Year: 2011

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday

Is this a holy thing to see In a rich and fruitful land, Babes reduced to misery, Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song? Can it be a song of joy? And so many children poor? It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine,And their fields are bleak and bare, And their ways are filled with thorns: It is eternal winter there.

For where’er the sun does shine, And where’er the rain does fall, Babes should never hunger there, Nor poverty the mind appall.

lickystickypickyme:

Real life Star Wars.

Laser Towards Milky Ways Center.

The color of the laser is precisely tuned to energize a layer of sodium atoms found in one of the upper layers of the atmosphere — one can recognize the familiar color of sodium street lamps in the color of the laser.

This layer of sodium atoms is thought to be a leftover from meteorites entering the Earth’s atmosphere. When excited by the light from the laser, the atoms start glowing, forming a small bright spot that can be used as an artificial reference star for the adaptive optics. Using this technique, astronomers can obtain sharper observations. For example, when looking towards the center of our Milky Way, researchers can better monitor the galactic core, where a central super massive black hole, surrounded by closely orbiting stars, is swallowing gas and dust.

Taken with a wide angle lens, this photo covers about 180° of the sky.

Dogfooding

After two happy years as a WordPress self-hosted install, I’m moving our 8th grade science class site/home/hub, GriffinScience, to Blogger:

GriffinScience: “Because we’ll be using Blogger as a main platform of interaction with the 8th graders next year due to our school Google accounts making that a no-brainer, I’ve gone ahead and moved GriffinScience from a self-hosted WordPress install to Blogger.”

I don’t think the students will mind or notice much, and it does make a good deal of sense to eat my own dog food if I’m going to encourage students to make use of our school’s Google Apps accounts and use Blogger (or Google Sites) as their digital portfolio’s home (of course I don’t mind if they want to venture out into WordPress or Tumblr or Posterous land as well).

For some reason, this makes me sad in a “but I’m a real geek!” way. It’s not that Blogger isn’t a proper blogging engine or geeky enough site… but I’ve always encouraged folks to dive into code and make their own templates or sidebars. Those are possible in Blogger, but it’s a little too graphical and “easy” in my mind. I need to get over myself, clearly.

Nevertheless, here’s to another few good years of GriffinScience.

Engineering Creativity

So how do we as teachers cultivate and encourage creativity in a human existence that doesn’t require as many gigs of organic memory?

LRB · Jim Holt · Smarter, Happier, More Productive: “It’s not that the web is making us less intelligent; if anything, the evidence suggests it sharpens more cognitive skills than it dulls. It’s not that the web is making us less happy, although there are certainly those who, like Carr, feel enslaved by its rhythms and cheated by the quality of its pleasures. It’s that the web may be an enemy of creativity. Which is why Woody Allen might be wise in avoiding it altogether.”

Fascinating read.

School Books in the Present and Future

I’m laying on the bed with my 3.5 month old daughter who is interacting with the Princess and the Frog app on my iPad while I check my RSS feeds via Reeder on my iPhone.

She is reading along with the book portion, watching the embedded videos and recording her voice as the narrator. It’s really something to observe. Then she dips into the coloring book part of the app where she colors on the iPad while describing the scene from the book she just read.

I’m hopeful that books she reads and interacts with in school will capture her imagination in the same way.

If not, our “one size fits all” edu system is doomed.

Flood of Mysteries and Science

Well worth your time time to read:

How We Know by Freeman Dyson | The New York Review of Books: “The information flood has also brought enormous benefits to science. The public has a distorted view of science, because children are taught in school that science is a collection of firmly established truths. In fact, science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries. Wherever we go exploring in the world around us, we find mysteries. Our planet is covered by continents and oceans whose origin we cannot explain. Our atmosphere is constantly stirred by poorly understood disturbances that we call weather and climate. The visible matter in the universe is outweighed by a much larger quantity of dark invisible matter that we do not understand at all. The origin of life is a total mystery, and so is the existence of human consciousness. We have no clear idea how the electrical discharges occurring in nerve cells in our brains are connected with our feelings and desires and actions.”

De Grading

A big thanks to Joe Bower for pointing these links from Alfie Kohn out on Twitter today:

From Degrading to De-Grading

Grading: The Issue Is Not How but Why

I also have to thank Joe for being one of the inspirations for my own “de-grading” trend in the classroom this year as I continue my search for more authentic learning environments for my 8th graders and move away from traditional grading as a means of assessing what they might or might not be achieving.

Instead, we’re sending cameras into space. I’ll take that trade off anyday.

Cautionary Wave

People (especially students) don’t do their best work when compensation or reward is based on intermediate performance goals:

Google Wave: Why did Google feel that Google Wave was a good product? – Quora: “In short, Google was experimenting with a drastically new model in an attempt to retain key talent and ended up getting the incentives so perversely aligned that it both directly contributed to a failed product and also compensated that failure more than what a moderate success would have been.”

Vernier’s Physics App Blows My Mind

Vernier Video Physics for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store: “Vernier Video Physics for iOS brings physics video analysis to iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Take a video of an object in motion, mark its position frame by frame, and set up the scale using a known distance. Video Physics then draws trajectory, position, and velocity graphs for the object. Share video, graphs and data to facebook, your Photo Library and to your computer running Vernier’s Logger Pro software.”

I can’t tell you what this means to me as a teacher.

Wow.

We’re living in the future, folks.

Learning Without School

Go read:

The Innovative Educator: I Learned How To Write Without School: It sounds too simple. How can people learn things if they aren’t taught the proper way? If information isn’t broken down for them into bite-sized, manageable little chunks? It’s almost like magic, and no one seems willing to believe in it. No one seems willing to believe in how much children are capable of learning and doing when they’re permitted to exist in a world where everything is interconnected.

Made me cry…

And reminded me that I “learned” about God as a kid (out of my own curiosity) even though I didn’t set foot into a church until I was 13. Not only that, I ended up realizing that I should learn more about God (in the academic sense) than most folks around me, so I did. The same happened with my personal study of science (mostly physics and astronomy) that happened completely outside of my middle and high schools.

I’ve never put together my own background with how I view/practice education in general.

Yet, the very way that I teach is completely informed by that inner voice telling me to “let go” as a teacher and let my 13 and 14 year old students learn about their world like I learned about religion and science (and coding and marketing and computer hardware or anything that I really have been interested in enough to master)… on their own and at their own speed.

Goosebumps.

Thoughts on Implementing iPads in a School

Below are my/our notes from Friday’s visit to Saint Andrew’s School iDiscover21c 1 to 1 iPad implementation:

iPad Implementation Thoughts

The visit was coordinated by Apple, so it was also a great chance to pick their brains on both the technical aspects of iPad deployment in schools as well as broader philosophical questions about what the iPad means for education (though, of course, they wouldn’t speculate on iPad 2).

One of the most interesting observations I made while seeing 5th-12th grade classes of different disciplines work with their iPads was that the 8th graders in particular seemed much more competent at typing and manipulating objects on the iPad (without bluetooth keyboards). The 5th graders were still hunting-and-pecking on the iPad keyboards and the 10-12th graders seemed to prefer “thumb typing” with the iPads in portrait (vertical) orientation. I think that has everything to do with the technology those 13-14 year olds in 8th grade have grown with in their lifetime and they aren’t in the same transitional group as older kids. That’s also why I love teaching 8th grade.

As much of an Apple “fanboy” as I am and as much as I truly hope we do move ahead with something of an iPad implementation for our Middle School or even just a grade level (8th!), I’m far from sure about which path we’ll take. However, this whole process is making me a better teacher and parent as I weigh concepts like digital literacies. For that, I’m glad.

Headed to Apple Seminar at 1 to 1 iPad School

Four of us from Spartanburg Day School are headed to Savannah on Thursday/Friday to see how St. Andrew’s School is running their 1 to 1 iPad program…

Apple – Education Seminars & Events – Digital Learning Environments in Action!: “St. Andrew’s School is one of the only K through 12 independent schools that is currently implementing a 1 to 1 iPad program for all students, preK through 12, as part of their new digital learning environment. During your visit, you will see how iDiscover 21c has engaged students and allowed them to take more responsibility for their own learning. You will meet with faculty, students, and administrators who will discuss the planning stages, infrastructure changes, rollout, and the overall impact on student learning.”

I’m sure I’ll be sharing more reflections before and after the event as we process our next steps in (hopeful) iPad implementation (at least for Middle School or 8th graders).

Exciting times.

I’m Sure @Jangro Would Appreciate notes.pinboard.in

On my iPhone home-screen I now have a link to a “2 Do” file that is a Pinboard Note…

Pinboard Notes

Pinboard is the bookmarking service that fills the hole Delicious left in our hearts years ago by selling out and becoming too bloated.

However, Pinboard now has a notes function that allows for quick note jotting and has Markdown support.

Win.

I had kept my years-old “2Do.txt” file in Dropbox up to this point but for some reason this seems easier. We’ll see how it goes!

Initial AppleTV Thoughts

On much less than a whim and much more of a two year deliberation, I decided to take the $99 plunge and buy an AppleTV tonight.

After an initial 10 mins, I can say that it’s a game changer for how I consume and consider media.

Many people like to say that the iPad is a “consumption” device and is meant primarily to entertain rather than create. I think that is completely false and operates on assumptions about the creative process that aren’t valid in 2011.

The AppleTV, however, is a consumption device that does integrate well with the family of Macs, iPhones, iPads and Mac Mini’s that make up the neural network of computing in this house. It is a fantastic aggregation device for consuming the media that exists on those devices.

So yes… great purchase.

More reflections soon.

Folding Cranes

From one of my students, Jesseca about another one of my students who fell ill this week…

Tree Frog Science: “These stories show us that hope can go a long way and can be exhibited in many forms. Meredith deserves our hope and our support every waking moment, so I challenge you. All of you 8th graders, and any other griffins or friends alike, to take a stand and join me in folding a thousand cranes to send to Meredith to remind her that even though we are not physically with her, we are with her in spirit.”

Let’s fold cranes indeed.

Trusting Students and Teachers as Servants

Yep and yep…

In a New Training Program, Students Teach Teachers – NYTimes.com: “As a teacher, it’s really hard to give up control of your classroom,” he said. “I think we have to trust our students more to work together.”

Interesting read of how some schools are putting students in charge of teacher “trainings” but I’d also like to see more students having a sense of control, ownership, value and purpose in their own studies.

That’s when we’ll have true “education reform.”

Teachers as servants… dangerous and revolutionary proposition, eh?

There’s something to the whole servanthood thing, of course.

What to Do on Monday

Tears:

Science teacher: The Bambification of Dr. King: “Read ‘Letter From a Birmingham Jail.’
Take a walk outside and watch the grace and agony of life around us.

Yes, it’s complicated. Life is complex,

Bambi’s just the celluloid illusion of a corporation that owns a good chunk of the airwaves today, including ABC. I’m betting you won’t hear much about King’s letter from jail Monday.”

As always, do something that won’t compute and practice resurrection.