Multi-faceted Refractions

Normally on my blog, I try to focus on topics which relate to my job as a Director of Academic Technology. These include my thoughts on the larger questions that many of us face, interesting books that I have read that I feel are important, and reflecting on the day to day grind, sharing both the success and obstacles that I face working with teachers, parents, and administrators. Today, I am going to beg your indulgence while I share a personal aspect of my life.

During this academic year, I have had many personal obstacles which I have had deal with. The most significant were the health issues that my eldest daughter dealt with from August 2007 through December 2007. She was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease and I am please to share how proud I am of her that she has “survived” her sophomore year. It was a struggle for her to make up the work caused by her six week absence from school, but she finished her finals yesterday and seems to have achieved a reasonable level of academic success, hopefully maintaining a B average, while also participating in JV soccer in the spring. She downplays her achievement, but she is doing a phenomenal job of managing her illness.

The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation (CCFA) has a fundraising walk, Taking Steps, in various cities around the country. Our high school’s community service club and I are collaborating and have set up a fundraising team, Team North Shore, for this years edition of the walk. We are participating in the walk in downtown Chicago on Saturday, June 7th on the Great Lawn just east of Soldier Field. Registration for the walk is free and be done either online or in person from 5:30 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. The 3 mile walk kicks off at 7:00 p.m. and will feature entertainment and hopefully, a wonderful evening along the Chicago Lakefront.

This is the major fundraising event for the CCFA. CCFA provides a wonderful network of resources for all of the affected by the diseases. They provide forums for those who have been diagnosed with the disease and their families so that they can become educated and share resources on new treatments and news. They provide free teleconferences for the members of their network which are informative and helpful. I have been received the same benefits from my participation in the CCFA networks for the past six months as I have from the variety of education learning networks, blogs, nings, and twitter, I have immersed myself in over the past 20 months. Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) are important elements of our lives which helps us interact with others that we may not have had access to before.

I welcome anyone who will be in the Chicago to register for this free event and join us in the walk and show your support. For those of you who aren’t able to attend, I would hope that you would consider giving a donation to CCFA in the name of our team to help them maintain their resources and educational opportunities.

Thank you for letting me indulge in something personal.

One of aspect of our school that we cherish is our sense of community. On Friday, May 16th, we had a wonderful example of how this manifests itself with the honoring of our physics teacher, Eric Skalinder, who will be retiring at the end of the year. Today was the last day that our seniors would be on campus before scattering off to complete their senior service projects and it was a fitting tribute.

Our dean of students and Biology teacher, Jeff Terwin, sent out an email last week asking all faculty to dress in the “Skalinder uniform”. This consists of athletic shoes, blue jeans, a white t-shirt (with printing that shows through), and a white dress shirt. It also includes three felt pens, red, blue, and green, placed in the pocket in the order of the spectrum from inside to outside. One student created a Facebook group and the network began to spread the word. Hundreds of us, me included, participated in the day. There were freshman who hadn’t even taken a class with him, faculty, staff, and even the head of school, who I have never seen in blue jeans, dressed for the day.

Eric then best sums it up best in an email he sent later in the day:

Thanks to all of you for your surprise this morning.

I was surprised when, after about five minutes, I realized that students in my first class were almost entirely dressed in white shirts and jeans. I thought, “How clever of B Block students to give me such an amusing tribute.” It gave me a real case of the goose bumps.

I should have realized that something more was up when the Director of Communications came into the room to take a few photos. When I had a brief break right after 9AM I was absolutely floored to discover that a stunning number of folks were running around the halls of the Upper School wearing white shirts and jeans.

It is truly an honor to receive the warm wishes inherent in this gesture and I love the amusing way in which it has been expressed! Thanks a million for the wonderful feelings this has brought to me on this beautiful spring day!

Below is a picture of the large number of participants.

One of the sidebar tools that I have enjoyed watching is my ClustrMap. It was awe inspiring to watch the dots, each representing a user somewhere in the world, populate the map over the year. I watched in disbelief that anyone would be interested in what I would have to say.

Last week, I received a notice that from ClustrMaps stating that they were going to archive my current map and start with a new blank slate. So this morning, while checking out my site, I saw the nearly blank map.

Instead of being sad, I take this as a challenge to reflect and come up with new ideas that inspire others to want to return to this blog. This way, I do not become complacent. This will be an interesting challenge.

This morning, I found out that one ideas that  I planted last spring emerged and took root. At that point in time, I was brainstorming about unit ideas for one of our senior history electives, US Government. The teacher and I thought it would be interesting to have the students to begin to brainstorm and create contingency plans for a prolonged school shutdown due to a natural or man-made disaster, such as a tornado or earthquake. This teacher, who spent 20+ years in the Naval reserves was excited, as this approach fit his natural approach to problem solving.

On Friday of last week, he shared a memo that he had requesting for the opportunity for the group of students to present their findings to groups of adults in charge. He passed it along to me saying that he wanted to follow up more today.

This morning, he came into my office. During our conversation, we talked about how the students should model the approach that they were suggesting in their small group work and use one of the collaborative tools to construct their presentation, such as a wiki, Google Presentation, or Google Docs. I shared the strengths and weaknesses of each of the tools with him. I also asked if I could come into his class and share my thoughts. He agreed and asked if I could come the last period today.

He dropped off their research papers and drafts of their solutions. I scanned through the solutions that they were proposing and I was very impressed with their work. They suggested solutions employing either Web 2.0 solutions or other distance learning environments, such as YouTube, Second Life, or Moodle to facilitate education in case of a long term shutdown. They suggested the creation of a series of recorded content from teachers that could be posted. A few also suggested the use of conferencing tools such as Elluminate in order to have groups come together in virtual space at the same time to conduct their learning.

In meeting with the class, it was interesting to note that other than using a wiki for either their US History class or AP US History class, that many of them did not know about Skype, uStream, or collaborative applications such as Google Docs or Presentations which may provide the ability to solutions to the problems they were examining. Modeling the use, I showed them how to create a uStream broadcast which Arvind Grover was kind enough to join in. I would post it, but I accidentally deleted the file rather than save it. But my message was heard.

I spoke about the challenges of making sure that all faculty and students have tools (computers and Internet access) so that they could use the tools. I talked about how it was important to have a way to communicate to where people should go  in case of such a closure. We talked about creating a solution that would be flexible to adapt to upgrades in software and be scalable. I also spoke about the need to teach both students and faculty how to use the tools. We also talked about the need to create both synchronous and asynchronous solutions, to allow for a blended learning environment.

Underlying their papers and my conversation was how would teachers adapt to the new media. Having created a presentation for the K12 Online Conference last fall, I am personally aware of the challenges of creating an asynchronous . We didn’t talk about the fact that these shifts are those which are currently beginning to support teaching and learning for tomorrow, without the need of a extended closure to shift us today.

I look forward to seeing what happens as they complete the project over the next week. I am glad that I am allowed to be part of the process and I look forward to continuing to provide expertise and guidance if needed.

For those interested, I have included my Google Presentation that I created for the class.

On Friday, April 18th, I attended a meeting of Lake Michigan Area Independent School (LMAIS) Technology Coordinators. Being a family with two cars, three drivers, and with my wife needing to drive to work and my daughter wanting to use the car so that she and friends could get ready for prom that evening (via a noon dismissal from school), I decided to see what I could do to reduce my carbon footprint in advance of Earth Day. Since the meeting was in downtown Chicago, I also wanted to save on fuel cost, parking costs, and the stress from driving through Chicago construction season.

On the way down was easy. My daughter dropped me off at the El stop on her way to school. Being able to catch an express train to the city, it was 9 stops and 30 minutes when I arrived at my stop. I walked the four blocks to the meeting. Because the meeting ended before the express trains began running, I had to start on one train and then transfer to a second to complete the train trip home. To get the rest of the way home, I found that there was a local bus route that would drop me within two miles of home. Catching that bus and then walking home, I completed my journey. Carpooling, walking, and public transportation. Cutting down on my carbon footprint.

On Sunday, I went to my local bicycle shop and purchased a used (recycled) bike that some larger teenager had outgrown (I am only 5′ 5″, so I can benefit from children growing as large as they do). Tricked out with a rack and panniers, I will be able to commute from home to work (5 miles) in style this summer, saving the gas and environment while become more physically fit.

Our school is trying to develop a sustainability initiative and while my individual acts do not seem like much, they are a step in the right direction and hopefully will model for other students and teachers different options.