Teacher Workflow - Getting your Inbox to Zero

Note: I am providing training on these principles on April 1 this year (2011) at my school in Sydney. See http://scil.com.au/workshop/a-day-with-steve-collis

Since day 1 of my teaching career I found the workload simply overwhelming. I had a gazillion things to get done and tiny amounts of time to do them. Time was soaked up by playground duties, meetings, paperwork, and an avalanche of emails. Emails coming out of my ears!

Well, somehow I found a way to create time to work on passion projects. 2006, in hindsight, was the most intense: on top of a full teaching load, I pioneered the Beyond Borders website (online collaborative student communities), running a dozen projects with 1,000 students, while simultaneously setting up the 4 years of online French courses that launched in 2007 under our new 'HSCOnline' brand. 

Back in those days my motto was "Work smart, and work hard." It was rewarded - I won teacher awards, was invited to speak at conferences, and found myself on the Senior Exec at school.

But this was not sustainable. Back in those days, I made things happen through pure pigheaded stubborness. My mind was firing on overdrive. There was no method to the madness, and this fostered a sense of panic. As I hit 30 I recognised this and identified an ambition: to sustain work effectiveness but dump the stress and anxiety. I needed to find an 'off' switch. You might find this obvious but I ain't never turned 'off' in my life. And now I'm managing the languages faculty

I made the breakthrough in January 2010, idly picking up the book 'Getting Things Done' by David Allen. He talked so much sense, in such simple terms, and I had one of those epiphanies.

Before I go further - here is a sped-up video of me using his techniques to clear my email inbox from 100 down to ZERO in about 18 minutes:

Over a year later, I am still astonished at how many of his suggestions are strongly (very strongly) counter-instinctive, but transform your workflow when applied. I spent the rest of 2010 getting the hang of them.

He addresses all the 'stuff' we have in our life:

- petty jobs we have to do (ring so and so, pick up the milk, get the car registered)

- fiddly work (gathering student data, report-writing, programming)

- broad aims for our life (spend more time with the family, save for a holiday, renovate the house... become a more loving person)

- policy, procedures, how-to guides, and other mountains of information we need to know or adhere too

Every work obligation, appointment, hope, desire, dream, mundane chore, passion project, deadline, at work and at home... we are mentally invested in these things, and it all mushes together in our minds like porridge. Each day we have to wade through this porridge.

Hence my high level of stress and anxiety. Hence my 'work like crazy' panic.

Allen proposes a strategy that is entirely realistic and workable, and makes utter sense out of everything.

Now I won't rewrite his book right here. I recommend it, and I'd love you to come to my training day where we'll work on implementing the principles. 

However, here is a sneak peak of what my workflow now looks like:

I have a complete inventory of every single mental commitment or job or project or event or ambition. Everything is catalogued and organised and is easy to process and action. I maintain this catalogue daily, just like I clean my house and tidy my room. There is no difference. My physical life is tidy, so why should my mental life be a pigsty?

Some glances at the catalogue:

I use my Outlook Calendar for all events and reminders. My calendar is on my iPhone too. If I have to buy a birthday card this arvo, I set up a reminder to beep on the way home. Each day I can see what time is booked up, and what is free.

I have an organise

'A Day With Steve Collis' at my School in Sydney

Only read this if you live in Sydney or Australia - or are willing to travel!!

This is a guilty pleasure - instead of offering thorough practical training for a particular ICT in education skill, I'm just running a general 'Day with Steve Collis'.

The course is for educators, especially leaders or aspiring leaders.

The day will let me explore a variety of the 'best bits' of what I have to offer.

These 'best bits' will cluster around these core challenges I have faced since becoming a teacher:

1. How can I act effectively and make progress in my projects and ambitions when I am so busy I only get the top 5% of my to do list done and have creativity sapped out of me by relentless interruptions, deadlines, paperwork, etc.

2. Following on from #1 - how can I bring order to the chaotic information systems of my school? In my case, I get 80 emails a day. Many emails imply I should take action - but what action, and how do I remember it, and what if the sender is ambiguous? There is a method for bringing elegant, practical clarity to all this mess. I go home each day with Inbox at zero. We'll look at the method together!

3. Following on from #1 or #2 - how can I reduce cure work anxiety and nurture my energy levels, creativity, and optimism? 

4. How do I create change-momentum in my school? How can I effectively catalyse transformed teacher practice? It is a rare visitor to my school who has not identified this as their number 1 question.

5. Following on from #3... How do I bring out the best in students and colleagues, especially if they are off-side, negative, or are feeding a collective culture of defeatism.

Now, I have not nailed these dilemmas quite yet, but I've made progress with a great deal of them, and I think I have a map for how to navigate the rest.

It's going to be pure indulgence having a full day on this stuff! 

If you're interested, our first date is 1 April 2011 (no this is not a practical joke!). I am sure we will re-run the day in future too. Contact learn@scil.nsw.edu.au for more information and to book.

Our official advertisement and overview is here: http://scil.com.au/workshop/a-day-with-steve-collis

The page includes this ridiculous photo of me: (which nevertheless pretty much sums HappySteve up)

Live webstream from #DEHub Conference

I'm broadcasting a worldclass conference for free via webcam this week. Please spread the news. Focus is Distance Education.

High School / Primary teachers, this is also very relevant to you - scroll way down to read why.

TUNE IN TO BROADCAST BY CLICKING HERE

(if the broadcast isn't live, it will show recent recordings instead)

I suggest you use the twitter hashtag '#dehub'

   Get up to date information from my Twitter feed.

Here is a live chat system: (SCROLL DOWN PAST IT TO GET TO THE PROGRAM SCHEDULE)

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The details:

Have a look at the program here: http://www.dehub.edu.au/summit2011/programme.html

These are the keynote speakers: http://www.dehub.edu.au/summit2011/keynotespeakers.html

 -------- Click the time links below to get your LOCAL TIME for the big keynote sessions ------

Tuesday 15 Feb:

8.30am Opening Ceremony  <--- NO LONGER BEING BROADCAST ---> 

9.15am SUMMIT Opening Emeritus Professor Denise Bradley, Companion of the Order of Australia

9.45am Australian and New Zealand Keynote Panel: What does distance education mean in Australia and New Zealand? What are the issues and challenges? What does the future hold?

11.45am Deputy Vice Chancellors Panel - Helicopter view of distance education

2.00pm Terry Anderson - Emerging technologies for enhancing distance education pedagogies

Wednesday 16 Feb:

9.00am Olaf Zawacki-Richter The geography of distance education research - bibliographic characteristics of a journal network

From 10.00am it's pot-luck as I attend workshops and broadcast as seems practical.

1.30pm Open Educational Resources Panel 

From 3.00pm it's pot-luck as I attend workshops and broadcast as seems practical.

Thursday 17 Feb 

 8.30am Dianne Laurillard The critical role of teachers in optimizing technologies for open learning

From 10.00am it's pot-luck as I attend workshops and broadcast as seems practical.

1.30pm Mohamed Ally: Mobile learning - hype or evidenced impact for higher education applications? - SORRY I HAVE BEEN TOLD I CAN'T BROADCAST THIS ONE.

2.30pm Anticipating the future: Developing leaders, researchers and practitioners of blended and distance learning Panel

From 4pm it's pot-luck as I attend workshops and broadcast as seems practical.

Friday 18 February

9.00am Phil Ice: A story of oxcarts and airplanes: Converging the reality and promise of e-learning

From 10.00am it's pot-luck as I attend workshops and broadcast as seems practical.

1.30pm Grainne Conole Social inclusion or exclusion: What do we already know about the learning patterns of socially excluded groups and what does Web 2.0 offer that is different for the distance learner?

...followed by the closing ceremony and postscripts.

Some thoughts from Steve about the conference:

First, this is very nice that the conference organisers are getting me to give away their best bits for free to anyone in the world.

People are paying $1000 to attend in person, and yet you can enjoy the best bits from your armchair for free.

Second, although the theme is University distance education, this is a highly significant conference for any educator. 

Let me give some reasons why:

- the technologies being discussed have far-reaching implications for any level of schooling. Think: mobile phones, iPads, virtual 3d worlds, creative commons licensing, and much more. In fact, these areas are moving so quickly I literally can't wait to hear what people say.

Let me pause and give you an anecdote from YESTERDAY. I was corrected THREE TIMES by my Year 8 French students who, without me asking them or giving permission, began surreptitiously checking some statistics I was throwing at them, on the internet. I was not the best source of knowledge in the room, and they damn well knew it, and I damn well rewarded them by the way!

- the conference has brought together a brilliant bunch to try to predict where things will go next. Listen to them. Frankly, your job as you know it is at stake.

- the 'distance education' thingy is an elephant, and if you haven't stopped to take it into account, well, you had better, and here's your chance. The classroom teacher will be competing with any other teacher in the whole world who can offer a better product over the web. Do not fret, but get up to speed with what this might mean.

Radical ‘Open Space’ Staff Conference

I had my phone handy at our staff conference last week & began taping.

What I captured and have now compiled, below, brings home to me how lucky I am to be on such an optimistic, enthusiastic, open, creative team. 

The format was based on ‘Open Space’ conferencing. We started with a blank canvass – no pre-defined program.

Colleagues then came forward to begin defining areas for discussion – 24 areas. 

People then grouped around the themes that resonated, and were free to stay or flit from group to group (we invoked the concept of cross-pollinating bees).

This grassroots approach means you have authentic perspectives and harness intrinsic passions. It is driven from the bottom up, not the top down.

Some groups were big, some small, but I was struck in every case by a universal sense of engagement.

Finally we asked staff to nominate a short-list of discussions to move toward an action plan.

There were 12 of these final groups. Their resulting road maps  have already been collated and combined into a google doc ready to be supported for action by the school senior exec. I dare say not every road map will survive in the busy-ness of 2011, but one thing is for sure: our community will look mighty different in 6 months from now than it would have had we gone with a series-of-lectures format.

My colleague Anne Knock blogged about the conference too: http://anneknock.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/professional-development-that-gives-voice/

You can follow Anne on Twitter.

If you have a chance to influence what staff workshops happen at your school, even just for a handful of colleagues, give the ‘Open Space’ format a go.

Create a Live, Permanent, Always On Video Conference...

(Quick news first: I was interviewed for the EdTechCrew podcast http://www.edtechcrew.net/2010/11/09/ed-tech-crew-142-innovating-with-steve-collis/ . It went really well - the two guys who run it are just lovely people, Darrel Branson (The ICT Guy) and Tony Richards from itmadesimple.com . My episode is sandwiched between two others that I also recommend, one with Lucy Barrow and another with Dean Groom. In all three, virtual worlds are discussed to some degree.)

AND NOW ON WITH THE SHOW:

"Create a Live, Permanent, Always On Video Conference..."

...by which I mean have a computer in your school that provides a permanent video conference link to another school. This becomes a little window out into the world. Students who walk by can glance at the screen and see who is at the other end. If they want to they can put on a headset and chat!

When I thought we'd give this a go I went first to Judy O'Connell (@heyjudeonline on Twitter). She works as teacher/librarian at St Joseph's College, Riverview. In fact, this is quite close to my school, and in the same city. But the point was, let's just get cracking! Let's see if this can work! Let's see what goes wrong! Let's just get some momentum going.

My initial email to Judy was brief, and she picked up on the idea immediately. We didn't have a meeting, we didn't write a program, we didn't design a policy.

Within a couple of days she had set up the computer at her end, and I had at mine, and we were ready to go.

All we needed to do is boot up the computer, run Skype, and call each other with a video-call. It runs all day. We leave it to serendipity as to who will talk to who, when, and about what.

We've done this two days so far. 

At my end, I needed to quickly adapt the plan as we went. My students need to sign an agreement before sitting at the computer. I have a script of questions that they can ask - "What are you learning at the moment? How is your day going?" and so on. I have emphasised everywhere DO NOT GIVE OUT YOUR SURNAME OR CONTACT DETAILS! 

Two more things have to happen:

- I need to move the location of the computer somewhere a little more discrete (not too discrete - we need to supervise!).

- I want to set a screen recorder up on a loop so we can actually record everything that's happening for monitoring purposes, so I can tell the students 'you are being recorded'! General rule of thumb: students behave differently if they know they are being monitored. 

Once I've sorted that, I want to set up two or three permanent connections, not with local Sydney schools, but with schools in Japan, Russia, and the outback (in all three cases the time zone will be workable)

It's early days in this project, but I love this way of working: Ready, Fire, Aim, or "Act, then think". This method grounds your ideas in practice, making it really obvious really soon what will and won't work, rather than putting energy into planning that can come to nothing through fatigue or impracticality. 

More later, I'm sure!