Monthly Archives: May 2007

Summer Is Here

It has rained nearly every day and everything is the yard is green and thriving! I have started on the summer catch-up around the house and have a ton still to do! I made a dent in it today and I will keep at it – like everything else I am behind because last summer was all about taking care of Dale. We got the word today – he has the green light for transplant as far as his health is concerned – now we just need a donor.

My friend B.J. is on a road trip and has promised to blog it. He has already uploaded some photos to Flickr as you can see here.

CadillacRanchBumgarner.jpgHe is in Tucumcari and has already published an entry on http://homer4k.blogspot.com/ I’m looking forward to taking the trip without ever leaving home! He did say that gas ranged from 2.97 up through 3.31 a gallon. Sounds like you need a bank loan to take a vacation anymore!

I shared a link with him for Comic Life which is an application that comes on the MacBook but now is out in beta version for the PC. That means there will be some bugs but when they get them ironed out it will be great. This is a fun application that easily lets you make comic strip like documents using pictures and then adding speech bubbles. It comes with preloaded templates – you just choose one and drag the photos to where you want them. Choose the shape of speech bubble and type in your text and you’re done. Today on Bionic Teaching I read about a class that is using this application to create ads for Greek gods and goddesses selling products. There are also some great creations there on copyright licensed under creative commons.

In 2006 Jeff Han gave a demonstration at TED Talks on an interface-free touch screen -and last night Microsoft announced the Microsoft Surface Computer which you can see here. I would love to play with one of these. Instead of spending hours learning an interface just start moving things around any way you like with your fingers. They also show loading things like pictures and maps onto someones phone from the surface. It won’t be on the market til winter 2007 but it will be making it’s appearance at different conferences and events. You can check back on their site to see where it will be shown next. It will be exciting to see how this evolves and if it makes it into the mainstream market. Imagine being able to do desktop publishing by simply dragging your documents and images around on a template and seeing the text flow to fit. Don’t like it? Just drag it somewhere else. Add voice recognition and we really will be using something that like what we only used to see in science fiction movies. The uses just boggle the mind. I’m sure it won’t be making an appearance in Paris Texas anytime soon but maybe next year at TCEA! You can read more about it here.

Time To Learn

The school year is rapidly winding down and between keeping up with work and my own kids end of year activities I am missing my blog reading and writing. I have ideas and I am trying to catch moments to read everything I can. I can’t help but wonder how anyone is finding the time!

Dale had all the heart tests today and everything looks good for transplant so now we just wait to hear what the next step in the process is. We had a long day but at least it was all in one place.

I want to comment on a post by David Warlick “Of Course I Think It Matters” The part that resonated with me was this

“Sadly, we are a generation who was taught how to be taught — not how to teach ourselves. It’s one of the many reasons why the experiences that our children have in the classroom must become much more self-directed, relevant, and rich. They/we need to learn to teach ourselves. Teachers shouldn’t need professional development. They should be saying, hey, I’m going to teach myself how to do that this weekend. It’s about life long learning. Not about a life of being taught.”

Years ago I was working as a teacher’s aide in a special education 6th grade class. We were self contained for the most part and because of a grant we got a shiny new Apple 2C that sat in the box for a month before I timidly asked if anyone had a problem with me opening the box and seeing if I could do something with it. I then took a couple classes at the local vocational school in Basic and spent weekends typing rows of numbers and letters that would allow the students to answer a simple math program and if they answered correctly a little character would run across the screen holding a sing that said “great job!” The kids loved it and the teacher loved it when I wrote a little program that would let us average grades.

I took a few years off to raise kids but when I went back to work in a school (again as a teacher’s aide) I was the weird one who got excited about staff development. Someone was going to take time to teach me something for free! Yea! I was also excited because it was a time that I had no obligation to do anything but learn – yea again! For those of you who know me you know I have no degree. I’ve had a couple of college classes and some vocational school classes but other than that I am self-taught.

I know that a little part of what motivates me is the constant newness – there is always more to learn and even once you learn something it changes and I like the constant change. I know I can never catch up but that isn’t a bad thing for me. I like the constant surprise and discovery. I like being able to help a student figure out how to accomplish something with technology. I like to help teachers solve problems with technology. The only way I know how to teach is to learn first.
My question is – how can anyone teach and not love to learn?

Is Everything Miscellaneous Or A Soap Opera?

A couple of random things rolling around in my brain this morning. I have been trying to nail down the meaning of Web 2.0 to give a definition to others and it is like nailing jello to the wall. As I research I keep in mind other related pieces and I read an article on tagging and folksonomy on David Weinberger’s site Joho.

I should have known that tagging things would appeal to me. I have always liked playing with and arranging things. When I was little I had one of those metal doll houses with the little furniture and plastic people. This was of course back when we could have swallowed the furniture and died or cut ourselves on the metal corners of the dollhouse. I liked taking furniture and putting it in the “wrong” room. Before people were putting making media rooms complete with little refrigerators and microwaves I knew it would be conventient to have the ability to drink and eat in the same room in which you watch tv.

The first time I saw a chessboard I of course had to spend hours arranging the pretty pieces in what I thought were interesting patterns that had nothing to do with the actual game.

Tagging appeals to me because I can “arrange” information, websites, pictures, media – anything you can save; into patterns that mean something to me. Some of my tags may be at least similar to how you would categorize something and some would have absolutely no meaning to you because they reflect a reference that is personal.

You would not understand why I might scan a photo and upload it to flickr and have it tagged pipeline unless you know that I took that picture when we were traveling along with a pipeline crew. At the same time I would probably add tags that would tell you it was a related to Arizona, 1980, and Grand Canyon. With tagging I have a dollhouse with unlimited furniture so I can have my refrigerator in the kitchen, living room and bedroom if I wish and all at the same time!

Now if I could just tag that pair of sunglasses I lost….

I’d like to hear some opinions about Twitter. I have read come comments about it and even though I have a tendency to sign up for every new thing that appears on the internet I have resisted Twitter so far. I used to watch soap operas (yes I know – confession time) but I don’t anymore.

I do however, get attached to characters in tv shows and like to read books by authors who create multiple novels using the same main characters. I get upset when a favorite character gets killed off a show or has a catastrophe befall them in a book. Is Twitter the new version of the soap opera? I don’t think my life in interesting enough that anyone would care what “I’m doing right now” but I can see how I would get the nosy curious side of me fed by peeking in at what others are doing. If you use Twitter and see some use for it for collaboration or education I would like to hear about it. Have I been missing out?

Big Wheels Keep On turning

Tomorrow is my 27th wedding anniversary. I have two kids in high school – next year and the year after I will be getting ready for first one and then the other to graduate.

I have lived in Michigan, Florida, Colorado, Louisiana, Arizona, California and Texas. I have had multiple jobs including salad girl, waitress, machine operator in a plastics factory, seamstress in a bra factory, art teacher in a residential facility for emotionally and intellectually challenged youth (hope I got that politically correct), “do whatever is needed” person at a small start-up newspaper, housekeeper, teachers aide in a migrant program, night staff in a small private mental institution (yes I’m serious – two of us even set up and dispensed meds), data entry at an office that kept track of licensing for surgical technologists, secretary in a drug abuse recovery facility, lifeguard, and a ten year hiatus in there somewhere to be a stay-at-home mom.

Dale and I bought a piece of land years ago when he did dirt work and he brought the dozer home. I drove it just enough to say I did it, and then we cleared the land, built the pad, put in the forms and poured the slab. We built a 24×24 garage and finished it off so we could live in it til we got ready to build. There’s a picture of me somewhere, nailing down shingles on the roof and another of me putting up styrofoam insulation. The idea was stolen from my parents with the plan to finish paying it off and then build a house. Instead we ended up selling when Dale got a job on the pipeline and we went off and lived in a travel trailer for awhile.

It was during that time that we stayed awhile in Blythe and I took a class in BASIC at the Jr. College there and spent a lot of hours in the RV playing Zork on an old TRS 80. There began my addiction to computers! I got an A in my class and also had access to their library. I read a book back then called Deep Enough by Frank Crampton who had mined in the early 1900s when they did it with hammers. Swinging two hammers to drive the spikes in to create holes for the dynamite was called double-jacking and there were photos of the LaBrea Tar Pits with the city off in the distance behind them. I made Dale drive me to L.A. one weekend just to see them and was totally disappointed to find they had become a postage stamp size park in the middle of huge buildings. I ordered the book tonight from Amazon as an anniversary present for us.
When the job ended we said goodbye to some wonderful friends and traveled a bit and finally settled in Denver til we had our son and decided it was time to head home to Louisiana where the cost of living would allow me stay home with him. Our daughter was born a little over a year later and I spent the next few years up to my neck in diapers, crayons, playdoh, and Happy Meals. When Dale got the job in Texas it was too good to pass up and we moved here and here we have been ever since.

Regardless of what the news may say, it has been a good place to raise kids. If we had stayed in Denver our kids would have grown up in daycare because it would have been impossible to survive on one income. There would have been some advantages but they weren’t the kind of advantages we wanted for our family. Oddly enough the kids probably would have gone to Columbine school if we had stayed – we lived in Littleton.
I remember the day the shooting happened. We were on our way to San Antonio and turned the TV on in the van as we came into Austin thinking maybe it would pick up some cartoons for the kids. Columbine was all over the news. My best friend lived several blocks away from the high school and her daughter had a houseful of kids who were trying to connect with their parents. The nearby park where we took the kids to swing on a visit years before became a memorial site filled with flowers, pictures, and candles. We checked in at the hotel in San Antonio and called my friend to make sure they were all okay. I remember having such a knot in my stomach until I heard their voices.

We all have these days in our lives where we feel that time stops for a moment and we take a little ramble back through the past. This has been one of those rambles. We have now been married for more than half our lives and have been so very lucky. I read today that around 50% of the marriages in this country end in divorce. The big wheel has turned completely around a few times over the years and there were a few times where I didn’t like my husband too much but we waited it out and the wheel turned again and everything came back around.

I think the big problem today is that people don’t want to wait for that wheel to turn. It’s been a great ride so far and If I had it all to do over again – I would. I guess if you can say that after 27 years you have done all right. I’d like another 27 years please. Here’s to you babe – you’re one of the great ones!

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Great Graphing And Blogging Lesson

Dan Meyer has a great post with downloads for teaching x-y graphs. He went out and videoed ten ten second events – running up two flights of stairs, driving his car, etc. He gave his students graph handouts and then played the videos asking questions like where was I at this point on the graph. As he asked the questions he had added chapter markers to the video so he could play sections in slow motion. He went around the room stamping the graphs he liked. After they had completed their graph and they had talked about it he would finish playing the video and the event would be graphed out on the screen.

A quote from Mr. Meyer’s article:

The total effect only intensified and grew more exciting with each new event. With scaffolding that precise and a visual connection that strong, even my weakest students were drawing eerily accurate graphs.They grew fanatical about accuracy, asking me to replay the footage five times for one particular event. Some became ornery when I couldn’t come and check out their productions.

Mr. Meyer is not only a talented teacher but a talented video and graphics creator and he shares! All the materials including the videos are available for download on his site at the end of the blog. You gotta love this guy! Not just for his hard work and willingness to share, but for the enthusiasm he brings to the profession and is able to sustain even at this time of year when many of us are feeling well, less than enthusiastic?

Head on over and grab some goodies and while you’re there you might want to check out some of his other posts. In the top right corner of the page you will see a group of links. One is just for the lessons he has published on his blog. I have referred a few teachers to this site before but I just can’t say enough about this blog! It’s such a great example of what we can do and share. I will be sharing this site next fall when teachers are learning about blogging.

You get a big thumbs up from me Dan – hear the applause? Wow!

Can information Be Owned? (or DIGG part II)

I grew up amid protests against the Viet Nam war in a part of the country where labor unions were strong. I have always believed that the heart of democracy is personal responsibility and personal sacrifice when it benefits society as a whole.
It may be the perspective of age but it seems that for the most part we gather up like a bunch of guinea hens running from one cause to the next with no thought of the long term consequences or who will pay the price.
While the guinea hens are running on to that next cause, who gets stuck footing the bill?

I say some old sayings still hold true – if you are going to talk the talk you better be willing to walk the walk.

It will be interesting to see how the landscape of the entertainment industry changes when the business end of it stops flailing it’s hands and stomping it’s feet and finds a way to change to adapt to the openness that is our new reality. The entertainment business and everything else!

I read a news article yesterday about someone in a lab “accidently” discovering that she had killed some cancer cells because she had done something wrong in an experiment. I immediately thought about how not too long ago this information would not have been made public – and we may not hear anymore about it. In the past, pharmaceutical companies would have held that information very close to the vest hoping to be the first to discover and patent(and profit from) the miracle medicine.

The article was pretty open about what she did and what she used. The competition for funding and grants is fierce so if this information starts a race in multiple labs for the same medicine will patients get it sooner? Will the effect of that information becoming public result in another company getting the prize and maybe knocking some promising researcher out of a position that might have resulted in a future discovery even more important to society?

I remember reading the book “And The Band Played On” which was about the progression of AIDS from the parts played by the CDC, the Red Cross and others. The Red Cross after being told about the risk to the blood supply at first ignored the information and because of that, people were transfused with infected blood and the disease spread especially to hemopheliacs. I was outraged in my naivete` that people could be harmed by the very system they looked to for survival. Could that have happened today? I think it would have spread through every blog, forum, and news site like wildfire. I hope it would have saved countless lives.

Another possible scenario is that it would have been brushed off because there is a perception out there that blogs and forums are mostly gossip and personal agenda and the information that might have saved lives would have been ignored all the same.

If there is no thought or integrity in what we say whether it be on DIGG, in forums, or on our own personal blogs then we do ourselves and the media a disservice. What difference will it make what we say if we are dismissed as being irresponsible? Will some changes that should happen NOT happen because the source is us? We all complain about the media putting it’s slant on the news depending on their agenda. Guess what folks – we ARE the media. What is our agenda?
Just my rambling for what it’s worth.

DIGG this

A site that I read fairly regularly has had an interesting thing happen. There were multiple posts on DIGG of an HD-DVD decryption number, There were multiple attempts to remove those posts after the movie industry threatened legal action. According to Forbes magazine:

The Web 2.0 movement is based, in theory, on the idea that everyone on the Internet gets to have his or her say. But what happens when visitors to Web 2.0 sites start pushing the legal limits of free speech?In the case of the social news portal Digg.com, a meltdown.

DIGG is a news site that allows users to post news items and then other users vote and the votes move the stories either to the front page or towards the back. It’s content is constantly changing and users can comment. The commenting allows personal discussion about the news items and while I don’t share a lot of the views it can make for some interesting reading.

What is unusual about today, is that the users basically revolted against the articles about the decryption number being taken off and flooded the site with articles faster than the site administrators could remove them. The site administrators finally just gave in and said that if DIGG went down at least it would go down fighting.

Will this set a precident for web 2.0 sites that host user generated content? And does a community have the right to determine policy for a website? Should DIGG have banned users who refused to comply? I won’t get into a debate about right or wrong as far as the encryption, but I do wonder how removing the posts will accomplish anything. It’s like locking the asylum after the inmates have escaped. The damage is done and what was on DIGG is already on email and other newsites.

I also feel that having the freedom to voice your opinions on the internet carries with it some responsibility at the very least to whomever is hosting the website. If you want to say something that puts that person or persons in a position of legal liability then my feeling is you should host your own website and take responsibility yourself.

I do think the entertainment industry is going to have to rethink how it does business. The playing field has changed and maybe in some ways that is good. I believe that an artist has the right to make a living from their creation whatever the medium. I hope that the changes to come will see more of the actual artists reaping the benefits instead of huge corporations making the money and having the power.

I’m just not sure that this is the way to do it.

Personal Update

Thanks for all the good wishes and prayers. We made it through the first round of tests and we are waiting for them to schedule the stress test. We were given a lot if information to digest and we were both exhausted last night. The side effects of anti-rejection drugs are pretty scary and I know Dale is kind of trying to balance it all out in his mind. It would free him up from the dialysis and the diet would be better but the medications come with a chance of diabetes, nausea, lymphoma, melanoma, infection, and a host of other not so nice things. They have to be taken for the rest of your life or you lose the kidney. The actual surgery is the least scary part for him.

The traffic was terrible and at one point we actually managed to drive 8 miles in 45 minutes. It started pouring between Greenvile and Rockwall and my windshield wipers staged a protest and just quit for about 15 minutes. I was thankful for the mini-van in front of me that gave me tail-lights to follow till the wipers started working again. They have done this off and on for awhile and also refuse to turn off sometimes. They have NEVER done it when I have been near a mechanic of course. Mechanics and medicine – I’ll stick with computers.