New Wave

Ok, so I’m taking a break from working on our final project and have a few complaints about our medium of choice. We’re using a skippy little wiki tool that will remain nameless. We got going in a jif for sure and things overall are running smooth(ly). It is a very easy tool to use, it is organized well, and is a super convenient way for four people to collaborate on a project. Page creation and editing is a snap and, having used the wiki before, I was excited to use  tool I was familiar with.

The thing I didn’t pay much attention to was the fact that the last time I had used this wiki, I was in Japan while my co-authors were here in the US. The 13 hour time difference meant that I could work on the project, go about my day, go to bed, then wake up and voila!  My group had made changes, edits, comments, etc. It was a perfect scenario for collaboration.

Now that I’m back in the states, however, I am very cognizant of the fact that 2 or 3 people working at the same time is tough. I could be online editing my section and have a question for Sarah who is currently editing a separate section, but I would have no way of contacting her via the wiki. Not a major deal, one would think, but if only there was a way to work collectively on a project yet having the ability to communicate and share in real time…

Wait–there is! And it was this realization that made me understand the importance of working with Google Wave. I have tried to poke around a bit this last week and have used it mainly like an IM/Chat engine since it’s hard to convince colleagues to try working collaboratively on a project using a tool that they know nothing about two weeks before christmas break. But when we get back, I’m going to use my 8 invitations and get my colleagues from around the chicagoland area to work with me on something. I am so excited about its potential, and can’t wait to use it first with my colleagues, and then with my students.

Next semester could be very very exciting for me–Google Lit Trips for all students (the 3 pilot groups met varying degrees of excellence, for sure, but it’s a great place to start), then, Google wave for everyone? We’ll see about wave (surely it’ll get blocked as soon as the district finds out about it, so hopefully I can embed it enough into my curriculum by the time they decide to block it that I’ll have a convincing case for keeping it.) but I’ll keep my fingers crossed. I’m inspired to change the way I teach, now that I’ll hopefully have more time on my hands!

Thanks again to Scott for getting me started.

 

Season of giving

Since the snow has stopped outside, I can at least take comfort that it will be continuously snowy (until Jan 4 anyway) here at wordpress. With the the snow and winter reminding me that this is a season of giving, I’d like to give out a couple of links to blogs that I frequent. These are great inspiration for me as an educator since they are written by excellent educators who work to put technology to good use in the classroom–enhancing education to make it more relevant.

The first is The Strength of Weak Ties by David Jakes. This is a milestone blog for me, as it was the first blog I ever read with regularity. David doesn’t post as frequently as many others, so it was a great introduction to the blogosphere without being overwhelming. Additionally, I started reading it when I took a class from him a few years back that ended up being the impetus for me joining an ed tech master’s (CTER at UIUC!!) and ending up in the blogosphere myself. The thing I like about TSOWT is that David is an administrator in a suburban Chicago high school where a friend of mine teachers. So when I read the ideas that David writes and think about his role as an administrator, keynote speaker, teacher, etc. I know that his theory is actually being put into practice. That authenticity is pretty huge for me as I can actually see/know that the things he writes about in education (learning spaces, for example) are actually being implemented in a school. Talking to my friend gives me further insight into the level of successes as well. And to top it all off, David was a wonderfully nice person and an excellent instructor.

During his class, David turned me on to two additional blogs that I read with regularity. The first is cool cat teacher blog by Vicki Davis. She amazes me. Her comprehensive posts about all things tech in school come so frequently that I had to take her out of my aggregator and just visit her site when I had time. The great thing is that whenever I do stop by, there is always something excellent and inspiring posted, and not just about technology. She’ll often weave nuggets of veteran teacher wisdom in there. I remember reading a post a while ago about dealing with the stresses of teaching. She recommended making a new playlist every time one feels stressed with the only stipulation being that you have to add at least one new song to your library. 99 cent therapy didn’t sound too bad to me, and though I’ve only done it once, I plan on trying it more in the future.

Another cool thing about Ms. Davis is her Flat Classroom Project. I have high hopes of creating something like this someday. It honestly  feels like Inquiry Based learning at it’s best: it’s authentic, it’s student driven (in a recent post, Ms. Davis even laments that she feels like her connection with students is getting ‘frayed’ since her classes have become so student driven), it’s 21st century learning at a high point. Very very cool.

Lastly is David Warlick’s 2¢ Worth. Another one suggested by David Jakes, 2¢ Worth is always a very engaging read for me. I feel commonality with Warlick’s ideas and points of view, an am often inspired by what he shares. A couple of weeks ago he had a great post about getting students to stand out that reminded me a bit of Ken Robinson’s TED talk. Also a very intriguing post about audience, something that I spend a lot of time teaching my students.

As a bonus, I’ll throw in a blog I discovered a week or so ago by Larry Cuban, the gentleman I discussed in my previous post that got me all thinky thinky about reformability of high school structure. I have really only read a couple of posts, but it’s good reading from a good thinker regarding school reform and classroom practice, and it’s right here on WordPress!

 

Dirty Laundry

While I wish this was just a slick reference to a Don Henley Song that I would later tie in to some profound understanding of education, it’s just a quick, ethos building bit of admission (confession?): I’ve put my blog off for too long, and now I’m going to cram half of my entries into the last two weeks. Though I would usually feel like a chump with my blog entries dated 12/4, 12/5, 12/6, 12/6 (later that day), etc., I don’t think that it’s such a bad thing this time (except for the realization that I have about 18% conviction when it comes to personal writing). With our final paper set up as it is, and our last class for 556 a review of the semester, I have spent a lot of time looking over what we have studied, looking over the readings, and looking over our projects, and have been overwhelmed with ideas. In fact, I’m going to need to be careful that my blog posts don’t become prose versions of lexipedia entries (thanks Michael!).

The thing that has shaken me today started with an interview I listened to between Steve Hargadon and Larry Cuban on school reform, care of The Future of Education Ning. During their interview, Cuban stated that schools, in their quest to prepare everyone for college, are not really meant to reform. In fact, he claims that schools have not really had any major reform since the one room school house became separate grade levels. At first I was put off, discouraged, even a little questionable about the credibility of this Cuban fellow, especially since I have been working hard at earning my Agent of Change badge all semester long. But as he discussed his assertion with more depth, I realized that he was not only pretty right on, but districts like mine fell right under his umbrella. According to Cuban, many districts are directed by people with limited experience in the classroom. the result of this, really, is (these are my ideas now, so don’t blame Cuban) like bad teaching: expectations are top down, teacher (administrator) centered, one size fits all, and don’t require any critical thinking or analysis skills. Do as I say, not as I do.  As long as this is the case, (back to Cuban) then schools will never be able to reform.

This was a bit disheartening, since, as mentioned previously, this scenario sounds very familiar. Just yesterday, I was talking with a colleague about what we are asked to do: teach mixed ability classes with more rigor and higher expectations, but don’t let anybody (anybody) get below a C. How can we reform our students this way? How can we reform our teaching this way? Isn’t unlearning or relearning going to require some hard work? And isn’t it possible that during the course of relearning, certain students won’t earn passing grades and therefore won’t meet the C or above standard (I always feel like admitting that kids fail my class is like admitting that I’m a bad teacher (Why couldn’t you motivate them? Wasn’t your material relevant? Is your class not engaging enough?) but I also feel like sometimes I try so hard to help a student succeed yet she still ends up blowing school off. Any thoughts?)?

So in the midst of this conundrum, where do I now stand? Simple: the same place as before. Perhaps I’m foolishly optimistic (hence all the exclamation points that needlessly decorate my prose!!!), but I really believe that , even if schools are not meant to reform, and even if it’s pedagogically unsound to teach as if every student is going to go to college, and even if technology is not the answer that we all hope it is, I need to keep pushing for change. I asked for Diigo to be unblocked through our school filters 5 months ago. I have sent monthly mails asking whether or not a decision has been made, and have received nothing in return. But I will not be discouraged, because everything I have learned over the last two years has taught me that yes, education can be reformed, even if it’s just a little bit at a time. And I guess that if I don’t believe that, then I should hurry up and get my type 75.

I was very cognizant this morning as I researched and this evening as I started this blog entry about how hyper I have become. When I took Lit and Culture of the 20th Century with amazing Brooks Landon at Iowa, we spent the entire semester using optical disks and using Hypercard. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was that instead of spending a semester reading D.H. Lawrence, I was able to sit in a computer lab and play on state of the art Macs. Prof. Landon introduced us to the whole idea of non-linear text through Hypercard. I remember an example he gave us where we could write about Alice in Wonderland. In the Hypercard version, every time the word rabbit appeared, you could click on the word and it would take you to a new card with information about rabbits. This was cool and all, but it seemed to me like a bit of a distraction really. I mean wouldn’t that be a pain to read a book that constantly interrupted the narrative so you could learn about rabbits?

15 years later, here I sit at my computer with 7 tabs open realizing how lucky I was to have taken that class. The best research I have found this week has come from links of links of a link that originated in a blog post or a google search result. Tonight’s entry has jumped back and forth from wordpress to strenghofweakties.com to wordpress to Youtube to wordpress to lexipedia to wordpress to ning and so on. Brooks Landon knew that education could be reformed, and he knew that somehow technology was going to be a part of that. I guess I know what I need to do, then.

 

Slow Down

Having watched my photostory 174 times in the last two days, I have come to realize the problem with my use of fair use. By limiting each of my segments to 10% of the original song, things felt pretty fast–even for me. If I would have used cc music (creative commons, not c&c music factory), I could’ve had a longer fade out at the end of the flim; I could’ve taken a little more time with the intro.

However, it’s enough of a challenge to find just the song to create just the right mood when looking through my own music library, I can’t imagine doing it with songs I’ve never heard before. If I ever become a famous musician, I’ll make sure to take the copyright off of my music after the first 18 months. I bet record companies would love to have me .

 

10 percent (photo story and fair use)

I’ve been chuckling to myself this last week about photostorytelling. I’ve wanted to do it for longer than I can remember–initially learning about it from a colleague. She presented it to the staff, and talked about how simple it was to just throw a couple of pictures and some open source music together…and viola! You have a photostory.

My journey has been a little different this week. It hasn’t been terribly difficult, but it has taken so much more time than I ever would have expected, especially thinking back on the person who introduced it to me. It was all in good fun though, since I chose a story about my son and I. I spent the week looking through old pictures and videos, scanning appropriate music, and getting ever more familiar with iMovie and Audacity. There was something romantic about sifting through my digital photo albums while the rest of my family slept–and something fun about crawling into bed with 15 months of baby pics in my head.

Since it has consumed me, I couldn’t help but think about education as well–specifically how this could be used in education. As an English teacher, the obvious answer is to tell a narrative. However, I couldn’t help thinking about how media and literacy are constantly flexing and morphing, and began to envision a persuasive piece written as a photostory: an argument read underneath a series of images and film clips; images flashing across a screen while a debate happens in the background. Even an expository piece could happen here: use photos as notecards, and topic sentences, and read your essay while images engage the class. The amount of writing and revision I had to do for this project was incredible, and made it easy to see this fit into almost any writing piece I could think of.

Enough out of me. Here’s my first ever photo story, created in iMovie with full advantage taken of Fair Use Guidelines. Peace.

 

Reach out and collaborate with someone

Looking through the Horizon Report, I think over the effect of mobile computers like the iPhone. I never was a huge fan of cell phones as a replacement of the house phone. Sure there are things I love about it: emergency phone calls when an engine starts on fire 30 miles from home; accidentally dialing someone I haven’t talked to in years, resulting in a nice reunion; and the unfortunate, yet obnoxious, “Sweetie, did you want Chubby Hubby, or Cherry Garcia?” However, along with these conveniences came the expectation that I would answer my phone 24 hours a day–something I was not willing to do, much to the chagrin of my cell phone smitten friends and family who think nothing of 5 calls in 30 minutes.

Handheld computers pose a similar dilemma to me. I now am the smitten one, ogling iPhones every chance I get, wondering if I’m ready to sell my soul back to AT&T (despite our messy divorce four years ago) for internet everywhere, or if I should settle (and settle down a bit) for an iPod Touch and the seemingly ubiquitous wi-fi hotspots. Despite my crush, I can’t help but feel like the more mobile we become, the more I’ll be expected to be online, just as I was expected to carry my phone with me wherever I went. Sure, “this is an opportunity for higher education to reach its constituents wherever they may be,” but what if those constituents wanted not to be reached…

The opportunities are amazing, and again, I’m hoping to write these posts from an iPod Touch in the near future. I’m just glad that, for now, I still get to decide when I want to be online, and when I want to leave online behind.

 

I know kung-fu

Ok, 20 minutes trying to think of an appropriate title, and all I can come up with is ‘title?’ Ridiculous. By the end of this post, if I haven’t been able to change it to something better, I apologize. I look forward to two weeks from now when I am used to the new schedule my body will have to endure until next June (late to bed, early to rise), used to the rhythm of teaching, used to squeezing it all in successfully. Once I have acclimated, I’ll be much more adept at writing weekly entries. I loved it in 474, and, reading over my posts from that class, am excited to re-discover the fluidity I felt when writing weekly reflections. For now, though, I’ll appreciate this jumpy, disjointed feeling as representative of my life in education right now.

First days. Jumpy and disjointed is, I think, pretty appropriate. My dad (who taught for 35 years) tells me every summer about how it was always a little tiny drag that teachers spend a whole year shaping their students and classes, and as soon as the relationship is solid, the culture established, and the machine is well-oiled, the school year ends and the process must begin anew (he also always  tells me how much he loved getting new students, new personalities). Last week, when I met my new classes for the first time, I was more strongly reminded of my dad’s tale than ever before. Last year was a hard year for me. With an interesting group of sophomores and a co-teacher with juniors (and a new son and grad classes), building that relationship was much harder, and ultimately more gratifying, than ever before. And as I see many similar challenges with my new classes, I get a little exhausted thinking about it. Though, seeing my former students in the hall and the lunchroom, I am constantly reminded that, like my dad, I love getting new students and building that relationship with them.

And this brings me to education. As I meander briefly through my first few days of school, I think about how this really is a metaphor of our lives as educators. Isn’t it? Isn’t this how we work? Don’t we work so so hard for an academic year, and then come back, somehow, to near square one? Thankfully, every year, we keep the knowledge we earned and we get better at what we do, but somehow it seems that we get restarted every August. Thinking about technology, there is a similar thing happening. However, instead of going back to that same old place every year, it is constantly growing and changing and using the former iteration of itself to guide and change and make better future versions. Maybe this is the disconnect that schools and technology are struggling through right now. Maybe this is why data driven instruction is on the list of buzzwords that are being thrown around our district right now.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in education and I believe in technology in education–even more so because of CTER. But I think that right now, education is like Neo in the first Matrix movie, when he goes to see the Oracle. Regarding his doubt as to whether or not he’s ‘the One’ she quotes Latin and then tells Neo something like, “You’ve got the gift, but it seems like you’re waiting for something.” That’s the future of education to me. We’ve got the gift (or the means to make something huge happen), but it seems like we’re waiting for something until we decide to commit. Maybe–and yes, I’m still smitten with Clay Shirkey’s talk from the last year’s Web 2.0 expo–we are waiting for the collective body of education to ‘wake up’ from the overwhelming potential of technology. Maybe we’re waiting until the digital natives replace the digital immigrants so we don’t feel like we’re always playing catch up. Maybe we’re waiting until enough data is collected that proves, in fact, that technology actually is good for education. Maybe, with the constant flux of trends online, we just don’t know where to start. Whatever the case may be, when we are finally done waiting, and we’ve figured out how to embrace technology the way we embraced the chalkboard and the overhead projector, education, like Neo, will realize and use our potential.

I do want to be careful not to compare technology to a savior, as Neo was in the Matrix. I just think Neo and Education share a similar hurdle in their evolutions. But as we’ve talked about loads in this program, technology alone isn’t the answer, I hope that the future of education will find a large body of teachers who are trained in educational technology, and can help us stop waiting and start teaching.

 

80 minutes a day

I’m kind of excited that it’s snowing on WordPress right now.  I really like winter and snow, so I felt very peaceful watching the ‘flakes’ roll down the screen, though I did get a little concerned that my computer would get wet.  I wish it would snow as much as they say it would.  It seems like once a week or so there is a severe weather warning that many inches of snow and ice are about to fall any minute–stock up on canned goods, bottled water, and generator fuel, for this time we mean it-it’s going to be a big one.  24 hours and 1/8th of an inch of snow later, I’ve decided to stop hanging my hopes for white Christmases on weather people.  We’re due for another dump this week, which is a highlight–if it happens.  Otherwise, I have more than enough to fall back on:

Final presentation.  I have to thank Scott for posting his extremely comprehensive PowerPoint early this week.  It first of all gave me something to look at and be intrigued by, especially since I have an interest in smart classrooms.  It helped me realize, as this entire program thus far has done, that it’s a good thing for students to look at one another’s work.  It also helped that Scott was so thorough, he prompted a response from Kona asking him to hone his focus to three things: highlights, pertinence of results, and what we have learned as a result of this project.  This whole semester I’ve felt like a troll

Flickr photo by photogirl7

, hiding in shadows, eavesdropping on conversations, stealing the comments made to, for, and by others, using them to my own advantage.  My early first draft was not a first draft at all–it was the culmination of everyone else’s comments and conversations synthesized into a marked-up evaluation extravaganza; the result of reading all the advice Kona made to classmates before finishing mine enough to post.  Once again, I benefited from others (Scott and Kona) and tuned up a PowerPoint that tries to address those three ideas into a manageable number of slides.

Bizarre sense of calm.  Could it be that 474 is wrapping up?  Could it be the lovely dusting of snow across the Elgin area?  Could it be the odd sense of quiet around the house, now that Masayo is gone?  Could it be the result of two action packed weeks of school left before break?  Could it be the numerous trips to Chicago (MSI yesterday-and just as soon as we get $400,000 we’re going to get us one-a-them smart homes) to see art, culture, fairy lights, and commerce?  Who knows, and it could all end first period tomorrow when I get into my class and realize something crazy like, “Wow, I have to do a million things before the end of the semester” or “Oh, wow, I totally forgot to grade these essays…from September” but for now, I’m holding on to this.

Too much to do, too little time.  I distinctly remember my first year teaching–I was completely confused as to how I was supposed to fill up 50 minutes a day for 180 days.  It seemed like a cruel joke, like when, during my years as a carpenter, we used to send the new guy to get the board stretcher out of the truck.  I think I probably talked a lot that year.  Nowadays, I have turned into one of those teachers that wishes he had his students for 80 minutes a day.  I think  I’m pretty happy about that even though I really struggle to fit it all in effectively for my mixed ability co-taught class (memo to self, get in touch with Brendan soon!).

474.  I’m also really excited about this class.  I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this before–in a forum post?  In an e-mail to someone?  During a conversation with my sister?  Right here in a previous week’s WordPress blog?  I can’t remember–but I’m just feeling good about this class.  I’ve really enjoyed learning about Appreciative Inquiry.  It has helped me look at what has started happening in some of staff meetings.  I see tracings of AI in some of the activities we do, and wonder if they would be more effective in a more comprehensively AI context.  Or if we didn’t do the same post-it note activity at every meeting, would we work harder on them as a staff?  I don’t know, but knowing what they are trying to do, I feel better about participating.

474 pt. 2.Also, I’m really excited about using an AI approach in informal evaluations of lessons, of texts, of assessments.  I’ve always been fairly positive, but AI further enforces the importance of looking for what went well in that failed lesson, or that terrible activity, or that abysmal assessment, and making good changes for the next one.  Using success as a foundation instead of failure.  Lastly, I really enjoyed my evaluation plan as a tool for exploring Moodle as an online supplement to teaching.  I’m not sure how close our school is to 100% access, but being forced to think about all of the aspects of online supplement that needed evaluation forced me to think about all of the components of my pilot program.  Great great great.  What a great way to create a program: evaluate it!  And this tied in so nicely with AI as a method for program creation as well!  So a lot of good things happened this semester.

There is so much more that is worth writing about, but I’m afraid I’m going to start repeating myself from precious weeks.  I’ll close for now, but for the past 14 or 15 weeks, I’ve been plugging this in every Sunday night.  Hopefully that’s long enough to help me remember to keep doing it this time.  If nothing else, I’ll see most of you all in January in Virtual Worlds.  Have wonderful holidays everyone, and to all a good night.

 

Wood

What a great week.  I feel a bit like myself again.  I saw Chagall, Calder, Oldenburg, Nevelson, Picasson, Miro, Dubuffet, Wright, Seurat, Hopper.  I saw a cloud gate, a bp bridge, a wave crashing over pritzker pavillion.  I saw how an imposter tries to fill the shoes of the cultural icon it liquidiated.  I saw lights and crowds and floats.  I saw some old friends.  I saw holes in my career choice (oddly, a sign of normalcy–doubt is a very powerful tool to aid conviction).  I saw snow!  I saw 8 pumpkin pies.

I feel like the plug has been pulled, I got out of dodge, and am a bit more myself.  This week is the week I’ve needed for a long, long time.  I still have kind of a lot to do, but have accepted this as a part of the rest of my life–and I’m ok with that.  The thing is that, for this past week, I did almost everything that I’ve been wanting to do for over a year.  I swear, we’re going to have friends come visit more often!

It’s short this week.  But I’m feeling pretty good about it.  See you in a week, surely long-winded again.

 

Free Dr Pepper Day

In  千と千尋の神隠し (Spirited Away, here in the US), there’s this great scene where this stink god walks into the onsen where Chihiro is prison working as a prisoner.  Everyone is grossed out as his large, blobular, stench is killing all plant life that it comes near, but Chihiro, being the new kid on the block, is forced to take him to his bath and wait on him as he sees fit.  Eventually, the stink god takes her in his hand in his dripping, mucky, disgusting hand and brings her near what looks like a handle.  She realizes that she must remove this handle and whatever it’s attached to.  So with the help of most of the staff, she pulls and pulls until finally a mountain of garbage is vomited out.  It turns out that it wasn’t a stink god after all, but a river god that was covered in disgust.

This scene is amazing for two reasons–first, it’s such a simple, yet strong allusion to the problem of pollution.  Few have made anti-pollution, be good to the earth sentiments so subtley poignant as the director Miyazaki has.  When something as beautiful as a river god has been turned into something as disgusting as he is portrayed, how can a person even think about dumping trash and waste into our water?  He makes taking care of the world we live in seem inherent (as it should be), not some new fad that the GAP is selling on a t-shirt.

The other reason it is a great scene, especially now, is because of how much I stink–no wait, I mean, because of how I too feel like sometimes all I need is someone or something to unplug the mountain of crap that has been collecting inside of me.  Lately, it has been a few things: actually working on a paper/project before the last minute and receiving such helpful advice and commentary, having a friend take the time and energy to visit us from very very out of town, Seijiro being back on a normal sleep schedule, and knowing one of the best friend of a friend that I could have ever hoped to luck into, oh yeah, and having a student-less week.

I honestly, physically could see the stress leaving my body on Friday night, sitting around with Masayo and Ryoko, Seijiro fast asleep in the next room.  For once, I wasn’t worried about getting it all done (though I started to get a little freaked out today since I still have to finish my discussion section which is hiding behind this window even as I type) in time.  I had, gulp, planned ahead and made sure to get most of my plan done during the week off.  This is a totally new thing for me, and I think I like it.  For the last 30 years I have been stressing until the last minute, frantically trying to get everything done in time.  It has helped immensely that we have had so much “class time” to work on it (seriously, I can’t imagine having to work on the project as well as other assignment–were that the case, I’m sure that this post would have a different tone).

Anyway, I’m almost done, but have to get this over to CTER before midnight–have to get my free Dr. Pepper as well!!  Thanks for reading this, and have a great week!!