Tara Linney is a Google Certified Innovator, Mentor, and Trainer, currently working as an EdTech Coach in Paris, France. Tara has a passion for advocacy and equity which is what led her to write the book “Code Equity: Keying Girls into Coding.”

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I was so fortunate to have met Tara at ISTE in 2018 in person. At that time, she was president of the Global Collaboration PLN where I participated in the scavenger hunt. Tara knows how to make life exciting and fun. Enjoy the post and podcast!

Your background

I grew up as a Coast Guard brat, living in various towns around the U.S. By far, my most favorite place to live as a child was Spring Valley, California. In college, I carried on with the nomadic lifestyle that being a Coast Guard brat brought. Beginning my college experience in North Carolina as an Elementary Education major, before transferring to Florida to switch majors altogether, leading to a Bachelor’s degree in Mass Communications with a concentration in Public Relations. My background is very diverse, to say the least. I’ve lived in three countries in my life, with the current being France.

EduMatch Special Edition with Tara Linney

Start with the why! Get to know #EduSnap17 Contributing Author @TaraLinney, as she talks about her chapter on Purpose-Based Learning. Check out her work in Volume 1, Chapter 2 in #EduMatch Snapshot in Education. Find out more at https://buff.ly/2D3bjka

What it was like for you as a student

In elementary school, I was a member of the Peace Patrol and was typically the student chosen to show the new students around. From a very young age, I’ve been a very altruistic person, giving resources and time to nonprofits and causes that were in line with my beliefs, like Keep America Beautiful, the American Cancer Society, and feeding the homeless.

As a student, I was very diligent and thorough. I was ranked as “gifted” from a young age and quickly discovered how to learn, unlearn and relearn. Whenever there was a topic or content area that was of interest to me, I would apply it to my personal life activities. The long division became something that I would do on long car rides, setting up my own math problems with a host of random numbers. Poetry is another area that I really took to as a student. I’ve had poems published in anthologies, and was actually scolded by a teacher once in school for writing a poem that was “too mature”….she accused me of not being the author….the matter was settled once she read my other poems.

One thing that has been ingrained in me as a learner, is how to be an advocate. Throughout my life, I’ve watched as my mother advocated for my autistic brother’s academic journey, trying to make it as normal and mainstream as possible. Seeing this example throughout my whole life has, in essence, taught me how to advocate for marginalized students, to ensure that they have everything they need in order to be successful. This passion for advocacy and equity is what led me to write the book “Code Equity: Keying Girls into Coding”.

Your journey as a teacher

Following a career in the nonprofit and marketing worlds, I decided to jump into education. My first teaching role was as a K-8 prep teacher in Philadelphia, PA. As I jumped into my first year of teaching, I was also beginning my Master’s degree and teacher certification program at Drexel University. It was a bumpy launch, to say the least.

Episode 9: Tara Linney Part 1 podcast with Brian Costello

After getting laid off in Philadelphia, I took a job as a Technology Teacher in Matthews, NC. During that time, I was getting deeper into my Master’s program, and as my educational beliefs started developing, I realized that they weren’t in line with the opportunity that I had in North Carolina – so, I moved to Washington, DC. In DC, I started as a Technology Teacher at an all-girls public charter school in Ward 8, before moving into the role of the school’s first EdTech Coordinator.

Becoming an EdTech Coach

It was during this time in 2013, when Code.org launched with the Hour of Code, that I became so interested in coding. While at the FETC conference that year, I met Kevin Elgan, the Educational Manager for Tynker at that time. That meeting eventually led to a summer position as a consultant for Tynker in the summer of 2014. Following the work with Tynker, I became the first EdTech Coach at a school in Illinois, rolling out their 1:1 Chromebook program.

Then, one day while I was scrolling through Twitter, I saw a tweet from Jay Atwood, announcing that Singapore American School was hiring for an EdTech Coordinator. I applied, and four weeks later, got the interview that then led to the job. After working in Singapore for the last 3 years, I seized an opportunity that came across my Twitter feed while I was attending a conference in India. A few short days later, I accepted a job offer for EdTech Coach at the American School of Paris.

EduTECH Asia 2017 – Keynote Panel: Women in Tech

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Tara Linney is an award-winning Learning Innovation Coach, recognized for her work in gender equity in the teaching of computer programming, global collaborations in education, and educational coaching. As a Learning Innovation Coach, Linney has guided educators on developing interdisciplinary learning opportunities, allowing their students to leverage prior knowledge in the learning of new concepts. Part of Linney’s recent work includes integrating Sustainable Development Goals into education, finding places of overlap within the C3 Framework, NGSS, and Common Core State Standards, integrating computer science into the curriculum and using ISTE Student Standards to support the “how” in the learning process.

In 2015, Linney became an international educator, based in Singapore. She has traveled to conferences throughout the United States, Asia, and Europe to speak on a wide variety of educational topics. Linney is a Google Certified Innovator, Google Education Trainer, ASCD Emerging Leader, Seesaw Ambassador, Common Sense Certified Educator, and a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator. She is the Past President of the ISTE Global Collaboration PLN and has been an active ISTE member since she began her career in education, back in 2010. She holds an M.S. degree in the Science of Instruction from Drexel University and is certified as an Instructional Technology Specialist.

Two of Tara’s biggest passions include teaching kids how to code and introducing them to a more global world. Tara Linney is the author of a book released in May 2018, Code Equity: Keying Girls into Coding.

Contact Information

• Email: techlinney@gmail.com
• Website: codeequitybook.com
• Twitter:     @TaraLinney

Other resources from Tara

ISTE Interview with Ignite Speaker Tara Linney with APlusEdTech

https://www.aplusedtech.com/2018/01/07/iste-interview-with-ignite-speaker-tara-linney/

Stories in EDU – The One With Tara Linney Where She Tells About Teaching Students Around the World

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-bretzmann-group/stories-in-edu/e/53220264

Code Equity with Tara Linney with Bedley Bros.

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/bedleybros/episodes/2018-06-20T07_50_30-07_00

Collaborative Techniques for Bringing Coding into the Elementary Classroom

Tara Linney Shares Collaborative Techniques for Bringing Coding into the Elementary Classroom | Education Vanguard # 44

https://21clradio.com/tara-linney-shares-techniques-for-bringing-coding-into-the-elementary-classroom-education-vanguard-44/

Code Equity

060: Code Equity with Tara Linney with Aaron Maurer

https://coffeechug.simplecast.com/episodes/060-code-equity-with-tara-linney-efc50d7f

ISTE Global Collaboration Leadership Team

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For all of the Conversations on Learning podcasts with Barbara Bray, click on the podcast tab at the top, the logo below or go to https://barbarabray.net/podcasts/

Rethinking Learning Episode #6

Shelly Sanchez Terrell is an international speaker, adjunct professor, and the author of three books. Her newest book is Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom. Her most rewarding role is being the mother of Savvy and Rosco the pug.

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I connected with Shelly on Twitter long ago and met her in person around eight years ago at the ISTE conference. I love her energy. At ISTE in San Antonio this year, I had the honor of meeting her beautiful daughter, Savvy. In fact, Savvy interviewed me — actually Shelly asked the questions. It was so much fun so I asked Shelly if I could have a conversation with her. Her podcast is episode #6 and when I listen to it, I remember the smiles and giggles we had when I was with Savvy. I captured some excerpts from the podcast and added them in the post below for you.

Why are you so passionate about digital learning?

One of the reasons why I am so excited and passionate about digital learning is because of access. Now with the Internet and so many digital tools, students around the world especially so many who do not have the opportunity to learn, now can learn so many dynamic things because of their access to tools. Now if students want to be a scientist, doctor, or inventors, they can actually talk to innovators in those fields. I find that really exciting.  

Why is social media so important for educators?

One reason is that our learners use social media. I think to be able to teach them the skills they will need to prepare learners for their future, we need to experience these skills ourselves. For many educators, social media is scary which is really a good thing. We have to think about the things that we tackle like imbalance or getting addicted to social media. We need to know how to handle that or decide what and what not to post, publish and share. I shared Rosco the Pug who connected with others like you so it made it personal for me and comfortable for others to share online. All of that really helps us with our learners’ journeys. Another great thing about social media is that you get to connect with other educators around the world that really inspire you. That’s the way we met and many other educators who I eventually met in person, presented with, interviewed, and even created conferences with. 

The world is in love with your daughter. Can you explain why you share Savvy on social media?

I wrote about sharing so much of my daughter’s life in my book right now. Some people might question that, but Savvy had a digital footprint before she was born. For me being on social media, I thought it was important to start her digital footprint early. There is no way of avoiding what people were going to know about her because I was always on social media when I was pregnant. Another reason is that our learners today start their digital footprint before they are born. For most of them, people announce they are pregnant on social media like I did. Our children especially those really young or not born yet have no control over what people write, say, or what pictures they put up on social media about them.

I thought it was really important to put positive information up there about my child. Because I shared her digital footprint early, you and other great people followed and connected to her even before you met her in person. She is making people happy with her presence right away before she has to tackle any negative activity on social media. I love sharing her not only virtually but face-to-face with people who I love. I took a picture of Savvy interviewing you at the Badge Summit before ISTE 2017 in San Antonio.

We have to mention #edchat since you are a co-founder. What a difference #edchat has made for so many.  Can you tell me how #edchat started and about its impact?

Tom Whitby @tomwhitby is a fun guy who wears Hawaiian shirts. So in 2009, I asked him to guest blog. One day he direct messaged (DM) me about an idea and asked me “How can we make Twitter into a much bigger conversation.” I suggested the hashtag #edchat. We asked Steven Anderson @web20classroom to help us organize #edchat. So in July 2009, we co-founded the Bammy winning education chat, #Edchat, which has inspired over 400 education hashtags!

I was honored to be included in the 30 Goals Challenge for Teachers. Can you tell us about the book and the challenge?

The 30 Goals Challenge for Teachers started about the same time as #edchat in 2009. When I jumped onto Twitter, I was just so excited and inspired by so many educators that I met. I wanted to share my ideas. So part of that was the 30 Goals Challenge. Since I saw how powerful social media and crowdsourcing knowledge was in my life and professional, I really wanted to test what the possibilities were. Even though I had been blogging a couple of months, I decided that I’m going to try and accomplish the challenge goals starting in January. At first, I was going to try to do one small goal as a challenge in the classroom of something you could accomplish in a day. I invited other educators to join me. Since then over 10,000 teachers have joined this challenge. Trying to do all 30 goals in one month was too much, so now it is spaced out throughout the year. The book takes some of the 30 initial goals and the others are the ones I thought would be the most enlightening for teachers. We have free online conferences now where teachers share their experiences, a Facebook group that is free to join, and a lot of ways to support each other.

I just got your eBook: Learning to Go and love the lessons you share and the format. Can you tell the audience about this book and the design?

I have very good friends in Oxford who are like a second family to me. I was there and had just run a MOOC on designing digital books. I was getting frustrated with the way digital books were designed. Most were PDFs and not very interactive. Now with technology, you can do so much. So when I was in the shower, I thought of Learning to Go. It includes lesson plans to bring in your own technology and mobile learning, but the way that it is designed is to test the boundaries of what a digital book could do. So even offline, it is almost like a website. Instead of a table of contents, it has a content map that is accessible on every page. If you want a lesson plan, you can click on each circle that has a link at the bottom of the page. It’s very interactive. It’s also designed in a way like a mind map and not linear. My dream, when I get a chance, is to create a textbook in the same format where teachers and learners can access content where it matches what they need to learn best.  

I hear you just finished writing a new book, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom. Please tell us about this book.

My new book, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom, is coming out either end of August or beginning of September. It was going to come out earlier, but he publisher got very excited about the missions so we ended up making more of those. So we decided to add more material to it. I’m working with the HackLearning series, and it’s been great since they let me do a lot with it. It goes back to the concept of the 30 Goals. There are small goals to inspire teachers to do mission minded learning. If we are given a goal every day or regularly throughout the year, then we feel good if we achieve them and strive to accomplish more.  This book is for students with 10 EdTech missions. Each of the missions has a mission card that teachers can give their students digitally or they can print them out. Students can earn badges for accomplishing the different missions. The missions have to do with meaningful ways to use technology. These address the way students already use technology and where they might not be very responsible or do not have a purpose for.  For example, being an amateur journalist. We see this problem with fake news and how to be responsible as a journalist knowing what ethics are involved. Students broadcast their own news, walk through the steps as an investigative reporter doing interviews, and get footage around the news. There are so many things students do in the missions to be able to learn those roles.

Make sure you visit Shelly’s updated blog at TeacherRebootCamp.com and I’ll end with her mission statement…

“Let’s collaborate on strategies for engaging all our students through effective instructional methods and technology.”

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Shelly Sanchez Terrell is an international speaker, elearning and digital learning specialist and the author of The 30 Goals Challenge for Teachers: Small Steps to Transform Your Teaching, Learning to Go: Lesson Ideas for Teaching with Mobile Devices, Cell Phones and BYOT, and Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom. She has trained teachers and taught learners in over 20 countries as an invited guest expert by organizations, like UNESCO Bangkok, the Venezuelan-US Embassy, Cultura Inglesa of Brazil, the British Council in Tel Aviv, IATEFL Slovenia, EduTECH Australia, and HUPE Croatia. She has been recognized by the ELTon Awards, The New York Times,  NPR, and Microsoft’s Heroes for Education as a leader in the movement of teacher driven professional development as the founder and organizer of various online conferences, Twitter chats, MOOCs, and webinars. Recently, she was named Woman of the Year by Star Jone’s National Association of Professional Women, awarded a Bammy Award as a founder of #Edchat, and named as one of the 10 Most Influential People in EdTech by Tech & Learning. Her latest project is the creation of Edspeakers to enrich the field of education with passionate voices (spoken and written) from those of diverse experiences and backgrounds.

Shelly has an Honors BA in English with a Minor in Communication and a specialization in Electronic Media from UTSA, a Masters in Curriculum Instruction ESL from the University of Phoenix, and a CELTA from CELT Athens. Her greatest joy is being the mother of Savannah Duncan-Sanchez and Rosco the pug.

Url- ShellyTerrell.com  Blog- TeacherRebootCamp.com  Twitter- @ShellTerrell

Slide Presentations and Keynotes- Slideshare.com/ShellTerrell

Hack Learning book

Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom
https://www.hacklearningacademy.com/p/edtech-mission-f038c7de-5d65-4bfb-bf26-fa29167c9822