Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the amount of spam, junk, and other email flotsam that floats into your inbox? You’re not alone, especially if you’re a teacher. I regularly see teachers with hundreds of unread emails in their inboxes, and often replies to tech department emails can go for days without being sent (it’s alright, we know our emails are long, boring, and often don’t have immediate impact for your classroom). We do have one unique email list in our district though that it heavily used, quickly replied to, and has the ability to fill up everyone’s inbox in a matter of hours depending on the time of year; the Classifieds. It’s more or less an internal Craigslist, a place for every staff member to buy, sell, or trade goods or services with one another. It was created many years ago as a means to entice people to use email, and you can score a fair number of deals from it from used electronics to landscaping services on the cheap. The problem arises during "busy" times of year when people are decluttering, or just after Christmas when several items were cleaned out to make room for gifts. I’m perfectly comfortable deleting the list of baby items and old toys, gadgets, etc. from my inbox, but for others it can become frustrating. While we do provide a means for people to be delisted from the Classifieds email list, many still like having it "just in case" something good pops up. For most of the year though, it can be a hassle, so Pete and I chatted about some email etiquette when posting to a classifieds list. Wow, compelling episode description, right? Well, Pete and I also talk about Apple TVs in the classroom, how to create Gmail filters, and a few other odds and ends. And for once, both Pete AND I are stumped when the tables are turned on me Click here to listen to this week’s Tech Director Chat (or listen below) Click here to subscribe via iTunes (Mac and iOS) Click here to subscribe via Stitcher (Android and iOS) Timestamps for this week’s questions: 1:10 What has Pete been up to? 2:45 We explore a new iPad case vendor. 5:20 We address the etiquette of our internal district classified emails (like Craigslist just for our school employees). 7:40 Pete and Ben’s top five tips for sending classified emails. 10:47 Can Apple TVs be used in an educational environment? 14:35 Stump Pete! 16:40 Stump Ben! 16:58 Who was the original drummer for Rush? You can talk about the show or continue the conversations on Twitter using the hashtag #TechDirectorChat or chatting up Ben (@techsavvyed) or Pete (@ppoggione) on Twitter. Tech Director Chat - Email Etiquette

We had a tremendous amount of excellent questions this week, and we tried to work through as many as we could, balancing out questions from within district and those coming from Twitter. We touched on upgrades to laptops, installation of new interactive projectors, and Pete got to actually work with students! We also had a thoughtful response to our discussion about cell phones in the classroom that we had in a previous episode. One of our high school teachers is taking a much more practical approach to student devices in the classroom and wanted to share his experiences. Realizing that not all learning activities will require the use of devices, but that students still wanted to have access to their music or phones while they work in groups or independently, he’s devised a simple check at the end of each class to ensure that the students hit their learning targets and the devices didn’t interfere with them being successful. It’s an interesting take on the issue, as often many want to focus solely on the direct use of the device in as many lessons as possible, or completely restrict it as it can be too tempting. This teacher uses student devices as an incentive to work productively in a comfortable environment, and it’s paid off very well for him! It would seem those asking questions are telepathic as we had a similar question from Twitter about using personal devices in the classroom, and another question dealing with creating transformative learning experiences with technology to empower students. While we didn’t quite have the time to address this fully, it’s right up our alley! Both Pete and I completed our Master’s of Education through a program that required us to design, implement, and reflect on a large project that had global reach. We could have spent hours talking about how to go about creating learning environments with technology to help students see a "bigger" picture than just the four walls of the classroom, but we focused on advising any teacher to bring their passion into the classroom first. People can recognize when you’re passionate about something, and doggedly pursuing an interest that fully engages students in the learning process that amplifies your passion for teaching will have a far greater impact on learning than trying to be "innovative" with a wide range of technologies. In short, be your best self and find a way for technology to amplify that; it will serve as the best possible model for students to see how they can in turn use technology to amplify their voices and efforts for learning. Click here to listen to this week’s Tech Director Chat (or listen below) Click here to subscribe via iTunes (Mac and iOS) Click here to subscribe via Stitcher (Android and iOS) Timestamps for this week’s questions: 1:02 What has Pete been up to? 1:10 Pete left his laptop at home! 3:12 Pete got to work with students! 3:40 A teacher in the district wants to know, should I upgrade to Mac OS X El Capitan? 4:52 Brian wants to know, when will the Epson interactive projectors be installed in the Middle and High School? 5:58 Nancy from Twitter wants to know, why can’t I use the device(s) I’m most comfortable with in my classroom? 10:30 @kttasch from Twitter wants to know, what have you seen that transforms classroom instruction and enhances student voice, empowerment, and global citizenship? 15:10 We revisit the conversation about cell phones in the classroom thanks to an email from one of our high school teachers. 19:38 Stump Pete! 20:56 Brian wants to know, solid state or tube amplifiers? You can talk about the show or continue the conversations on Twitter using the hashtag #TechDirectorChat or chatting up Ben (@techsavvyed) or Pete (@ppoggione) on Twitter.   Tech Director Chat - Transforming Classrooms

  Providing hands-on challenges and tasks in History classes can be difficult; sure, economic simulations, debates,  and reenactments of significant events can all "juice" up a lesson or unit, but as a Social Studies minor, I encountered a lot more discussion and lecture-based History courses that I’d like to admit. So in the vein of my Hunting Trolls in History assignment that I created longer ago than I realized, I decided to "one up" today’s ds106 Daily Create, and craft a quick activity that any History teacher could use with students. I’ve always been fascinated with historical propaganda; in a way, they represent the cultural "memes" of the pre-digital era; often imagery created to convey certain political stances was crude, the humor dark, and production value low, the same qualities that describe your typical "ain’t no one got time for that" memes. I found the image below to be a rather horrific joke made by the anti-suffragette movement here in the United States before women were granted the right to vote. Anti-suffragette propaganda poster from Catherine H. Palczewski’s and June Purvis’ collection. (http://www.ufunk.net/en/insolite/contre-le-vote-des-femmes/) There is imagery to combat this viewpoint, including a number of more humorous posters in which men were forced to do what was considered at the time to be "women’s work" that honestly could have gone in either direction of the debate. But rather than dwell too much on past imagery, I thought it would be fun to take an image from the past, in this case a female "cowgirl" (the current version of ds106 is Western themed), and create a modern propaganda piece (meme). I would love to imagine it could be spirited away to 1915 to fly in the face of naysayers who insisted that women couldn’t handle the responsibilities that men upheld. I figured being thrown head over heels by a seasoned bronco would be more than enough for any woman to prove they could handle something like voting, and be that much tougher for standing up to the establishment to make it happen. You can find the original photo of actual cowgirl Bonnie McCarroll here (http://www.cowboyway.com/CowgirlPictures02.htm). Yes, she survived this throw, and was made famous thanks to this photo. Alright, so it might not be laugh out loud hilarious, or even perfectly suited towards the suffragette movement. But that’s the fun of creating an activity like this for your students. You create the prototype, and then let the learners riff on the idea, taking it to new and better places. There’s a treasure trove of historical imagery out on the web that would be perfect for this! The Library of Congress has an excellent Flickr feed of photos, the Rare Historical Photos blog hosts many pictures and includes the story behind them, and Wikipedia lists dozens of websites that host public domain historical images. The creation of this prototype embodies the entire activity, which can be used as a simple exit ticket, a check for understanding, or an engaging piece of media for a larger project. I’ve always held fast to the notion that if students know how to correctly satirize a thought or apply modern thought to historical events that demonstrates accurate connections between ideas, then they probably understand what you’re trying to teach them. Here’s my five minute list of steps for creating the piece you see above: Have the students identify a central theme or contested political point surrounding the era or event you’re studying. Locate a historical image from one of the above linked websites (or go out and discovery your own). Craft a witty, perhaps snarky, comment that echoes one side of the issue or event being studied. Create another piece for the other side of the issue or event to see if they understand more than one view of the event. Create your meme! There are plenty of ways to do it for free, but here are three of my go to sites: upload image to Meme Generator and create your meme use the tools at Meme.com to make your meme grab a free account at Canva to create your memes Mischief managed! I’d love to know if this resonates with any History teachers, and better yet what I could do to tweak the activity to make it fit more in line with providing a counterpoint to historical narratives. Sometimes I wish I had a nice evening community college History class to teach, just so I could bounce more hair-brained ideas like this off of my students, and challenge them to one-up me.

I’m supposed to be an educational technology cheerleader for my school district. I’m supposed to champion the unrestrained exploration and adaptation of technology in all areas of K-12 learning. I’m supposed to network with individuals that have an insatiable curiosity and enthusiasm for educational technology in all of its many forms. And yet, the older I become (or perhaps the farther I get from the classroom), the more restrained I find myself when it comes to pursuing new technology. I feel like the stoic Samurai in Yojimbo, or Clint Eastwood’s character in "Fistful of Dollars" (minus the penchant for violence and gunplay). I feel reserved compared to more fresh-eyed techies that make Kermit’s signature arm flail celebration look tame when they gather at large ed tech conferences. I’m not sure if this is a natural evolution of thought, practice, or just a result of where my professional path has taken me (farther from pure tech, and more towards curriculum and facilitation of groups). I can’t help but feel like the "man with no name" when it comes to educational technology at times.I’m quite comfortable with this development, but it makes me wonder if a healthy dose of stoicism is appropriate for those managing and driving the use of instructional technology. I’ve found myself drifting towards celebrating and uplifting transformative teaching and learning practice, regardless of whether it utilizes technology or not. At the same time, I don’t see many educators that have become "edu-famous" for their contributions to the realm of instructional technology transitioning to a more openly thoughtful reflection on instruction and learning in general. It makes me beg the question if perhaps I’ve drifted too far away from my old enthusiasm for instructional technology to truly be effective with it anymore. I’m excited about where I’m headed, and still confident that I can edu-craft my way to successful use and implementation of instructional technology; I just don’t see it as the end all, be all means of education transformation that I once thought it to be. I hope I’m not alone in these thoughts, as it would make me more than a bit forlorn to be drifting away from so many educational technology enthusiasts that I call friends. At the very least, I still have ds106, and excellent digital storytelling friends like Michael Branson Smith, to prompt me to write reflections like this with the help of some clever animated GIF challenges.

Alright, so the title is totally clickbait, but I couldn’t help share what I’ve found to be an enchantingly brief dramatization of the the origins of everyone’s favorite educational video game, Oregon Trail. Well, at least everyone of my generation’s favorite educational video game. Yes, the original version of Oregon Trail, the great grand-daddy of edutaining digital simulations, began life as a board game, and with the help of three college students was turned into computer code on a Teleprinter; a device with no monitor, and punch cards as output. That’s right, the original developers of the game created it using a medium that couldn’t even allow them to visualize their final output until it was finished and compiled after being translated from the paper cards to a computer. Take that into the present, and you can get a picture of why so many in the educational technology world get excited about virtual reality, augmented reality, and any other types of reality that students are creating worlds within. You never know when some seemingly incomprehensible experience (writing an interactive computer simulation through typed punch cards) will translate to a cultural, and potentially educational, touchstone. It flies in the face of my previous post about my growing stoicism with the educational technology landscape, but at the same time gives me solace knowing there will always be a steady stream of newcomers and dreamers in the arena, ready to champion the next "big thing" despite obstacles and curmudgeons like myself Thanks to John Phillips for sharing this with me.

I drift in and out of my obsession with Youtube. I’m split between the middle-aged father of two reality that I grow more comfortable with each day, and the younger millennial-esque yearnings to lose countless hours within the digital chasm that is the Internet. So it was with mixed delight and frustration that my children discovered Andrew Huang’s Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing on Rainbows. You can watch it below, but be warned; its ear-worm like qualities will leave you languishing for many days if not weeks…please don’t send me your therapy bills when you finally succumb to its maddening rhythm. If you’ve watched the video…and still reading this blog post, my sincere apologies. It’s this type of silly, light-hearted performance art that stirs my mind, and besides irritating everyone around the breakfast table, gets me thinking about how to leverage the social media world to not only engage students, but challenge them. So I concocted a writing/music/performance challenge that would be a blast to do with students in just about any English, Writing, Music, or Theater/Performance class. I wish I still had students, perhaps in a digital media course, to work on projects like this alongside them. Andrew Huang Challenge The Setup Andrew likes his subscribers and viewers to submit music challenges. He’s created music with sounds from lightsabers, wheels, and apples, among other more common objects. He also creates amazingly creative lyrical challenges. The Challenge(s) Challenge students to create a one-vowel poem, story, or rap in the vein of Andrew’s One-Vowel Rap. It doesn’t need to be lengthy or earth-shatteringly awesome. You could issue the challenge as a way to get students going at the start of a unit (jump right in and get their hands dirty…so to speak), or create smaller challenges each week. You could even use it as an assessment piece; it wouldn’t have to be anything terribly formal for actual performance or presentation; it could just as easily be a video challenge that lives within the classroom, or a daily station rotation for elementary students. So your students can write short poems and stories with just one vowel? How about challenging them to create poetry, prose, or song with using any vowels except the one they used in the first challenge! Andrew not only did it, but it actually sounds pretty incredible too! Not challenging enough? Show them Andrew’s 26-genre video and see if students can craft alphabet-driven creative writing that covers 26 literary genres! Make it a group project, or a class project! I’d like to think that these challenges are do-able in most classrooms, provided the teacher is willing to let go of traditional classroom thought (projects begin, are conducted, and concluded within a rigid framework) and just start creating with students. Language Arts, music, and performance-based classes scream for this type of hands-on learning, where students have agency over how they express not just their learning, but themselves as well. At the very least, I’d love to see projects like this happening more than just at the end of the year. Sure, it would be messy, but it would be a fun kind of messy, and something that could help rally students after extended periods of vocabulary review, test prep, or lecture. It falls in line with the DS106 ethos of learning by doing, and providing opportunities within the classroom derived from the world in which students live, not just simulations of the adult world, or the world we keep telling them we’re preparing them for.

And we’re back! Every podcast deserves an extended mid-Winter break of more than two months, right? I dusted off the microphone, put aside Spring Assessment preparations; because I honestly feel that despite some lingering anxiety, we’re actually pretty well prepared. Pete and I returned with a few hard hitting questions about concerns over why administration might need to dive into someone’s email archives, a question about mandating Blended Learning environments for teachers, and what in the world is happening to me email! I promise, if you’ve gotten suspicious looking email from my work account, it’s not me! Click here to listen to this week’s Tech Director Chat (or listen below) Click here to subscribe via iTunes (Mac and iOS) Click here to subscribe via Stitcher (Android and iOS) Timestamps for this week’s questions: 1:12 Where have Ben and Pete been? 2:30 Pete and Ben are no longer co-habitating in the same work space? 4:41 What are the protocols for administrators or district officials to look into our emails and district provided technology? 6:13 Google keeps a log of any access to an account? 7:12 We have had FOIA requests, but Pete has never been given any orders to look into someone’s laptop for suspicious reasons. 7:46 Are staff notified if someone would go through any of their files? 9:12 Why is it that no one can trust opening Ben’s emails anymore? 11:52 What is email spoofing? 14:15 Is our district going to be mandating the use of Google Classroom? 18:58 Stump Pete! 20:03 What reason did Jimi Hendrix give for being discharged from the army? You can talk about the show or continue the conversations on Twitter using the hashtag #TechDirectorChat or chatting up Ben (@techsavvyed) or Pete (@ppoggione) on Twitter.   Tech Director Chat - Ben’s Email Can’t Be Trusted

After an almost two-year hiatus, I actually set aside some time to edit together a new video story problem. It’s not a particularly difficult video, nor is it highly polished…but it does involve candy, so that’s a plus, right? Truth be told, to create a video story problem properly (or at least the current way I feel is proper) involves pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. Among a list of internal checklists, here’s a few items that I typically have to go through when creating a video story problem out in "the wild": Ask permission of a store employee before recording in an established business. Ignore the strange looks and gawking from people around you as you record yourself in public asking math questions and doing multiple "takes." Fight the urge to turn the story into a full production; they should be short and simple. NONE of the above tasks is easy for me; while it’s true, I do enjoy being in the limelight (I flirted with the idea of being a theater major in college), being a "lone nut" with a camera out in the real world is incredibly intimidating, and makes me all sorts of nervous. So rather than continuing to dwell on it, here’s a short, sweet, and hopefully engaging video story problem that likely has many different answers, depending on where you are in the world, and how pricey Twix bars are at your corner candy store. Other than agreeing not to show the store’s logo prominently or divulge its name in the video, this candy store was full of all sorts of goodies. Dozens of varieties of sour candies, every flavor of pop rocks ever made, and an entire wall of "giant" candy like the "Yard of Twix" that I used in the video. I thought it would be fun to see how well the price of 18 Twix bars ($27.99 at the time I made the video) compared to the price of an individual Twix bar in your average candy shop, and whether it would be a better deal to purchase the 18 bars altogether, or separately. Conventional wisdom says that buying in bulk is typically cheaper, but it was a popular candy store in an extremely popular tourist destination in the greater Los Angeles area, so I thought it would be interesting to see how things played out around the globe, or at least in the few places where people actually read my blog…and have enough interest to figure this out. The current price of a 1.79 oz Twix bar at Meijer, a regional Grocery chain, had Twix bars listed for $0.87, a great deal. As it turns out, a "Yard of Twix" was actually a pretty bad deal compared to the cost of a Twix bar for me back at home. For just 87 cents, I can buy a Twix at Meijer, a regional grocery chain in the Midwest. That means for just $15.66, I could purchase 18 individual packages of Twix. Which begs the question; is this the same cost everywhere? Are there places where the 18 bar package would be a better buy than 18 singles? Are the prices in Los Angeles that much higher? Is it marked up because of the novelty or location of the store? These are the questions that rattle around in my head from time to time. Would I actually purchase the "Yard of Twix?" If I was with a large group of people, and we wanted something sweet, probably; the novelty of that box, and being able to say "I bought a yard of Twix" is just too good to pass up. Would you make the purchase?

Have you ever found yourself curious about how basic wifi networks work? No? Well then, that’s too bad, because Pete and I took far too much time to explain how they work using our own homegrown metaphor with highways, maps, traffic cops, and even trains. It’s actually not that bad of a metaphor, we just drone on for no good reason. However, we do manage to answer a host of other questions about occupancy sensors, recovering deleted files, and more. Beyond that, this week’s episode of our semi-regular podcast boasts an explanation of the little stuffed pig that Ben carries around with him (you can follow piggy’s adventures on Instagram if you like). And then Pete manages to flunk another "Stump Pete!" challenge, but I’m still pretty certain that he knows what Bjork’s first band was. Click here to listen to this week’s Tech Director Chat (or listen below) Click here to subscribe via iTunes (Mac and iOS) Click here to subscribe via Stitcher (Android and iOS) Timestamps for this week’s questions: 0:55 Pete is confused about how we open the podcast 1:32 What has Pete been up to? 3:07 Will the new schools have designated places for technology to be stored? 4:55 What information do the occupancy sensors provide, and what do they cost? 7:30 Kevin wants to know if he can recover previously deleted iMovie project files. 9:00 What’s up with the Apple TVs? 10:22 The Tech Department turns into an 80s arcade 11:00 Ben attempts to ruin Pete’s explanation of our wireless network. 15:45 Someone wants to know why Ben always has a little stuffed pig with him. 20:15 Stump Pete! 22:02 What was Bjork’s first band? You can talk about the show or continue the conversations on Twitter using the hashtag #TechDirectorChat or chatting up Ben (@techsavvyed) or Pete (@ppoggione) on Twitter. Tech Director Chat - Wifi and Stuffed Animals

If you ever find yourself in downtown Los Angeles, you owe it to yourself to visit The Last Bookstore. It’s an amazing space filled with a labyrinth of books housed in an old bank building; the kind with the big metal vault doors, high ceilings, and a mezzanine high above the main lobby of what used to be the first floor bank tellers. The columns and art deco architecture fit perfectly with the quirky, sprawling shelves of new, used, and prized books. "All the books I need, all the books I’ll ever want" - Henry Bemis It’s a book-lover’s fantasy come to life. In short, it’s the kind of place that Henry Bemis from the Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough at Last" would be at peace within. With all of those books, how could I resist creating a video story problem with one of the most iconic features of The Last Bookstore; their book arch! I really wanted to focus on two important parts of this particular problem; improvisation and estimating/guesstimating. Too often students will try to perfectly solve a math problem (thanks in part to drill and kill worksheets and online tools used in many schools that seek exact answers) rather than just provide a rough estimation. Which is a shame, as estimation is a method that they will likely encounter in the real world quite often for everyday use. How much money do you need to order pizza? It’s going to cost $9.99 a pie, and we want two, so $20 should do it. You want to purchase a new video game? It’s $59.99, but there’s tax, so make sure you have $65. Improvising measurements with my forearm helps make it even less likely that a completely accurate answer is given, as students are using a non-standard form of measurement. Special thanks to The Last Bookstore for letting me shoot video there, and for the makers of Lice Cap for creating the animated GIF of one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes.