Category: Articles

Sometimes there doesn’t seem to be anything to write about. It’s 7:00 and the blogging streak is in serious risk. Then, suddenly, as if provided by above, I start to print the envelops for Christmas cards.  
 
I’m not a big mail-merger. I do it once a year, for Christmas cards. I have all my lists as saved files, so printing out envelopes saves a lot of time, and I can personalize the envelopes with graphics that coordinate with our cards. Get it, this is supposed to save me time.  
 
I went up tonight and tried to do this for the first time with Office 2012. After I finally found the tab for mail, I selected merge, and suddenly everything worked differently. First, my pre-saved address files wouldn’t open because the updated program doesn’t recognize word tables. So I saved the data and tried to create a new file, but the ability to add a table of data is either taken out or hidden from me. Luckily I could save the data as an Excel file which worked.  
 
After about 1/2 an hour I was able to print envelopes. But my Christmas card spirit was gone, and my hatred of Office 2012 was blazing like a Yule log.  
 
I know I’m not the first to express my irritation with the changes to Office. The problem is that with a fundamental program like Word, you don’t have time to relearn it on the fly with new versions. Over time I’ve figured out where most of the needed commands are, but every so often I try to do something old…like mail merge…and this frustration reemerges.  
 
It’s good to have these experiences, because they remind me of the frustration that must be felt by so many of the people I work with. The world of technology is constantly changing and sometimes I’m so used to it I forget how jarring this can be.  
 
Until I try to mail merge…  
 

I’ve been going to elementary Christmas shows for more than 12 years now. Having a wife who is also an elementary school, music teacher, it’s part of the territory. Since my wife teaches at a fairly large school, for the past 10 years she has done 2 shows, lower and upper grades, every Advent/Christmas season.  
 
For many years my daughter was in the show, but since that time I sit in the back, comfortable not to be fighting for prime space, and free to read stories on my phone (or type blog entries).  
 
Even though there is a sameness to all of the shows (tonight’s is “Miracle at Midnight”), I never get tired of being at the shows. There is something so affecting about children trying their best, and parents happy to see their young ones sing, dance, and (sort of) act. The jokes are corny, but always well-received.  
 
The highlights of every show are the songs. Each class gets an opportunity to perform, usually with hand gestures and basic dancing. I love how parents wave at their children, even from the back of the church, as they crane and half-stand to get the best view of the child’s big moment.  
 
OK, Mary is very great with child this year…a larger basketball than usual.  
 
At both performances, it is the eldest class that performs the play. Like the years of Nutcracker, the passing of time is marked as children move through the ranks. It will seem an instant before the seventh graders singing right now will be Mary, Joseph, shepherds, kings, and the most coveted role of the camel.  
 
Fifth graders singing now, a class of angels…for the moment.  
 
My wife is always so nervous in the weeks between Halloween and the two shows, and there is always a day or two of near despair. But I can honestly (and impartially) say that there has never  been an unsuccessful show.  
 
Seventh graders now…cowboy shepherds…hmmm 
 
Every year I make the programs for the shows. I remember this being quite an ordeal years ago, but now the template is so clear that it takes no more time than typing in names (in fact, in years when she reuses a show from years past, I don’t even have to type in the songs or characters). It is one of my two yearly contributions.  
 
Ah, the camel…lots of laughs in the audience. Now the front hump is singing.  
 
My other contribution is clean up, usually vacuuming the sanctuary. In doing this for so long two things are clear 1)it is very hard to vacuum straw and glitter 2)church vacuum cleaners are notoriously bad.  
 
Now the manger scene, the upturn ending, the big reversal. The one lesson I still take from scripture is that God has a wonderful sense of dramatic structure.  
 
Everyone on stage, the finale, bringing in the ship successfully again. and parents are looking at their watches and smiling…just under an hour! 
 
A school Christmas play…not the worst way to spend an evening.  

I knew that 13 would be an unlucky day.  I’m having a heck of a time coming up with a topic. 

 
It’s been a good long time since I’ve written about my use of the iPad.  I’ve been using my iPad 1 for a little more than a year now, so I’m finally feeling confident in my experience.
 
Simply stated, the iPad is my primary device.  I use it for reading of news and novels (I have never read more).  I write emails, memos, blogposts (like this).  I use web resources, Facebook, and Twitter, and I watch movies on Netflix. My wife, who has an iPad 2, also uses the video capability for Skype with our daughter. I have been impressed with improvements to the platform and applications, and I can see how the capability is going to continue to grow in years to come.  As I often say to people, “I occasionally use a computer, but I live in my iPad.” If my iPad should be lost or broken, I would be distressed, but since the platform is primarily cloud based, I would lose very little real data.
 
I am very optimistic about the future of the device.  As I argued in an earlier essay, the platform is so prevalent that other applications are finding ways to adapt to it.  Just today, Microsoft introduced its cloud storage app Skydive for the iPad.  For all of their interest in developing an operating system for competive products, Microsoft knows that there is no future apart from the iPad for foreseeable time ahead.  As I attend meetings and workshops, I see more and more iPads in the room.  It is virtually the only device I see at executive meetings.
 
So I guess I’m “all in” with this device.
 
Hope to have a better topic tomorrow. 
 
As always, I welcome your comments. 

OK, I said I would be back on email today, but I just finished this book and I wanted to write about it instead.

 
Title: The Night Circus
Author: Erin Morgenstern
 
I liked this book so much that I almost fear reviewing it, afraid that someone else will read it and see that thing I’m missing that makes it silly or trivial.
 
The circus arrives without warning.
 

Much the same could be said for this first offering by Erin Morgenstern, for The Night Circus for me falls into a category of novel that is nothing short of miraculous.  It immediately takes its place with novels like The Princess Bride or Creator which are so different and captivating and engrossing that I am torn by horses pulling me on to the end and the sirens calling me to stay and savor each page.  
 
Orphan apprentices of two long-magicians are raised from childhood to participate in an unspecified challenge.  Celia and Marco are bound to this task by a power beyond their free will, and only gradually do they come to understand its rules and only much later its conclusion.  After moving from their mentors, the two are involved with a mysterious circus that travels worldwide without notice and without visible means.  Les Cirque des Reves, which opens at dusk and closes at dawn, is a gathering of tents, each with its own performance or attraction.  A visitor moves among these tents finding the familiar acts, animal performances, a fortune teller, a magician (Celia) blended with new and unusual tents offering various physical and emotional experiences.  
 
As the plot weaves through place, time and characters, the reader understands that despite its “creation” by a consortium led by an empresario and his aide (Marco), the circus is maintained by a complex balance of the talents of the two apprentice magicians.  However, once they meet and fall in love, this challenge takes the form of cooperative competition, each one building on the accomplishments of the last and expending more and more energy to keep everything balanced and moving like the ornate clock at the entrance. 
 
Just as Celia and Marco build a circus of dreams, so Morgenstern creates pages of wonder as the events of plot are interspersed with descriptions of tents and their attractions.  Thus the reader becomes simultaneously the recipient of the story and a follower of the circus, joining the ranks of the Reveurs, the aficionados of the Circus who follow its travels and document it’s history.  Woven into this history are discussions of time and space, of free will and determinism, of art and magic.  Allusions to The Tempest make the story richer, and not derivative.  
 
A cursory glance at the Amazon reviews of The Night Circus reveals a far from consistent reaction.  There are one and two star reviews, one reviewer commenting on the whole thing as “twee,” and another saying that the story would probably be best for those who like circuses.  So perhaps I am missing the cynical realization that makes the entire thing fall apart, but like Celia and Marco I choose to accept the mystery and wonder as valid in the midst of a naughty world.
 
 

Today’s is something very different, my apologies to any who don’t like it.  I’ll be back on to email tomorrow!

 
This afternoon I’m off to see a stage production of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.  For as long as I can remember, this has always been my favorite Christmas story.  I’ve seen most movie versions multiple times (not the Jim Carry 3d animation one…don’t be silly), including the Muppets (actually a very good version, and the subtext of being made soon after the death of Jim Hensen makes it very poignant), the musical Scrooge (to call it uneven would be overly generous, but Alec Guinness as Jacob Marley!), and Mr. Magoo (unbelievably frightening for a child…still remember being scared).  My favorite is the George C. Scott version made for television about 25 years ago which I still watch multiple times every Christmas season.
 
One of my favorite memories of A Christmas Carol goes back about 20 years to Knott’s Berry Farm’s Bird Cage Theater. The Bird Cage was a great venue in the park where a small troop of actors did comic melodramas.  Of course this closed many years ago, I assume because of lack of interest and probably significant costs of paying actual people to act.  However, back then during the Christmas season, the theater was open to the public for free, and they did a reduced production of A Christmas Carol every hour.  I spend one afternoon seeing the production 4 times, enjoying the way that actors would play different parts each time.  It was a great afternoon, followed by Mrs Knott’s chicken.
 
One reason that I like the story so much is that it illustrates a vital lesson about human nature.  In the best productions, the character of Scrooge is a pitiable figure rather than an evil one (one of the reasons why I so like the Scott version is that he plays Scrooge not as caricature, but with cynical humor).  He has been hurt into cynicism and solitude.  Fear of the vulnerability of being hurt has created the safety shell that is only broken by the demonstrated realization that even a safe life leads to the grave.  The redemption at the end is a willingness to rejoin life despite the risks and pain it brings. 
 
I see the same thing in myself and in many that work with.  Openness to new programs devices or ideas leaves one vulnerable to ridicule.  Cynical negativity at least seems to offer some protection.  As I said in frustration a few weeks ago, “If you always say no, you’re never wrong.”. However, just as in the case of Scrooge, this safety is an illusion because it can’t hold off the future, whether it be a death of a person, or of an education system. 
 
I hope that you enjoy A Christmas Carol this holiday, and I hope its lesson of hope brightens your day.
 
As always, I invite your comments.

I want to talk about email for a couple of days. 
 
I think we should develop a new holiday called “Email Amnesty Day.” On this day once a year, everyone is required to delete all email that has piled up in their box unless it has been explicitly saved.
 
Dirty little secret time.  In a couple of my workshops I give tips on how to manage email and to work toward an inbox that is emptied daily.  However, I DON’T DO THIS AT ALL.  Despite efforts to eliminate emails, they pile up like Tetris blocks gradually filling up my mailbox until I simply archive a couple of months once I receive the regular “mailbox full” notice.  I’m not saying these strategies can’t work, but they don’t work for me, or for anyone I’ve ever met.

 
If once a year your email simply disappeared, the stress about saving something that might be needed later would be answered for you. And think of the yearly joy one would feel to send the following message:
 
All of my emails were deleted for Email Amnesty Day.  If you had something really important that I have not responded to, please resend.  Merry Email Amnesty Day to all, and to all a good night!

I want to be very clear as I start here that I take responsibility for all of this. 
 
A couple of weeks ago I ducked in to Twitter for a few minutes.  I have not been on Twitter as regularly in the past few months, but I have still enjoyed occasionally reading a few posts, saving a few good links, and occasionally posting a few things myself.  I have developed a pretty good network of people I follow, so I don’t have to sort through many pointless posts to get to useful material.  It’s also nice to have short “conversations” with friends that I seldom (if ever) see in person.
 
Reading a post from an educator I have not met, but whom I respect, I was referred to an instructional video on a topic that interested me.  I started the video, and the speaker started by introducing himself as an “Instructional coach and educational consultant.”. At this point I stopped the video, completely turned off by these titles.  I won’t justify my dislike of these kind of titles, I’ll simply say that I find them jargony and off-putting, and I’m pretty sure were I to show this video to a group of teachers, their experience would be much the same. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t know of anyone who takes a speaker more seriously because he is a “certified educational consultant.” My issue, but OK, it’s my blog.
 
Here’s where I made my mistake.  Since every week is “Snark Week” in my world, I wrote back to the originally poster (who did not make the video) and said , “I’m afraid you lost me at instructional coach and educational consultant :).” Please note the smiley…my thought was that we might both laugh about terms like this and move on.  
 
However, this wasn’t the reaction I received.  I won’t quote another person, but he was clearly offended by my judgmental approach.  We had a short exchange with me trying to explain my position, and he becoming angrier.  At a point he referred to my own profile (which is blank), and I said it wasn’t because I was concealing myself, rather pure laziness that kept me from putting in additional information.  The next time I want on Twitter I found that he had stopped following me. There was also a miffed message from the creator of the video.
 
This irked me.  I had followed this person for some time.  I liked his blog and had referred many people to it.  I was also hurt that someone would do this to me…I’m so likeable.  So I wrote a direct message to him saying that I found the whole thing silly and can we just get past it.  Soon after this, I saw a message where he accused me of being a spammer, blocked me, and notified his whole follower list of this action.  I stared at my screen stunned.  How could I be blocked?  I’m such a nice guy.
 
Looking back, it’s clear that I wasn’t such a nice guy. I forgot the key rule of Internet conversation that you need to be very cautious with sarcasm.  I should not have initiated a sarcastic exchange unless I knew we were on equal footing.  Second, once he registered irritation with my comment, I should have apologized and moved on rather than try to justify my position.  His comment showed that this was a sore point for him, and I was not going to be successful in changing his mind.  Finally, once I was unfriended, I should have taken the lesson and moved on.  It’s the classic example of digging a hole deeper.
 
Finally I looked at recent comments and saw that my “snark to value” ratio was way out of whack. It’s fun to banter, but unless you bring something to the table occasionally, there really is no reason for anyone to follow you.
 
Social media is fun, useful, and occasionally treacherous.
 
And if anyone unfriended me because I’m a spammer, please give me another chance.
 
As always, I welcome your comments.

I’ve been thinking a lot about professional development for teachers, particularly in the area of instructional technology. I’ve been involved in teaching teachers for more than 15 years, and I am one of an army in this area. I’d love to see a total of all of the money and time spent on these efforts in just our diocese, though this would possibly depress me.

The results, well, I can’t say that nothing has happened. Almost all teachers are able to use a computer, do word processing, use the grading software, and make PowerPoint presentations. However, as I look at the world of education, it seems that most are working at least a generation behind. PowerPoints are used as overheads; Smartboards are used to show PowerPoints, and students are being taught to make PowerPoints to accompany oral reports.  It’s a PowerPoint world, and we just live in it.

However, true transformation of thinking and practice in the classroom and out doesn’t seem to be happening.  Some of this can be attributed to a lack of equipment, but most of it is about mindset.  Technology is still in a box, a set of tricks, rather than a way of navigating the world.  

I think my frustration is more fundamental.  I just don’t know how you teach someone to operate in a technology rich environment.  I can teach skills and show people new programs, but I can’t often make them self sufficient or able to grow independently.  I can give fish (or sell fish), but I can’t seem to get them to fish on their own.  

Partially I think has to do with the complexity of this changing environment.  If someone were to ask “Teach me to be like you,” (no one does) I would have to say, I can’t.  The way I relate to technology is based on daily immersion in reading articles, listening to podcasts, and using every new tool (both hardware and applications) that I can get me hands on, and I have been doing this more or less for 15 years.  I’m not saying this in self-satisfaction, rather this is a source of frustration.  How do I replicate this experience in an inservice session or a talk or a blogpost?

Expectations exacerbate the problem.  Many teachers seem to believe that technology is a skill that can be learned through limited training, like riding a bicycle.  In reality it is much more like learning a musical instrument, taking extensive practice for competency and always with new level to master.

I think the real message is not one that will be popular, because ultimately the message is that it is up to the individual.  There is no workshop, video, or demonstration that will change the way a person relates to the world.  Unless you fish, you will never learn how to fish.

if you see a tech Buddha on the side of the road…kill him.

As I started to become convinced that the iPad might have real possibilities as a productivity device, I heard one consistent comment from those questioning the device.
 
“But what about Flash?”
 
Ten second background, Flash is a format for playing video and allowing for animation within websites.  Until recently it has been the most prevalent format.  With this, Adobe, the company who owns it, has held sway over much of the development of the web.
 
When it was released, the iPad was incapable of playing flash.  Browsers could be downloaded to convert Flash into html5, the animation format  used by the iPad, but these were clunky.  Apple seemed resolute that they had no intention of building Flash capability into their operating system, so iPad users had to make peace with the fact that they were going to live without it.  Other tablets immediately marketed that they were flash compatible.  It seemed that this was going to be a clear dividing line between the different products.
 
So, what happened?
 
As the numbers of iPads grew and their applications moved into businesses and schools, content providers knew that they could not afford not to have their product on the iPad, so they shifted.  More and more content became available in html5 and more flash applications became available as iPad apps.  A few weeks ago Adobe announced that they were moving away from their support for flash for mobile devices.  The great divide wasn’t a divide at all. 
 
What does this show?
 
If a platform is good, and if it reaches critical mass in distribution,then the world will come to it.  This is important thing for educators and others to remember about this and other devices.  Don’t panic over what a platform cannot do, instead do what it does, and the rest will catch up…because they have to.
 
As always, I welcome your comments.

Yesterday I talked about characteristics of the current school year that hinder school change.  Today I want to suggest two complimentary possible solutions that could be implemented fairly easily. 
 
As I mentioned yesterday, the key problem is the lack of time between the start of the year and the tractor-beam pull of the holidays beginning early in October.  One way to fix this would be putting more time at the beginning of the year.  Many secondary schools are currently experimenting with early to mid August starting dates in order to line up semesters with the Christmas break.  Though I see some challenges to conducting final exams in the middle of the most mind-numbing time of the year, I will be very interested in seeing whether these schools are able to accomplish more in the extra two to three weeks.  
 
I do know that there are challenges in making a change like this, but I think we don’t face and answer them because there is a dangerous assumption that the school year as we have it now is working.  As I say with many challenges, if we wanted to do it, we would do it.
 
OK, that’s half.  The other half would be adding a few half days on to the traditional 180 and putting the bulk of full day and part day inservice time available into the first month and a half.  If I had only one month to teach a skill, I would make all the instruction time available during that month.  If the school calendar reflected that same sense of urgency, “We’ve got two months to get this done,” schools could build specific tasks into this time and have specific outcomes at the end.
 
By adding both days and time before the holiday malaise, schools could develop faculty on a consistent yearly path.  No more “next year”!
 
As always I welcome your comments.