BP3_iGoogleScreenShots

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson / Self Reliance

My past is fraught with bad choices and good ideas cast to the wind, a myriad of wasted opportunities, an ocean of what ifs. Perhaps that would still be the case had fate not intervened and bounced me along a string of unlikely coincidences, leading me directly to Room 246 in Valhalla High School. There, the students and I have proven that Marilyn Ferguson was right when she wrote (in the Aquarian Conspiracy): Our past is not our potential. The Mac Lab is a living testament to abiding by one's spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility.

As I wrote in my class blog:

I knew how this second semester was going to unfold when I stood before the class the day we returned to school back in January [2009]. I remember, quite distinctly, how I took a breath and began to speak, but the words weren't anything I'd planned on saying. Sudden inspiration altered our direction that day. The blog was born the following week. We've had one constant though, from that first post right up to yesterday's. We experiment. Every creative act involves a measure of uncertainty. We don't move from A to B in a straight line. We learn though process. We ponder, reflect, imagine, adapt, improve, refine, present, and begin again. We actively seek out inspiration, always reaching higher.

At some point during the first viewing of the video entitled, Networked Student, I experienced that gleam of light which Emerson claims flashes across one's mind and I knew, without a doubt that connectivism will play an important role in my CBR. I've searched and both EBSCOhost and Google Scholar contain papers and articles. And to think we're supposed to finalize our 25 or so sources by Monday. I can't speak for anyone else, but for me the process is fluid and organic, not rigid and structured. The iGoogle project took on new purpose between one breath and the next during that video. The screenshots are posted here and posted early because I want to follow this idea right now.

I'm wondering how many other priceless ideas are waiting in the wings of our Full Sail experience. As was said in my Big Idea Pitch: Theory is all well and good but we need need real world solutions today and that's what I'm interested in.

Note: The imagery on display during that segment should make clear that I'm interested in the practical application of theory and I'm intent on applying it now (as I've done since day one), not waiting until month six.

Every student deserves the best I've got the moment I've got it. In the Mac Lab, we show what we know—both the students and myself. Our experiment is ongoing and the results so far are more than encouraging. (Current qualitative and quantitative findings are described on this page.)

As Emerson wrote in Literary Ethics:

The hour of that choice is the crisis of your history... Be content with a little light, so it be your own. Explore and explore. Be neither chided nor flattered out of your position of perpetual inquiry… Make yourself necessary to the world, and mankind will give you bread.

My classroom already has one of the most extensive teacher-created resources in the world. Between my old website and the blog, there are over 70GBs of resources. On Monday I'll be introducing the students to the concepts of Connectivism and Personal Learning Environments. The Mac Lab is already a hybrid classroom where students work at their own pace via our online resources. With the introduction of these concepts, students will have the opportunity to take even greater control of the pace, depth, and breadth their learning. And maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to connect with a few more of the disenfranchised, the ever-present children left behind, the flatliners.

Fate handed me a second chance. My students deserve no less.

Long ago, far and away, or always somewhere near 

Conductor’s instrumental, sends notes to inner ear 

Harmonic reconvergence, improvisation’s planned 

To amend the broken page, pour melodies from band 

Watering the wildest flowers, a second-handed chance 

To trade in white-washed paddock walls, for suit and horse and lance 

— Dream Yet Complete

BP2_Prezi

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is PowerPoint

— Title, NY Times Article by Elisabeth Bumiller

That title may be a slight exaggeration but as the collaborative, interactive nature of Web 2.0 is to the linear, static version of Web 1.0, Prezi is to PowerPoint.

Prezi is a free online tool that may be used individually or collaboratively to build engaging presentations. A few how-to videos from the folks at Prezi may be found here. I've made a series of videos as well.

I tried Prezi once last year. After testing the waters, I directed my students to construct and embed a Prezi-based portfolio in each of their own class websites. The kids loved the ease of use but my more discerning students were disappointed with image quality. Many reported success in using Prezi in place of PowerPoint for their other classes. Since I have over 200 new students this year, I plan on introducing them to the process as well.

Prezi, like PowerPoint, is not a great tool for displaying high-quality imagery but it is a fun and exciting alternative to Death by PowerPoint. Simple to use, it provides even less-adept students with a confidence-building Web 2.0 experience. Each of my students successfully constructed a Prezi last year. With it's new collaborative features, Prezi Meeting is sure to WOW the kids working on group projects.



To see how easy it is to collaborate, please add your own voice to this vitally important project (link expires on December 5). As you'll see in the following tutorial, setting up the collaborative environment is simply a matter of clicking a button and providing the link.



If you'd rather have written instructions, see this page.

I created the following Prezi for demonstration purposes. In the spirit of feeding two birds with one seed, it's for my FSO classmates as well as my students. In the same vein, I mentioned that I've recorded a series of video tutorials (19 videos). The videos explore Photoshop workflow, shortcuts, strategies, and a few other tips and tricks that you might find of value, especially if you're new to Photoshop. Additional thoughts on Prezi may be found in the final four videos on that page.

2010 Self Portraits on Prezi

Note: I spent a couple of hours exploring the Go2Web 2.0 site and didn't want to force a choice for uniqueness' sake. Like the rest of my Full Sail experience, I'm not really interested in resources that don't directly help my own students succeed. My second choice isn't even listed on the Go2Web site. Maybe I should keep that resource in check for a future post. ;)

Credits: The complex PowerPoint slide is courtesy of US Military (larger version), Death by PowerPoint by Frits Ahlefeldt, Prezi videos by Prezi via YouTube (1 | 2), student artwork via these students, and the video within my Prezi is courtesy of Sir Ken Robinson, RSA, and RSA Animate, via this YouTube page.

BP1_Welcome to My Blog

If you do not specify and confront real issues, what you say will surely obscure them. If you do not alarm anyone morally, you yourself remain morally asleep. If you do not embody controversy, what you say will be an acceptance of the drift of the coming human hell.
— C. Wright Mills

I began using quotations to set the tone for my posts... searching... on July 1, 2009. At the end of that post I mentioned that we'd just logged our 80,000th page view (in three months of tracking). Not bad for a little high school blog, eh?

Since then, we've had almost 600,000 additional page views and I've become a solid believer in the power of blogs. But this one? It seems as if I have a choice; and it's the usual one: (a) Do your job, don't rock the boat, and collect your pay, degree, etc. Or (b) Follow C. Wright Mills' advice.

Education is broken. We don't need Sir Ken to tell us that. The best way to fix a broken system is to step outside of it. We need distance and perspective to see to the root of the problems. We need leaps of imagination to discover potential solutions. We need flexibility and adaptability to implement necessary changes. And as Buckminster Fuller wrote in Critical Path, we need the courage to do what we be believe is right:

The invisible tensive straws that can save us are those of individual human integrities—in daring to steer the individual’s course only by truth, strange as the realized truth may often seem—wherever and whenever the truths are evidenced to the individual—wherever they may lead, unfamiliar as the way may be.

I have no desire to embody controversy but I do intend to specify and confront real issues. A series of open letters will be posted in addition to the class assignments (see right sidebar). I believe the folks at Full Sail care about the state of education and no disrespect is intended by making my case in a public forum but I have some very serious concerns. What I would like is a response that doesn't amount to, "That's just the way it is."

Note: Links in my posts often point to Wikipedia because, as I tell my students, it's a good place to begin a search. (But a terrible place to end one.)


Credits: Photo by Christopher Canel. Apropos comic by Dan Piraro.