Jayme Linton, a good Twitter friend and Assistant Professor for Online Learning & Instructional Design at Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, North Carolina, was chatting last week with Steve Anderson, another North Carolina educator, about a form that been been published by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction seeking feedback from educators in the state. Not being up on my North Carolina policy and educational initiatives, I took a quick look. #NCed & #ncacte14 >> Provide feedback to #ncdpi_dtl on new digital learning competencies: https://t.co/uwQv2s5qQx — Jayme Linton (@jaymelinton) September 25, 2014 It was less than encouraging. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there are many good reasons why a state level department of Education would be seeking public comment on an important body of work (in this case crafting digital learning competencies for teachers) using one of the briefest and least rigorous Google Forms I’ve seen published by said agencies in awhile. I hear that North Carolina has been having budget problems, and quite often many bureaucratic types aren’t always well versed in the latest tools being used by practitioners in the field of education. These two reasons alone would have been fine with me, but the documentation that the NCDPI is seeking comments on sounds as though they’re fairly important, and I was taken aback by the brevity of space for responses. I took a screenshot of the form (here’s a direct link if you’d like to view it) and marked it up a bit. Sure, it would have been nice if they had included an image of kids, or a classroom. Yes, it would be been ideal to link to the actual documentation the NCDPI was referring survey takers too (in the interest of ease). But there were a couple of issues I was puzzled about. Like asking some potentially "large" questions seeking considerations, feedback, and reactions while only providing a single text field to submit responses; sure you can type a lot in those boxes, but you can only see the last few words that you’ve typed. Secondly, I’ve grown accustomed to many large state level agencies seeking comments, but also providing a means to submit research, journal articles, and links to publications that help give comments and feedback more depth and support. Ideally, this would ultimately improve a document for thousands of individuals working for a large public institution based on something more than just opinions and feelings. I love opinions and feelings, but when it comes to making large systemic change, you need more than warm fuzzies to help ensure that the opinions you’re listening to have merit. Below is the screenshot that I marked up. After some consideration, and reflection on the thought that the creator of this document was certainly looking for brevity, I decided to improve upon it. So I made my own. On a Friday night. If that doesn’t say something about my lack of a night life, then I hope it at least says something about my dedication to wanting schools, teachers, and educational institutions to be better. I didn’t alter the feedback form too much. I expanded the response fields to paragraph texts, and included a couple of questions that might help give a better cursory glance at the mood of those completing the survey. For example, I tossed in a simple Likert Scale question right off the bat, so that reviewers of the aggregated submissions have a quick visual reference for how educators felt about the digital literacy competencies for teachers (not confident to completely confident). I also included a few places for survey takers to submit important links, resources, and other documentation that might help hone and refine the draft up for review. I tossed in a quick "thanks" and made the "submit optional contact info" field a little more straight forward (name and email, rather than just one box asking for non-specific contact info). Oh, and I managed to snag a nice photo of some students using a few computers at Fort Bragg, so there was at least a human element to the feedback form. Here’s what I came up with. And below is a link to the newly created document, just in case someone wants to send their feedback on North Carolina’s Digital Literacy Competencies for teachers directly to me Seriously though, I did this not to be snarky, but to be genuinely helpful. I feel that our leaders, and the refinement or polish they put into their work, serves as a model for the type of work we do as educators. If we don’t see the type of leadership that we feel the larger community needs, then it’s upon us to step up and be the model of what some of the basics of communication and collecting input from stakeholders should look like. Link to Ben’s "Slightly Better" feedback form  

It’s Monday. I’ve had quite the busy weekend working on far too many projects and enjoying my family, but I wanted to get this podcast out before the end of the day! This week’s episode of Tech Director Chat ran a bit long (I’ll really have to do something about that), but the conversation was rather interesting for me, and I hope for other educators passionate about technology as well; I got my tech director to open up a bit and share some honest feelings about whether we’re doing a good enough job of looking at our instructional settings from s student’s perspective. That in and of itself felt like a pretty good accomplishment, but perhaps more rewarding for me is that we managed to get those episode recorded amidst phone calls, buzzers, interruptions, and a game going on in the middle school gym across the hall. Three weeks in, and it feels like we’ve got the makings of a solid "format", but I’m still open for any and all critiques, comments, and suggestions for improvement. Let me know in the comments. In this third episode, Pete and I attempt to address the sticky issue of when attempts to help aren’t always so helpful, why tech support often comes at the last minute, and what we can do to make ourselves better "helpers". We roll of few issues up into a group of questions adressing what we’ve tried to do and hasn’t worked, and attempt to address a question posed by Sarah on Twitter about looking at instructional technology from student’s point of view. Timestamps for this weeks questions: :50 - Pete feels inadequate about his title 2:45 - What has Pete been doing today? 3:53 - Is the work that Pete does thankless? 5:35 - Why does support sometimes come at the last minute? 6:45 - What sort of processes are in place, or not,  to build effective support? 9:22 - If you build a website, will people come? 11:25 - How do you deal with the responses to help emails don’t go as planned? 14:15 - Why does Ben get frustrated when trying to help people doesn’t end up being helpful? 16:50 - Do you think we’re doing a good enough job of trying to view the instructional setting through the eyes of the students? 21:00 - Ben cannot edit anything down to 20 minutes Tech Director Chat - Communications & Student Views

I like to argue on Twitter; perhaps more so than is acceptable by many of the more positive individuals out there. Regardless of how often I find opportunities to argue a point in the 140-character space, I usually try to hold to a few tenets: Don’t be a jerk Be constructive in my criticism Ask questions Don’t be a jerk Try to understand the other person’s point of view I’m not always successful in adhering to these self-imposed guidelines, but I like to think that reminding myself of them makes me a bit more self-aware before engaging in verbal rhetoric. I guess you could say that I’m a bit of a "know-it-all" (those that know me will readily affirm this). I’m not proud of this failing, so I try to actively monitor my level of "jerkiness" in conversation. Other times, I just can’t help myself and try to find nuance, refinement, and subtlety in a medium that does not afford any kindness to those qualities; Twitter is the grammatical equivalent of the declarative statement on steroids. "The worst thing to ever grace this planet is ___________!", followed by a copious amount of retweets and "favorites" is par for the course on Twitter. I just couldn’t help myself last week when I saw a few prominent educators on Twitter decrying how much negativity they deal with. They mused that education needs fewer "talkers and complainers". A common complaint by many, there are times when all of us just wish there weren’t as many nay-sayers, complainers, and "Debbie downers" standing in our way of accomplishing our goals. What’s disappointing to me is when we don’t take those complainers and moments of frustration, and use them as opportunities to find solutions, or at least invitations to connect with people that might genuinely be struggling to overcome fear or anxiety of moving forward into a new reality with their leaders. Below is a small conversation I had with Eric Sheninger, Erin Klein, and Tom Murray on Twitter last week (yes, I know I pick arguments with influential people, I swear it’s innocent!). It’s mostly in context in order to give you an idea of what I was wrestling with. What exactly is the difference between complaining and problem solving? Can complaining be a critical component of problem solving?   @thomascmurray @KleinErin @E_Sheninger complaining is TOTALLY allowed if you plan on doing something about it — Ben Rimes (@techsavvyed) September 22, 2014 @techsavvyed @KleinErin @E_Sheninger - there's a big difference between complaining and problem solving — Tom Murray (@thomascmurray) September 22, 2014 @thomascmurray @KleinErin @E_Sheninger problem solving often begins with complaining — Ben Rimes (@techsavvyed) September 22, 2014 @techsavvyed @thomascmurray @E_Sheninger I think the negative word complaining should should be switched to what we mean: discussing — Erin Klein (@KleinErin) September 22, 2014 @KleinErin @thomascmurray @E_Sheninger Discussion is good, but can't ignore the truth that happens in so many teachers lounges. — Ben Rimes (@techsavvyed) September 22, 2014 @KleinErin @techsavvyed @thomascmurray discussing is much different than complaining — Eric Sheninger (@E_Sheninger) September 22, 2014 @E_Sheninger @KleinErin @thomascmurray complaints are one facet of discussion. — Ben Rimes (@techsavvyed) September 22, 2014 @techsavvyed @KleinErin @thomascmurray Or is it the constant complaining that forces others to engage in discourse elsewhere? — Eric Sheninger (@E_Sheninger) September 22, 2014 The conversation continued, and David Tebo even chimed in, with a nice comment that offered a different take on the situation: @techsavvyed @E_Sheninger @KleinErin @thomascmurray complaining starts the process with the wrong lens and puts a ceiling on solutions — David Tebo (@tebotweets) September 22, 2014 I could go on, as the conversation meandered through a few more metaphors and thoughts, but essentially what it boiled down to was the nature of whether we allow complaints and negativity to consume us. If it jades us, do we risk walking away from potential points of view and partnerships that may one day prove valuable? I’m not trying to be too naive in my thoughts; rather, I want to believe that those that complain genuinely want to help solve problems, they’re just in a place filled with anxiety, doubt, and worry. I certainly don’t have the experience of leadership at the top of the educational structure that some of these individuals have, but I strive not to discount the feelings of those I work with everyday. I wonder if I’m too far off the mark here, or if others see complaints as just more opportunities to fine tune solutions, and chisel them into more perfect ideas. After all, if they’re complaining, then they must care enough about an issue that they want others to know their opinions, and understand their viewpoint. Could that be the first step (albeit an awkward one) in their process of problem solving?

Google decided to be helpful today and automatically turned on the "Offline Sync" feature of Drive. It wasn’t actually very helpful at all. In a way, it upset me a bit. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the ability to work on documents created through Google Docs if and when I lose my internet connection. That’s kind of handy. It’s that Google made the choice for me, and decided to start caching large amounts of data on my local hard drive. I already have the Google Drive App running locally on my machine for quick access to non-Google Documents files stored in Google Drive. For documents that I know I’ll need access to offline, I use Pages and other iWork applications and then let iCloud sync them for me. The engineers and servers at Google obviously don’t know this, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they did with as much access to my data as they have. So I’m guessing someone thought it would be helpful for the offline sync feature to be automatically turned on. And by making that decision, my machine started to automatically download and cache up to an additional 5 GB of information. Like I said, perhaps handy for some, but I wasn’t thrilled from the perspective of a school "tech guy." If you’re district is like ours, most of your machines available to students are publicly shared devices. The students all have separate logins, but they share machines in labs, on carts, and in classrooms. With the potential for dozens of students using a single machine, that storage space gets eaten up quickly! I’m hoping that this feature was only automatically turned on for non Google Apps for Education users, or even better through some fluke of my own random keyboard mashing (not that I’m in the habit of doing that). You might want to check your own machine and your districts, especially if you use Chrome as your default web browser, as it seems to be much more eager to "help" with these sorts of features. I made a quick tutorial on how to turn it off if you’re interested. Enjoy! Update: I realize that this automatic feature isn’t new, and only for Chrome OS or Chrome Browser users, but for some reason it was just activated on my account today. Paul Murray, colleague and one of my go-to Google power users, recommends that this is actually a GOOD thing on Chromebooks, as it helps improve speed and access to documents. Chrome OS is built to handle a crowded drive, and will efficiently manage data for you without local storage becoming full. This is good news for Chromebook users. So yay for Chromebooks in schools, but for me the jury is still out on full feature laptops that are shared throughout the day. I’ve seen student laptops fill up FAST when used among a dozen or more students, and I know the tech department sometimes gets headaches when there’s one more cloud sync happening in the background taxing the shared devices.

Another Monday is in the books, and another episode of Tech Director Chat is in the can….or on the air…or something like that. New metaphors are obviously needed on my part for digital equivalents of traditional media. This week’s conversation waxes a bit philosophical on the obstacles that we all face when trying to bring new technologies into the classroom; hint, it’s not always the technology itself. I’ve been impressed with my Tech Director’s more candid, yet thoughtful, responses to the questions that others have posed for him. I work alongside him everyday, and while I question some of the choices he makes, at least I know that his heart is in the right place when it comes to moving forward with technology. Sure, we have our disagreements when it comes to how to best implement new hardware, or whether certain hardware and software should be brought into the classroom in the first place. But at the end of the day, forcing him to turn off his email, step away from his computer, and chat with me helps nurture the perception that he’s not just trying to "control" every piece of technology in our school district. A special thanks once again to Sara Kentner for providing some great questions for us to wrestle with! @techsavvyed what's you biggest hold back when it comes to bring in new technology? — Sarah Kentner (@SarahLKentner) October 1, 2014 I’m still not entirely happy that these podcasts are longer than 20 minutes. A little part of me feels as though I’ve failed when I let the conversation run long, or I can’t find a way to cut it down a bit. My audio levels still need work as well; part of it is the less than ideal environment I have to record in, and the rest is just getting both myself and Pete to be the same distance from the microphone (we both fidget a lot in our seats). On the more positive side, I’ve continued to refine how I present the podcasts to staff, including the time stamps and making the audio available to download for listening offline. There’s even a helpful link to each episode in iTunes, so for those that have issues with the player can easily load it up on their Macs in iTunes for better playback controls. I still haven’t found a way to create enough time for everyone to listen to it, but I’m sure some startup in Silicon Valley is working on that. Enjoy this week’s episode, either right here, in iTunes, or however else you’ve managed to get access to it! Timestamps for this weeks questions: :40 Pete isn’t certain about who he is anymore 1:26 What has Pete been doing today? 2:14 Why was Pete on the roof of the high school? 3:19 What sort of projects are you working on most of the time? 4:40 What is a wireless survey and why are we doing it? 5:40 When will the Apple TVs be fixed so they don’t drop the connection, and why are we having this issue? 10:34 What’s one thing that really gets your blood boiling in regards to technology? 12:08 Are sales people in the technology sector not entirely honest about their wares? 13:15 What’s the biggest obstacle to bringing new technology into the school district? Tech Director Chat - Making Pete’s Blood Boil

I don’t have a single particular reason for not being a part of the Instagram community; its corporate parent, Facebook, and the use of my images for any possible promotion in the future makes me anxious. I’ve used Pressgram (RIP), Hipstamatic, and a few other "apps" for photo sharing, including Flickr, for many years now. And when it comes to being social, I usually need a better buy in than just "this tool is so cool!" So it probably comes as no surprise that I didn’t join for just one particular reason either. I became enamored with the "community first" idealism being displayed in the EdTech Baton project. I recently watched Dear, Mr. Watterson, and I became nostalgic for an era now gone when a comic strip was much more than just a comic strip. And I thought to myself….you haven’t pushed yourself into uncomfortable territory recently, let’s see what I can do to challenge myself to grow. Which I know seems odd; by joining Instagram, the very symbol of the "me too" movement, how am I stretching myself? I’ve been operating "on the other side of the fence" for almost five years now. I’ve been an instructional coach, a technologist, and quasi-admin (my district still doesn’t entirely understand how many administrative tasks I perform), and have spent much of that time investing in more critical thought aligned to staff development, how to be a better teacher of adults, and wrestling with questions at a district and state level. I feel as though I’ve lost a lot of opportunities to be playful and spontaneous in the way most classroom teachers are in trying to engage and connect with learners. In other words, I spend so much time in my own head that I often worry about whether I can still effectively relate to the more immediate needs of a classroom teacher. Maybe being a part of the Instagram community will help, and maybe it won’t. Maybe I just need to schedule more time to be in classrooms as an observer, not as the tech coach or an aide for the instructor. It doesn’t matter, as long as I’m finding a way to regularly think about staying connected to the classroom, and acting on those thoughts, right? And while I’m doing it, I might as well bring my friend Piggy along for the ride

It’s an age old stereotype in most school districts that the Tech Director’s main job is to "lock it and block it." And sadly, that stereotype exists for a reason; many school districts hire former IT professionals that are used to working in environments where the end user devices have been specifically tailored and locked down so that employees are as efficient and productive as possible. No need to be distracted with games if you can’t install them. No need to worry about viruses if employees have limited admin control over what devices they can attach to their laptops, or what networks they can connect with. That was the case in our district as well, until about 8 years ago; work stations were locked down, the internet was slow and strictly filtered. However, over the course of nearly a decade, my Tech Director has made incredible strides in making technology more approachable and personal; teachers have their own laptops that they have full admin rights to. Social media sites are mostly unblocked for staff, with some sharing sites open for students as well (where appropriate). We’re on our way to a relatively "happy" school district when it comes to technology, so it was interesting to chat with my Tech Director for this week’s Tech Director Chat. Not only may you find Pete’s answers atypical for a Tech Director, but you’ll find that the conversation lends itself to some larger discussions of the need for balance between control and unfettered access. We have a record number of questions this week; seven! I know, I know, that seems pretty low, but for a podcast that one day hopes to be under 20 minutes, that’s a lot to cram into one episode! We also had some great questions from Twitter! Thanks to Sherri, Rob, and MASSP for asking some tough questions that I’m sure aren’t always the same in every school district. Below is the 5th installment of Tech Director Chat, and if you find yourself enjoying, please consider leaving a comment on iTunes. Timestamps for this week’s questions: :49 What has Pete been up to? 1:15 Why did Pete’s day go sideways? 2:30 Seven questions is a lot for us? 3:02 Why do the printers keep breaking down, and can we remedy the situation? 7:38 Are we any closer on the Apple TV situation? 8:51 Why can’t we move an interactive whiteboard out of a special education classroom into a regular education classroom? 10:40 Are we going to run out of time on this episode? 11:04 Why am I trusted with people’s most prized posession, but not the technology and the internet? 14:24 Why do you always approach a request from a place of "no" rather than a place of "yes"? 17:20 Would you say that a Tech Director from the IT world might be apprehensive to opening up technology to help solve problems creatively? 19:02 Why do teachers often get so little input in the technology purchasing  decisions? 22:56 We’ve gone hopelessly past the 20 minute mark. 23:04 What does a Tech Director do for fun and to decompress? Tech Director Chat - Is "Yes" in a Tech Director’s Vocabulary?

This morning the Connected Educators Blog posted a quick guide for "How to Start Blogging". It was well intentioned, meant to give people some quick tips for starting your own blog, and gave just about the same exact advice that I give individuals. It just got the order of the steps wrong. In most "intro to blogging" workshops I see the typical routine as described in the aforementioned post. Pick a blogging platform and setup your space Decide or define what to write about Share and enjoy That order works most of the time. It’s easy for most tech facilitators to start with the technology platform and then work on the finer points of setting up your blogging "house" given the toolset of WordPress, Blogger, or some other blog hosting service. Instructional technologists come from all areas of education, so it’s easier for us to start with a common place; setting up and fidgeting with new technology. But is starting with the platform the best place to start for a truly meaningful experience? I didn’t start driving by choosing my first car. I didn’t start writing by choosing which pencil, crayon, or pen was the best fit for me, and I certainly didn’t start this blog because WordPress was the best tool at the time. I started driving to escape being chauffeured by my parents. I started writing because society expects us to be able to express ourselves through written language. And looking back, I started blogging because I wanted to create a small home-grown network of educators sharing resources about technology. My choice of car, preferred writing implement, and blogging platform all came later. I’m not convinced that the order mentioned above, or in the Connected Educators post, is the best way to handle getting started with blogging in today’s connected environment. Thanks to many websites and hosts, starting a blog is a 5 minute process now, and posting out to one is incredibly easy depending on the platform you choose. The question of "how" to start blogging is now relatively basic, and is readily answered with a quick search on Youtube (over 93,000 videos are returned when searching for how to start a blog). The more meaningful question for me then is "why" blog. The metaphysical questions about "who is your audience", and "what do you want to communicate to them" and "how do you invite conversation" may seem bothersome to some. To me, it gives me an opportunity to craft a simple roadmap with the educators that I work with, so when they do start blogging they have some ideas about what they want to put out into the world, and can craft their space to better suit those thoughts. I’m sure that I’m being needlessly nit picky here, and unnecessarily splitting hairs over the process; I just like knowing that before I help someone "build a house" for their writing, that we both have a clear understanding of what they want to put into the house, and what it’s going to need to look like to accommodate all of the thoughts placed inside. Bud Hunt wrote much more eloquently about this several years ago, while thinking about the "long game" that we must play as educators. Jim Groom extolled the virtues of blogging and how it has "opened up avenues of happiness" for him in his professional life. Thoughts like that don’t stem from pros and cons of which blogging platform to choose, and can feel like a huge speed bump if you’ve put the tools before the planning. Why start with the easy stuff, when the more difficult conversations are so much more rewarding and full of aspiration, promise, and energy? Looking back at my first blog post, I didn’t just want a blog; I wanted a vibrant, networked learning place for people to converse! I might not have hit those goals, but at least I started with a clear intent of where I wanted to be, not just the shell of an empty house before deciding how to fill it up. I hope that any seasoned instructional technologist thinks twice about leading a "how to blog" workshop with the creation of the blog as the first step, and instead uses valuable face to face time to connect with educators’ passions, needs, and what compels them to want to share openly on the web. The ideas shared in the Connected Educators post under the second step "Define Your Message" are a great starting point. They just need to come first if you really mean to blog for the long haul.  

I’m not much of a "joiner." I don’t say that with any amount of pride; in fact, I consider it one of my major character flaws. It’s one of the major reasons that you don’t see ADE, GCT, or any other alphabet soup of letters in any of my email signatures or bios. If you happen to know me, and I seem to play well with others, then it’s most likely that I’ve gotten to a place where I feel comfortable being a part of the group. Being a part of the Ed Tech Baton is one of those groups that feels incredibly comfortable for me. It’s a "community first" collaboration of educators from around the world, focused on sharing great examples of learning with technology, not celebrating individuals. Being one of the founding members of the #michED chat community, this concept speaks to me; there’s currently a wave of educational technology celebrities, rockstars, and "all star groups" rising in prominence, and I feel at times that it over looks the quietly competent educators that I see everyday in the classroom. The focus on the learning, not the individual, makes the Ed Tech Baton concept fascinatingly simple. I’m not sure how I stumbled across Ed Tech Baton, but I immediately signed up in an attempt just to uncover the individuals behind it so I could send them an email to say "thanks" for creating such a wonderful opportunity. Even then, they wouldn’t reveal everyone behind the project, so I bought in, signed up, and I’m excited to be "carrying the baton" tomorrow! The concept is simple; Everyone participating gets to "run" for a day, and posts images to a shared Ed Tech Baton Instagram account where others can follow, share, and gather ideas for using technology in the classroom. The images will also be shared out automagically to the Ed Tech Baton Twitter account and their Facebook page. It’s a curated and syndicated stream of people celebrating what’s important to them through a few slices and moments of a single day, with the baton being passed to another member of the community the following day. I’m excited to share moments from my school district on October 17th, and since I’m not in a classroom of my own, I’ve enlisted the help of many teachers throughout my district. I’ll be updating this post with the images, so I have my own archived day of carrying the baton, but you’re certainly welcome to check out the Instagram account, or go and sign up to carry the baton yourself. The rules are fairly straightforward, and I hope to capture a few playful shots to share.   Loading It’s always a good morning when you get to use #imovie to make videos exploring geography concepts! These girls are working on a #globalED video project with other schools around the world! Photo by @benrimes View on Instagram Loading Sometimes we ignore the technology around us in favor of something new and shiny. This high school teacher asked his Tech Department if he could have the seven-year old Dell workstations that were slated to be recycled from an old lab. They run Windows 7 just fine, and now his Physics students have a fully #blendedlearning environment in his classroom! Photo by @benrimes View on Instagram Loading The simplest apps are often the most intrinsically motivating. These 4th grade students in Michigan have spent the last 20 minutes brainstorming questions to ask their "digital pen pals" in Denver. #Google Forms makes this simple and straight forward, and lets them submit or craft questions in small batches on separate forms grouped around broader topics of interest. Photo by @benrimes View on Instagram Loading And now for something completely different! This year my Tech Director and I started a weekly #podcast for our teachers. It's a 20 minute Q and A show in which I ask him questions from our teachers. It's been pretty popular for getting those burning tech questions answered! #GarageBand and #Audacity work well for recording and #ShoutEngine helps put it out there for the world. http://shoutengine.com/TechDirectorChat/ Photo by @benrimes View on Instagram Loading If your district mandates that daily learning targets are posted in your classroom, take a page from this middle school teacher's Tech Lit class. She posts "big goals" to always be mindful of your #digitalfootprint when using #socialmedia. Photo by @benrimes View on Instagram Loading Our access to laptops is limited in all of our buildings, but the Later Elementary came up with a clever idea. Each laptop cart of 30 #MacBooks is split among 3 classrooms. That gives each class 10 computers they have access to every day. If they want to coordinate, it also means that every classroom can have a full set of 30 for special projects. #SharingIsCaring Photo by @benrimes View on Instagram Loading 1st graders working on their "padding" skills. We have a mixture of #iPads and laptops at our Early Elementary. Their technology teacher helps them buildup troubleshooting and creation skills through playful experiences in small groups. Photo by @benrimes View on Instagram

You know what they say about Tech Directors. You give them a simple question about RAM, and they’ll want 5 minutes to explain caching. If they take 5 minutes to explain caching, they’re going to want to take 7 minutes to explain how to clear it. You get where this is going. Pete geeked out a little on this week’s episode, but that’s alright, because we need it every now and then. This week we focused entirely on questions from our school district, including some seriously geeky responses from Pete about RAM, cache, and how to best avoid the "beachball of death". We even make a recommendation for Memory Clean, a Mac App that will help you regain some "snap" in your Mac’s step. Once I get Pete back on track we attempt to tackle some big questions about the direction of technology in our school district, and Pete is completely stumped by a musical trivia question about the Beatles. Timestamps for this week’s questions: 1:30 What has Pete been doing at his big conference? 2:03 So this conference you were at is seriously techie? 4:30 Any tips for people to get their Macs to run faster? 5:28 For non techies, what does Cache or RAM stand for? 5:58 Does Ben’s desktop analogy work for understanding RAM? 7:50 What can teachers do to help free up space in RAM? 13:20 Did we really just spend six minutes being geeks about RAM, hard drives, and caches? 14:00 How does Pete see his job changing when our bond passes next month? 16:30 What’s your big picture for technology in Mattawan Schools? 20:06 What is the only Beatles’ song that none of the four band members play instruments on? 21:05 Ben questions whether Pete can really call himself a musician You can listen via ShoutEngine, subscribe in iTunes, or use the embedded player below. Tech Director Chat - Pete Geeks Out