As in “Watch out for that DOOR!”
Yes, I’m still playing with Frames. And my students start using it this week.
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Playing with Frames
I’m at a Clay Animation training session sponsored by my employer. I’ve done stop motion animation before, but not with Frames.
I’m really liking Frames. My previous animations have all been compiled in iMovie or (against my will) MovieMaker. Those programs work, and are often pre-installed on computers, but Frames was designed specifically for stop-motion animation. Most of the concerns I had going in were resolved in an “Oh, so it can do that” way, followed by an “Oh, you mean it can also do this?!” moment.
I’d write more about it, but I have to go back to playing … er, I mean learning how to use this software.
(Oh, and if you liked the music, Bre Pettis made it.)
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Ask me … anything?
So I submitted a proposal for this year’s MICCA MSET conference, and since I’m under the delusion that I might actually have my proposal accepted I’m researching even more web based tools that could be used to enhance classroom instruction. This is one of them.
I withhold my opinion on it until I’ve had a chance to kick the tires a bit, and I’d like your help with that if possible.
So go ahead.
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You found me.
If you are in my Technology Concepts class and you are reading this now, congratulations – you found my blog! Now good luck on today’s test.
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New toy.
Used some Christmas cash from my parents to buy my first digital camera in years – A Canon PowerShot SX120 IS.
10x optical zoom, full manual mode, 10 megapixels, AND it still fits in my pocket since that wonderful zoom lens retracts almost completely into the body.
Does this mean I’ll be taking more pictures (and ones that aren’t from a blurry little cameraphone) this year?
Oh, I hope so.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
- Start Monday. (Woohoo!)
- Use no textbooks. Textbooks, especially ones about technology, seem like they’re out of date before they’re shipped.
- Avoid handouts whenever possible. Papers have an annoying habit of getting lost, “lost,” or simply ignored. Also, I’ve never seen a school copier go more than 4 weeks without having a spectacular meltdown. Handouts have their uses, but I refuse to be one of the teachers staring at a copier exuding the magic blue smoke 5 minutes before class and wondering what I’ll do now that my entire day’s lesson plans are shot.
- Avoid paper whenever possible. When I first played with the form feature in Google Docs, my initial thought was “I could use this to build a test!” I don’t think I’ll be using Google Docs for everything, but I will find ways for students to hand their work into me digitally. I’m looking at a Drupal installation for this at the moment, though I might play with Moodle if Drupal doesn’t fit the bill.
- Use wikis. They’re easy to update, tamper resistant, and can replace textbooks and handouts in my classroom. The best part is I expect my students to have a sense of ownership if they know that they helped make the class “textbook.”
- Tie art in with everything. It’s an art class. It’s a computer class. It’s both. I intend to keep it that way. The technology aspect is hard to avoid when teaching in a computer lab, but one can lose sight of the art when dealing with MS Word.
- Avoid busywork. As any former substitute will tell you, a class can sense fear. They can also sense when you’re wasting their time. Every lesson I plan will have me asking “When will they need to know this?” I’ll ask, because my students will be asking as well.
- Have students blog. Maybe not every day. Maybe not every class. Maybe not in a way that allows the whole world to see everything they write, but every day people are using social networking platforms in ways that will hurt them in the long run. One of my goals is to teach them how to do it responsibly.
- Blog more. This is a new position with a very open curriculum. There are frameworks in place, of course, but I have a lot of freedom and that means I’ll be trying a lot of new ideas. I intend to share what does and doesn’t work.
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On the new position
Things I will miss:
- The students. Sure, there will be students at the new building, But I feel this way every time I lose a building. This doesn’t get easier through repetition.
- The staff. With some exceptions, the staff (and not just the teachers!) in all of my buildings were joys to work with.
- Getting my hands dirty. There’s nothing like a good ceramics project. Or painting project. Or any media that requires a sink.
- The local community. The town surrounding my base school is on my top 10 list of places to live.
- The mobility. As an itinerant teacher I got to visit 60+ classrooms a year. For all its drawbacks, that was a great opportunity to observe vastly different learning styles and take the best from each. I am certain it has made me a better teacher.
Things I won’t miss:
- Waking up in the morning and wondering, in my state of “not quite awake”-ness if I’m at the 7 AM building today, and therefore late, or the 8 AM building, and therefore will get there on time. (Then usually I would look at my clock and realize it was 2 AM and I should really go back to sleep.)
- Being required to make other teachers complete certain tasks without the authority to make them complete those tasks. I will not go into details here.
- Only seeing my students four or five times a year.
- Having my office / storage area consist of half the conference room, separated by a temporary wall that blocked no sound whatsoever. (I wore headphones for multiple reasons.)
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What I did this Summer
What I did not do:
- Spend lots of time blogging.
- Go to technology conferences.
- Spend lots of time with my PLN.
What I did do:
- Unplugged and spent quality time with the wife.
- Plugged back in to play video games … with the wife.
- Got a job offer for an art/tech position where I will have my own computer lab and see my students much more often than once or twice a quarter. It’s in a new K-8 school opening this year in the county.
- Had an interview the next day.
- Offered the job on the same day.
- Asked what the administration’s take was on blogging.
- Convinced administration that I could teach blogging to students in a responsible way.
- Accepted the job.
- Missed my exit on the way home from the interview. Twice.
Those that know me will understand this was a decision that I was ready to make, but it still won’t be easy. There are a lot of staff and students in my previous buildings (dang, it’s still feels odd typing that) that I’m really going to miss. Most of them I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to.
I think I’m going to let this sink in for a day or two.
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Hey, I know that guy!
Made some origami for his kids a few years back, actually… In any case, here he is speaking in front of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Scott Kinney, Vice President at Discovery Education, at a hearing regarding the Future of Learning: How Technology is Transforming Public Schools on June 16, 2009.
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On Language
I’m one of those teachers who will respond to the word “mines” by asking “Gold or silver?” and the question “Can I go to the bathroom?” with “I don’t know, can you?”
Yeah, you can say I’m a stickler about some things. It’s genetic, I think. Just try ending a sentence with a preposition when my sister’s around.
I’m critical about this because one of the things we teach in school (according to our curriculum, at least) is how to communicate well. People who speak “properly” are more likely to do well in interviews and score higher paying and/or better quality careers.
But it’s not the only way people speak. I dare you to turn on a radio and count how many times the word “ain’t” is used in one hour’s worth of song lyrics. There, it’s acceptable. In school, it’s not.
It gets worse when you head online, where sentences like “LOL school is teh suxxorz I hav a gud job even wit low gradez.” are easily understood and not criticized for grammar or spelling … in some circles.
“In some circles” is apparently the key phrase here. In art we need to know our target audience, and we use our works, whether they’re visual, auditory, or something else, to communicate something. I’m not likely to use Modernism to illustrate a children’s story about a young boy’s first week at school.
But online we have a wide variety of audiences with which we can participate, and the language norms can be incredibly different in each tab of our browser. Several people I follow on Plurk and Twitter are fans of some strangely talking cats, but you still won’t see us posting things like “I can has Summer vacation!” or “Invisible budget” in our Professional Learning Networks.
So, if you remember how I started this post it’s safe to say I’m not in favor of students handing in essays written in 1337 or LoLspeak, even though I’m capable of communicating in both. But I’m not so quick to dismiss these offshoots of the English language. They were created by a generation that found themselves understanding the new technology far better than most of their teachers, so they built their own rules around it.
And if you look at it that way, it kinda roxxorz.