Call to Volunteer

Hey, ISTE members and other curious humans,

Pardon the long and textual post, but I have an important question to ask: Have you been wondering what the meaning of "reality' is?

At the ISTE Virtual Environments Network, we've been exploring that question since before 2000! Surprisingly, we have found some answers. Our professional learning network orbits around the concept of "together at a distance," a term coined by co-founding member Peggy Sheehy. With the advent of new technologies like 3D goggles and rapidly developing innovations in virtual worlds--some of which are actually experientially accessible within 3D goggles--we might expand that concept to "together, anywhere, at a distance."

We meet at least twice a month, together, from wherever we are. It is not unusual for us to gather around a crackling campfire, seated comfortably, dressed stylishly, and everyone lookin' good, to discuss PLN business. I am on a kitchen counter stool in my home in Nashville, Tennessee; Mary is in her living room on an island in the shadow of Niagara Falls; Andy is at his home office table with his son laughing in the next room. Others are in Virginia, or California, or Canada. But--and here's the rub--we are all here. Sure, we could Zoom or Google Hangout, but this is somehow more fun. Everyone needs fun, even teachers!

Kurt Vonnegut's physician son is famously quoted for this comment: "We are all here to help one another through this--whatever 'this' is." That's what we do at VEN: We help one another through this.

Besides our monthly "OOH" (Open Office Hours), VEN produces, at our headquarters in Second Life, a monthly "Focus Session" which features an innovative educator sharing her or his innovative creation that leverages the unique affordances of virtual environments. Often, we teleport from these events as a group to a site within Second Life or Open Simulator, to explore together, communicating in text chat and voice our wonder and our insights, our questions and our answers.

Our huge annual culminating event traditionally takes place at ISTE's annual Conference and Expo. Ya'll, we invented the Playground. Initially that sort of event at ISTE NECC (National Educational Computing Conference) took place for several hours during the conference and was called a "Lounge." The Second Life Lounge at NECC 2007 was where I first met, in person, a core group of ISTE educators who already were meeting regularly in Second Life and whom I already thought of as friends and colleagues. There was even a working docent program within the virtual world, where educators could and did schedule themselves (themavatarselves) to be on duty to meet with other educators, both those familiar with ISTE and those not. The large building at ISTE Island offered a very large stone-paved front porch, where we would "widen the circle" of avatars as new arrivals joined the conversation. At that time there was no voice engine in Second Life and everything was in text chat. I always thought that made me more intentional in my comments than I would have been in voice, and there was a substantial backlash when Linden Lab did enable that feature. 

But I digress, as is my wont. I'm sending out this notice to ask you to join in the fun. Volunteer for ISTE wherever you wish to serve, but especially, serve with us. We will widen the circle with you. It will open up worlds of learning.

Visit https://www.iste.org/membership/volunteer and take a few minutes to work through the brief sign-up form. Choose Virtual Environments Netw1ork. We'll be in touch. And, hopefully, we'll see you at the end of June in Philly for ISTE 2019!

Written and produced this morning

I hear this as a sort of Irish folk song, lilting and lyrical, and I may yet make it a song. I had to get it down this morning, inspired by the snapshot of a native neighbor's backyard set. Can you guess which line came to me first?

New Song

Hey, I've got a couple new songs in the works, but this one is nearly done so I'm puttin' it out there. It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I love fishing. I often say the fishing is excellent even if the catching is not. Well, not that often, since I do most always catch and release those finned and scaley denizens of the aquaverse.

Lake Marrowbone

Here are a couple pics I took just a couple weeks ago:

And here's my song, just invented today and put together with Audacity in 9 tracks: Lake Marrowbone

Moving through 2019 (it's all going to be okay)

Blogslacker that I am, I drop in here on a Saturday morning to share with you that I'm actually really blogging more regularly at my classroom blog. To see a few things, head on over to the Falcons Tech Lab blog and subscribe to that one if you want to keep up. More and more, I'm focusing on my work at my work, trying to establish a solid learning environment for my ~800 students who cycle through it in the course of a school year in 9 week chunks.
It's a continually changing set of challenges, with 8 good-sized classes each 9 weeks, coming in in alternating A-day/B-day rotations. Our kids are largely in Hispanic-rooted families. Recently I polled a 9-weeks set of classes to see exactly how the language piece breaks down. This was in the way of an end of quarter reflections poll, using Google Forms as its vehicle. Look at this:

from Falcons Tech Lab classroom poll end of quarter 3, 2019

I do maybe have one little announcement. Those close to me may remember that I have been planning to retire at the end of the school year 2019-2020. Well, I'm rethinking that. Although I will have just turned 70 at the end of that May, I think I'm good to continue teaching, I like to joke, until they haul me out of my lab with a toe tag. I absolutely love my work, and now, after persevering through the extraordinarily challenging and frustrating two years that involved teaching in a very difficult inner-city elementary school and then working in two separate buildings with two less than optimal computer setups I am in a lab that is new (albeit with old, wi-fi connected, PCs) and beautiful and which I am making work to everyone's learning advantage. We got into Minecraft successfully this past quarter, and through initial forays into that platform I am inspired to tweak procedures and lessons to really take kids forward in digital citizenship, empathy, conceptual skills, and coding. Of course we will be elsewhere in each 9 weeks journey, but this development is, as I say, inspirational.

The weather over Spring Break, which ends tomorrow night, has been odd, which kept me off my favorite fishing lake, Lake Marrowbone; but that has led to some new organization of curriculum as well as time with my dear son Colin. Today, Saturday, Miranda and Tim are coming over to hang out and have a big vegetable dinner at home with us, then Colin and I will uber downtown to the Mother Church, Ryman Auditorium, to see and hear a favorite indie performer, Kurt Vile, with his band The Violators, opened by The Sadies. It'll be a great time. Tomorrow will be a good day, then I meet my ~200 new students Monday and we are off to new explorations and adventures in the Falcons Tech Lab. I'm good to go.

May you live and learn. Be Good and Have Fun...

New Year

Today is January 6 of the new year 2019.

I have always reluctantly tolerated the long "holiday letters" some folks have shared with me over time. I don't know, the practice just seems somehow narcissistic, creating a journal entry intended to summarize a year of work, play, and family ups and downs. It smacks of the chain letter. On the other hand, I'm not a very good friend--sluggish to reach out and ask how my few true friends are doing, what's happening and why, how can I help and support them. In that other hand, the other side of the coin is also true: I don't share much, really. Perhaps there should be a study of the stages of social media sharing. It might go something like this:

1. Curiosity
2. Lurking
3. Tentativeness  
4. Emboldened
5. Oversharing
6. Embarrassment
7. Withdrawal
8. Abandonment

Okay, I haven't worked my way through 6-8 yet, but I suppose I am working on them or scheduled by the higher powers to experience them, and perhaps they are not stages that play out in a linear fashion, but whose elements swell and recede--like tides, but irregularly.

All that to say, Happy New Year.

How about we get along better this year? Speaking for everyone, we are all tired of the division that defines us and each of us is frustrated by over half of the rest of us holding beliefs we cannot believe they hold. This last presidential election, I (and millions of other Americans) put my hopes and dreams in the hands of the one politician I thought could unite us into the future. Along the way Bernie caved to the mechanics of the political machine(s) and the oligarchs won. Now it's as if a giant hand has effortlessly caught the pendulum of government as it was intended to be--swinging from privileged power to concern for the greater good--and we are caught in the absurd present, potentially never to escape. Can I support this new run for 2020? I'm not sure. That may say a lot (or nothing) about its potential success.

I put my head down, I love my family, I teach my charges, and I pray for good. If I see it trending, I will likely raise up my old gray head and support it as I can.

It's all I can do.

You are welcome. What for? For the weirdest holiday letter you'll receive in 2019.

As you were.

ISTEVENFocus112018Valibrarian

For our November 2018 third Tuesday ISTE Virtual Environments Network Focus Session, we welcomed Valerie Hill, aka Valibrarian Gregg, to the VEN Headquarters for "Digital Citizenship: Sharing Stories through a Community Drum." 

Watch...

Then if you are of a resource-exploration mind, explore...

English Learners and EdTech

In my school, in my computer lab, over 65% of the students are English Language Learners. I struggle with ways to help them. The best results are when I can literally take a knee, point to their computer screens so that they are doing the clicking, and help them one-on-one. That can't always happen, since there are so many more of them in any of my 8 sections every 9 weeks than there are of me. 

One of my classrooms working on computer programming concepts

But help is on the way: An esteemed colleague at McMurray MS shared this information last week with all our teachers. I highly suggest allotting some planning time to explore this wealth of information about EdTech and ELL. If English Learners are in your classes, and they sure are in mine, it will be a help to you! Copying and pasting his email (from Mr. Jason Smith at McMurray Middle School:

FYI: “This toolkit brings suggestions and resources for educators who want to utilize new technology-based resources to help their EL students gain proficiency in English and meet academic goals. The toolkit offers five guiding principles for educators to apply in exploring new ways of working with and supporting EL students through technology. In addition, the toolkit has a companion—The Developer Toolkit which provides guidance for developers on the needs of English learner students and their teachers, tips on supports to include with their products that may be especially useful for English learners and ways they can communicate about their products with districts and educators of English learner students to facilitate adoption.”

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-releases-study-and-accompanying-toolkit-ed-tech-english-learners

https://tech.ed.gov/edtech-english-learner-toolkits/

Enjoy, and comment here if you implement an idea that helps in this prominent area!

I'm a...

Just sayin'. Reviewing a portion of the many "DR,MR, and VR" proposal submissions. That's Digital Reality, Mixed Reality, and Virtual Reality y'all. This will be fun. It always is!

Why Educators Must Teach Discussion

Hi, y'all,

Much better now. I slept upstairs last night for the first time since my bicycle accident. My sleep app, Sleep App, tells me that last night was the first really good night's sleep I've had in over a week, since I installed the pesky (but useful) thing. On the mend.

I actually "slept in" until nearly 7 a.m. this morning, a rarity for me. Once I carefully negotiated the stairs to the living room, I logged into my computer and of course went straight to Facebook, where I visited the ISTE Virtual Environments Network page (subscribe for updates on all things 3D and VR). That led me to our diva Mary Howard's post on medium.com, here:


which I find absolutely fascinating and motivating. Good job, Mary Mary! Somehow, and I am unable to retrace my steps, though I believe it was a recommendation on a sidebar at medium.com, I hit upon Howard Rheingold's fantastic article about student discussion, explicitly hosting them on discussion forums (remember them?) rather than on social media platforms, aka Facebook. Fascinating. Read it. Let it guide you to move into this arena for building students' thinking and communication skills.

Do you find yourself motivated to move toward this in your classrooms? Then go all the way with your time right now. Set aside a half hour or so to read the whole 21 page Edward Gallagher article Rheingold references at the end of his short piece, Teaching Students to Talk to Each Other: Improving the Discussion Board. I PROMISE your time will be well spent. Gallagher's metaphors and instructional design are completely, ineluctably, inspirational and practical! Do it. Do it now!

Unplanned Rest: How I Ended Up in Rehab

So, I know what you are thinking: His love of and indulgence in craft beers and bourbon was bound to lead him there sooner or later. Nope, it was a new re-dedication to exercise that got me to rehab. A parking lot entrance with a high curb, a rental street bike at the wrong angle, and speed, with the addition of a concrete surface and (Newton was right) gravity. All that.

I enjoyed Chicago a lot, and during the week I spent at ISTE2018 I rented bikes from DIvvY and had so much fun with that that I started incorporating the Nashville version of it into my daily exercise plans. On Friday morning I had worked out on the stationary bike at McCabe Community Center, then I rented a bike and tooled around a bit on the greenway path surrounding it and the golf course. Saturday, despite high and humid heat, I went straight for the bike, parking at Charlotte Avenue and 46th Avenue North and riding the greenway from there, passing through and along the Nashville Community College campus and then to Target on White Bridge and back through Sylvan Park after retracing my wheels. Sunday morning I set out from a parking space in front of the community center

to go all the way around the greenway trail, and I did. My bike even sported my alma mater's logo.

Panorama from the bridge at Old White Bridge--as a kid this was the road between West End and Charlotte

I loved this view--see the graffiti under the bridge

It's beautiful back there, but I won't be back there for a while. Here's why: I finished my ride, pushing the heavy bike up that last hill around at the North end of the trail by the golf course, and was about to rack the bike when I looked out Murphy Road. I thought, let's just ride up to my granny's and later my mom's old house and take a close look at it. I drive by it nearly every workday during the school year and this would give me a closer, slowed-down chance to view it. 

Past the round-about, I picked up some speed and decided on a whim to turn into the parking lot in front of the now-defunct Local Taco. I veered in that direction, only too late to realize there was a 2 inch curb at the entrance. I caught that curb at speed at a bad angle, bounce off it and back onto it, and over went my bike. 

I clearly remember thinking I was in trouble, tucking my head into my left shoulder, the higher one, and hitting the curb solidly on my right hip, knee, and elbow. Once I came to a stop I moaned, pulled out from under the bike, and stood up. The pain was incredible, deep, and certain. I shifted weight to my left foot and tried to catch my breath. I was leaning on the bike, looking up eastward Murphy Road, and seeing a slight lady in tee-shirt and shorts hurrying my way with a large leashed dog. She got to me and asked if I were okay. Long story short I gave her my car keys, pointed to my car not 40 yards away, and asked her if she would bring me my car. When she did, I asked one more favor, would she rack the rental bike? She did. "I'm not sure I am okay with you driving," she said. "I'm okay," I replied, the adrenaline clearly in charge. "I'm heading to St. Thomas ER." I muscled myself around the car to the open driver's door and got in. I drove. On the way to ER I phoned Lee Ann, "Don't be mad at me," I started off...

At the hospital I phoned ER from the parking lot. During the drive I realized I was injured more seriously than I had thought. Initial x-rays failed to show the damage, then a Cat-scan did. I had broken my acetabulum, the cup that holds the ball of the femur, that large leg bone that dogs so love to chew on. 

 

As one doctor described it, I slammed so hard on the pavement that the femur acted like a hammer and impacted so hard into the acetabulum that it created two large breaks in it. However, the x-rays showed that it was not "disaligned," which means in short that surgery was not indicated in my case. I would need to stay off of it for some weeks, but no surgery, "probably."

The nature of the injury required I be transferred to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where "they have a trauma unit that deals with this kind of injury all day, all night long." If, as was still possible, surgery was indicated, their doctors did it several times daily. 

Off I went in an ambulance. The driver asked me a number of questions to gauge my awareness in light of several doses of morphine. When he asked, "Who is the President of the United States," I responded, "Do I have to answer that?" He told me he got similar responses every day. I complied, but I did say "Donald J. Drumph," to keep my pledge not to speak or write the evil one's name. #resist 

The nice ambulance attendants rolled me right into ER and they put me on a bed in the nearest room. The clock said 9:50am. I would be in this room until around 11:00pm. While there, I ventured out once for one more session of x-rays, these a much longer set which included new angles; once for a CATscan; and finally to go to a room in the hospital. They attempted around 5:00pm to send me home with drugs and crutches, but I failed so painfully and miserably to walk on the crutches, my hip spasming with any motion no matter that I kept from putting weight on it, that they resorted to plan B--get a room.

In the room, I was told not to eat or drink anything after midnight in case doctors decided to exercise the surgery option the next day. After a mixed night's sleep, I awoke to medications and blood work and spent much of the day waiting. I worked on blogging ISTE18. Around 2:00pm I was informed I could eat: no surgery! The attending team had prescribed immediate rehab, we decided on Stallworth (only blocks away) and an ambulance was ordered. One nurse said that in the 3 years she had worked there she had never seen anyone so fast-tracked out. 

I arrived at 3202B in Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Center around 4pm, and began a series of schedules to get stronger. When a Physical or Occupational Therapist told me to do 20 reps of any exercise, I did at least 25, sometimes 30. When I did a timed session on the tabletop hand-cycle I inserted one-handed sets and sprints. When a tech was called away for some reason and I finished my assigned activity I repeated it or did another one my position would allow. I worked hard. Today, it's my "Independence Day," and I finish this as I am awaiting the discharge papers to return home. Lee Ann has borrowed or bought all that I need to function at our home and you can rest assured that I will keep pushing. I have to be at school by August 3 and teaching in my temporary portable lab by the first of the next week. I'll do it. Thanks to all my friends and family and to literally everyone at each of the three facilities that nursed me through to the path of healing. In all my time this past week there has only been one doctor, nurse, tech, or service person of any sort who seemed any less than completely present and dedicated to caring and helping. I won't point that person out, because everybody has a bad day and who knows what challenges that person was facing that day/night. #kindness #bekind

flag waving, hoping for a new America post-Drumph

4th of July fun (Channel 2, Nashville)

Going ahead and posting and will clean up later. My ride's here. Play this game:

Where's Scotty?