Spread the #edjoy

One of my favorite Twitter chats is #sunchat. It never fails to motivate me for the upcoming week. Even when conversations revolve around potentially depressing topics, like the move towards more standardization and high stakes testing, ultimately I still feel hopeful. There are just too many thoughtful people out there fighting for what is right in education. 

Two weeks ago was no exception. The initial question asked us to discuss the ways we help struggling colleagues. A thread evolved regarding the need to laugh. Perhaps, some of us wondered, the time had come to establish a new hashtag: #edjoy? Yes, we decided. It was. In order to articulate the need for this hashtag, a number of people helped create the Joy in Education Manifesto.

Lets face it, teaching is a tough, high-stress job, especially in the current climate when so many educators feel besieged. It is easy to forget to laugh with our students and colleagues, to chuckle when things go off the rails, to emphasize joy. 

#Edjoy is about reconnecting with what attracted us to teaching in the first place: the desire to keep learning while helping others reach their potential. #Edjoy is about reasserting ourselves in the conversation regarding what empowered learning looks like. #Edjoy is about reminding ourselves that it's one thing for those on the outside to enumerate the shortcomings in our education system, but quite another to dedicate oneself to offering solutions from within.

In short, #Edjoy is about educators sharing what they love about their profession and, in so doing, providing uplift for themselves and others.

So what's the upshot, you might be wondering? What am I supposed to do with this hashtag? There are ideas for a more organized, concerted effort at making #edjoy known. One possibility: a daily #edjoy tweet challenge for the month of November (the month of giving thanks). Another possibility: an #edjoy flash mob at some arranged day and time. Maybe we could even get the hashtag to trend.

For now, however, the point is to USE IT! Spread the #edjoy.

**Thanks for reading. If you would like be part of future action, tweet me at @sglass771 or leave your twitter handle as a comment below or list your twitter handle on the #edjoy activists list on the 2nd page of the Joy in Education Manifesto.

Writing Requires Craftsmanship

What's the problem with this building?

No craftsmanship!

It's strictly utilitarian with no sense of style or attention to detail. It’s built quickly. It’s built cheaply. It’s architecture that nobody cares about. With your writing, you don’t want to build ugly strip malls.

How can you insure that you are not building an ugly strip mall? How can you insure that you are building something meaningful?

Craftsmanship!

When you apply craftsmanship to anything that you are making, you are saying to yourself that what you are building matters--to you and, possibly, others. Craftsmanship requires dedication to, and thoughtful execution of, a plan. With regards to writing, this means:

Slow down: consider what you are saying and how you are saying it. You must reread your work. If you don’t understand what you are saying or are unmoved, your reader will feel the same way. Take time to consider language and sentence construction. At some point, you must be detailed oriented. Little mistakes with commas and apostrophes sneak by the best writers. Perfection is quite possibly unattainable. Still, clarity is key.

Be organized: As mentioned above, you should have a plan and you should stick to it, while allowing for flexibility. The point of writing is to follow ideas. You might find a new direction as you write. If it appears worthwhile, follow it. At the same time, go into a piece of writing with a clear, step-by-step understanding of what you want to build.

Be specific: Move past what is easily known, especially by you. It’s one thing to say “society is corrupt.” It’s another thing to say, “here’s an example of how corruption undermines the relationships upon which society is built.” And then write about something that is taking or has taken place. This is also crucial for the way you start. Make an honest attempt to open with something that gets you and your reader interested.



Writing well is tough. Somewhere along the way, I heard somebody compare writing to conducting an orchestra. Both are among the most difficult activities to pull off because the writer has so much to attend to: the ideas, the organization, the sentence level decisions. But it is also incredibly important to be able to communicate this way. You must want to be successful. You must want to build something worthwhile.

CIO #1: Killer Mike Challenges Us and Himself

I have heard Killer Mike's song "Reagan" a number of times.  But recently I came across the video: it's a definite work of art.  The cartoon lends an immediacy to Mike's rhymes about hypocrisy and the government's history of institutionalized racism.  In both the music and the visuals, this is art that stakes its place in the world and does not shy away from controversy. But this song is not solely about criticizing the government.  It's real potency comes from Mike's willingness to examine his and other rap artist's complicity in the problems plaguing his community:

"So it seems our people starve from lack of understanding/ Cause all we seem to give them is some balling and some dancing/ And some talking about our car and imaginary mansions/ We should be indicted for bullshit we inciting/ Hella children deaf and pretending it's exciting/We are advertisements for agony and pain/ We exploit the youth, we tell them to join a gang"


Of course, hearing people be critical of hip-hop's emphasis on money, violence, and objectification of women is not new. But it bears hearing again, especially by somebody talking from the inside.
Absolutely worth checking out. 

It might even lead people to research what he's talking about.

How Do Students Learn To Be Online?

In my Media Collage class, I have started off by asking students to think about learning. While the class is concerned primarily with understanding how to use our devices and the internet to be confident, creative, generous participants in digital spaces, the early discussions about learning have not necessarily focused on the digital. For example, the first project I assigned challenged them to create a 5 image story in Haiku Deck that focuses on something meaningful they have learned to do. It appears that all of the stories revolve around the decidedly "non-digital": perfecting a tennis serve, playing guitar, riding a surfboard, knowing how to share.

Strings: A learning Story - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Once the students have finished this project, I plan on extending this discussion about the Haiku Deck narrative. Specifically, I am interested in the "learning constellation" that helped make possible the meaningful activity they learned to do.  For example, after creating my Haiku Deck model, I did a Google Drawing of my "learning constellation":

So here's the question that I am sure my students are wondering: "why is MrG taking all this time to discuss learning, especially when it does not seem to have anything to do with digital technology? What class did I sign up for anyway?"

And here's my answer. 

I want to spend time thinking about something meaningful we each have learned to do as a springboard to consider how we learn to use our devices and be online. Looking back at my constellation, I see that I had some expert guidance, both in the form of friends who were willing to work with me and be role models with whom I could experiment, and professionals who released music that inspired me to pick up the instrument. Additionally, there are some things about my learning experience that I did not include on the constellation, like my passion and motivation to learn how to play, my agency in deciding I wanted to dedicate time to it, and my understanding that getting better requires mistakes. Lots of mistakes.

What it comes down to is my suspicion that our students' learning experiences regarding devices and the internet are woefully lacking. (As are most adults'.) Have they had mentors guiding them? Helping them build their online presence? Illustrating how to be curators of information? Providing opportunities to experiment as creators? Probably not. Instead, learning to navigate the digital world probably has occurred in fits and starts, with some help from peers, parents, teachers. But mostly with a whole lot of stumbling in the dark.

To consider what a true learning experience looks like, including the constellation that makes it possible, is to bring into sharper focus the haphazard way most of us, especially our kids, learn to be online. With this established, hopefully we will all be motivated to make our learning experiences with digital technology more deliberate and purposeful.

Hello New School Year

I've never really committed goals for a new school year to print. Of course, I've had some goals, and maybe I've even shared them vocally. But this year I've decided to more formally list what I hope to accomplish. Perhaps it will motivate me to pursue these five goals more vigorously than I would otherwise. So, in no particular order, here they are:

• Carve out space to focus on student agency. Since presenting on this at the Chromebook Institute this past June, I've been thinking a lot about it. It is always a goal, and I think I've done fairly well at times. But I want to make a more concerted effort to reflect on what agency means and how to work with my students to empower them to pursue their interests. 

• Do more making in the classroom. This encompasses working with both digital and physical materials. After participating in #CLMOOC this summer, I have been reminded of the way that creating stimulates ideas and fosters a more thoughtful, even mindful, attitude. In our fast paced culture, creating requires slow, which is sorely needed in most of our lives. Not to mention more time for play.

• Be an advocate for connected learning. Again, something I was reminded of in #CLMOOC. My Diigo links have multiplied greatly this summer as I picked up ideas regarding projects and tools from my colleagues. Not to mention the benefits I continue to accrue while taking part in a host of twitter chats. For that matter, I also want to stay connected to the great people I've learned from online.

• Encourage my own kids to be creators like I do with my students. While attending Educon last January, I had a number of conversations with other educators about this. Too many of us agreed that we wished our own children had the opportunities in their classes that we were trying to provide for our students. And we agreed that, with the time-consuming nature of teaching, it is too easy to lament a lack of vision in our kids' classrooms without trying to rectify this at home. A huge oversight.

• Lighten up and have more fun with my colleagues. I could probably include my students as well, but we have light moments in class. Outside of class, however, there is just so much to do. I find it too easy to bury myself at my desk. This is not right. I work with outstanding people. Interesting people. Funny people. Not to mention that research shows that laughter keeps you healthier. This is an imperative.

So there they are. Five goals. I could have listed more. For instance, I didn't even broach the need to work with students to help them create healthy digital routines that revolve around generosity, kindness, and curiosity. But I guess that one goes without saying. Tomorrow the new year begins. As the artist Chuck Close says, "Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work." I'm ready.

No Thanks Google--I'll Do the Editing

Since last winter, I have made Google photo my main online space for saving my photographs.  It has proven to be a useful way to keep my pics organized and always at the ready for use. And it has been interesting to experiment with Google Photo's Auto-Awesome feature. With this feature turned on, Google will manipulate images in a number of ways. Some of these I have quite enjoyed, like the way it will turn a series of images into a gif:

This has been quite handy and fun to explore. What I am less sure about is the way Google will enhance photos:

On the right is my photo. The "auto-awesome" enhancement is on the left. It’s a great image, but I had nothing to do with it beyond pointing and clicking the camera. At times I consider posting these, but I don’t because it is not my work. I enjoy editing my pics, whether I do this in Google photo, Pixlr Express, or PicMonkey. In fact, here's my own editing process for the photo on the right, including cropping, brightening areas, applying tilt focus, and frame:

Regardless of the outcome, the value is in the process itself. It is reminiscent of David Gauntlett's ideas about creativity in his book Making is Connecting. Here's what he had to say in an interview with Henry Jenkins:

Everyday creativity refers to a process which brings together at least one active human mind, and the material or digital world, in the activity of making something which is novel in that context, and is a process which evokes a feeling of joy.

An active human mind--exactly. This is not about becoming a professional photographer. It is about having agency over the way I represent the world I see around me. Instead of letting a program do the work for me, I want to be in control. There is meaning in my decisions that disappears when I allow Google to manipulate the image.

I start the new school year this week. As I do, I will be thinking a lot about student and teacher agency. In this era of high stakes testing and top-down mandates, the challenge is to carve out the time and space necessary for my students and I to focus on questions that are relevant and engaging. And to make the classroom a collaborative learning community where we produce and share work based on these questions. As I think about what I want for my students and myself, it is to experience the frustration, surprise, and wonder that comes from creating, regardless of medium. There is no way to cut corners in this. There is no way to cheat. One must put in the effort to experiment. Whether working with images, video, or text, discovery and resonance only arise when one takes responsibility for creating based upon individual vision.

That's awesome. And I'm ready to begin again.