You’re in Los Angeles for 48 hours. You have a workshop to lead, formal and informal professional gatherings to attend, and an online class with a final grading deadline looming. When all of that is done, you’re left with a couple hours to spend on sight-seeing. If you’re the average person, you might visit the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Venice Beach, or stroll down Rodeo Drive. If you’re a closeted nerd like myself, you’d head straight for Meltdown Comics on Sunset Blvd. I have no illusions of being a graphic novel connoisseur, or an avid consumer of the Nerdist network’s podcasts. However, I do recognize the gravitas of "nerd Meccas" like Meltdown Comics and the Nerdmelt Showroom. So with the gracious permission of the staff working the store, I was able to produce a video story problem about estimating the store’s inventory; one of the best curated assemblages of comics in North America. I feel obligated to call out the poor production value for this video, since I filmed it in the heart of the global film and television industry. Moving passed that, there are a few liberties I took in creating this video story problem. One, there are actually a few more cabinets/shelves/cases of comics that I didn’t point out in the interest of not over complicating the problem. Two, many of the shelves contained graphic novels, NOT traditional comics (my apologies to graphic novel aficionados). And third, I didn’t allow for the various sizes of books or for the extra room that "face out" titles would take up on the shelves. I wasn’t planning on actually filming this video story problem (as is the case with many of those I create). I just wanted to see an awesomely geeky cultural hotspot of all things nerdy, and the idea for the problem came as I was browsing the shelves for some Avatar: The Last Airbender graphic novels for my kids (they’re we’re big fans). None of the liberties and shortcuts I took bother me as much as they once did. When a few of us started playing around with capturing authentic curiosity in math and science in the real world, I stuck to a very rigid model. I wanted a clear "question up front", present the raw information as I gathered it approach. In the last 2+ years, I’ve seen many educators and students explore other templates, including the slightly more structured variant of what I refer to as the "traditional video story problem" that I created at Meltdown. A spectrum has developed, with problems falling on a continuum. On one end it produces videos that I hope encourage Dan Meyer to continue sharing these as an example of engaging curiosities in math and science. On the other end of the video story problem spectrum, there are videos that make the concept much more palatable for traditional classroom teachers looking for a "project" to do with students. I like to think that once you start down the continuum, you’ll eventually hit a sweet spot that balances the wide-open and constructed variants of video story problems. I think about this often enough, that in a way, you can say that I’ve been pretty nerd-like in my focus to improve upon and index the various "taxonomies" of these problems. Although I haven’t written about it much, I do start to see clear templates develop.   There are clearly more structured problems that mimic text-book questions with a later of digital storytelling added upon it:   And then you have the much more real-world drive video story problems where students venture out into the real world to give their problems context:   And at the far end of the "what in the world can I do with this" edge of the spectrum are my ramblings that may or may not have direct application to a tightly controlled curriculum sequence:   Regardless of whether I actually make time to sit down and define this admittedly teacher-nerd continuum of video story problems, I’m still having a blast creating them, and helping other teachers find creative ways to bring the real world into their classrooms through digital media. A HUGE thanks to Meltdown Comics for letting me take video in their store, and for taking a few liberties with just how many titles they have in their inventory!

When your community endures a summer storm with winds that top 80mph and a maple tree falls on your parent’s home, what would your normal reaction be? Call a tree trimming crew, call your insurance adjuster, and oil up the chainsaw? That’s exactly what my parents did, and thankfully I was there to do the oddball thing; capturing a moment of curiosity for another "video story problem". I’m aware that the "tree boogers" line is a bit puerile, which is one of the many reasons that I really enjoyed making this video. To be clear, using a chainsaw was easily my most favorite part, but sadly I cut that from the final video as the audio was terrible; I’ll save that clip for my "America’s Funniest Videos" entry. I’ve always been fascinated with biological processes and the structure of plants. Despite the drastic difference in plant and animal physiology, the functions that are carried out in both are strikingly similar. The way that plants use xlyem and phloem to transport both the raw materials needed to make food, and the food itself, is fascinating to me. The "weeping" of fresh cut plants stems, the rapid absorption and dissemination of weed killer, and other rather active processes dispel the misconception that plants are static forms of life for many learners. So it was with great excitement that I had a reasonable excuse to tear a large chunk of bark off of a 50-year old maple tree without fear of damaging it any further. Besides the "tree boogers", it was fun to show my son and daughter that plants are living, breathing things, filled with water in much the same way we are, just in a slightly different form. I hope the video I captured here would be useful as an example of what teachers could capture to help bring a bit of the real world into the classroom. This video might find itself useful during a discussion about the processes of plants, their basic biology, and how their internal structure helps both support their growth and sustain the production and distribution of food throughout the organism. And to show students what "tree boogers" look like. Or maybe, just provide a discrepant event for starting a unit on plants, and challenging learners to figure out why the inside of the tree is so wet that it’s soft to the touch. Oh, and for those interested, my parent’s house is fine; just a bit of crumpled gutter and soffit, no major damage to the roof. We were all quite grateful for it.

If you haven’t seen "Weird Al’s" newest video yet (and I’ll forgive you, it was only released yesterday), you owe it to yourself to watch "Word Crimes", one of eight videos he’s dropping this week in celebration of his latest album, Mandatory Fun. I dare say it’s the quintessential realization of every Grammar Nazi, English Nerd, and K-12 teacher’s pet peeves when it comes to mastering the English language in written form. Sure, it comes a bit late to be parodying Robin Thicke’s "Blurred Lines", but as usual, when Al spoofs a song, he does it with a level of detail and musical perfection that it’s often difficult to distinguish it from the original….if you aren’t paying attention to the lyrics that is. I was never one to harp on grammar when I was in the classroom. I had the luxury of never having to teach it, and while many of my colleagues would likely call me out for being one of those lazy teachers that just doesn’t understand the importance of all teachers reinforcing good grammar, I took a different tact. I wanted my students to write poetically, in a flowing prose that had more force of emotion and structure rather than perfect grammar. In other words; I wanted my students to write as lyrically as "Weird Al" has here in one of his best parodies I’ve seen in a long time. And I’m not the only one that took notice. The internet exploded yesterday with tweets, Google+ posts, and my Facebook feed was flooded with links sharing the video from all the geeky people in my life (teachers or not): Weird Al's music video for "Word Crimes" will make grammar nerds swoon http://t.co/NkS5LOrQhU — Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) July 15, 2014 Weird Al shows off his big dictionary in the "Blurred Lines" parody "Word Crimes": http://t.co/S0SI2TxVL7 — Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) July 15, 2014 Weird Al's "Blurred Lines" parody wants to fix your grammar: http://t.co/iFJP6q2zlv pic.twitter.com/K9VQsQvYvI — Mashable (@mashable) July 16, 2014 Yes, indeed, it’s a good week to be a "Weird Al" fan or someone who has a particular penchant for perfect grammar. I’m not sure how relevant or effective this would be to show your struggling English students; for sure, it’s memorable in that typical "Weird Al" sort of way, "Hey, remember that hilarious parody that Weird Al made about grammar last year, it was awesome!" Beyond the humor and the entertainment value, I wonder if this would serve as a great video challenge for teachers of media and video production. Could you task your students with creating a parody video on par with this? Perhaps as a partnership with the fine arts department at your school? Sure, it would be a rather larger undertaking, but I’d love to see a classroom tackle creating something like this as project. Any takers?

It’s Monday, your neurons may not be fully caffeinated yet, and you may have a few people in need of figuring out how to embed a Google Calendar on another website. In my district, that would be the entire High School staff, and a good portion of the Middle School staff. Our High School teachers all maintain openly accessible Google Calendars for students and parents to quickly check on assignments and other important events (ack, end of unit test!). The teachers embed those Google Calendars on their respective teaching websites, so students and parents can find them and subscribe. It’s a nice balance of responsibility amongst the parents, students, and teachers; teachers publish important information and dates once, and parents and students receive it via their Google Calendar accounts, or other web-enabled calendar application. While I can’t provide a screencast showing how to embed a Google Calendar on every conceivable major web publishing platform or content management system, I can walk you through the basics of making the calendar publicly available, finding the code to copy, and then pasting it into an iframe or other website building tool that accepts HTML code (Weebly, Wix, etc.). As I said, the video may not be useful for embedding a calendar on your actual web publishing platform, but I hope it’s helpful to a view people out there.

It seems as though every generation born in the United States in the last 50 years has been branded as the "Me Generation" at one point in time. Tom Wolfe declared the "Baby Boomers" as the "Me Generation" in the 1970s, speaking out against the culture of narcissism they saw dominating the media and the cultural zeitgeist. Jean Twenge felt generous enough to extend "Generation Me" to all those born in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Most recently, the "Millenials" have been pointed out as the perfect example of the "Me" generation; their obsession with selfies, likes, social media, and youtube stardom makes them a sociologist’s dream! They leave wonderful digital data trails that are easy to collect, study, and analyze from anywhere on the globe. Every generation is likely to have a "me" phase in which narcissism, excess, and self gratification through media and other outlets takes center stage; it’s called being a teenager. The time when you feel you need to prove your greatness to the world. As video has become extremely portable, consumable, and social across the planet, we have become attuned to a hyper-sensationalized reality that reflects a distorted view of Millenials dispositions and attitudes about their sense of self. What if the current generation of connected students weren’t as completely focused on themselves as they appear to be? What if the perfect convergence of social media and adolescent "look at me" hormones just gave that impression? We all want to envision ourselves as better people than we are, and have far fewer controls over our ability to curtail public displays of our egos when younger. But as media inundates us, I wonder if it’s more difficult to see the teens that are dispelling the myth of "me, me, me!" Case in point; last week I helped introduce a "video selfie" project to a group of English 10 students at the high school in my district. I’m blessed to work with a number of teachers who understand the power of developing strong positive relationships with students, and Kyle Boswell has allowed me to collaborate on a lot of great projects in her classroom over the years. The students needed little introduction to the idea of a 60-second video selfie as a beginning of the year ice-breaker; I was there mostly to walk them through a few finer points of capturing video using their iPads, some quick tips with iMovie, and to always remember to prevent "vertical video syndrome." Basically, the students were being challenged to create something like the following: We let them go with their devices to start shooting video, thinking that they would eat it up! Teenagers, being given a chance to make duck faces, and tell jokes about themselves for the video camera for a full minute; it should have been a raging ego-party. And yet, several students choose to not even lift their devices and tap the record button. Some recorded small bits, deleted it, recorded again, deleted, and repeated. Others claimed they felt uncomfortable putting themselves on video, the anxiety already visible on their faces as they imagined having to share the finished product with the class. Yes, there were some that leapt at the chance to be the star of their own 60-second documentary. And there were several others that somewhat enthusiastically started to record. But for the first half of the work hour, at least half a dozen students sat, their iPad screens dark, their cameras covered, most likely wishing the assignment away. I know Kyle well enough that she’s no doubt circled round her room in the past week, and has touched base with each student about the project. Most likely all of them are finishing up their videos, and are happy with what they’ve produced. Kyle has the ability to give students enough freedom with projects to feel comfortable making it their own, and I’m sure those first few have come around. Still, it was interesting to see them acting as if their "me, me, me!" functions has been arrested. Perhaps the rise of more "private" virtual communities and communication channels like WhatsApp and Snapchat are proving more attractive than the open "airwaves" of Youtube. The sense of "me first" might still be present, but muted, and confined to safe places (or at least places that feel safe). Regardless of perceived reality, I think it might do many educators and parents a world of good to carefully observe what their teens are watching and in turn putting out into the world via social media. They may not be as obsessed with themselves as we might think, as an over-abundance of video clips, Vines, and Tweets has forced them to grow up in a hyper-connected world where more anonymity is preferred as an expression of self. I wonder how many others have seen students shifting away from the limelight, and whether the idea of the "Me generation" is simply an over-generalized label akin to "digital native" or one of a hundred stereotypes that students in high school are labeled with every day.

The idea for this post comes courtesy of John Spencer. He jokingly (I hope) postulated that someone was crafting a conference abstract for the latest device from Apple, during their big reveal of the Apple Watch yesterday. If you’re not familiar with John’s sense of humor, it typically lingers somewhere in that grey zone between "snarky" and "sadly true". It’s a delicate balance, and one that his stream of friends couldn’t get enough of yesterday. Many educational technologists have seen the trend of Apple’s latest devices overtake the popular feeds and mindshare of the ed tech world, much to the delight, and detriment, of our community. First, the iBook ushered in a new era of Mac friendly educational trends (mostly good). Next, the iPod Touch was heralded as the "magic bullet" of personalized learning woes (some good, some pie in the sky). After that, the iPad took center stage (very promising, but lots of poor implementation). The one detrimental constant with this ed-tech hype train is that there’s always some "new shiny" device that many people believe will magically address all the shortcomings of the previous one. That is almost never the case. The Apple Watch will soon be here (2015), and I’m sure some will attempt to use it as a device for personalized and innovative learning. I’m sure we’ll see some teachers thinking long and hard about the use of "smart watches" and "digital crowns" in their classrooms (the conversation has already started). It has apps, you can send your heartbeat to another Apple Watch user, you can track your movements (with a connected iPhone), and even send animated notes to one another. For better, or more likely worse (anyone still remember that thing called Google Glass), plenty of educators will find ways to convince districts to spend money on the devices. In the spirit of John’s "hype train" acknowledgement, here’s a list of fictitious conference sessions that I pray will not pop up anytime soon: Common to the Apple Core - The Apple Watch for CCSS Mastery My Students are only a Heartbeat Away - Personalized Learning through Apple Watch Animated Emoji Lockdown - Wrestling with Apple Watch Distractions Apple Watch Smackdown (Literally, smacking Apple Watches out of people’s faces as they refuse to stop playing with their new gadgets. Alright, I might enjoy this session a little bit). The "Pulse" of Personalized Learning - Apple Watch in the Classroom I joke, but there’s a hint of seriousness here. With each new gadget, gizmo, and piece of electronic wizardry, it seems as though the hype cycle within the educational community mirrors the fervor of the Silicon Valley crowd. I could blame it on the increasing number of popular ed tech personalities selling themselves out to start ups and ed tech companies, but that would be a far too simplistic (and somewhat inaccurate) viewpoint. More likely, it’s that ever present desire in all educators to simplify at least one of the thousands of issues and problems that teachers face in the classroom each day. I can’t blame them for trying….but sometimes, we need to be skeptical.    

For regular readers of my blog (all six of you), it may seem odd that my posts oscillate between "super happy and helpful" and more snarky and pessimistic rants about the current state of ed tech. I apologize for the confusion, but in my defense it is my blog, and I’m not trying to appease any advertisers or demographics (at least not for a long while). That having been said, here’s a post that wraps both of my moods up into one video. I really dislike an over-crowded Calendar. I understand the need to be able to see all of the Google Calendars within my district’s Google Apps for Education Domain. There are times when I need to check on a computer cart in a particular building. There are times when I need to coordinate a meeting with a busy colleague, and see her calendar helps. But I don’t want to see all of those calendars on my mobile device, or the Calendar app on my Macbook, both of which I use frequently to schedule meetings. I know what you’re saying. Ben, you can simply "uncheck" those calendars on your device so that you can’t see them anymore. The problem is, when you uncheck those calendars, they’re still there. You can’t see them anymore, but any reminders or notification alerts that were attached to the events still flood my notifications list on my Mac and my phone. When you’ve got more than a dozen extra calendars that have been delegated to you, it’s rather annoying. So I put together a quick video to completely remove the extra calendars from being pushed out to your iOS devices and Mac, but still have access to them via the web and Google Apps. If you want the short version, just head over to Google Calendar’s Sync Select page (https://www.google.com/calendar/syncselect), login to your Google Account, and get unchecking! If you’re in a role similar to mine, working in an Apple-heavy environment, and would like to have at least one restful device that you can access just your own calendar without all of the others, I hope this helps.

I’ve always had a penchant for wanting to know exactly why decisions are made. Perhaps it’s a feeling of helplessness when I’m not a part of the decision making process, butI always seemed to notice that students in my classroom responded better to directions when I could give them a clear rationale about the choices I gave them as the teacher. I’m certainly not going to compare fellow teachers and colleagues to students, but I do notice that giving taking time to tell people "why" certain decisions are made regarding technology in our school district, they usually seem much more receptive. So I did what any other instructional technologist that relishes overloading themselves would do; I created a podcast! It’s only one episode, but my Tech Director, Pete Poggione, enjoyed the unscripted (and completely unannounced) format of our chat. He said he’s be willing to do at least one more show, which for now is my goal; to get him comfortable enough to always do at least one more show. The chats are geared to be simple 15-20 minute conversations generated by questions submitted by anyone willing to ask! You can listen using the link below or ask a question for this coming Friday by leaving a comment below! Tech Director Chat - Ask Your Tech Director

Last week I made a promise to deliver one chat with my district’s tech director each week. I almost broke that promise while struggling with Shout Engine’s submission form today, but their support came through with flying colors, and you now have the podcast below for your listening pleasure. Truth be told, Shout Engine has been ridiculously easy for getting this podcast up and running (and this is coming from someone who has helped dozens of individuals get started with podcast production and hosting). I was excited to get this episode up for two reasons. One; my tech director, Pete Poggione, enjoyed sitting down and having a chance to talk through some of the thought processes that go into technology decision making for a K-12 school district. Two; I got responses from the teachers that I support! Sure, some of them were standard grumbles about issues that bug even me, but a lot of the responses were just average curiosities and questions that many have been asking for awhile. Whether it’s lack of time, lack of interest, or just a lack of patience, many often want an answer that sadly there isn’t always time for, especially at the start of the school year. Not that we don’t have time to answer pressing questions, but rather there never seems to be time enough for an answer that makes sense, and offers a bit of reasoning behind the decision. I’m hoping that by continuing to provide these "this is why" type answers, it will give listeners (teachers in my district or elsewhere) an opportunity to satisfy that all consuming "why?!" question that burns at the heart of any question. As educators, we’re all curious human beings, and even though we may not agree with the decisions made by administrators, I’ve found that most people are at least satisfied with a well thought out explanation as to why a decision was made. Or better yet, a well reasoned response allows for a more nuanced conversation that could in turn alter decisions made in the future for the better. However altruistic this project may sound, it’s certainly a bit of an ego-boost to know that people are listening, and commenting. Enjoy the second episode of "Tech Director Chat", and feel free to chime in on Twitter using the #TechDirectorChat hashtag if you have questions or thoughts to share. Here’s a rundown of this week’s questions: 1:38 - Is it gratifying for Pete to get his hands dirty and work on help desk tickets instead of staying behind his desk all the time? 4:30 - Are there new projectors or interactive whiteboards coming? 6:45 - Shoutout to the Later Elementary Teachers, they rock today! 7:31 - Can we upgrade our laptops to OS X Mavericks, and why have you waited so long? - I was told after the recording that I forgot to mention that we also postponed upgrading because not all of the important software we use in the district had been updated by their developers. 13:08 - What plans are in place for providing accessibility for students with special needs or accomodations using district technology? 16:01 - How do Apple products help us with meeting student’s needs and accommodations? Tech Director Chat - Upgrade Pains & Accessibility

After years of watching school districts around my own open up YouTube to their staff, students, and in some cases anyone using the public wi-fi, I finally pushed last year to do the same in my district. Our staff had always had access to YouTube, and our online students at the High School had access for their classes, but that was it. Teachers could use YouTube videos for whole group instruction, or post videos for use at home, but students were restricted to the Education version of YouTube while at school, a smaller portal of curated videos found on the platform that have clear educational value for the K-16 classroom. There are GREAT videos found in YouTube’s Education portal, but the reality is that YouTube has become so pervasive in our culture, that most of the videos our teachers want to use (and have been using) exist out among the general morass of YouTube videos. The hurdle we faced, and still do, is the need for teachers to have effective management strategies and techniques for dealing with a fully unfiltered YouTube in their classrooms. But just typing that last sentence makes me anxious for all of the teachers and parents that question unleashing YouTube upon our classrooms (I tend to over-empathize), and fret for how to effectively manage student behavior while watching YouTube videos. I want teachers and parents in my school district to feel confident that we are always developing and seeking out new strategies for using such an enticingly distractive, yet educationally wealthy, platform like YouTube. This book may or may not have saved my life on more than one occasion. I have a lot of knick-knacks and joke books in my collection of former teaching supplies that still occupy a small corner of my work area. One of them is the Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, given to me  as a joke one Christmas (I’m a card carrying Eagle Scout). It was humorous to read a few of the stories to my old classes as an example of a "how to" manual that wasn’t some dry expository text. I’ve kept it around because I’ve had an idea to assemble a "Classroom Scenario Survival Handbook" for various realms of technology for some time now, and I thought starting with YouTube would be a good place to start. So far, I’ve broken the process down into 3 basic steps: Collect strategies and resources Curate them into meaningful categories and themes (on task strategies, extending YouTube into projects, etc.) Publish a simple eBook/website/document with strategies for all skill levels I’m currently starting with step number one, and I’d love to get all the help I can! Just follow the link below to help me collect any and all effective strategy you may have for using Youtube for instruction: The Classroom Scenario Survival Handbook for YouTube   image - Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/The-Worst-Case-Scenario-Survival-Handbook/dp/0811825558