lot harder and a lot more
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work, and it had to happen to different times, and
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we're actually have an amazing opportunity to pull those things
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together. So make sure your collaboration is also happening beyond
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the walls.
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The walls of your traditional school reach out joint different
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social media groups ask her help.
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People have amazing lessons that they want to share.
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Trust me, teachers especially in this world, love to share
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their. I guess if they don't well, you won't know
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it because they don't share.
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But asked for help.
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Reach out to people following people on Twitter, people and
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Facebook groups Instagram.
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Whatever it is, find that the the media that you
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like using and use their lessons and be inspired by
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him steal them.
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I don't get you know what if I have a
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lesson that I love and a teacher uses it and
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makes it their own, that's amazing.
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That's great to me.
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So if you're gonna do it, reach out and say,
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Hey, can I take this lesson and make it my
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own? You know, Teacher says, Now it's OK.
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Most are probably going to say Go for it, you
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know, and then give him a little credit at the
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end or something.
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But connect with people, collaborate with people.
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That is the key to this world right now, because
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we all have their own speciality to bring our own
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pieces of wisdom, our own special like talents and trades
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that if we bring it all together, we can create
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this amazing machine called learning.
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But it takes collaboration.
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You can't do it alone.
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Don't be this guy, and I hope I'm not offending
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who are This is in this picture because it's probably
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not what it was intended, but so many of us
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do this.
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I know I did it for years because I was
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afraid to ask.
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Actually, it's not true.
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My first year and those people that worked with May
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I went to every classroom I could and asked for
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help because I was sinking.
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But that's an easy thing to do, especially if we're
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teaching in a virtual world to become isolated, and we
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also need to bring in that break and play time
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as well.
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But we need to bring in the social pieces well,
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just like our students need social, we need social.
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So find that team that you wanna work with, collaborate
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with your own team, your own school and your professional
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learning communities.
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It is paramount to be part of this change, because
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again individually were really good, were great, but together we're
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awesome, were amazing when we collaborate and one would collaborate.
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We provide experiences there so paramount to the the explosion
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of learning that can happen and make our experiences in
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our environmental learning spaces so much better by collaborating.
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I really hope that you take all the pieces that
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we've talked about in all 10 of our lessons, and
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you start to integrate these pieces into your learning and
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make our experiences first, our students the most amazing they
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could possibly be, because that's what we do were amazing
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superhero educators.