Today’s post is relatively brief. Blame it on a gorgeous Spring day in Michigan, or the need to focus on compelling activities and work duties. I do want to make sure that I give recognition to the amazing artistic talents of my wife, Nicole (go follow her on Twitter for gorgeous pictures from her art classroom). She has the Adobe Illustrator skills needed to bring the following "Chocolate Chip Cookie Model of Education" to life. Come to think of it, I think she pretty much came up with the entire concept, I just tweaked it a little. Sorry dear, you know I just have to meddle. Initially created on a whim with a quick sketch, I implored my wife to create something a bit more colorful to share for this reflection. With all the talk of SAMR, TPACK, and other models for helping educators conceptualize the need to integrate more technology within their instruction, I was struck with one thought headed into MACUL 2014. For every perspective and framework designed to help us better grasp important research and observational data, there are likely a large number of individuals for which these models further obfuscate the intended purpose. That’s not a bad thing; it’s just people approaching tools and frameworks from diverse backgrounds, and trying to make sense of it given their own experiences. If the SAMR model proves to be too linear for some, perhaps the TPACK model of balance might be a better fit. We’ve seen several riffs on Bloom’s Taxonomy, and adaptations of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Technology Needs, but I think the education world is severely lacking in the area of food as analogy for effective instructional settings. Please, take this post with the tongue and cheek it deserves, but feel free to riff on it yourself if you find it valuable.

Last week I wrote about some of my thoughts about keynote talks at major conferences. It was pretty well received, and elicited some interesting comments from people I respect in the education world. I also posted a less than interesting video that I created for the post. Don’t go watch it, it really isn’t that intriguing, despite my attempt to spin it as such in the original post. The story about the iPad that I used to create the video is probably much slightly more interesting. You see, after setting the iPad up at the front of the large ballroom of the Devos Place in Grand Rapids to capture Adam Bellow’s keynote from his perspective, I sort of forgot about it. I had set it up to take time lapse photos every 5 seconds, with the intention of picking it up at the end of the 60 minute session. I got caught up in my volunteering duties (I can be a bit overzealous when it comes to being helpful at conferences), and forgot to grab it at the end of the session. When I finally realized my mistake, I rushed back to the ballroom, only to find that the room had been re-arranged, and my iPad was no where in sight. I didn’t panic. I tweeted: HELP! I've lost my iPad! Anyone at #macul14 seen a light blue one covered with stickers? Please RT! — Ben Rimes (@techsavvyed) March 13, 2014 Do you see the love in that tweet? It’s right down there in the corner; 66 retweets. Sure, there are plenty of people that amplified my call for help because I know them, and we connect often enough on Twitter that I can call them friends. But many of those retweets were born out of the sense of community that was (and is) the #macul14 hashtag; individuals that I’ve never met, and may never have a chance to become acquainted with. It’s a small example of the power of Twitter, but it was a powerful one, and I’m grateful that it’s become an important part of how I connect with others in my personal and professional life. People started to ping me every few minutes to check in on me and my lost iPad. Friends who knew how miserable I was feeling at the potential loss of the device, acquaintances that I have only met once or twice at other conferences and weren’t even in attendance at MACUL 2014, and concerned colleagues all checked in on my throughout the day. I felt loved….well, as much as anyone can feel loved through 140 characters. And yes, I found my iPad. Some kind soul had moved it off to the side of the table where it had been placed, and I missed it the first time I went to check for it. After nearly 6 hours of taking time lapse photos, and a dead battery, it had just shy of 4,000 photos from the conference on it. Oi!

This year’s MACUL Conference was probably the most explosive in terms of use of social media. Nothing surprising, right? Teachers have been rapidly adopting Twitter, Instagram, and other social spaces (let’s not even get started with Pinterest), so it stands to reason that every major education conference focused on technology will likely continue to be "bigger" than the previous one in terms of social media reach. This year, some bright individual decided to go snag an Eventifier account, and created a hub for all the social media tweeted out with the #macul14 hashtag. Over 1400 photos, 20K tweets, and more than 3600 contributors added to the stream for the "best education technology conference ever" (it says so on the website, so it must be true, MACUL is the best). The numbers for the blogs disappointed me slightly, with only 68 blog entries found marked with #macul14, but considering none of my previous six reflections have appeared on the Eventifier page for the conference, I’m calling shenanigans on whatever method they’re using to aggregate blogs. Psssst, Eventifier, Google Blog search works quite well Click here to see ALL of the interwebs talking, sharing, tweeting, and posting about #macul14! This post wasn’t really so much a reflection for me. It’s mostly  an attempt to get more people from my district (I know some of you read this blog), and other educators that aren’t on twitter or other social media to see just how much there is out in the "connected" spaces of the web. Brownie points to the 3 people who are still rocking SlideShare, and found the time to get their presentations posted!

In late 2012, I sat in an EdCamp Grand Rapids session hosted by Jeff Bush. He was interested in coordinating some sort of state-level conversation through social media for educators. It was early afternoon, on a Saturday; a time when most individuals are just nodding off for a nap. Jeff was a bit buzzed, so I thought it might bode well for the session. And it did. We were in a pale green room with low-shag grey carpeting (the kind meant to minimize the amount of wear and hide stains). The lights were turned down low enough in the room to give those in the room a sense of calm before Jeff hit us with some big questions; "Why aren’t we better connected here in Michigan? What would we need to do to get more teachers and students involved with Twitter? Where do we start building positive places to share great learning?" I wasn’t entirely prepared for such a conversation (most of the morning sessions were all technology focused), and I didn’t even have a document open for taking notes. I jumped into the conversation without my usual pre-planned Google Doc at the ready, but within 40 minutes we had devised a plan for co-opting the #michED hashtag on Twitter for the purpose of sharing the good that’s happening in our state, registered a domain name, and start what would become a moment that is now permanently engraved on my personal top tenlist of "completely awesome endeavors that I shall always remember" (the list is a working title). The #michED chat logo in all its simple glory. What was born out of that Edcamp session was the start of a movement. A few "lone nuts" trying to shout loud enough from our small corner of the web for others to hear through the noise of political rancor that has consumed the dialogue on Educational issues here in Michigan. Every Wednesday evening at 8 pm, we gravitate towards the #michED hashtag, and talk about digital footprints, new teacher retention, student choice in learning, and more. Brad Wilson came in shortly after the creation of the dedicated chat, and has produced one of the best new educational podcasts to come around in a long time, and I’m not just saying that; Wes Fryer recognized the #michED Podcast as part of a crop of podcasts bringing about a renaissance in educational podcasting. I’d like to say that our small group of dedicated #michED volunteers has changed the very definition of what an "#edchat" is, slowly turning it into a community dedicated to impacting the educational reality in our state, and leveraging social media to effect change politically, educationally, and socially. That’s not my place though; only time and others will determine if we’ve been successful in reaching those goals. What I am certain of, is that the group of educators I asked to volunteer for a panel conversation at the MACUL 2014 conference are an amazing group of individuals. They sacrificed what most likely could have been a rewarding conference hour session for their own benefit, and instead dedicated it to helping others at the conference. And while I understand that Kit Hard and Ben Gilpin had prior commitments, I include them with Jeff Bush, Erin Mastin, Tara Maynard, Todd Bloch, Rebecca Wildman, and Brad Wilson in saying "thank you" for helping educators across Michigan share their stories, and amplify student voices. There are many others out there to thank, but I’ll leave it to the community to help me on this one. I hope you enjoy the special #michED Podcast edition of that panel conversation as much as I enjoyed moderating it (it’s embedded below if you’d like to listen here). I criticized my moderating abilities a little afterwards, and with practice and refinement, I’m looking forward to leading more panel conversations. Until then I’m glad to see that MACUL 2014 gave birth to the #michED hashtag as a true movement, and look forward spreading #michED to other gatherings across the state in the coming months!

My wife hasn’t been to the annual MACUL conference in many years. There were many reasons; she was laid off for almost 4 years, as an art teacher the big "ed tech" conference can be hit or miss, but mostly it’s because I suck as a "conference buddy" when it comes to MACUL. My interests cover the entire education spectrum, so when I attend MACUL it’s difficult for me to stick to a particular "track" or session topics that the average educator might be drawn to. Add to that my many hours of volunteering, and a desire to speak to just about everyone I bump into, and I’m probably one of the lousiest conference companions at MACUL. So it was with much fanfare and excitement that she attended the conference, after nearly a year of teaching full time again. She built up an impressive list of conference sessions that fit her interests, and braved the crushing crowds of more than 4,500 educators. She came away with a sense that both teaching and MACUL have grown to be many new things for her, and I wanted to share her thoughts with a wider audience. She left the conference energized, and has implemented several new learning practices, not just tech tricks, into her classroom in the last few weeks. If you enjoy her reflection, and want to say "thanks", considering chatting her up on Twitter (@nikkapotamus).   Random Thoughts on MACUL 2014 from one Art Teacher’s Perspective:   I had a great time at MACUL this year.  I haven’t been to this conference in a few years, and it was time to get back to it. This year they offered a great MACUL Conference App and I was able to schedule all of my sessions before I ever set foot in GR. And it just so happened that I scheduled myself for sessions that all flowed together in this great cosmic inspirational message. Nick Provenzano talked about Genius Hour.  It’s brilliant.  I’ve been doing this with my kids since January and they absolutely love it. One thing that I was really struggling with was, "how can this be acceptable learning in the classroom?"  I mean, I’m not teaching them anything from the curriculum, in fact, I’m not teaching them anything.  Can I get away with this?  After listening to Nick speak, I realized that this is really my favorite kind of learning.  As an art teacher, I’m free to let students explore ideas and medium that they won’t have access to in other classes. Rushton Hurley emphasized this point in his talk about creative learning.  What’s the point of teaching kids about things that have no direct influence in their lives?  You have to make connections!  Genius Hour is all about connections.  They take their interests and make it BIGGER; they start with something they KNOW, and then they learn more!  This topic is so interesting, that they begin to take it upon themselves to learn.  The students are learning how to teach themselves.  Those students who I thought would never "get it" are starting to "get it."  Kelly Tillman discussed the merits of publishing their works for everyone to see.  When we publish the works, they have a bigger audience.  If I, as the teacher, am the only one who sees their work, what’s the point in making it awesome?  But, as Rushton pointed out, if the students know they will be sharing this with a bigger audience (think global!), then they go from how do I get by to how do I make this GREAT! Tricia Fuglestad and Janine Campbell reminded us that when students take on the added burden of teaching each other, they retain more.  These two ladies showed examples of student made videos and blogs that other students will watch and read.  Not only creative learning, but creative teaching is happening here.  I already know this stuff, let’s let the students lead the discussion. And then, in one of the most amazing sessions of the week, actual educators, you know, those people who are teachers and had to make sub plans for 2 or 3 days to make this conference and weren’t getting paid to be there, showed up and talked about their passions.  Trevor stopped the audience with a simple reminder: let the students know you are human too.  Share yourself with these brilliant young people.  You never know which one of the thousands of things you say will stick with them.  Say you are sorry, say thank you, and tell them when they do something that blows your mind.  David told us about his childhood and how he is letting that affect his teaching and his connections with the students.  By sharing your own passions and experiences, you are sharing your wisdom. As I’m typing this, I am having an epiphany.  Teachers in the last 20 or so years have been taught that we are only to teach to the test.  We have to succeed in making these little people shine on a single piece of paper.  But for thousands of years, the best teachers were the ones who had discussions with students.  Shared stories and their wisdom and knowledge because that was how brighter minds evolved.  As people, we passed on our stories in the hopes that there was a moral that the next generation would learn from.  As a teacher, I think many of us have forgotten that in recent years with all the pressures we are under to perform well. But how can students care about any of that unless we show them how excited we are to be teaching it? Let’s remember why we are teachers.  Show them your passions.  Let them in on some secrets that they will remember for years.  If that passion is making music videos to teach the color wheel, cool.  If that passion is dance, work it into a lesson now and then.  If that passion is juggling, have the students take a break from learning the Pythagorean Theorem and throw a few beanbags around.  They will remember those moments and maybe, just maybe, they will pick up some knowledge along the way. Thanks to Trevor and David for inspiring me to become a better person in the classroom, not just a teacher with a bunch of tech tricks. -Nicole Rimes

When I first set out to write 14 posts, reflections, and thoughts about the MACUL 2014 conference, I thought it would be rather straight forward. I have Google Docs filled with resources, video, audio, and links to more media than I could watch in a single week-long "binge" session. The small black "chiclet" sized keys of my MacBook Pro are slightly more wobbly thanks to the pounding punishment they took during the conference. If I’m very quiet, I can convince myself that the sound of my hard drive spinning up is just a bit more labored than what it was before the conference. It turns out, all of this information is actually making it more difficult to write posts, share thoughts, and gather resources. I’ve become paralyzed at times with how much information I gathered, and which group or individuals I might be "letting down" by not sharing their great resources as well. So today I’m keeping it simple. Rather than attempt to mine out any more nuggets from my notes, I’m going to remind myself, and others, that the Twitter #macul14 hashtag is STILL GOING! And it’s April! This is one of the longest social media "bumps" that I’ve seen the conference hashtag enjoy! Yes, it’s slowed down a bit. Yes, the public sharing of excitement has been rather mute, but I know the energy from the conference is still being played out in classrooms across Michigan as we head into Spring Break for most of us. So in case you’re heading into your break and enjoying a "stay-cation" like myself, or just need a small taste, go check out the hashtag (you don’t even need a Twitter account). Better yet, if you’re on Twitter, share what you’ve implemented since leaving MACUL 2014, and keep the excitement going, because the educators in the U.P. that couldn’t make the trek down to Grand Rapids would LOVE to taste a bit of that energy when their MACUL conference happens in early May! Click here to see the #macul14 hashtag and continue to add to it if you’re on Twitter!

I hesitated to share this video story problem that I created at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Although poking fun at myself, it does concern me that I ask the right questions to at least get learners headed in a direction with vocabulary and a frame of reference that will actually lead them to success. I haven’t been in the classroom for a few years now (teaching full time that is; I still visit and work with students on a weekly basis), so I had to ask some of my well respected friends in the world of science education if my video story problem about Foucault’s Pendulum even made sense. I’ve never been great at higher math and mathematics-based physics (I earned a solid C in my advanced calculus-based physics course in college). So I was nervous to ask what seemed to be far too simple a question (possible a naive one) about the conceptual workings of Foucault’s famous pendulum designed to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth. I had no idea how this pendulum would work (in theory) unless if was directly above one of the two poles on the planet. So I asked some educators with much larger brains than I have when it comes to science: @techsavvyed I like how you are thinking about it. Here's a nudge: Foucault's Pendulum doesn't work the equator. @MR_ABUD @falconphysics — Frank Noschese (@fnoschese) April 15, 2014 Frank gave me encouragement that I was at least thinking about it in right way, and helped me better understand that there actually would be many points on the Earth on which this pendulum just would not work the way Foucault intended. Thanks, Frank! One of the questions I’m left with then is whether or not we should have educators that would be willing to appear genuinely confused/curious about scientific concepts? Ira Flatow, the host of NPR’s Science Friday, does a masterful job of asking innocent questions that often make me wonder whether he truly knows what he’s talking about. It makes me wonder if parents and students would support the same type of activities, or at least guiding questions, in which the educator displays a sense of wonderment, curiosity, and perhaps a bit of naivety in hopes of generating interest in the topic by learners. Or would they rather prefer to have content experts doling out the information that learners need, exactly when they need it?

I LOVE using digital cameras for visual learning activities! I’m presenting at the MACUL Mobile Learning Conference this Friday! I’m finalizing my presentation, and I want to squeeze in a few more quick activities for using digital cameras, tablets, and other devices that capture images and/or video for the attendees? Have some simple 5 minute activities involving video or still cameras? Please share them below.

Yes, yes, I know I’ve taken a few days weeks off from my "14 Days of #macul14″ series. Life happens, wood floors must be refinished, Spring Break must be mostly work free, and in retrospect I may have been a bit too ambitious with my original idea. That having been said, I now have to admit that I am a card carrying member of the "I’m on Pinterest" club. I’ve resisted joining the social site for many reasons, the least of which being the stereotypical excuse that its core audience is of the feminine persuasion. I have no problems operating in an environment that is predominantly populated with women (I work in a school after all). So, Why Pinterest Now? I sat in on a bit of Erin Klein’s Pinterest session, and was amazed at how many people were enraptured with the way that she was using it to help coordinate and organize learning links for her students. More impressive yet, is the way that many teachers in my own school district have used Pinterest to curate, share, and collaborate on learning resources for their classrooms. We have many teaching families (groups of 3 or 4 classrooms that collaborate closely) in which the lead teachers have dozens of Pinterest boards for "transition videos", math activities, even activities based on the months of the calendar. They then coordinate their boards, and share with one another, building up a rather complex, and yet easy to navigate filing system for all of the websites they need to navigate throughout a busy day of school. It just didn’t make sense for me to ignore Pinterest anymore. What I’m Enjoying So Far I like that fact that Pinterest harkens back to a simpler time on the web; the early days of Delicious, and saving bookmarks was "to the web", because we hadn’t started talking about "the cloud" yet. The browser extension (I’m using it in Chrome) makes it easy to quickly pin images and links to my boards, even creating board on the fly when I realize that what I want to save doesn’t fit in any of mr current boards. And I LOVE the visual aspect of it. As a long time user of Diigo for more academic reading and annotating on the web, I appreciate the simplicity and endorphin-releasing pleasure that sifting through images brings me. That and creating separate boards for each of the primary colors, just for grins, is actually a small relaxing joy. I’m gaining a new appreciation of just how addictive, and significant, the simplicity of the tools is. Which leads to some of my grumbles with it. Where I’m Grumbling I mentioned before that the general user base of Pinterest wasn’t an issue for me, and it still isn’t. After a few weeks of use (and after only a few dozen pins), I’m starting to grow increasingly frustrated with the simplicity of Pinterest. There are many links, images, or resources that would easily fit on multiple boards. Yes, I know that I can "re-pin" something multiple times, but in a world where semantic tagging is the dominant form of sharing, Pinterest seems almost quaint. I can include multiple hashtags on my tweets, tag my photos on Flickr as much as I want (and share to multiple groups at once), and even fine tune which individuals or groups see my Google+ postings. So when I’m given the opportunity to pin an object on just ONE board, it leaves me feeling like I’m not using a full fledged web 2.0 tool, as much as I’m using a slightly more grown-up version of my browser’s bookmark toolbar. There isn’t much else that bothers me about the tool, although I would love to be able to subscribe to another user’s board, and then see that board appear on my profile page. The current system of just getting a stream of their pins in one giant "regurgitation" of sensory overload on my home page isn’t what I’ve come to want out of my sharing and discovery tools. I can see where many would, and are, enjoy it, but it’s just not my cup of tea. For those that have used Pinterest for awhile, are my grumbles accurate? Do others experience these same desires to have a slightly more complex visual tool for curating the web? Or should I just embrace Pinterest for what it is, and enjoy the visual explosion of ideas?

Scan through some of the most popular blogs about educational technology and you’ll find two words that take up a disproportionate amount of the conversation; "apps" and "free". I’m not going to place any judgement or question how the focus on those two terms helps or hinders the long-term pedagogical success of our instruction. At least not in this post. There are certainly many worthy free applications (for mobile and desktop platforms) that have both short and long term value in our learning environments. Long time readers of my blog know that I’m curious. So I wondered what sort of excellent apps and tools we might be missing when we condition ourselves to automatically filter out anything that can’t be downloaded immediately for free. I use a wide range of rather low cost apps on my mobile devices (ranging from $.99 to $4.99) and a smaller number of more robust and expensive applications on my desktop platforms (anywhere between $19.99 to $99). Sure, I’m an anomaly; as the only instructional technologist in my district, serving all educators in the K-12 setting, I need to be familiar with a variety of apps and tools for a wide range of abilities and age groups. So I download, and pay, for apps on a regular basis to see how they work, and then advise my teachers which apps are worth spending their precious classroom or limited district funds on. Walking away from all the "BEST Free App!" sessions at the MACUL 2014 Conference, I couldn’t help but ask what would happen if we took time to highlight and showcase the apps teachers use that AREN’T free. What if we took the word "free" out of the equation for app purchase decision making, and instead asked educators what applications they felt were so essential to their instruction (or just downright awesome) that they were willing to pay for it? I got a few answers to that question last week at the MACUL Mobile Learning Conference, a wonderfully intimate conference held each April in Kalamazoo. I hosted a "Paid Apps Showdown" session, in which I invited audience members (we had about 20 or so) to show off the apps they valued enough to pay full price for. The thought of course being that these apps aren’t necessarily "better" than their free or "lite" counterparts, but that they had become so essential to an educator’s or student’s digital workflow that it was worth investing in the app. Below is a Storified archive of the #paidappshowdown Twitter feed that Steve Dickie helped me out with during the session. I hope there’s some value in the apps, and if you have anymore paid apps that you can’t live without, share in the comments! I led a 60 minute app showdown at MACUL’s Mobile Learning Conference, and it went pretty well considering we only had a couple of dozen attendees at the session. These are the apps that were shared that attendees felt so passionate about, that they went ahead and plunked down money for them. View the story "Mobile Learning Conference - Paid App Showdown" on Storify  

It’s been a few days weeks since I posted last, and I thought I’d better make this post really count. I’ve got some interesting reflections to share, I still need to finish up my "14 days of #macul14″ series, but for now, let’s keep it simple. This time of your many schools are saying good buy to students for the last time, and a good number of those students want to take their Google Apps for Education account information and data with them. Last year I created a handy guide for how to do that based on the following thought process. Problem Your school district has students leaving and not coming back next year (graduating seniors, students moving out of district, or going on to other schools) and they have a ton of stuff in their Google Accounts that they’d like to take with them. Compounded Problem Google has decided that it’s either not technically or systemically feasible to allow Google Apps for Education Accounts to transition/be directly transferred to personal Google Accounts. Potential Solution Google has created Takeout, an increasingly useful utility that allows Google Account users to pack up and take almost all of their Google account with them to be uploaded to a new Google Account. This works whether you’re moving from a Google Apps for Education Account, or a regular Google Account. Please note that the video I created below is almost a year old, and doesn’t include the new ability for Takeout to export all of your Gmail messages: Problems with Potential Solution For reasons as of yet unknown to me, Google Sites, and a select few of Googles other apps, can’t easily be exported. Most likely the complex nature of the websites being built within Sites would be too cumbersome to create an easily transferable folder of HTML documents and supporting files. Never fear, there’s a way to transfer ownership of those sites, and then make a copy of them with your new Google account. The video below details how to do this: This is great Ben, is there a page where you describe all of these steps for your students? You can click RIGHT HERE to access the directions for migrating all of your Google Apps for Education account that I modified and assembled directly from various Google Help sites. I also have a couple of video tutorials for how to do this, which you’ve seen embedded earlier in this post. I hope this information helps, and if you identify any flaws, let me know, so I can improve the documentation for my students, and other educators that end up using the resource.  

Disclaimer: I will likely contradict myself, and/or prove myself a hypocrite on many of these points in the coming weeks. This is what I was feeling today, and felt I needed to write it down. Take it for what it is; a mildly self-critical moment of reflection. Despite having joined the ranks of blogging educators back when blogging was fashionable for the first time, I have found my efforts to offer a mixture of reflective, humorous, and educative "how to" posts to be a mixed bag. To be fair, I had no over-arching goal when I first started blogging; sharing resources that might be valuable got me started, and then quickly moved into more reflective writing as I found myself overcoming the fears of the neophyte teacher. In my current role, I spend much less time with students, and more time thinking through larger problems with staff, and facilitating meetings of admin and teachers. I’m exceptionally overly critical of my own work, and despite my best efforts, I find it difficult to escape the role of the critic when working with others. That’s not to say I criticize others at every chance. In fact, many that I work with tend to offer me thanks and praise for providing a direct and honest critique of their work, and how to make their instruction/projects/work better. While driving home from a conference in Detroit two years ago, one of my closest friends asked me if it was possible for me to "turn my teacher brain off?" My answer came quicker than I would have thought; "no." I find myself constantly wanting to evaluate, coach, and critique those around me, even to the detriment of my relationship with them. It ebbs and flows, at times making it easier for me to ignore the impulse to suggest just a few "minor tweaks" to someone’s workflow, or offer up unrequested assistance. At other times, I seem downright rude, unable to contain glaring omissions of deeper analysis on behalf of my co-workers, and incendiary assessments of my own work. This blog post is a combination of the latter half of that reality. #1 - I have failed to accept myself as a "brand" Many of the top tier educators who blog (the ones making the rounds at many regional and national conferences) have either actively managed or encouraged the adoption of themselves as a "brand". I know many of them, having conversed at conferences, and even collaborated on a few projects. I can honestly say there are very few of them that I find to be disingenuous (most educators really are awesome). But the rise of "rock star" educators as brands has never sat well with me, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I want to build relationships with people, not brands. I want all educators to be approachable, and able to be questioned, critically. I would gladly change my Twitter handle in a heartbeat to push myself farther away from branding if "Ben Rimes" wasn’t still squatting on it. #2 - I write inconsistently Mentioned in the opening, my writing is amateurish at best (editing is a constant process after I post, catching many mistakes post publishing). I write about Digital Storytelling. I create "how to" videos about geeky power user features of Google and other technology. I attempt to write about books intelligently (a practice that I am dubiously qualified to do). I share goofy videos, and half-baked thoughts. In short, I am a jack of many technology trades, and a master of none (except maybe WordPress). I don’t have a clear message, and I’ve been told by many that my blog is "difficult" to describe. Which….is fine. I’m okay with that, as I see this blog as a reflection of my own thoughts and experiences, which also tend to be sporadic and eclectic. But it’s difficult for me to establish a clear message for others to enjoy when I’m all over the place. #3 - Follow through is lacking After one of the most excellent MACUL Conferences I’ve ever attended, I was excited to write 14 posts detailing all of the thoughts and resources I had running through my head after 3 days of learning and conversation. I made it to 12. So close….yet not enough. So much for my dedication to following through on ideas. #4 - I am reserved in my "Cheerleading" I praise, exemplify, and applaud many amazing practices and individuals, but rarely do it here. There are exceptions, and even some to come (you should see my list of unpublished drafts), but for the most part I don’t praise educators as "all stars" the same way that many other bloggers do. It’s not that I don’t think my colleagues and friends are amazing; I just find myself slipping past the sentiment of "awesome work" to the more thought-provoking "how are you going to make it even better next time" much quicker than the average educational cheerleader. I re-read many of my more critical posts, and hear bitterness, disapproving, and confusion in my posts as I search for deeper meaning. The cheerleading that I do lead tends to be focused on the practices and strategies put in place, not necessarily the individuals implementing them. #5 - I really dislike the "trendy" nature of technology As a self-proclaimed technology enthusiast, I confuse many by poo-pooing many of the more consumeristic trends in the technology sector. Augmented Reality, Chromebooks, and coding are hot right now. Two years ago it was QR codes, iPads, and gaming. Coming up will be Google Classroom, iWatches, and personalized learning. I enjoy the benefits of some of these developments, devices, and trends, but I know they’re fleeting. The practices that don’t go out of style are what get me excited; collaborating, building relationships, and creating safe environments for discourse and critical feedback. Can I do this with the latest and greatest? Sure! But why share my hype about the "BEST NEW FREE APPS!" or the latest consumer device that educators are eager to co-opt as a learning tool when cardboard and tape still manages to enrapture us? And that’s about it for now. I feel a bit better having written this out, and read through it a couple of times. This blog has been incredibly cathartic for me over the years, and for better or for worse, it will continue to be a reflection of my thoughts, not a branded, ad-laden, trend setter. If you’re okay with that, feel free to keep reading

I’m pretty big on carving out time for reflection in any learning environment. As evidenced by my latest blog post, taking the time to reflect allows learners to be critical, yet constructive, in addressing their own educational shortcomings. In other words, I want students to be able to identify what they’re struggling with, and how they might go about thinking how to get better. The problem will reflection is that there isn’t always time to do it within our busy classrooms and pressures from the curriculum. Which is probably why "exit slips" have become popular as of late. Teachers give students a quick, simple form to fill out (digital or otherwise) that provide a "snapshot" of how learners feel about the day’s concepts/learning goals. Collected as students exit the room, these mini assessments can often be filled out in less than a minute, and work into most schedules. This is not your english teacher’s usual exit slip. I didn’t want to create another "run of the mill" exit slip with simple bullet-point driven reflection, or cute clip art. Don’t get me wrong! Those are nice (and effective), but they’re awfully "plain jain". What if we got a little playful and tapped into the popular zeitgeist of teen literature? With zombies, nuclear apocalypse, and other "world ending" scenarios currently dominating popular teen fiction, I got the bug to create some "Apocalyptic Exit Slips" this weekend. It’s a perfect metaphor too for the purpose of the tool; students are exiting your comfortable, and familiar, classroom just as an apocalypse is an exit from the world as we know it. That works, right? Even if it doesn’t, I had a heck of a lot of fun tinkering with informal assessment and alien invasions! My wife helped out tremendously in sanding out the rough edges of this concept, so I wanted to give her a quick shout out; thanks Nicole! I’ve uploaded and shared 3 different version of the exit slips (PDF, Word, and Pages) to make it as easy as possible for others to use. If you just want to print out the PDF version and run copies, go for it. If you don’t like what I’ve got, but dig the concept, go ahead and change it up. I’ve included four varied reflective activities, but you may wish to simply copy and paste just one of them. If you do alter them, please share! I recently came across something rather exciting that I’ll be blogging about later this week about the importance of sharing. Apocalyptic Exit Slips (PDF) Apocalyptic Exit Slips (MS Words) Apocalyptic Exit Slips (Pages Document - Zipped) Oh, and I’m taking this opportunity to test a little theory. Many educators in my circles deride Teachers Pay Teachers for a number of reasons. At the forefront is the notion that we should be sharing freely with one another, not following the path of the for-profit education industry. However, most complaints I hear about the site are the "cutesy" copycat nature of the most popular offerings. I’m a firm believer in that ecosystems and communities can change over time, and thus I want to see if building up a small cache of rather "off beat" resources might help others see some potential in the website. Or, it may just stay a Comic Sans-filled warm fuzzy fest; who knows. For you, you can find the Apocalyptic Exit Clips on Teachers Pay Teachers (the PDF version that is) for free as well. Special thanks to the Noun Project for providing the graphics (either Public Domain or for a reasonable royalty free fee). If you need the Zombie font used in the document, you can find it here from dafont.

Not a quick email to say thanks. Not a little slip of paper or sticky note with a happy thought. I wrote an honest to goodness thank you note (written in cursive of all things!). It wasn’t terribly long, just a few lines; but it felt good to take a few minutes to recognize and give thanks to an educator that I appreciate for taking time out of her extremely busy schedule to lead myself and a few others on a tour of her school district. It gave me a nice warm fuzzy feeling despite a chilly rain shower pounding on the windows of my office. Sometimes low tech if the way to go. I’m not trying to fluff myself up here, or proclaim that going "luddite" for the morning is some sort of new trend that we all need to hop on board with. However, as much as I struggled with remembering how to properly loop my cursive letters (it’s been forever since I’ve written anything other than my name in cursive), and as much time as I might have "lost" not going the traditional digital route, I appreciated taking my time to craft something that not only spoke of my sentiment, but displayed it as well. At least, I hope a simple thank you card can convey that. Special thanks to Ann Smart for sending the "Thank You" note that inspired me to send my own.

I probably should have mentioned this sooner, but I’m notoriously bad at self promotion. Next week I’ll be leading a workshop on getting started with the "Video Story Problem Project" at the June gathering of the Institute for Innovation in Education (iiE). If you’re a teacher in Michigan and are looking to grab a few state continuing education clock hours next week, I promise it will be one of the most interactive workshops you’ve ever attended. The iiE is an international gathering of educators at the University of Michigan, and is focused on helping re-invent learning through conversation, collaboration, and breaking educators with complimentary skills together to help build global solutions to educational issues. Sounds pretty awesome, right? I thought it was, which is why I’m leading a workshop as a part of the pre-conference offerings for teachers! We’ll be shooting video, sharing student and teacher examples of video story problems, and talking about how to take the first baby steps to reimagining both formative assessment and a more inquisitive approach to math education. We’re not talking about Earth-shattering, paradigm-shifting, ground-breaking technological breakthroughs here. Just a few teachers, some cameras and mobile devices, and a willingness to "play" a little bit while we learn. Sign up for the Video Story Problem Workshop Here! Check out the rest of the Institute for Innovation in Education Gathering Here!

As if my summer weren’t already busy enough with conferences, curriculum planning, implementation of new software systems, prepping new iPads for classrooms, pulling off a minor ed tech conference, teaching CEP 810 for MSU, and squeezing in some family time; I went ahead and threw myself head first into Thought Vectors, a MOOC (?) from VCU starring several veterans of #ds106. It promises to be a conversation of "concept spaces" which has already referenced corny monster movies of the 50s. I’m not sure if that implies the course itself will start a bit cheesy, with the promise of great riffing happening in a digital space. I might normally be anxious about jumping into a course with an informal title that already sounds a bit fluffy (UNIV 200: "Living the Dreams"). However, with the pedigree of those putting it together, I’m looking forward to cobbling together some new thoughts and ideas. And since I’m off to a pretty terrible start by missing the official first event of the course (a Google+ Hangout) this evening in favor of an awards banquet in which I’m being honored, I thought I’d at least get a GIF posted to capture what little bit of play I managed to squeeze in with my kids the other night. My family time may find itself playing a large role in my "thought vectors" assignments this summer.  

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