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Open Letter to ISTE, ISTE VEN (and anyone else who is interested)

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I have a little announcement I want to share.  Let me just say it: I “resign” from any and all leadership positions in ISTE and in ISTE Virtual Environments Network. When my membership to ISTE expires in May, I do not intend to renew it. I wish the best of everything to everyone--members, leadership, staff, and administration. Lots of friends. Lots. Lots of dear memories. And all the best to ISTE VEN. Take off, y’all, take off and soar. You have some passionate and capable leaders still, focused on the future of XR (all new things 3D and alternate reality). Over the past two plus decades, I’ve enjoyed participating in and enriching my life with my membership to the International Society for Technology and Education. The thing that I enjoyed the absolute most about those conferences was the coming together, in a different city every summer, of thousands, and increasingly more thousands of educators, technologists, vendors, and media professionals--all in the service of exploring how to
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 Hey, y'all,  Hope everyone is safe and well. Lots of good indicators now but we must not let down our vigilance and distancing habits. I pray (yes, I do that) predictions of another surge are hollow and that they are thwarted by our common set of healthy-keeping habits. Meanwhile, the post is to share that I recently signed a contract with Microsoft, albeit no money involved, to allow them to feature a curriculum piece I submitted to Microsoft: Education Edition almost a year ago. It's up. Educators using :EE to teach, please know that a key feature of this "lesson" is imminently adaptable to virtually (sic) ANY discipline or class. Just change a few key features like the vocabulary list, replace my example in-world with one of your own making, and GO FOR IT.  I am looking foward to seeing how innovative teachers do so.   Check out Don't be a virtual stranger! Share your successes and challenges with me scott@scottmerrick.net !
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 I have been doing a little opinionizing this week, and in an effort to underpin that with actual facts, I've done a bit of research and also a good deal of introspect examination based on my own experiences teaching for 25 years. In my 25th, I hope to keep racking up those years. My prospects of doing so, however, are looking less hopeful by the day this week.  The new administration, which I supported with my vote and with my modest social media presence, is not helping. I think that is likely a result of its own pining to return to education "the way we've always done it" (the most harmful words in our cultural phrasebook, in my humble opinion).  I wrote something:  The Case for Real Virtual Learning By Scott Merrick January 23, 2021 The context in which I write is Covid-19 and its growing army of mutations, and the hold the pandemic has on how we learn and teach. Legions of politicians and pundits cry out for the re-opening of school buildings. The topic has
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New Single

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  H ello, y'all. I'm off into another school quarter, and, yes, off on another little "share out things I made" project. This one involves posting songs I have written and recorded over the years, specifically those written for the dear love of my life, Lee Ann. I'm going to release a new A side/B side set at characteristically irregular intervals, on Bandcamp, and thereby make them available for a listen. I'm not interested in making the big buck here, of course. Those who know me have heard me quote my dear long-departed daddy, who used to quip, "Ain't no pockets in them shrouds." I'm not looking to experience that fact anytime soon: I am staying in, teaching from home, walking my dog, and maybe, but rarely, hitting the grocery store at opening hour, double-masked. I think come next Christmas I will share the many "12 poems of Christmas" collections I wrote for her as well. But that's another time and another project.  I hope
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The Water is Wide

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The Water is Wide Recorded in Nashville's West Park Accompaniment: Briley Parkway Traffic Birds Footsteps Origins of The Water is Wide
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Running--The Whole Shebang!

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Running  By Scott Gardner Merrick  ©1983 by Scott Gardner Merrick, rev. June 2020  Inception  The morning’s first mile was pure pain in a package, and the package was six feet tall. Every swallow of last night’s beer seemed to have settled around his mid-section. Will’s chest felt as if it had atrophied overnight: breathing came with almost overwhelming effort.  Come on legs. Feets don’t fail me now. Jesus, each single stride had to be written up in triplicate and submitted to both houses of his muscle and bone congress before it could pass. Into the cool October morning. Toward Vasona Park.  He was counting, as he often did, and his chronometer was flashing hundredths of seconds in its gray pool of digital ripples. He could stop the blasted thing with the pressure of one forefinger on a little plastic nipple, or he could tweak another to show his lap time, making the digits at least appear to hold still while all the while the little devils marched inexorably onward under the display,
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