Multi-faceted Refractions

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.

For me, both personally and professionally, it has been a challenging year. This is especially true from late October through today, when it seems that I am along for the ride, rather than being in control of my life.

I am hopeful that these next two weeks allows for time to rest, rejuvenation, and reflection. I am aiming to completing many tasks on the home to-do list, do clean out the drafts bin of this blog, and to begin to plan for the upcoming 60 weeks, getting ready for the 2008-2009 academic year.