The Student Resume Re-imagined

“Resumes land in piles. Digital profiles land internships.  The resume is an anachronistic method of branding that needs to be reinvented. In its current form, it doesn’t tell you anything about anyone.”  - Shara Senderoff via Dell Tech Page One

I started to think about the value of resumes for today’s high school students after a Twitter conversation I had with New Milford High School junior Sarah Almeda. Some of you might remember Sarah from a few blog posts I wrote in 2014 where she created an amazing project on creativity that has been viewed close to 10,000 times on YouTube. She also gave me quite the send off when I stepped down as NMHS principal with this video that still makes me cry every time I watch it.  As a guest blogger on a Principal’s Reflections, Sarah shared her perspective on the importance of blogging as a means to support and enhance her learning.

What does this really tell you about a student?

Image credit: http://www.college-financial-aid-advice.com/images/Student-Jobs-Resume.jpg

I am always curious to see what Sarah has been up to in school as she is one of the most creative people I know.  So I reached out to her on Twitter to ask and below is a summary of our quick conversation:

• Hey @tehshmarah have you created anything cool with digital tools lately in school?
• Thanks for asking @E_Sheninger!  In school, well, we're all a little too busy figuring out PARCC testing to do much of anything else.
• @E_Sheninger Outside of school I've been teaching myself Actionscript and I'm so excited to put it to use at @GamesPlusPlus this weekend!
• @tehshmarah if you ever want to share how you have been teaching yourself Actionscript for my blog just let me know :)
• @E_Sheninger Taking CompScience via VHS has opened so many doors for me; Can't wait to show you what I've started working on when it's done!
• @tehshmarah I would really like that! Just let me know and we can schedule a video call.
• @tehshmarah By the way, I am digging your website that functions as a digital portfolio. Wish more students took the time to do this.
• @E_Sheninger omg! Thank you for taking the time to look at it!! It was so much fun to make.

As you can see our Twitter conversation led me to Sarah’s website, which is listed in her Twitter bio (very smart move by the way).  Out of curiosity I checked it out, as I either didn’t notice it when I was at NMHS or she hadn’t created it yet.  Her site is titled s[hm]arah almeda: I make things and stuff and was created using Wix.  Pure genius in my opinion!  In essence Sarah’s site is a digital portfolio that showcases her creative student work.  The home page identifies three main categories describing the type of work she is showcasing – Media Gallery, Graphic Design Portfolio, Art-Stagram.  The best part is that she developed the site on her own free will.  My feedback to her would be to include more examples of the amazing work she has created over the years, both in school and out, as well as to include a hyperlink to a copy of her traditional resume in the “Who I Am” section.

When reflecting back on the quote at the beginning of this post I can see quite clearly about the downsides of traditional resumes. If I were to look at a textual description of Sarah’s educational experiences at NMHS it really wouldn’t tell me much about her passions and interests.  I certainly would not be able to see her dynamic work firsthand. Sarah’s initiative to showcase creative work beyond just listing on a one-dimensional sheet of paper separates her from other students looking to get into the same programs as her in college.  

Schools need to stop shortchanging students by having them conform to outdated practices such as the traditional resume. Sure, this still has value, but it is limited in breadth, reach, context, and detail as to what students really know and can do. Students today should not only be encouraged, but also taught how to curate and then showcase their work aligned to specific career interests in order to strengthen their ability to get into the top college programs. The traditional resume should be only a hyperlink, in my opinion, as part of a dynamic student portfolio. In addition to Wix here are some other resources that students can use to create digital resumes and portfolios.

So where do you stand on the usefulness of a traditional resume for a student in 2015 and beyond?

The Ultimate Gift For an Educator

Contrary to the belief of some, educators work extremely hard for little financial incentive when you look at the amount of hours that are put into the job. Whether you are a teacher or administrator, your work has always been about the students first and foremost.  To a lesser extent, but important nonetheless, has been the desire to collaborate with colleagues to enhance learning environments and experiences for education's number one stakeholder - our students.  It all comes down to learning, no matter how you slice and dice it, both on the part of the students and educators themselves as professionals. This innate desire to improve methodologies, pedagogical techniques, environments, and professional practice are the defining characteristics of educators across the world who are making a difference in the lives of students. In our profession it is rare that we receive meaningful impact on our work until a moment in time pulls us in another direction, yet educators continue day in and day out to help all learners discover success.

Image credit: http://onlinebusiness.volusion.com/assets/guide-to-ecommerce-marketing.jpg

This is how I felt for basically all of my fourteen years as a public school educator.  As an administrator I always tried to help my students and staff experience success.  Did I always succeed? No way, but all my decisions were based on doing what was best for students and creating a school that worked better for them than for us as the adults.  I pushed my staff and myself to become better with mixed results at time. The motivation that kept me going was that I thought it was having a positive impact, but like I said earlier, meaningful feedback is tough to come by.  

This summer has been exceptionally difficult after I made my decision in July to leave New Milford HS. I had no idea how tough my last two days this week were going to be.  My professional family opened up like never before and humbled me with positive feedback. It made me feel very awkward, as my success has only come to fruition as a result of their willingness to embrace change and transform our school culture.  Bottom line is that my staff have and always will be the true catalysts for change at NMHS.  The end result has been a learning experience that our students not only deserved, but also expected. Then, just after I thought I had shed my last tear, I received the ultimate gift. I do not say this lightly.  This was the BEST gift a student has or could ever give me as an educator and it came, fittingly enough, through social media.  In the past I have blogged about how amazing Sarah Almeda is, but what she did touched my heart like nothing before. Her video is below.



What Sarah did literally brought me to my knees as I cried hysterically on the first day of my new job. I would never have known the impact that I had on her if it wasn't for her selfless act to create a meaningful tribute using her exceptional talents. There have also been tweets and emails from staff that reaffirmed my confidence in American education and my belief that we as educators have so much power to make a difference in the life of a child.  To educators across the globe, keep up the noble work you do for the sake of helping every child discover his/her passions.  You might not always get the feedback that you deserve, but I can assure you that your students will appreciate you in ways that you never thought were possible. That my friends is why we chose to become educators. Not for money, perks, or fame, but to positively impact kids because it is what we were meant to do.

ALL OF YOU ARE HAVING AN IMPACT!

Amazing Students Do Amazing Things

Earlier this year I shared the amazing work of New Milford High School student Sarah Almeda in a post titled Students Yearn For Creativity, Not Tests. Wherever I now speak across the country and soon the world I share the incredible project Sarah created.  Her passion for the arts and creativity serve as an catalyst for her learning. She has capitalized on the concept of student voice, taken ownership of her learning, and become an inspiration for me and countless other educators and students across the world.  I am always in awe of the art that she creates using a variety of mediums to demonstrate conceptual mastery.  It is these artifacts after all that truly measure the construction of new knowledge as well as both skill attainment and application.

So what does an amazing student like Sarah do over the summer?  She creates amazing art as a means to continually demonstrate her passions while learning new skills and techniques in the process.  Above is a picture of her entry into the 2014 Cover Contest held by Creative Outlook, a free magazine distributed to high school teachers and students immersed in art and music. She used her self-taught knowledge of Photoshop, bitmap generation, image distortion, photo-manipulation, digital painting, graphics tablet, and an iPhone to make it. I’m trying to share her entry with as many people as possible as only the top 10 entries that get the most votes will enter the final stage of judging. 

As Sarah took the time over the summer to share her work with me I have made the decision to reach out to my network to see if you can lend her a hand to get to the judging stage. I hope you’ll vote HERE for Sarah and consider sharing her amazing work! Regardless of how the contest turns out Sarah's desire to follow her passions and push her learning boundaries make her a winner in my book.  Her true reward has been the construction of new knowledge and the acquisition of new schools that will aid her as she pursues a future career in game design. She consciously makes the decision to learn over the summer, which is why she is an amazing student. I can't wait to see what work she shares with me once the school year starts.  

Students Yearn For Creativity, Not Tests

The other day as I was sitting in my office, sophomore Sarah Almeda popped into my office, as she usually does. After day three of PARCC field testing, I was catching up on some dreaded paperwork, one of the least favorite aspects of my job.  Sarah, bubbly as ever, asked if she could email me her presentation as part of the Academies at New Milford High School.  I said sure but then asked her when she would be giving the actual presentation. Her reply was later today.  I immediately looked at my calendar, cleared the time, and told her that there was no need to email the presentation to me as I was going to attend in person.

As part of our Academies program, students engage in authentic learning activities outside the school day in the form of field trips or special projects. These are in addition to the added coursework required for an Academies designation.  For this particular activity, students had to read Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative by Ken Robinson.  They then watched a video and had to create a presentation where each student was required to share their “creative” experiences with the group. Total freedom was given to create a presentation in any format they wanted to include but not limited to: a written document, a poster, a collage, a pinboard, a chart, etc.  The entire assignment and rubric can be accessed HERE.  Each student had to be prepared to answer/explain the items below.

• Tell the group about your creative self.  Explain how you are creative (what’s your medium?).
• Tell when you feel the most inspired.  
• What stifles your creativity?
• Tell us about (at least) one other person whose creativity you admire and how he or she inspires you. 
• Explain what you believe schools need to do better for students to promote and enhance their creativity. Provide an example of something that would have helped you to be more creative or something/someone who did help you.  

Now back to Sarah.  After watching some amazing presentations, one of which I will highlight later, Sarah’s turn came. I had to use my administrative privileges to get the YouTube video to work for her (students will be advocating soon for unrestricted access). Once her video began, everyone was floored.  I can honestly say that this was one of the best, most inspiring, thought-provoking student presentations I have ever seen.  Not only was it created entirely through self-directed learning, but it also sent a strong message about how powerful creativity is to learning for our students.  Please take a few minutes to watch the video below in its entirety.  She created it using her graphics tablet and the software Bamboo Pad both by Wacom, Quicktime to record the computer screen as she drew, and iMovie for editing.  If you like it, I encourage you to share and send a comment Sarah’s way. 

Days like today inspire me to keep pursuing an aggressive agenda for growth while promoting the work we are doing at New Milford HS.  It provides affirmation as to what students want in an education and how we are striving to provide it.  Throughout the presentations, I heard student after student discuss how important creativity is to their learning.  Their words expressed how they yearned to have freedom over how they could demonstrate what they know and a true desire to have ownership of their learning.  Like Adobe, I strongly feel that creativity is essential in a student's learning experience.  As this report shows, creativity matters and its value beyond high school in terms of potential success in careers cannot be overstated. 

Many students expressed gratitude for the culture that has been cultivated at NMHS, a culture that supports creativity, choice, and authenticity in learning.  A presentation by sophomore Stefany Lazieh put into perspective how creativity is stifled, ways schools can promote more creativity and ways she has become more creative as a result of the established learning culture at NMHS. For her presentation, she used PowToon.

As a principal and educator, you could not ask for a better day.  We witnessed our students shine when given the autonomy to produce a learning artifact that was meaningful and relevant and reflected the importance of student voice.  The conversations that resulted during and after the presentations acted as catalysts to empower students to take action and work with us to create an even better school. There was one other significant takeaway that I learned from my students that day. When it comes to creativity and learning, standardized tests are one of the most significant inhibitors.  I leave you with one of the many images that students willingly integrated into their presentations to hammer home this point. 

Don't prepare students for something. Prepare them for anything. We need to let our students MAKE GOOD ART! 

Why Do You Blog? A Student's Perspective

The following is a guest post by New Milford High School sophomore Sarah Almeda. After learning about her Chemistry blog titled Avogadro Salad I asked her to share some insight on the importance of blogging from a student's perspective. I was so blown away by what she wrote below that I went against my long standing personal policy of not following my students on Twitter. Please take a minute to read Sarah's post below, share a comment with her, and check her out on Twitter. This is one amazing student!

...Um, because Ms. Smith made me?  

Lol, jk. (That’s, “laughing out loud, just kidding” in teenspeak, that fictional language adults seem scared of...?)

I’m Sarah Almeda, a sophomore at New Milford High School. Somehow, I can have twitter conversations with my teachers and my principal. Somehow, they led to Mr. Sheninger giving me the opportunity to write a guest post on the importance of student blogging. I’m a blogger at heart, as I have been since 4th grade. That’s probably why I was actually excited when my chemistry teacher, Ms. Smith, opened the year by telling us that part of our assessment in the course  would be the regular maintenance of a blog.  This included posts twice a week that connect chemistry to our world.

Image credit: http://gregmillerprincipal.com/tag/blogging/

Now, I’ve posted almost daily to a personal blog for years and I’m grateful for the decision. I’m told I’m a very good writer. I’m not trying to boast; my writing visibly improved when I started blogging and I can tell you why.  Teens turn to the internet for validation, myself included. Why? When I post to my blog, I don’t write to impress a teacher. My audience is the World Wide Web, which is literally worldwide. I attract viewers from all around the globe. When a post gets attention, some views, likes, comments, or even subscriptions, I look at the post and think, Wow; I had some valid ideas that a complete stranger could relate with. What did they like? How do I turn these visitors into regular readers? When a post gets no attention, I then think, What would be more interesting? What will lead viewers to my blog? How do I get a response? 

Rather than having a teacher hammer the importance of good writing into my head, I get to feel it in a very real world situation with immediate feedback. I don’t just learn about writing, either. Yesterday, my friends were genuinely interested to hear me talk about how one day our phones may literally be coated with nanodiamonds. I learned that from an article I blogged about. Now I’m always learning a great deal about topics that I decide are interesting to blog about, like the chemistry behind a bad hair day. Not to mention that my chemistry blog is a blessing for someone whose homework always seems to disappear rather inopportunely. I can put an assignment on my blog in the “Homework" category, protect it from copycat classmates, and email the password to Ms. Smith so she can view it whenever she needs to.  Not convinced yet? I learned HTML coding when finding ways to better format blog posts, and it’s become a very useful skill. 

A personal blog’s also the perfect place to vent my feelings. After articulating my emotions to an Internet audience, I realize I’m better understanding myself.  In an Internet world where that wretched teenspeak is the preferred language on nearly all social media platforms (bc my insta captions/ tumblr posts r like so articulate lol jk idec) blogging is a practice that expands learning way beyond the walls of the classroom. It encourages self-improvement and dedication in a way that I don’t believe can be taught as well as it can be experienced. And it's addictively fun!

So, pull a Ms. Smith move! Teach kids to blog! Start one yourself! Trust me, you’ll find the time, you’ll find the passion, you’ll find out a lot about the world, and you might even find out more about yourself.  And watch out for me! You can find my chemistry blog by clicking HERE, and I’m even building my own website with the awesome tools I learned in business class at NMHS.

Cheers!

-Sarah “Shmarah” Almeda

Please take a moment and leave a comment for Sarah. Not only is she a talented blogger, but an artist as well (see her self portrait below). She, like many of her NMHS classmates, fully take advantage of everything that NMHS has to offer to advance their learning and follow their passions.

Image credit: Sarah Almeda