Writing To Stay Awake (and an anti-gun rant)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/laughingsquid/

It just turned midnight and I decided that I've got nothing better to do than sit here and write a post. I'm at the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) airport with a few thousand others who have ended up spending the night due to flight cancellations.

It seems that the remnants from Tropical Storm Bill hit the area pretty hard. My flight was cancelled around 2 this afternoon while I was sitting in Columbia SC training a great group of teachers from the Richland 2 school district.

By the time I arrived here in Dallas, and was able to contact some hotels, it was already too late to find a room at the inn. Or, at least, a room within shuttle distance. I could have rented a car and driven a ways and gotten a room. But I would have had to turn around and be back here at 6 AM. Just as easy to stay here.

When I finally had time to sit down and pause, I was hit by the news of the shooting in Charleston, SC. The Twitter feed (#CharlestonShooting) had a lot of information but the point that kept coming up was that this was a white man killing a bunch of innocent black people while they were in church!

This should be treated as an act of terrorism. How can the gun proponents keep turning their collective heads? Why do they keep falling back on this "right to bear arms?" What about the right to go to church without some nut blowing your brains out?

I used to say that people should be forced to keep all of their weapons in a municipal armory. I said that they should have to check out their weapons for some specific reason and return them immediately upon finishing that specific reason. And, "going to a church and killing a black person" should NOT be a valid reason to check out your guns!

That seemed, even to me, a bit extreme. Well, it doesn't seem like much of an extreme anymore. Why, in 2015, do people need to carry guns? So they can shoot back at crazy people shooting at them? Really? How many innocent (and non-gun carrying folks) will get caught in the crossfire? I can't think of a single person who I would trust firing a weapon to protect me. The odds of me being hit by my good Samaritan are higher than I like.

But as long as it is legal to...sigh...It's time to do something about the legality of gun possession. Let's go to the extreme left and adjust from there. Give it 10 years or so for people to think about what it means to be a gun owner. During that time let's make gun possession, outside of one's property lines, illegal. Poof! You can have your guns but keep them on your land and don't take them from your land.

If we went to that extreme and then promised gun owners that the issue of gun possession would be re-evaluated in 10 years, everyone would have time to think about it without, pardon the pun, a gun being held against our heads.

Rant Complete. You may carry on with your day.

If You Borrow It, Tell Someone

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kittiesmademedoit/

Those are words of advice given to me by my Father. Actually it was more like, "Hey, I don't mind if you want to use my tools but put them back - in the same spot - when you are finished."

Isn't that really the point of attribution? You are borrowing someone else's words or pictures. You may not be able to "put them back in the same spot," but you can send others back to the spot where they were found.

Too often on Twitter and Facebook I will see something that I know I have seen before. Almost invariably I do some digging and I find the original news article, blog post, or image that it came from.  Sometimes it is in a re-tweet (RT) and the person who originally tweeted it is the guilty party of not giving credit where it is due.

So, what should you do before you re-post something? My immediate answer may surprise you after my intro here. I say it depends. If you are in the middle of a twitter chat where 50 to 100 tweets are flying by every minute, then you may miss  hundreds of tweets with great nuggets by researching that one tweet. Just favorite the tweet prior to RT'ng it and then you can go back and give the original item the proper attribution after the chat.

If, on the other hand, you are seeing a tweet outside of a chat or in a slow moving chat then take the time to check it out and if the original person wasn't mentioned in the tweet take the time to include "via @originalperson" in your RT. If you need to modify the original tweet prior to RT'ng it to fit the "via," then remember you are now tweeting a Modified Tweet (MT) not a re-tweet.  Just use MT instead of RT and everyone will know what you did.

Finally, if you are going to be the original person putting something up on Twitter or Facebook, then take the time to craft your tweet or post so the attribution is included. If you can't find the person's Twitter handle through the twitter search do a web search using the person's name and the word twitter - "chris fancher twitter" for example.

If that doesn't immediately give you what you need, then research where this person works. Is he or she with a business, at a school or university, or in a school district? If nothing else find a twitter handle for the specific place of employment and include that.

Take the time to do the simple task of giving recognition to the originator of whatever "tool" you are using. You owe it to them and to your followers to do it right.

Feeling Radioactive

imgarcade.com

WARNING - NEGATIVE RADIATION CONTAINED IN THIS POST. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

[Originally written mid-April, 2015 ]

Yesterday I went for a run/walk as I try to regain my body - my body that is currently almost 70 pounds overweight and tired.  While I was out plodding along and listening to my running playlist, the song Radioactive by Imagine Dragons started playing and I realized that this song has a different meaning to me than most others.

It was about 15 months ago when I was out in similar fashion (except I was only about 50 pounds overweight then). As I was running I heard Radioactive and a huge vision of my brother undergoing chemo-therapy popped into my head and tears filled my eyes. I replayed that song countless times that morning while moving forward at a snails pace.

Now when I hear that song I feel a connection to my brother who lost his fight with cancer almost exactly a year ago. But, in a weird way, there is a deeper connection than just the title and cancer. In a way I have become very radioactive this past 12 months. I have become much less sociable and withdrawn - not wanting to spread my radioactivity to others.

I once was very active on Twitter - to the point that over 3000 people now follow me. I was also very active on Facebook - friends could guarantee a quick response to postings. And I used to write blog posts with regularity. Now I'd rather stay home and "work" although I am often just going through the motions. At school I am getting much less accomplished and I'm less and less able to keep our teachers smiling.

My school and district are a huge source of my radioactivity. Trying to "do right and fear not" is getting to be a real challenge when there are people around me who are doing wrong and fearing not. I am surrounded by too many people who are unhappy and want change. That negativity fuels my radioactive juices.

By the end of the calendar year I hope to eliminate (or drastically reduce) the radioactive levels flowing through my soul. The first order of business will be to find a new job. If that can't happen then I worry that this past year may pale in comparison with the amount of radiation I might have to absorb in the coming months.

[Updated 16 May 2015]

I will need help to do this. I need to be among people who are strong, positive, and smart. There are some incredible people in my current school district who fit that bill but more and more those people are leaving like the proverbial rat leaving the sinking ship. Just last night I learned of another person who is leaving. I was hoping to be able to work with this person at some point in my career but that will now not happen. My radiation levels creeped back up last night.

The possibility of being too old and, therefore, not hirable is also starting to enter my brain. There are tons of things I would love to do but I worry that people are going to start choosing younger minds with better physiques over me. Up go the radiation levels. Thank god I have my work with the Buck Institute for Education (BIE). It allows me to be around adults who are learning about a way of teaching that I firmly believe in. It allows me to be encouraging. It allows me to be cheerful and positive. It allows me to lower my radiation levels quickly.

I don't know what my life will look like 12 months from now. I could be doing something completely different from what I am currently doing. I could be doing instructional coaching in another school district. I could be doing the exact same job I'm doing now.  Except that very little will look the same at Decker Middle School.

The 2015-2016 school year will have a totally new administration - a new Principal AND new Assistant Principals. What will this new regime bring to DMS and what will this disturbance in the force do to the nearly 1000 students coming through the doors? Our poor 8th graders will have had a new principal every year they were in middle school. But our leaders don't think about such silliness. If our test scores go down it will be the teachers' faults for not doing their jobs.

Radiation levels could go critical!

Anyone have a dosimeter I can borrow?

Exploring Design Thinking as a PBL Guy

Via Eric White

This week I will be meeting with other BIE National Faculty (NF) members at our annual Spring Summit.

For the summit we have broken into Professional Learning Communities (PLC's) and I am with the Design Thinking (dt) group.

We will be sharing with the other NF and we are looking at how dt compares with pbl and what can and should be included in future editions of the BIE PBL 101 or other training services.

I have been thinking a lot about the dt world and I have both watched from afar and interacted directly in the Twitter chat on dt - #dtk12chat. I have sat through a number of presentations from key people in the dt world including Ewan McIntosh. I also have a masters in engineering science so I've taken a few courses in design.

But I still haven't totally been able to marry dt and pbl. As I talk with more and more people who subscribe to dt I am noticing that many of them will do projects using the standard pbl process and then do another project that is based upon the dt process. I am assuming that I'm not the only one with this struggle.

During my years teaching with Project Lead the Way I used the 12-step design process with my students. Since I was at a New Tech Network (NTN) school I was able to marry the pbl process with this process and I worked my projects with the marriage of these two processes.

Project Lead the Way (PLTW) Image

Overlapping the DT image at the top of this post with this design process I came to the following list of steps for a pbl project with an undercurrent of dt:

1.     Initial Problem or Idea                    
2.   Brainstorm and Build Empathy  
3.     Consider Criteria and Constraints
4.    Create an Initial Concept (IC)       
5.    Gather Feedback on the IC            
6.    Create an Initial Prototype (IP)    
7.   Gather Feedback on the IP           
8.   Create/Build/Write/Make           
9.    Mid-Creation Feedback                 
10.  Present Final Product (FP)         
11.  Gather Feedback on FP               
12. Reflect                                            

This is a 12-step process that starts with a problem or idea, overtly asks teachers to think about inquiry and empathy, gives opportunities for feedback, has a presentation, and ensures reflection.  

Looking at another interpretation of the phases of the design thinking process we see that within this 12-step process there is empathy; there is a chance to define and ideate; there is an opportunity to create a prototype; and there is a chance to test the prototype and get feedback.  

As we at BIE attempt to create the essential elements of "Gold Standard PBL," we are looking at these elements:

http://www.bloomboard.com/

The 12-step process I presented can, and should, contain all of the elements in this diagram. As with all learning we must make sure there are key knowledge and skills at the heart of whatever process we are using. 

If we can ensure students are involved in their learning, are thinking of others, and are reflective in their quest for understanding, then our students will be the kind of adults that make a difference in our world.