The Tempered Radical

What Kinds of Things DO Teachers Buy for Their Classrooms?

After swinging through Target and dropping another $10 bucks on supplies that I need for an upcoming science lab, I decided to pull out my envelope o' receipts and see how much I've spent on school purchases so far this year. 

Grand total: $875 -- and that only includes the stuff I remembered to save receipts for.

It also doesn't include the money that I've spent on registrations and travel to conferences -- another $535 that had to come out of my own pocket after the state of North Carolina gutted the teacher professional development budget to pay the bills.

Here are five spending highlights I thought you might get a kick out of:

The most expensive single purchases: A Livescribe pen ($122), a subscription to Poll Everywhere ($50), and a wired router to get my classroom's three computers up and running ($42.46). 

The most common purchases: Science lab materials including 9 thermometers ($57), mineral oil ($19), milk ($4.82) and spaghetti ($10.58).

The purchases that I probably could have lived without: New books for my classroom bookshelf ($113).

The purchases that are the most direct result of slashed #edbudgets: Cleaning supplies including a mop and mop bucket to clean my lab floors ($42.48) and the rental of a carpet cleaner to clean the carpets in our team's other classrooms ($36.91).  

The cheapest purchase: A kickball ($6.53)

What's REALLY CRAZY is that the $875 that I've spent so far -- which works out to roughly $73 per month, y'all -- is actually LESS than I've spent in the past few years. I've intentionally cut back on my school spending because I'm as broke as everyone else!

Now let me be perfectly honest with you:  If I worked hard enough at it, I probably could have gotten SOME of my purchases covered in other ways. 

The parents of my students, for example, are pretty terrific at sending in lab supplies when I remember to ask for them with enough advance warning -- and my principal can be pretty creative at finding spare change to squeeze out of his budgets.

I need all y'all to know, though, that teachers ARE subsidizing public education in America by purchasing needed supplies for their classrooms out of their own pockets-- and those subsidies are becoming more and more important as districts struggle to find ways to balance budgets in difficult economic times.

Are we okay with that?

#uncomfortabletruth

#myreality

 

Surgeons, Singletons and Coaching in a PLC

In a recent New Yorker article, noted surgeon and author Atul Gawande makes an interesting observation: Professional athletes – who are already at the top of their game – almost ALWAYS hire a coach to guide their continued growth yet successful professionals in fields like medicine and education somehow believe that “being coached” is beneath them.

This dichotomy stood out starkly to Gawande after squeezing in a tennis lesson with a 20-something tennis pro who helped him to improve his already impressive serve – Gawande was once a highly ranked high school tennis star in Ohio – in just one lesson.

He writes:

“Not long afterward, I watched Rafael Nadal play a tournament match on the Tennis Channel.

The camera flashed to his coach, and the obvious struck me as interesting: even Rafael Nadal has a coach. Nearly every élite tennis player in the world does. Professional athletes use coaches to make sure they are as good as they can be.

But doctors don’t.

I’d paid to have a kid just out of college look at my serve. So why did I find it inconceivable to pay someone to come into my operating room and coach me on my surgical technique?”

(p. 2)

Determined to experiment with his theory that coaching carries potential for professionals working beyond the courts, Gawande contacted Robert Osteen – a general surgeon that Gawande had admired and trained under during his residency – and asked him if he’d be willing to serve as a surgical coach.

My #eddies11 Nominations

One of the comfortable traditions that I've gotten into over the last few years is spending time over the Thanksgiving break thinking about the people in my PLN who have changed who I am as a professional.

And no joke: I'm thankful for a TON of people.

 

Folks like Scott McLeod and Dean Shareski have been influencing my thinking about #allthingseducation and #allthingstech for years now.  They're literally my professional heroes -- guys who have had a profound impact on me.

Folks like Steven Anderson, Tom Whitby, Kyle Pace, and Nick Provenzano are my digital homeboys, pushing me to think differently about the tools and practices that I'm integrating into my instruction.

Folks like Russ Goerend, Matt Townsely and Paul Cancellieri push my #assessment buttons, folks like Eric Sheninger, Jeff Delp and Lyn Hilt push my #leadership buttons, and folks like Nancy Flanagan push my #edpolicy buttons.

The list is almost never-ending, y'all.  I learn from George Couros.  I learn from Justin Tarte.  I learn from Derek Hatcherelli.  I learn from Bo Adams. I learn from Renee Moore.  I learn from Ariel Sacks.

That's what makes nominating people for the annual Edublogs Awards so stinking difficult. 

I want to nominate EVERYONE!

Knowing that I've got to be home in an hour, though, I'm going to keep my list of nominees for this year's awards short and sweet. 

Here they are:

Best New Blog: The Learning Nation by Cale Birk 

I suppose the real challenge of choosing the "best new blog" is defining "new" -- and then figuring out exactly when someone started writing.  From the best I can tell, Cale Birk -- a high school principal in Western Canada -- has been writing for just over a year.

Regardless of how "new" Cale's blog is, it deserves a spot in your RSS reader.  Cale is constantly writing interesting bits about school leadership.  I think my favorite bit of late was this piece where Cale details the tinkering his building is doing with professional learning communities. 

You can follow Cale on Twitter here.

 

Most Influential Blog Post: The Death of the Awards Ceremony by Chris Wejr

So I'm probably cheating by nominating The Death of the Awards Ceremony here -- it was written in June of 2010 -- but I don't care.  It's literally the most influential post that I read this year. 

Who cares if I didn't find it in time for this year's Eddies.

In it, Chris Wejr -- another principal from Western Canada -- explains the reasons that Honors Assemblies make no sense in schools that care about every kid. 

As a guy who emcees a mean Honors Assembly, Chris's piece has challenged me to think differently about student recognition -- or the lack thereof.  It's a bit that sticks in my intellectual craw -- one I return to four times every year. #thatscool

You can follow Chris on Twitter here. 

 

Best Group Blog: Voices from the Learning Revolution

A confession: I'm WAY biased towards full-time practicing classroom teachers, y'all. 

After all, I'm still in the classroom full-time, so I understand better than most the sacrifices that we make when we choose to teach.  I also understand just how risky it can be to make our practice transparent in such a public way by choosing to blog.

That's why the Voices from the Learning Revolution blog -- a PLP Network project -- means so much to me.  It's chock-a-block FULL of real-live classroom teachers writing with great detail about their instructional practices -- and it changes what I do in my own classroom almost every time that I stop by.

 

Best Free Web Tool: Tripline

This is easily the hardest category to come up with ONE nomination for simply because there are SO many tools and services that have chosen to offer educators free accounts -- Diigo, Voicethread, Animoto etc -- and I honestly believe that we should be thankful for ALL of them.

I decided to nominate Tripline this year, though, because it is a startup that I think has huge potential. Designed to allow users to create interactive photo enhanced maps, Tripline is just plain cool.

I reviewed it recently here -- and I'd encourage everyone to give it a spin. ANY service that can make maps cool is all right in my book.

There you have it, y'all. My list of nominees for this year -- but more importantly, my nod to my PLN.

Whether I've listed you or not, I learn from you EVERY day -- and for that, I'm thankful.

#fortunateson

Tool Review: Tripline

Thanks to my buddy Mike Hutchinson, I stumbled across an interesting new tool the other day called Tripline, which allows users to create sweet little photo-enhanced interactive map-based presentations. 

As the Tripline guys explain, the possibilities of sharing and learning through locations are almost endless:

At its most basic level, Tripline is a way for you communicate by putting places on a map. That's a very human activity that has been happening for thousands of years.

We've added a social layer to that communication so, whether you're a regular person or a rockstar, you can share where you're going, where you are and where you've been with the people you care about.

While many users have embraced Tripline as a tool for telling the stories of their favorite vacation destinations -- my personal favorite is the guy that traveled through the West with his dog in his motorcycle's sidecar -- literally ANY topic built around locations can be "Triplined."

Here's a sample that I whipped up spotlighting some of the people in the world that my middle school microlending club has helped:

(Click here to see the entire presentation on Tripline's site.  It's worth it.)

________________________________

Pretty snazzy, right.  And RIDICULOUSLY easy to create.  After thinking through the locations that I wanted to spotlight and collecting pictures from our portfolio on the Kiva website, I think I spent about 35 minutes putting this together.

There are literally TONS of educational applications for Tripline, aren't there?

And while TONS of educators haven't discovered Tripline yet, there are some great examples of Tripline's potential in the classroom already on the site -- including this map of Paul Revere's midnight riide, this map of Lewis & Clark's Western adventure, and this map of the escalation of the Arab Spring protests.

What I love about the Tripline is that it  makes engaging visual maps possible.  Ask any long-time social studies teacher and they'll tell you that's pretty darn valuable.

Here's how the Tripline guys explain it:

When we first started, I was amazed that map-based visuals of events like these were so difficult to find online. I think now that Tripline exists, that sort of map-based content will have a home.

And the possibilities are endless: author and band tours, charity walks and rides, culinary adventures, fictional trips from books and movies, sporting events, scientific expeditions, etc.

Check it out, y'all.  And consider nominating it as The Best Free Web Tool in this year's Edublog Awards contest. 

It really is THAT good. 

Are we REALLY Okay With Selling Ad Space on Student Report Cards?

In one of the more surprising decisions that a public school district has made in recent memory, the Jefferson County Public Schools in Colorado has started selling advertising space on student report cards.

For $90,000, Colorado's nonprofit education savings plan has bought the right to slap a big, fat advertisement on the bottom of every student report card for the next three years. 

In a district with 86,000 students who presumably get four report cards per year, that works out to about 3 cents per placement. 

Now, I understand WHY JEFFCO has been forced into this ridiculous decision:  Schools everywhere are feeling the pinch of poor economies. 

That means we either need to find new revenue streams -- which is the choice JEFFCO has made -- or we need to cut expenses even more than we already have.

#brokeyall

But doesn't this scare anyone besides me?

In my horribly pessimistic mind, I can see the "next steps" playing out in sickening ways:

Local businesses will buy the right to print coupons on the bottom of student report cards as a part of behavior incentive and/or academic rewards programs. 

As skeptical New Zealand educator Allan Alach pointed out in Twitter today, this is the PERFECT "socially responsible" marketing plan for Burger King, McDonalds and Pizza Hut, isn't it?

For every A he earns, Johnny gets a coupon for a free Whopper when a large drink and a side of fries are purchased.  For every B, little Johnny will get a free Biggie Size upgrade on any Value Meal purchased.

And OBVIOUSLY -- like my equally skeptical buddy Chris Wejr mentioned on Twitter today -- kids with Fs will get coupons for free tutoring sessions at local learning centers. 

Recognizing that some customers are worth far more than others, businesses will start negotiating different rates depending on the schools that their advertisements run in. 

"We'll give you 1.1 cents for every ad you run in that poor, failing, inner-city school," the conversation will go, "and 3.8 cents for every ad you run in the affluent suburbs."

Worse yet, some strapped-for-cash district leader will buy into the "some communities are worth more than others" argument and hold out for 5 cents per ad in the rich schools. 

In a seemingly spontaneous moment of sheer brilliance, some business leader will suggest marketing different products to families of different ethnic groups or socio-economic status.

In the worst case scenario, stereotypical assumptions about the interests of families of different races or classes will drive choices for advertisements.

"How about museum coupons for kids in the suburbs and Putt-Putt Golf and Games coupons for kids in the inner city?" the supposedly harmless thinking will go.

#sickeninglyprobable

In the best case scenario, new marketing companies will come in and offer parents the chance to choose the types of coupons and advertisements they want to see on the bottom of their kid's report card.

"Would y'all prefer food coupons or entertainment coupons?" the thinking will go.  "We offer both.  How GREAT is that?!"

#barelytolerable

In another seemingly spontaneous moment of sheer brilliance, some district leader will start selling the rights to print advertisements on interim reports, too.

Why stop at formal report cards, right?  Our school sends home grade sheets a few times per quarter.  If we're slapping ads on report cards, why NOT slap ads on those interim reports, too?

Sure, half of our interim reports never make it home -- but they've GOT to be worth something, right?

And what about that "beginning of the year" paperwork that goes home every year: Supply lists, student data sheets, course outlines.  That's prime marketing real estate too, isn't it? 

Aren't parents more likely to be on the lookout for papers early in the year -- and if so, can't we make MORE money by selling ads on THOSE kinds of documents? 

#endlesspossibility

In a final seemingly spontaneous moment of sheer brilliance, local charter and private schools will begin buying ad space on the bottom of report cards in failing schools and districts.

Recognizing that this could put their own schools out of business, district officials will balk. 

Feeling jilted -- and losing easy access to a potentially huge market for their services -- the private and charter schools will sue, claiming that they are being unfairly discriminated against by a public agency.

The trial will last 2 years and cost taxpayers $2.2 million dollars to defend. 

Crazy stuff, isn't it?  What makes it crazier is that every one of my fictional scenarios is TOTALLY possible. 

So here's another solution:  Why don't we start providing our schools with the cash that they need in order to educate our children WITHOUT having to sell advertising space on student report cards.

Is that REALLY asking too much?

 

What CAN Principals of PLCs Learn from Antarctic Disasters?

For Antarctic explorer Roald Amundsen, 1911 was a year to remember. Having set out with a team of five, Amundsen accomplished the impossible, becoming the first person to successfully travel to the South Pole.

What made Amundsen’s accomplishment even more remarkable was that he was literally racing another team – led by accomplished polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott – across the frozen continent.

Despite being similar in almost every way, Scott’s journey ended in complete disaster.

Not only did Scott and his men fail to arrive at the Pole first – Amundsen had planted the flag of his Norwegian king long before Scott arrived – they died a bitter, frozen death just ten miles away from their supply depot months after Amundsen’s team had returned safely to their homes half a world away.

Although Scott’s journals portray a man convinced that Mother Nature was out to get him, success for Amundsen and failure for Scott, argues Jim Collins and Morten Hansen in Great by Choice (2011), had nothing to do with luck or chance.

Both leaders were experienced and well-financed polar explorers who literally left their respective base camps within days of each other in October of 1911.

Both faced difficult – and at times horrific – weather conditions. Both overcame seemingly impossible physical obstacles and both had their initial plans blindsided by unexpected circumstances.

Instead, success in the quest to conquer the South Pole had everything to do with Amundsen’s planning and preparation – for both his historic journey AND for his career as an explorer.

More Reading Suggestions: Dealing with Dysfunctional Teams

An interesting Tweet -- sent by a close friend of mine -- landed in my stream the other day.  Here's what it said:

Any reading suggestions for ways to address dysfunctional PLCs?

Good question, isn't it?  And one that I'm sure a TON of #atplc folks ask on a daily basis. 

Here's a few titles that you might find useful if your learning team spends more time wrestling with conflict than focusing on student learning:

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

By far the best book that I've ever read about dysfunctional teams is an oldie-but-a-goodie from the business world titled The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. 

Written in the format of a fictional story about the CEO of an imaginary company trying to straighten out her struggling executive committee, Lencioni lays out the most common factors that characterize dysfunctional teams including three that I think plague PLCs: an abscence of trust, a fear of conflict, and a lack of commitment to shared goals.

I read The Five Dysfunctions at a point early in my work with PLCs when my own learning team was dysfunctional on a good day.  It was invaluable simply because it helped me to quickly target the specific reasons that we were struggling. 

Equally important, The Five Dysfunctions helped me to step back from the professional ledge.  It served as a reminder that human interactions ARE challenging to manage and that struggles are not a sign of failure or incompetence. 

That mattered to me -- and to my frustrated, exhausted colleagues.

While I didn't include The Five Dysfunctions in Building a Professional Community at Work -- my Solution Tree title designed to help teams through their first steps together -- I probably should have.

#itsthatgood

 

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes are High

I think that one of the greatest challenges of dealing with dysfunction on a PLC is our complete lack of comfort with difficult conversations. 

Remember: in a traditional schoolhouse, dysfunction is easy to avoid simply because you can literally ignore one another for YEARS.  That same professional security blanket is ripped from your shoulders the minute you join a collaborative community.

The truth is that conflict happens on learning teams -- and learning the language to work through that conflict in a productive and healthy way is essential for anyone who wants to move a dysfunctional team forward.

Crucial Conversations -- a book that I read after one particularly nasty blow-up with a colleague on my learning team -- can introduce you to that language.  It will force you to rethink your preconceptions about your peers and teach you how to find middle ground even in the most difficult and delicate situations.

One of my favorite tools from Building a Professional Learning Community at Work -- this Managing Team Based Conflict handout -- was influenced by a strategy that I learned from Crucial Conversations. 

#goodstuff

 

Camel Makers: Building Effective Teacher Teams Together

Another book that helped me to see my way through rocky times on one of my professional learning teams was Camel Makers -- a super old National Middle School Association title that I'm not even sure is still in publication. 

While it's format is a bit hokey -- it's literally a fictional account of the initial efforts of an imaginary team trying to invent the first camel -- it is a short, approachable title that I think does a nice job highlighting the common interpersonal challenges that learning teams face.

I wouldn't recommend this book above The Five Dysfunctions or Crucial Conversations, but it might be a good choice for you if you're looking for something written specifically for educators or something that is short and sweet.

#readingsomethingisbetterthanreadingnothing

 

Anyone have additional recommendations for my colleague?  What titles do you think would offer support and guidance to dysfunctional learning teams? 

_____________________________

Related Radical Reads:

Questioning Practice in a PLC

What CAN the Principal of a PLC Learn from Love Labs?

How Much DOES the Composition of a Learning Team Matter?

My Fall Reading List, 2011

Recently, I stumbled across a post by Seth Godin that was super valuable to me. In it, he spotlighted a series of books that he was currently reading.

As simple as that sounds, Godin's post was helpful simply because it turned me on to interesting titles that I may never have found on my own in the sea of paper that is published every year.

Essentially, Godin became my information filter -- pointing me to books that had a higher likelihood of being valuable because they were prescreened by someone that I trust.

So I figured I'd start doing the same thing here on the Radical every now and then.

Below are five books that I'm currently reading -- or that I've recently finished -- that I think you might find interesting and/or useful:

I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59

I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 -- a book I picked off of Godin's reading list -- is an interesting look into the early life of one of the world's most dominant companies.

What surprised me was just how scattered Google's early work really was. Led by two Stanford grads with a determination to build a flat organization, employees often felt simultaneously confused AND empowered.

Written by one of Google's early marketing employees, it's an entertaining read that may just help you to figure out how to begin to structure early change in your buildings.

 

Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos and Luck -- Why Some Thrive Despite Them All

Despite having one of the balkiest subtitles titles I've ever seen, Great by Choice -- written by organizational change experts Jim Collins and Morten Hansen -- builds on the themes that Collins has been studying for the better part of a decade: Organizations CAN outperform their peers by taking specific, identifiable steps.

In this new twist, Collins and Hansen specifically focus on the kinds of steps that have allowed businesses working in unpredictable and chaotic industries -- airlines, biotech firms, tech heavyweights -- to thrive.

I couldn't think of a more relevant book for school leaders, y'all. As we wrestle with new definitions about what teaching and learning should look like, education has become one of the MOST unpredictable and chaotic industries.

With engaging and approachable examples, Collins and Hansen outline three tangible steps that leaders can take in order to survive AND thrive in disruptive times.

 

The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators

Regular Radical readers know that The Innovator's DNA -- written by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen and Clayton Christensen -- has been a huge influence on my thinking over the past few months.

Designed to introduce readers to the characteristics of the individuals and companies that have churned out innovation after innovation in today's world, The Innovator's DNA isolates the kinds of behaviors and processes that are essential for succeeding in professions driven by knowledge-based, creative work.

Considering that schools -- and particularly schools that are structuring themselves as professional learning communities -- are attempting to become more innovative in their practices and processes, there's a TON to be learned from The Innovator's DNA.

 

Hungry Planet: What the World Eats

Regular Radical readers also know that I'm driven to introduce my students to the reality that billions of people around the world live in extreme -- almost unimaginable -- poverty.

Not only does poverty present a great lens for studying required objectives in the sixth grade social studies curriculum (we look at the differences between developed and developing countries), it is a theme that resonates with middle grades students who are passionate about fairness and justice.

Besides, teaching students to think critically about the impact that poverty has on our world is just plain the right thing to do.

That's why I was so excited to stumble across The Hungry Planet the other day -- a book designed to introduce readers to poverty through the lens of food.

Written by Peter Menzel -- the author of the widely acclaimed Material World -- and Faith D'Aluisio, The Hungry Planet looks at the foods eaten by average families in both rich and poor countries around the world in an average week.

The contrasts are stark and will leave kids wondering. You can't help to be moved when you learn that Sudanese refugees in Chad have less than $1.25 per week to spend on food or that families in the Philipines have to choose between eating and going to the doctor.

 

Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton

Here's a simple truth, y'all: If we are ever going to convince our students to be readers, we've got to start talking about our own personal reading interests and passions in our classrooms. Kids need to know that WE read for pleasure, too -- and that means we need to make time to read for pleasure!

In my world, "reading for pleasure" generally means reading nonfiction titles connected to fringe religions, survival in extreme circumstances, or the lives of interesting people who dominated my attention when I was a teen.

That's why I picked up Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton, the newest title by one of my favorite sports writers, Jeff Pearlman. Payton was one of my heroes when I was a kid -- so learning more about what made him tick was a no brainer for me.

My notion of Payton as a hero was reinforced in Pearlman's text. Heck, Payton was almost singlehandedly responsible for the successful integration of his racially segregated Mississippi high school.

But my notion of Payton as a hero was also destroyed in Pearlman's text.

Turns out that there were a ton of behind the scenes weaknesses in Payton's character, from the son he had out of wedlock and refused to ever acknowledge to the mistress that he brought -- along with his wife and children -- to his Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

You won't learn a ton about school leadership or organizational change from this title, but if you haven't read a book for pleasure in a long while, it's difficult to be a successful reading role model for your students.

 

Interesting list, isn't it?  When I shared it with a few close friends, they were surprised that there's not a SINGLE education title -- nothing by DuFour, Marzano, Mattos or Schmoker -- on it. 

That doesn't mean I'm NOT reading books by #edustars. 

But it DOES mean that I'm intentionally trying to read beyond my profession.  Creating intellectual collisions -- a TED in my head, so to speak -- means diversifying my information streams. 

The fact of the matter is that there are real lessons to be learned from titles that have nothing to do with education.

Here's to hoping you'll share your own fall reading list with us -- either here in the comment section or on your own blogs.  Let's sort and sift through interesting titles for one another, huh?

If you create your own list, share it in Twitter with the tag: #edreads

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Related Radical Reads:

Real Men Read

Are YOU Intentionally Creating a TED in Your Head?

Innovation and Intellectual Collisions

One Tweet CAN Change the World

 

 

 

 

How Are You Vetting Ideas in Your School or District?

I stumbled across an interesting service called Vetter this week.  In its simplest form, Vetter is a digital suggestion box designed to get ideas from employees. 

What makes Vetter unique, however, is that it also allows you to create groups of employees who can read and rate the suggestions that are being submitted by their peers on a scale of one to five. 

Essentially, this collective review and rating process allows leaders to take advantage of the wisdom of crowds.  Ideas that are reviewed by a diverse cross-section of employees are far more likely to succeed simply because they have been reviewed by individuals with unique organizational perspectives and experiences. 

Better yet, this collective review and rating process helps to encourage cross-pollination across an organization.  When potentially innovative ideas are made transparent to everyone, intellectual collisions help to spark creative thought.

Vetter also sends "the boss" (read: the primary account holder) a daily (or weekly) digest of any submitted ideas with an average rating of two stars or better AND keeps track of the individuals who are regularly submitting the ideas that are highly respected by peers. 

There's real potential here for school leaders, isn't there?

I would LOVE to see -- especially in large schools and districts -- formalized processes established that encouraged employees to submit ideas on improvements in everything from practices to purchases. 

Not only do I believe in the wisdom of crowds AND think that school leaders would benefit from hearing the voices of a wide range of staffers, I know that school employees would benefit from seeing the thoughts and ideas of colleagues working in a wide range of roles in schools. 

In a profession where isolation -- both physical and intellectual -- is the norm, it's all too easy to get stuck looking at change through our singular lenses. 

Heck: I'd even love to start using a service like Vetter with my classes.  I truly value the feedback that my students give me about teaching and learning -- but I don't have a tool that makes collecting and analyzing that feedback easy. 

Now, Vetter's not perfect. 

Because it is designed for businesses and not schools, users have to have an email address and be a part of an invited group in order to give feedback and to rate ideas. That means my sixth graders -- who rarely have email addresses -- won't be able to use the service.

I'd love to see Vetter create a more generic option that schools could use to gather feedback from students, parents and the broader community -- which would require allowing users to submit and rate ideas whether they'd been invited by someone at the school or not. 

Vetter's not a free service either -- and because it is primarily designed for business users, the pricing model is based on a monthly fee. 

I'd love to see them develop some kind of single use option -- which would allow school leaders to collect ideas during focused school planning sessions without having the ongoing charge that goes along with a monthly service. 

But Vetter's certainly a tool that I think schools and districts might want to take a closer look at. 

We've simply GOT to do a better job at innovating efficiently -- and idea management services that allow ideas to be submitted, rated and reviewed by larger groups of stakeholders are certainly a step in the right direction. 

PLC Tip: Superstars Almost Always Depend on Solid Structures

Let’s start with a simple truth: Whether it’s the athlete who singlehandedly throws a team on their back to make a run to an unlikely championship, the actor that wins Oscar after Oscar, or the digital genius churning out inventions that change our lives, everyone loves superstars.

The notion that individuals – blessed with nothing more than determination and a set of remarkable abilities – can regularly rise above seemingly impossible situations on their own rings true, doesn’t it?

But is it REALLY true?

That was the core question that Harvard Business School professors Boris Groysberg, Ashish Nanda, and Nitin Nohria (2004) set out to answer when they started studying 1,052 high-flying stock analysts – individuals ranked at the top of their profession by Institutional Investor magazine between 1988 and 1996.

Specifically, what Groysberg, Nanda and Nohria wanted to know was did top performers REMAIN top performers when they moved from firm to firm?

Could stars succeed regardless of new sets of circumstances?