This past weekend I was fortunate enough to present at the 2013 Annual ASCD Conference in Chicago.  This conference is one of my must attend events of the year and I use it as an opportunity to develop new presentations based on my leadership experiences at New Milford High School.  Since we have initiated and sustained quite a few changes that have transformed the teaching and learning culture at my school I felt that sharing the "why" and "how" would benefit others that have experienced difficulty with or are looking to begin the change process.  

Keys to Sustaining Change from Eric Sheninger

The presentation itself focused on key elements, behaviors, strategies, and initiatives that aided our pursuit of meaningful change to benefit our learners and greater school community as a whole. Change does not have to be an illusive process that is frustrating and takes too long to come to fruition.  The general keys from my experiences leading change through collaboration with key stakeholders are as follows:

1. Determine what needs to change and why
2. Address reasons why change is so hard
3. Identify specific roadblocks and ways to overcome them
4. Develop an understanding of the keys for implementing sustainable change and begin the process poised for success
5. Make the changes and see them through 

Even though this has worked for us it is by no means a full-proof blueprint for change in educational systems.  In your experiences what would you add to this presentation and why?

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Ever gone to work or class but forgot to bring your phone along? What options would you have then? Well, you can borrow a colleague or a classmate’s phone for emergency texts or calls, but there is no way to receive the messages that are sent to our phone. If you have access to a computer then you can use your other online social networks to communicate with friends but what about those who are not comfortable using this method?

How about using your Chrome browser to manage your SMSes without even using your phone? Well, we’ve found out that you can do that with MightyText, aptly known as Texty. MightyText is an Android application that will synchronize your SMSes with a Chrome browser via an extension. This allows you to use Chrome to send and receive your SMSes during emergencies like this.

Send and receive SMS via Chrome

To prepare for this, download MightyText Android App on your phone from Google Play.

When the installation is complete, open the app and complete setup by connecting MightyText with your Google account.
Then install MightyText Chrome Extension on your browser.

Once installation is done, you will be prompted with a notification telling you that you can start sending and receiving SMS from your Chrome Browser. An icon has now been added to your browser. Click the MightyText icon.

After clicking MightyText icon, you will be prompted with your account status: you are not logged in to your Google account. Click on the link to sign in using your Google account.

It will redirect you to a new page to allow the access. Click ‘Allow’.

Once the access is granted, you will see a popup at the top right corner of your computer screen notifying you about how many messages have been received since you installed the Android app. Now every time when you received SMS, you will see this popup.

That said, you can now start sending and receiving SMS from your computer right in your Chrome browser. Anytime you need to use the application, open your Chrome browser and click on the MightyText icon to view the MightyText SMS page.

At the top bar, there’s a notice to sync your contacts. Click to sync MightyText with your Google contacts so that the mobile numbers will appear as your friend’s names instead of their numbers. To compose new messages, simply click the ‘Compose New’ button.

Conclusion

You will be able to use MightyText with your Chrome browser as long as you are connected to the Internet. Note that even if you are sending SMS from your browser, you will still be charged with the standard SMS fee. This is just one of the many ways Chrome is making your life a whole lot easier.
Image and source hongkiat.com
How to Send / Receive SMS in Chrome Without A Phone

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