Victor Boulanger

On 18 & 19 March 2017, Jay Atwood (EdTechTeam) and I hosted the Taiwan Google Summit at Kaohsiung American School. In truth, this amazing tech conference could not have happened without the support of the most innovative professional speakers in the field (Anita Chen, Vivian Lin, Mike Yung, etc.) and our team here at KAS (special accolades to the Tech Crew, the Tech Ambassadors, and of course Robert, Lena and Tom). During this weekend long event, I lead a workshop on how to build a teacher website in minutes. I would like to share my resources here. Google Summit in Taiwan This was a really energizing event for all who participated. Both days opened with brilliant keynotes. On Saturday, professor Benson Yeh lit up the assembly recalling his experience implementing the concepts of gamification in his university course. Prof. Benson Yeh on Gamification On day 2, my friend Suan Yeo, education evangelist at Google gave us another insight into the future of education with...

This is the TED Talk presentation I gave at Learning2. Called "Design Better People", it focuses on how the design thinking project management cycle teaches empathy, an essential life skill which  positively impacts individuals and institutions.

Thank you to all the participants of my workshop Redesign the Learning Experience at the Learning2 conference hosted by Saigon South International School. Here are the resources that I am happy to share with everyone: Google Drive Folder with all Resources Both Friday and Saturday sessions are there including the trombinoscopes ! I Feel Lucky card deck Deck of cards including all the questions to the I Feel Lucky icebreaker game Poster  of the 4C's These thinking routines are used for the reflective pieces for the team Concepts - What key concepts do you think are important? Connections - What connections can you draw with other learning Challenge - What ideas do you want to challenge? Changes - What changes in attitudes are suggested? Poster of the ISTE Technology Standards (2016 revision) The 2016 ISTE Standards are used as a first layer in the x+y combine to innovate process Empowered learner Digital citizen Knowledge constructor Innovative des...

This is an extract on the case study done during the staging phase of the construction of Kaohsiung American School new campus and its technology infrastructure. KAS Blends its IT and Learning Technology Operations Our small IT department went without an office in the original designs. How would we create a technology support center to better suit our IT needs? Unlike international institutions with large technology departments that separate IT and professional development operations, KAS only retained a lean staff of three employees at the time. We hypothesized that centralizing all tech-based learning within one hub would build continuity between the effective delivery of IT learning experiences, dedicated technical support, and the involvement of the rest of the professional community. KAS IT Department Victor and Robert KAS Fosters a Flexible, Student-centered New Campus We reviewed and discussed the building designs, examining in great details all related aspect...

This is an extract on the case study done by KiSSFLOW regarding the implementation of their process automation solution by Kaohsiung American School IT department. The Need For Office Process Automation KAS is a hundred strong professionals who cater to over six hundred users across their campus. Like most international organizations, KAS too has numerous processes taking place throughout the year: finance, administrative and HR processes, most of which were carried out over paper. Even the simplest of processes, such as leave request approval, was taking days to complete. Although the flow of office processes were well defined, the medium through which they were carried proved to have numerous cracks for them to fail. Process Automation with KiSSFLOW Together with Lena Wang, our Systems Analyst and Robert Chuang, our Senior Technology Specialist, I was looking for a system to transform our organisation into a more productive and paperless atmosphere. A simple system throug...

Technology Innovators We have many great technology innovators in our international institution. A strategy to support them requires as a preliminary step to identify who these various actors are. Some have already been identified and organized: Tech ambassadors program established leaders Tech crew program for aspiring innovators Others still need to be recognized: Admin and leadership teams Users who are not yet tech ambassadors Onboarding users who are not in the tech crew Tech Ambassadors Program We initiated a thorough review of the main axis of our  strategy to support and empower the learning leaders at Kaohsiung American School: the existing KAS Tech Ambassadors program. The following document details the origins of the program from its inception to its self-determined mission. It further examines the accomplishments and challenges that have been met leading to a reflective piece by Victor on its past 3 years. Tom develops the existing foundation into a ...

Since the adoption of a one-to-one environment in 2012, large investments were made into developing state of the art technology at Kaohsiung American School. These culminated in a complete integration of technology into the new campus inaugurated in May of 2015. The missing component was an equally strong system to enable our community to thrive by using this environment and infrastructure to redefine the professional development experience at KAS. Thus the first Learning Technology Coach position was created at our school in August of 2015. Lead, Collaborate, Share An in-depth discussion with Diana Beabout during her fortuitous visit at KAS in September allowed us to become conscious of the leadership potential in our existing Tech Ambassadors program . Innovators and early adopters establish the momentum that will effect transformation ( What Are Innovators Like? Everett M. Rogers 1962 p.55). Tech Ambassadors are KAS lighthouses whose leadership skills need to be recognized a...

For this part of the course, Tom and I initiated a thorough review of the main axis of our  strategy to support and empower the learning leaders at Kaohsiung American School: the existing KAS Tech Ambassadors program. The resulting analysis spans over 6 pages which we agreed would not be suitably reproduced in this forum. You can click on the following link to review the full content of KAS Tech Ambassadors . As for the content of this forum post, I will share an excerpt of my personal reflection: Diana Beabout’s words during her visit at Kaohsiung American School still echo loudly in my office: “The Tech Ambassadors are lighthouses, beacons for other teachers. (from  What Are Innovators Like? Everett M. Rogers 1962 p.55). It is clear that their lights shine, reflect, and inspire others. Following the success of a session held by the Tech Ambassadors, one of our ELL teachers hosted an Authors’ Tea this week. In a meticulously time-controlled environment, ELL students...

I organized my post-observation meeting around a short list of open-ended questions taken from the Cognitive Coaching method (I found the first couple of questions in the Coaching Initiative Packet shared by the Minnesota Low Incidence Projects) which I supplemented with long-range questions stemming from this forum: What were some of the things that you felt went well? What did you find most difficult about teaching this lesson? What are some skills you would like reinforce in your students? What is next for you? What would you like to try? These allowed me to establish a progression similar to the GROW model which Jocelyn described. We were able to start our meeting by recognizing Lulu’s strengths before looking at improvements to be made and future initiatives to be taken. Sharing Lulu felt that the sharing portion of the sandboxing activity went very well. Except for a couple of students, they all learned from each other and demonstrated helpfulness and respect which ar...

I will be perfectly honest: my time in Lulu’s classroom was not a victory lap by any means. It was not a complete checkmate either. They were some failures in a sense that I have recently begun to love: First Attempt In Learning. They were also some victories. I consider this first attempt a great learning success . I co-taught a lesson with Lulu to kick start her students presentation on Cultural Fridays. Lulu’s outcomes for this project are to raise her students awareness of other cultures in a fun, entertaining way, and to use technology to help each group work collaboratively. Lesson Planning When we prepared this lesson, Lulu wanted me to start by showing the students how to change their school issued password. She mentioned they had unsuccessfully tried before and this is where I made my first and largest mistake: I was so eager to get to the good stuff, the presentation, that I said yes without asking any question. We set aside 10 min. for this (5 min. to talk about creatin...

Instead of one pre-observation meeting, Lulu and I had two. One reason for this was to find enough time to talk through the various aspects of the task. The second reason, just as important, was to give me enough time to reflect on the ideas that we shared during our first meeting. It allowed me to sleep on it (I value that process a lot), and query Natalie, our librarian and Tom, our learning technology coach (present in this course) for their suggestions. Team work! With her Cultural Fridays, Lulu had the perfect nucleus of a project for us. In teams of 3, her grade 4 students research and present on 3 aspects of a country, one team each month. This is a new project which Lulu is trying out this year and for which she has only given little oral guidance to her students so far. She was looking at ways to improve it while keeping this extra-credit activity fun and engaging. ISTE White Paper on Coaching The ISTE White Paper on Technology, Coaching and Community  was instrume...

The first goal I have is to understand what makes a good coach. This may come as an all-too-obvious goal for anyone taking this course, especially considering the wealth of excellent advice already provided in this course to make us better coaches, but I am very keen on connecting this knowledge to my personal experiences of some of the best coaches I have met. In fact, the best teachers I know relate to their students in a way I can only describe as personal coaches . This is particularly visible with middle school teachers. They follow students’ individual actions, distillate meaning from these actions and explore the achievements attained or improvements required by the student. The wisdom they are able to impart by asking simple questions leading to  deep soul-searching answers within a short conversation is never lost on the students who are almost always grateful and eager to return to them and share more. Guidance from a Coach When Jim Knight asks “ how did you f...

On September 1st, Tom Hammerlund and I are starting the course "Coaching: From Theory to Practice" taught by Kim Cofino via Eduro Learning . Eduro Learning: Empower, Leverage, Build, Learn We are both very excited about this course for two main reasons: Kim was my wife's instructor when she took her  COETAIL class. We have grown to know and respect Kim as an amazing educator and leader in her field via her initiatives with COETAIL at Yokohama International School , and now at NIST in Bangkok and of course Eduro. Tom and I both work at Kaohsiung American School  where Tom started on August 1st, 2015 as our first Learning Technology Coach, a momentous position which I have patiently waited for ever since I joined KAS as the Director of Learning Technology back in August 2012. You can follow my writings for this course on this website.

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