All posts by rwhite

Mac Advice for Switchers

Apple, Workflow

Mac Advice for Switchers

by Richard White

2011-02-08

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A LONG NOTE FOR MY SWITCHER FRIENDS

Hey. Okay, so you got this new Mac thing, right? Good for you! It’s an amazing machine, and you’re going to love it.

You probably don’t know this but I’m a Switcher myself. I started on PCs w-a-y back in the day, and did NOT like the first Mac I got. And more recently, I’ve been using Linux for a lot of things, and… well, that’s a Switch too. Every time I switch to something new, it’s a little disorienting before I finally figure out how to make the new thing work for ME.

What follows are a series of tips, tricks, hardware, and software that have worked for ME over the past few years. As they like to say in the online bulletin boards, “your mileage may vary.” Fortunately, most of these things (with the exception of the hardware) can be had for free, or at least on a trial basis while you figure out whether or not it fits you.

I hasten to add that I although you COULD run out and download/buy every one of these programs, that’s certainly not necessary. I typically get a program, play around with it a bit, and then see if it “works for me” before going on to try something else. And I certainly DO encourage experimenting with new software. Downloading and installing programs on a Mac is extraordinarily easy, and there is some wonderful software out there that will do things for you that you didn’t even know you needed to be done. So get out there and play!

I’ll be updating this list from time to time as things occur to me, so… be sure to check back! :)

Here we go…

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WORKFLOW

1. Organize your stuff in folders. It’ll help.

My folders on the Mac look like this:
/Users/rwhite/ # my home folder

Inside the home folder:
Applications/
Desktop/
Documents/
Downloads/
Dropbox/
Library/
Movies/
Music/
Pictures/
Public/
Sites/
src/

By far the most important folder is my Documents, which contains:
About Stacks.pdf # not important
AppleWorks User Data/ # not important
Microsoft User Data/ # important I guess
OmniFocus Backups/ # not super important
comm/ # contains email archives, letters, etc.
down/ # contains stuff I’ve downloaded, including PDFs of articles, movies, etc.
edu/ # big folder containing everything having to do with my teaching
fnc/ # financial stuff: tax records, receipts, etc.
iChats/ # iChat archive
impt/ # important stuff: scans of passport, driver’s license, etc.
media/ # movies and stuff
misc/ # stuff I haven’t filed away yet
othersfiles/ # folders of stuff associated with parents, girlfriend, etc.
photo/ # all my photos, including iPhone
proj/ # ongoing projects: Xmas stuff, a folder for my car stuff, jokes, recipes
snd/ # music files that I’ve created
tech/ # lots of folders here: notes, linux, scripts, google, etc.
trvl/ # folders for packing lists, tickets/boarding passes, maps
wrtng/ # folders for my journals, my trip reports, etc.
www/ # folders for all my websites and related stuff

You get it, right? Nested folders to organize all your stuff. Here’s my edu/poly2010-2011 folder contents:
apphysics/
compsci/
conceptual/
edtech/
grades/
misc/
poly2009-2010 alias # This points to last year’s folder, because I’m always needing to get something from there
schedulecommittee/
science_dept/

I love my folders.

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2. Text files for notes
I keep notes on lots of different little things, and stash them away in those folders. I really like Textmate as a text editor, but BBEdit is good too, as is the free TextWrangler (see Software below).

One of the best things I started doing a few years ago was make a text file on my computer where I keep track of software (and authorization keys) that I install on my machines.

—

3. Backblaze backup service (backblaze.com)
Crazy good, and very reasonably priced. See “Hardware” below for more info.

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HARDWARE

I don’t like to rely on too much hardware. My friend Aaron likes to carry around a boatload of computer crap, but I like to travel a little lighter than that. Stuff that I regularly use, though, and which you might find me carrying in my backpack:

1. USB cable for the iPhone

2. Logitech Anywhere MX mouse. This thing is AMAZING.

3. Dongle (for connecting to a VGA projector)

4. Logitech Wireless Presenter R400 with Red Laser Pointer (again, for presenting)

5. Power brick (if I’m going to be away for awhile)

6. iPhone

—

Stuff that stays at home includes:
1. Old HP LaserJet 6MP laser printer
I don’t think they even sell this thing anymore, but it’s a beast, and it’s awesome.

2. Laptop cooler/stand (I use this one: http://www.roadtools.com/podium.html )

3. A couple of Seagate 1-terabyte external hard drive ( Seagate FreeAgent XTreme 1 TB USB 2.0/FireWire 400/eSATA Desktop External Hard Drive ), because I’m a freak about backing up my machine. These aren’t my “daily” backup drives, but rather “permanent archive” drives, that store things like old photos, music, and other archives that I simply don’t want or need to carry around with me on my laptop. There are two because even backup drives can go bad, so I have one “main” backup, and one “backup” backup.

4. A smaller 500-Gb hard drive that I use with Apple’s Time Machine backup software. I plug this in about once a week to make a local backup of what I’ve been working on lately.

5. Backblaze ( backblaze.com ) – This isn’t hardware, but it kind of acts like it. It’s “backup in the cloud,” and their software runs every morning at 1am, backing up my computer to their servers. It’s $50/year to keep an encrypted copy of all your stuff on their computers, and you don’t have to remember to plug it in. It’s probably the best backup solution there is for your local data.

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SOFTWARE

1. Safari
Apple’s Safari web browser is amazing. I also have Mozilla’s Firefox ( http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ ) and Google’s Chrome ( http://www.google.com/chrome/ ) installed too, because Firefox may load some pages that Safari can’t handle.

2. Mail.app
Apple’s Mail.app email program is just about the best email program I’ve ever used. You’re going to love it.

3. iCal
Apple’s calendar program is NOT the best calendar program I’ve ever used. It’s got a clunky, cumbersome interface that often seems to enjoy getting in the way of entering information, but… it’s integrated across the iPhone, so I keep using it. There are various add-ons that you can use to enhance it, if you’re a calendar geek: BusyCal ( http://www.busymac.com/ ) is a popular enhancement.

4. TextWrangler ( http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/ )
I love text files, and TextWrangler is a surprisingly powerful editor, given that it’s free. TextMate is a popular text editor for the Mac as well, although some people prefer to get by with Apple’s own TextEdit, which has its own advantages. Text editing is high on my list of must-haves, but I admit that most people don’t use them at all. They’re missing out!

5. Microsoft Office
Why do I like text editors so much? Try launching Microsoft Word to write a note to yourself–by the time the bloody thing has opened up, you’ve already forgotten what it was you were going to write. Still, it’s the industry standard, so you pretty much have to have it. And as much as I support the free, open source alternatives–LibreOffice ( http://www.libreoffice.org/ ) and OpenOffice ( http://www.openoffice.org/ )–those distributions aren’t the real thing. Of course, Microsoft’s own software isn’t always want one might wish for… :-/

6. Adobe Photoshop Elements
I hate Adobe. There are other photo processing packages available for the Mac, including the free GIMP ( http://www.gimp.org/ ) and free GraphicConverter ( http://www.lemkesoft.com/ ), as well as Apple-friendly solutions like Pixelmator ( http://www.pixelmator.com/ ). But like Microsoft’s Office suite, the gold-standard is Adobe, and their Photoshop Elements series–a low cost version of their high-end Photoshop program–is amazing.

On the other hand, if you’re not really into doing heavy image editing, iPhoto can do an amazing job with very little effort. And it comes with your Mac!

7. Coda and Transmit ( http://www.panic.com )
You may not be into the whole FTP/web development game–uploading files, working on web pages, etc.–but if you are, Panic’s Coda (integrated web development and FTP) and Transmit (FTP only) are solid programs.

8. Skype ( http://www.skype.com )
Audio, video, and text chatting. Awesome.

9. Adium ( http://adium.im/ )
Great chat software, which integrates just about every chat protocol in a single window: AIM, MSN Messenger, GoogleTalk, Facebook, ICQ…

10. VLC Media Player ( http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ )
If you have a video file, chances are that VLC will be able to play it for you. It works where others fail.

11. Dropbox ( http://www.dropbox.com )
If you’ve ever struggled with keeping track of a single file in 3 different locations, or wondered how you can send a 120Mb file to someone by email (hint: you can’t), Dropbox provides 2Gb of online storage, free. Install their software, drop anything you want in the “dropbox,” and it will be synced with any other machines that are connected to that same account. Some people put their entire Documents folder in the Dropbox, so they can access their files anywhere (including on their iPhone). Amazing. You can pay money to buy more storage if you’re a heavy user.

12. Audacity ( http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/ )
Free, cross-platform, sound editing. Super useful, and a nice complement to Apple’s GarageBand, which does more-or-less the same thing, but differently.

Our Ongoing Work

Computers, Staff Development, Teaching

Our Ongoing Work
Part of our job is to be patient.

2011-02-06

by Richard White

A transcript from an exchange in my office last week, when a colleague came in for some technical assistance:

“Rich, can you help me with something? I have a list of email addresses and I want to send an email to all of them.”

My colleague sits down and plops his laptop in front of me.

“Sure. Where’s the list?”

“It’s here. I’ve selected all the emails, and I’ve copied them.” He shows me the highlighted names.

“Okay,” I say, “let’s paste them into your email address field.” I press two keys and the addresses are pasted.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa…! What happened there? How did you do that?”

“I pasted them in there. That’s what you wanted right?”

“Yeah, but how did you do it so fast? What did you press on the keyboard?”

“I pressed control-v.”

“Control-v, huh? Cool. I’m going to gave to remember that.”

Going the Extra Mile

Teaching,

GOING THE EXTRA MILE

2011-01-23

by Richard White

“Personal branding.” Have you heard about this? Has anyone come up to you to talk about “marketing yourself?”

If you hang around the Internet long enough you’ll eventually stumble upon something about branding and marketing, not as a corporation but as an individual. I heard a radio program the other day in which one guy (perhaps as part of some couples therapy exercise) suggested that people come up with a a brochure, or an advertisement, promoting one’s self to one’s partner. As part of this exercise, one would include a motto, list attractive features of one’s self, as well as accessories (?), etc.

I’m not entirely sure how this process—clarifying one’s personal brand—would result in the strengthening of one’s relationship, but it was an interesting idea… and not one that I’m very interested in pursuing myself, I have to say.

But I get the marketing thing. Take the Big Sur Half Marathon, for example.

Held in Monterey during November, the Big Sur Half Marathon is a wonderful “little” race in a lovely little town, and I had a perfectly wonderful time during the race weekend I spent up there with some friends. Our hotel was nice but reasonably priced. The weather was beautiful. We we weren’t actually staggering along the 13.1-mile course, we were walking the streets sight-seeing, eating at restaurants, grabbing an afternoon coffee at Peet’s. The usual stuff.

I can only imagine that, during difficult economic times, the costs associated with putting on a run like this might be called into question. Budgets must be tight: there was as shortage of race t-shirts, and not everyone who crossed the line received the hand-made ceramic finisher’s medal that had been promised. The race organizers made no effort to hide the fact that they were interested in studying the economics of the situation. A post-weekend survey didn’t ask how much fun you had; it asked, “How much did you spend over the course of your visit this weekend?” and “Do you plan on coming back again next year?”

So it was something of a surprise, then, when I received a mysterious, somewhat thick manila envelope in the mail a few weeks ago. The postmark was Monterey. I tore it open to find a copy of the Monterey Herald newspaper inside. I checked the date—it was a month old. What the…?

I leafed through the paper, and it wasn’t until I hit the second section that I realized what it was:

Oh! It’s a newspaper from the day after the race! I read a couple of articles, and quickly enough stumbled upon the long listing of names on the last page of the paper. And there, buried deep in results, I found my name:

I gotta tell you, a series of events quickly followed: First, I got a nice little lump in my throat right there, seeing my name in print, even if it was only in 7-point on the last page. Next, I made a promise to myself that I would return to the Big Sur Half Marathon the following year, dammit. And then, I thought about how clever they were to send out this paper. I don’t know how much it cost to send out 4000 newspapers, but I can only think that it must have been a wise investment. My receiving this little newspaper, weeks after I’d nearly forgotten about the event perhaps, was the very best kind of marketing: a soft, value-added reminder that I was a satisfied client, and that I should keep them in mind in the future, if the occasion arose to run another half-marathon, or even just come up to visit for a weekend.

And then my thoughts turned to my relationship with my clients: my students.

How do I market myself to them, consciously or unconsciously?

What does my “personal brand”—even unspoken—look like to them?

What “value added” do I provide to them that reminds them that their experiences with me in the classroom are to be respected and appreciated?

Every teacher, reflective of his or her practice, can benefit from considering these things.

What “value added” do you provide?

The Real Deal: A Different Kind of Hybrid

Education reform, Teaching,

THE REAL DEAL: A different kind of hybrid

2010-12-30

by Richard White

This site has been devoted to discussing the hybrid classroom, in which a traditional classroom-based curriculum has online components as an integral part of the course. For three weeks in November, however, my science students participated in a different kind of hybrid experience.

Science courses, and in particular Advanced Placement science courses, are a tricky animal. On the one hand, we’ve got people’s natural curiosity regarding the world about them, and an innate desire to play with stuff and figure things out–these qualities appear to be hardwired into us, evolutionarily. People love science, or at least the idea of science: from Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week”, to explosions on Mythbusters, to dropping a few Mentos into a bottle of Diet Coke, most people find this stuff interesting on at least some level.

On the other hand, you’ve got your typical science course. It takes place in a classroom, and there are notes to be taken, facts to learn, and tests that demand no small amount of regurgitation, all at a breakneck pace that leaves little time for reflection or a deeper consideration of things. Once a week or so there’s a lab, in which the students typically follow a set of instructions–more or less successfully, it is hoped–and subsequent write a short report summarizing the experience. It’s kind of cool getting to play with the equipment, but… does it really count as science? Where’s the investigation, and the thrill of discovery? Where’s the fun?

The sad truth is that it’s extraordinarily difficult to come up with good laboratory experiences that are meaningful, relevant, appropriate, fun, and safe. My friend Karen Wilson, a chemistry teacher, had the misfortune to have a student in her class who chose to “leave the path” during an independent project, and literally blew off his hand. She spent several years of her professional career defending herself in the subsequent lawsuit: ‘Yes,’ she’d demonstrated proper safety procedures; ‘no,’ she hadn’t authorized the experiment that led to the loss of his limb. The suit against her ultimately failed, but not before it had taken its toll on her.

Against all odds, then, my AP Physics students are having a little fun in lab right now. Their assignment for this most recent unit is to a) theoretically develop the equations for the rolling motion of a hoop, disk, and sphere; b) develop an experimental procedure and collect data regarding the real world motion of these objects, and c) analyze and reconcile the experimental results with what is predicted by theory. Okay, that might not sound that interesting to you, but for them, it’s a surprising breath of fresh air.

Walker and Daniel have created a black-and-white backdrop for their rolling object, which will allow them to determine position data for their rolling object. Time data will be pulled from the 30 frames-per-second rate of the digital recording of the motion.

Why? Why are they more interested in this lab?

  1. They have 3 weeks to work on this lab.
    Even if it’s going to be a little more work in the long run, they’re appreciating the fact that they get to focus on one thing for a little while.
  2. They have an open-ended problem to figure out.
    Granted, it’s not THAT open-ended–they are clear specifications for what’s expected. But the path they’re going to take to get there, from what data they want to collect to how, specifically, they’re going to go about collecting that data, is completely up to them. Seriously, when I was introducing the lab, they could barely wait for me to shut up so that they could start brainstorming, planning, drawing sketches, and assembling preliminary set-ups to test how feasible they’re data collection strategies might be. It was amazing.
  3. This is a high-stakes assignment.
    In line with the requirement that they’ll be submitting a very formal write-up on this one–a word-processed document, with equations, data tables, and graphs all electronically created–there’s more on the line: this assignment is worth the equivalent of a full test, and points like that are hard to come by in my class. For those students who need just a little more incentive to do a good job–in addition to the inherent appeal–there’s the promise of points.
Laurel and Julian in version 1 of their experiment, in which a metal rolling object momentarily contacts two wires, connected to an audio interface that they've plugged into their computer, allowing them to measure position and time data.

This kind of “authentic assessment” or “performance-based learning” is not entirely new of course–not if you’ve been in the game long enough to recognize those expressions, which received some buzz when they were proffered years ago. And this strategy for fostering learning isn’t a silver bullet for highest-risk students who find themselves completely disenchanted with anything associated with school or education.

But for teachers and students who are looking for something a little different, this is a great way to add some real world legitimacy to your curriculum, AND have a little fun in the process.

What Real World experiences are you able to build into your teaching?

“Just in Time” Learning

Distance-learning, Education reform, Teaching, ,

“Just In Time” Learning

by Richard White

2010-12-06

“‘Hybrid classroom?’ Seriously? What effect could Internet use possibly have on student learning in my classes?”

I’m SO glad you asked. I have data on that. I’m in the process of running an experiment.

I teach physics, a subject that has some reputation as being a little tricky to understand sometimes. Typically, teaching physics works something like this:

  1. I present material in class: discussions, lectures, demonstrations, sample problems.
  2. Students go home, try to do assigned homework problems, and get stuck.
  3. Students come back the next day with questions, and I spend time in class helping them clear up their misunderstandings.

It’s a time-honored process, and one that works on some levels. “Struggling with the material” is something that all learning requires, as each of us figure out how to fit new ideas into our previous understanding of the world. Constructing that new knowledge requires effort, and it’s absolutely part of my job to assist students in that process.

After 15 years of teaching physics, thoughI came to realize that there was a problem with the current homework system. Ater 15 years of teaching physics, I figured out that often, students were getting waylaid by relatively trivial difficulties, usually a problem-solving technique, or a strategy, or a “trick” that we’d discussed in class and that they hadn’t quite learned how to apply. It wasn’t that they had absolutely no idea of how to solve the problem—they just needed a little push, a little hint on what to do next, and the answers to the odd-numbered problems in the back of the book weren’t enough.

I had clear data that the students were getting stuck, based on the number of students missing at least one assignment, and—for those students—the number of homework assignments they were missing.

I made what I thought was a generous offer: the homework solutions were available in my office so that students could come in during office hours to take a look at them… but that didn’t really help them at night. At night was when they were working on the problems. At night was when they needed the help.

So I made the solutions available online.

It was a simple step, really, and I fully expected that a lot of the problems with “incomplete and missing homework assignments” would go away. I made sure to communicate the fact that these solutions were available for students to use in helping their progress after they’d attempted a problem; these were not to be copied. But there was that risk.

I’d hoped that the homework scores would improve, and improve they did:

That’s not much of a success story there, of course: “give students who haven’t been turning in homework the answers, and they’ll turn in more homework.” Great headline.

Here’s where things get interesting, though. Students both years took the unit test, with the following results:

Test scores went UP. Way up. On unassisted assessments of their learning, students demonstrated that their understanding of the material had improved by a whopping 10%, because (I believe) they were able to get some assistance with their homework when they were doing it, and not hours or days after the fact.

Of course, it’s well-known that the WWW is a great place for a motivated student to explore and learn. See the Wall Street Journal’s Turning Kids From India’s Slums Into Autodidacts for some interesting examples of this. Money quote:

Education, though, feels like one of those things that has to be top-down: There has to be a teacher and a taught. But plenty of people educate themselves. Is it possible for everybody to be an autodidact, now that knowledge is so accessible online?

The premise of the article is so radical that most classroom teachers may not feel that it has any bearing on what we do day-to-day. But my ongoing experiment has convinced me giving people access to new tools to guide their studies—even something as mundane as homework solutions— can have a powerful effect on the learning experience.

There are other things we can do as well. More about that next week.

Evolve or Die

Education reform, Teaching, ,

The 5.25-inch floppy, circa 1990. Remember these?

EVOLVE OR DIE

by Richard White

2010-11-30

In education, we hear a lot about gaps. At Berkeley High School where I used to teach, they have been struggling for years with the “achievement gap” between White students and African-American students at that school. As teachers, we worry about the socioeconomic challenges facing some of our families, and how that affects students’ ability to perform. And recently, the distance between the “haves” and “have-nots” is only increasing. It’s a challenging time to be an educator.

It’s ironic, then, that many of these same teachers, justifiably concerned about student-based gaps, are suffering themselves from a gap of a different sort: the technology gap. Here it is, in a nutshell: even as our students, at an increasing pace, have rapidly acquired and adapted to advances in technology and communication, teachers and schools have not. And as a result, we are at grave risk of becoming dangerously irrelevant to our students.

Our students are infamously connected. Perhaps in part because of the fact that they no longer are allowed to play outside after dark, they text each other, they email each other, they chat online, and they leave messages for each other on their Facebook walls. They “friend,” they “twitter,” they “skype,” and a few unfortunates make the mistake of “sexting.” They have immersed themselves in an enormous, primordial, technology-fueled experiment, with wild abandon and wide-ranging results.

Meanwhile, those teachers without a network—without a smartphone, with no experience with Twitter, some struggling even to add an attachment to an email—seem content to be part of this experiment’s control group. “It’s not part of my lifestyle,” some say. Or “it doesn’t really affect what I’m doing in the classroom.”

Twitter is not part of my lifestyle, it’s true, and I don’t consider Facebook the nucleus of my social existence. But understanding the way that our students are interacting with their world and with each other, I maintain, is at the very heart of being a good teacher.

There’s an evolution happening here. There’s a revolution happening here. And as someone who works with young people, you need to be well-acquainted with it.

Drive-ins gave way to TV movies, which led to VHS, then DVD, then Netflix, and now streaming video, via cable, satellite, or Internet. Technologies change, and people and the ways that they interact with each other change too, as a result. You may have updated your home entertainment system because the new products looked sexier than the old ones, or because that new classic film that just came out wasn’t released on Betamax. Either way, your life evolved, and you’ve benefited from that evolution.

It’s the same thing for teaching. Even if you feel that the core fundamentals of teaching haven’t changed in the last fifty years, our children and their parents have changed. This is simply due diligence, people: we ALL need to have a better idea of how our students are interacting with each other, and you can’t do that by sitting on the sidelines and reading articles about Facebook in the New York Times.

It’s time to jump in and get dirty.

THINGS YOU CAN DO

  1. Get a gmail account. https://mail.google.com
    Using Google’s web-based email is a nice way to jump in and get your feet wet. Nearly everyone knows the basics of using email. Learning how to use a slightly different email system will be a nice way of expanding your abilities without over-taxing your brain. It’s free, and who knows, you may come to like it better than your current email.
  2. Get a Facebook account and play with it. http://www.facebook.com
    Again, you don’t need to jump in to the deep end here, and you don’t need to fork over your life history if you don’t like their privacy policies–I certainly don’t. But sign up with a fake name, invite a few people you know to be friends, and get an idea of how it all works. Regardless of whether it’s something you continue to experiment with, at least you’ll have some experience with this platform, and a better understanding of what people are talking about when they make reference to it.
  3. Get a Twitter account and play with it. http://twitter.com
    Same thing: go to Twitter.com and follow the instructions. It probably won’t be your cup of tea, but know you’ll get all those Twitter jokes that people make.
  4. Get a smartphone and play with it.
    You don’t have a smartphone yet? What are you waiting for? Seriously! What, you think this is a fad that’s going to go away? You ARE going to have one in 3 years, so why not get one now so you can get started, because you are going to feel SERIOUSLY lame if you get any farther behind. (I’m talking to you, Laura Holmgren.)
  5. Develop a “texting” relationship with someone.
    Texting is the best thing to happen to phone communication since… well, the portable phone. There are good reasons to have some facility with texting: Text messages consume less bandwidth than a voice call, and will sometimes go through when an actual call won’t. Also, they’re less invasive and less time-consuming than an actual call. Along with other cultural protocols, being able to receive and respond to a text is an important part of current phone etiquette. You just need to know how to do it.

If you’re reading this, chances are that you’re already a member of the choir, and all this preaching is falling on the wrong ears. In that case, it’s up to you to do a little proselytizing of your own. Get out there and help another teacher make the jump to light speed.

Their students will thank you for it.

Keeping the Lines of Communication Open

Workflow

KEEPING THE LINES OF COMMUNICATION OPEN

Why would we restrict the use of tools that allow us to communicate more effectively, just because they allow us to communicate more effectively?

2010-09-19

by Richard White

I’ve read a lot of scary headlines in the last few weeks. “Digital diversions leave teens, parents sleep-deprived.” “Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime.” “Beware of digital overload and technology fatigue.”

I’ve also heard people complain about overflowing email inboxes, and a feeling that they should answer emails at any time of day. Some of us compulsively check our smartphones any spare moment to see if we’ve been buzzed (via Google), tweeted (via Twitter), texted (via phone), chatted (via instant message), friended (via Facebook), emailed, or even phoned (how primitive!). And after all that, if you’re still feeling twitchy you can always play a game, surf the Internet, or read a downloaded book on that same phone.

You can also use a computer to do all these things, if you’re a few years behind the times… ;)

Look, people, it’s really very simple. If you’re feeling a little overwhelmed, digitally… turn off your phone. Don’t check your work email account after work. Let your Facebook status lapse for a day or three. Stop twittering about your mood swings. Unless you’ve been clinically diagnosed with some obsessive-compulsive variant, just put the phone/computer away for awhile.

Or don’t. If you find–as some do–that increased communication has actually made your life better, then by all means, have at it. Blog your life. Open up on Facebook. Text during dinner. But you don’t get it both ways. You don’t get to open up a dozen new input channels to your brain and then complain about being deluged by information. The two go hand in hand.

For some people, email overload may have developed from a feeling that those messages, because they are transmitted instantly, must be responded to instantly. Workflow-efficiency pundits haven’t helped matters by advocating an “Inbox Zero” policy, suggesting that any unread emails in one’s Inbox are a bane to be avoided at all cost. Recent research emphasizes what should have been obvious all along: checking one’s email every 15 minutes disrupts the concentration often necessary for real work to get done, to say nothing of throwing a huge monkey wrench into one’s after-hours personal life.

Another obvious note: just because you receive an email at 8pm doesn’t mean you have to immediately reply to it. It should be understood that, when away from work, one doesn’t have to DO work. No one expects you to respond to, or even read, a work email that was sent after hours. (And if there ARE expectations by some people here, then those need to be addressed.)

For some teachers, the email pressure has gotten so bad that I’ve heard rumblings around my school site of a movement to restrict certain forms of these communications and/or the hours that they may be used. “No sending emails after 9pm,” for instance.

Let’s think about this for a moment. First of all, from a technological perspective, the idea doesn’t make sense: telling someone not to send an email after 9pm is like telling someone not to leave a voicemail after 9pm–leaving the voicemail (or sending the email) has absolutely nothing to do with when the message is received, and neither type of communication impacts the recipient until he or she chooses to check that voicemail or email account.

Second, this is a misguided effort to regulate people’s workflow, something for which the school is not, and should not be, responsible. If I have a problem managing my digital world, that needs to be addressed by me, and not by the school. And on the other hand, if my successfully-managed workflow includes sending out emails at odd hours of the morning, evening, or weekend, well… why shouldn’t I? (Come to think of it, that’s what my boss does!) The alternative is to… make me wait until I’m at school to send email?!

Third, the idea is unenforceable. We all work when we want or need to, and a stricture against sending emails at certain times is going to be as effective as a regulation against grading student papers at certain times: you can tell me I can’t grade on weekends, but I have to, on occasion. The student won’t receive the paper until later on, during an appropriate time. In the same way, I’m going to communicate with colleagues, parents, and students via email when I have to, even if they don’t receive the message until later on, at an appropriate time as determined by them.

I’m not forced to turn off the TV just before the one show I watch because most of the U.S. has already watched four hours that day. And my dietary intake is not restricted because someone else is overweight.

“Electronic curfews” destroy the very thing that makes most digital communication powerful: the ability for a sender to communicate as needed, with actual delivery managed by the recipient.

Restricting the freedom to take advantage of that communication doesn’t make any sense.

Conquistadors of the Useless

Teaching,

Conquistadors of the Useless

Sometimes, you have to try things you know you can’t do.

2010-08-26

by Richard White

I’m a rockclimber, which means that I spend at least part of my time attempting to climb mountains, cliff faces, or even just large boulders. The funny part is that, in many cases, there is an easier way to get to the top. You can walk up Mt. Whitney by a long and relatively gentle trail… or you can climb up one of the vertical routes that lead more or less directly to the top—the East Buttress, say.

For many climbers, rockclimbing gets boiled down to its essentials in “bouldering” which—outside, or inside at a rock gym—a short sequence of difficult moves is climbed. At the gym, bouldering problems are rated from V0 (relatively easy, as these things go) to upwards of V15, which are well-nigh impossible for mere mortals.

And here’s the funny thing: when one is bouldering, you don’t go around looking for problems you CAN do. Because… really, what’s the point of that? Where’s the challenge? The important thing is to find a problem that you can’t do—to be more specific, a problem that you just barely can’t do—so that you can work on it, discuss it with others, and tease out the problem’s secrets. Eventually, within a few minutes, a few hours, or a few days, one arrives at the solution to the problem, and is rewarded with a moment of well-earned satisfaction… and then it’s off to find a new problem. One that you can’t do.

It all seems a bit silly to describe it that way; it’s no wonder that French mountaineer Lionel Terray called his climbing autobiography “Conquistadors of the Useless.” But this idea of advancing one’s skills through attempting things that are just beyond our reach is fundamental to growth, and fundamental to the learning process. It’s certainly what we do for our students when we challenge them with something new, and then provide them with (or guide them in discovering) the tools and skills necessary to advance to the next level.

As teachers, we need to participate in that process ourselves. We need to challenge ourselves just as we challenge our students, and keep attempting things that are just beyond our reach.

Why should you do this? “Because it’s good for you.” Because we should model that process for our students. Because “life-long learning” isn’t just something from your school’s vision statement. Because we should be reminded of the occasional frustration that our students feel when things get especially challenging.

So here’s the question: “What are YOU going to do this new school year to challenge yourself?” What are you going to try that you’ve never tried before? What new unit, or major revision of an old unit, are you going to attempt, even where the risk of failure is perhaps high? What are you going to do that might not work? What are you going to try with your students, even knowing that something might go wrong?

Think about it! Pose yourself a problem in your hybrid classroom teaching that’s just out of your reach, and see what happens.

  • Develop a unit that has your students contribute to an online discussion forum.
  • Make a commitment to writing an email to parents once a quarter, letting them know how things are going in class.
  • Have your students create curriculum-related videos and post them online.
  • Create 5-minute video lessons and post them on YouTube.

    • Me? I’ve posed my own problems for myself.

    And I’ll tell you all about it next week.

Open to Change

Education reform, Teaching, ,

Open to Change

2010-05-30

by Richard White

It’s a fine line to walk, finding out what works for one’s self, but being open to change.

I found out the hard way a while ago, when, after 15 years of experience “mastering my craft” teaching in a number of different California schools, public and private, I had the good fortune to be able to invite a series of student teachers to share my classroom with me. On their worst days in my classroom, they left school defeated, nursing a sad feeling that they’d chosen to enter the wrong profession (been there, done that). On their best days, though, they blew me out of the water with their enthusiasm, their brilliant ideas, and outstanding teaching that left ME wondering if I it wasn’t time to turn in my lesson plans and go do something else. I learned very quickly that, when working with a student teacher, the best approach for me was to 1) listen to their ideas, 2) offer the wisdom of my own experience, and 3) shut up and get out of the way. Some days there would be post-lesson damage control to be done (for the students AND the student-teacher), but most days I’d walk away with a great new lesson/unit/teaching strategy that I could add to my bag of tricks.

Don’t get me wrong, though: working with a student teacher, when it’s done right, is a difficult and time-consuming process. The hardest part for me was always number 3 above, the shutting up. I mean, doesn’t this person know how much experience I have? Don’t they see how strong I am in the classroom? Don’t they realize how GOOD I am??! Of course, there are lots of different ways to be good, and what works for me isn’t going to work for someone else. There are lots of different strategies that can be employed in effective teaching, and I need to be open to the possibilities. I need to be open to the idea of changing some aspects of what I do, especially if there’s something better out there.

That’s the theory. The reality is that, especially as one spends a few years in the game, one gets invested in one’s system. To think about it from a media perspective, the carbon copies I used for my first lessons had to be typed into WordPerfect files, and then had to be retyped into ClarisWorks files, which fortunately were auto-translated into AppleWorks files, which required some finagling to be reformatted at Word .doc files, which are going to have to be completely redone (perhaps?) as LaTeX files… The time and energy that one spends in developing and presenting content has its own inertial legacy that becomes increasingly difficult to challenge.

At the level of the classroom itself: Do you make your notes available to students? Do you require students to take their own notes? Do you post your classroom content on the Internet? Do you allow students to take pictures of your notes? What about recording lectures?

We need to be open to the idea that students are developing new ways of acquiring and processing the information and procedures that we share with them. The “old way” of doing things isn’t necessarily the “best way,” although—and here’s the tricky part—it MIGHT be a really good way, and something that IS going to work for most of your students!

And there’s the rub. We have our years of experience that we are charged with using to help our students, but we have to be willing to accept that something new MIGHT be better, without yet knowing whether it really is or not.

My only advice here is to be willing to have the conversation. If students ask for your content to be made available online, consider doing that. If students want to take photos of classroom work, consider it. Why wouldn’t you want to allow that? Are you afraid that someone might actually get a copy of that information and… learn something??!

Oh, the horror! :)

Teachers: were curators, now filters

Teaching

Teachers: were curators, now filters

2010-05-20

by Richard White

I’ve had the good fortune in the last few weeks to run into a number of former students, including Megan, Danny, Eric, and David. These students, since I had the opportunity to teach them as long as ten years ago, have gone on to enjoy many successes in life, in lots of different ways. One was a reporter for the Washington Post, and embedded in Iraq for awhile. One worked at Apple before going on to work at a start-up. One is a few weeks away from finishing a doctorate in Electrical Engineering, and one is doing Ph.D. work on lasers at Caltech.

During a recent visit from Danny, we had a great chance to talk about the changing nature of the profession of teaching. It used to be that the teacher was a curator of sorts. One of the primary jobs of the teacher was to assemble information from a number of sources—textbooks, personal experience, encyclopedias, professionals; sources that the student might not ordinarily have access to—and present that information to the student, for consumption or manipulation. It was a good life, but a bit labor intensive, in many ways. Being a “teacher as curator” required a lot of management and coordination of resources.

Those days, for many teachers, are long gone. All that information from all those sources is, to a great extent, now available via an enormous firehose. Maybe you’ve heard of my friend Mr. Internet? Online textbooks, professional blogs, Wikipedia, corporate websites, educational websites, all contain enormous amounts of information, and provide the opportunity to learn from and converse with people in just about every field. Any teacher, with 15-minutes of googling and fact-checking, can assemble hundreds of links to quality information that can be used by students to guide their learning.

One of the new jobs for the teacher, then, is to manage that firehouse for our students. One of our new jobs is to reduce the number of hits from any given Google search from “thousands”—an overwhelming number that really doesn’t help anyone—down to a dozen or so.

I’ve got to admit, I used to scoff at the idea of a programmed WebQuest, dismissing it as just a way for teachers to repackage some of their old content in a new medium. I’m starting to realize, though, that telling my programming students only that “you need to use Google to find resources that will help you program a game in Python” is a bit vague; it leaves too much to chance and will almost certainly result in a certain amount of time wasted.

Part of my job, then, is assemble resources for them, not by collecting materials they wouldn’t otherwise have, but by pre-sorting the materials that they already have (via the Internet). A smaller subset of websites, etc., delivered in class or made available on the course website, helps to narrow down the places they need to dig through, and allows for a more efficient use of class/study time.