StigmergicWeb

I was thinking of leaving this post until tomorrow (which can be taken to mean after I go to bed then wake up a few hours later) but I’m still up marking and I desperately need a break from that. It is now a little over an hour and a half since the birthday (41st, if you’re interested in the details of my life) officially ended, so I can now give a complete rundown of the days events:


To start the day off just right, I got the chance to sleep in. Since I have two small children, sleeping in means sometime around 8:30 in the morning. The girl came into the room to let me know it was time to get on and the coffee was on. She knows that I’m a much happier man if the coffee is already made when I shamble out of bed.

After breakfast, the rest of the family left the house to give me two hours of peace and quiet. I had a quick nap then went off to the school to pick up the marking which is currently looming. Back at home I did a bit of paper shuffling to make me think I was getting something done, then noodled around on the computer. Since I couldn’t do the Leopard upgrade like everyone else seems to be doing, I contented myself to installing Sapiens, an uber-cool app launcher for the Mac (and a big shout-out to D’Arcy for twittering about that). I also found out via Dean Shareski on Twitter that Chris Sessums and I have the same birthday. I hope you had a good one, Chris.

The family returned, we had lunch, the boy went for a nap and I went into the office to get some marking done. Well, that was my intention as I went into the office. Proximity to the computer was too much for me to resist, so I ended up writing up my previous blog post about convocation. It needed done anyway, so I feel that it was a worthwhile use of my time.

After the boy awoke, we went to play in the back yard. Since it was my birthday, I was given the choice of supper. My daughter pointed out that I really like pizza. Unable to come up with a better alternative, the pizza was ordered then consumed upon delivery. Birthday greetings were sung and I found out that we are getting a digital video recorder installed as a gift to me.

After that, it settled back to a regularish sort of evening. Once the household duties were done, I started marking math tests which I am still doing (writing this post notwithstanding). I suppose it is time to get back to those math tests so I can sneak in a few hours of sleep before morning.

Next time - the last-ish post.

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I’m not sure what I was expecting for convocation. I had done this twice before - first for a B.Sc. (Specialization - Genetics) then again two years later for a B.Ed. (Secondary Biology). I’m at an age (that’ll wait until next post) at which one doesn’t expect to feel giddy at the prospect of participating in convocation exercises. I was feeling pretty happy about the M.Ed. being done, about the legitimacy of adding M.Ed. at the end of my name when appropriate, and very excited about the increase in pay once I had the degree. If I’d been asked to describe my feelings while on my way to the auditorium I would probably have said I was happy and pleased with my accomplishment.

Then I picked up the robe and hood. It started to feel a little bit like I had just left platform 9 and three quarters on the Hogwarts Express. As the graduands began to wander backstage in preparation for our procession, we donned our robes and were instructed in the proper way to hold the hoods when we walked onto the stage for the convocation. We looked rather scholastic and medieval in our costumes, which I suppose is the desired effect. We were marshalled into place for our procession and led into the front seats of the auditorium. The band was playing, the attendees were all on their feet and we found our way to our seats. Then we stood and waited while the rest of the procession made its way in. Then we stood and waited as the platform party (president, chancellor, college deans and so on) made their way in all wearing their brightly coloured robes. Finally, after singing Oh Canada, we sat.

So we sat, people talked, more people talked, etc. The honourary degree that day was being given to Roy Romanow, who is the former Premier of Saskatchewan (greatest place in the world, in case you didn’t know). Roy is an extremely good public speaker so his speech to the graduands was a welcome alternative to the dry, sleep-inducing speech that usually seems to be part of the required ritual for convocating.

Finally, it was time for the best part. Row by row, we were called up to line up then make our way across the stage to receive the parchment. I know that getting the parchment is purely ceremonial and the important piece of paper is the transcript, but when my row went to line up everyone, at least everyone around me, had silly grins on their faces including me. Most of us receiving M.Ed. degrees were into our teaching careers and you wouldn’t think we would be the types to be subject to giddiness, but there we were smiling, waving at family and waiting to proceed across the stage. More ceremony ensued, including the bestowing of the Ph.D. degrees. I’m not sure if I would ever want to get a Ph.D. because their robes bear more than a passing resemblance to a court jester. On the other hand, they did get to take a seat on the stage after receiving their degrees, which looked kind of cool. More ceremony ensued, then we were dismissed to go find our families and friends. My wife even gave me a frame for the parchment as a grad gift. My first two degrees are sitting somewhere in the boxes in our basement instead of being properly displayed somewhere so it is a much appreciated gift.

So - now I am done getting the degree and looking forward to putting it to good use. Since I didn’t write a thesis for my degree and since I didn’t have the chance to express my gratitude at the convocation for those who helped get me here, I didn’t have any forum for acknowledging those who got me here, so here it goes. I want to thank Len Proctor and Barry Brown for being excellent mentors and for sharing their experience and wisdom with us. I want to especially thank Rick Schwier for prompting me to do some of the best thinking and writing that I have done in my life (so far) and for being a great friend. I want to thank all the other students in my classes - I learned so much from all of you. If you have read this blog while I have been thinking out loud over the past few years, I’d like to thank you for your attention; and if you left comments I need to give you a big thank you for provoking me to think more deeply and critically about my ideas. Finally, and most important, I need to my children and my wife for supporting me while I was working on this - I couldn’t have done it without you.

That felt pretty good. And now, back to marking math exams. Getting the degree is great, but real life is calling!

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It occurred to me earlier that starting today, there are four significant countdowns in my life:

1. Tomorrow (Oct. 26) Apple releases Leopard. I suppose this isn’t really that significant or specifically involve me, but I am looking forward to the updated OS. I think that having automated backups via Time Machine will be the best feature, not that automatic backups are new but it has a bee-yoo-tee-ful Apple wrapper on the whole thing which looks like it will make backing up and restoring easier to manage. Hopefully this will make backups part of all Mac users lives. Backups are important - I have learned that the hard way! I haven’t ordered my copy yet. I’m waiting to see if it crashes Alec’s dual quad core first. A small, petty, evil part of me is kind of hoping it does. ;^)
2. Two days hence (Oct. 27) I convocate from the University of Saskatchewan’s M.Ed. program in Educational Communication and Technology. I’ll probably have more to write about it after the convocation is done.
3. Three days hence (Oct. 28) is my birthday (sound the trumpets and let the pigeons fly). It won’t be a multiple of 10 (or even a mere multiple of 5) so it doesn’t feel especially significant. But it will be a prime number so I will be, once again, entering the prime of my life. As with the convocation, I might have more to blog about at the time. Then again, maybe not. After a certain age it becomes just another day, albeit a day for sleeping in. Also, my report card marks are due in on Monday, so my birthday will include a whole whack of marking.
   
4. Four days hence, this blog is done (mostly). I mentioned before that I needed to rebrand - change the focus or the scope of what I am writing about, so I will be moving shop. I’ll still be writing about ed-tech kinds of things, but that is only going to be part of it. I want to write about so many different things and I feel like I need a new space to do that. I’ll definitely leave a last post here regarding that. This site won’t be completely gone but I’ll have more to say about that in 4 days.

I think I’ll have a lot to say in the next few days. I hope that I’ll also have the time to write it up and share it with you.

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I’ve been mostly neglecting this blog for a while. Sorry about that, but it has been a season of endings, beginnings and renewals.

First - some endings. I suppose the biggest ending has been the conclusion of my M.Ed. I don’t have the official piece of paper in front of me conferring that esteemed title upon me, but I think I can safely say that I have finished the degree (before it finished me). My project - an educator’s guide to using digital audio - started off as an interactive web site, spent a short time as a CD-ROM, then finally ended up as a video on DVD. I was happy with a lot of the process of creation, and I learned a lot about using audio to support learning. As for the final product, I’m extremely unhappy. I’m sure that a big part of that is the hard drive pooched during the editing of the videos. I’m also unhappy because I don’t think I created the right product for my topic.

As I was doing the final re-editing of the video, it occurred to me that I was mostly doing talking heady stuff. I had originally intended to have a lot of instructional, semi-geeky screencasts on things like using GarageBand, but when I thought about who this was designed for - teachers who are interested in some quick info so they can use audio as part of their instruction or as a method for student learning - I realized that the how to approach was all wrong. Teachers do need some this is how you do it instruction, but even more important they need and want an idea of how this tool works pedagogically. So, I re-shot and re-edited with that focus in mind. What didn’t occur to me is that changing the focus of the project should have changed the nature of the final project. The final project could have worked much better as straight audio in the form of a CD or as a podcast or both. Considering the nature of my project, I found this epiphany to be rife with irony. It would be nice to re-visit this as a podcast one day. I found some exemplary educational podcasts that I intended to be used in the final project but ended up on the cutting room floor. If you were one of the people I talked to, I apologize for cutting you from the project. I think it would be very interesting to talk to some edu-podcasters as part of an educational audio podcast series. I’ll put this on the someday/maybe list.

More endings - my final class for the M.Ed. I was intending to take a class in the fall/winter of the coming year, but realized that more than anything I just wanted to be done, a sentiment shared by my wife. There was one class in spring session that caught my attention - EDCMM 478: Still Photography in Education. My interest was partially based on my desire to get the degree done but also based on my long-dormant interest in photography. The biggest reason for being interested in this class was that it would be the last class taught by Barry Brown, one of my mentors and advisors in the EDCMM M.Ed. program. It turned out to be a perfect choice. Photography is one of Barry’s great passions in life, and he got me going on taking pictures again. The class was a lot of work - lots of time in the darkroom for the b/w photography section, and two nights a week of driving to and from Saskatoon - but I feel like I’m a better photographer as a result, and I’m enjoying taking photos more than ever. Thanks, Barry, and I hope the retirement thing works out for you.

A minor ending - I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Wow - when the engine room flooded with radiation and Harry had to go in there to restore warp drive. Oh … wait a second, that was The Wrath of Khan. My bad ;^)

Short review - good book, not the best in the series but it does provide an ending to the series that feels satisfactory to me. A number of unresolved questions get answered in the book, and it does give a proper sense of finality to the overall story arc.

Now some beginnings. At work I’m going to be involved in the design of an online course for my school division’s impending online schooling initiative. I haven’t been involved in the design of a complete online course before so this will give me a chance to work more deeply in the world of online learning. This work is especially interesting and daunting since it is the beginning of a new initiative for the school division.

I’ve also started working on a project with Alec Couros. The project is Alec’s - I’m just along for the ride - so I’m not sure it is up to me to give away any details. I think, if I may be allowed a teaser, that the project has to do with tools that are open, connected and social. This ought to be a blast, and I’m really looking forward to working with Alec.

More beginnings start on Monday (yikes - where did the summer go?) when I head back for another year of teaching, learning and other coolness at NBCHS where I’ll be teaching some fun classes and also working with teachers and students using digital tools for learning. I’ve got a few ideas about what I’d like to do this year, but I’m going to work with teachers on the idea of digital storytelling. I’d also like to hold some digital photography workshops for teachers and students during the year. I’ll give Barry the credit for inspiring me to take on that project.

Finally, the renewals. Most important has been renewal of time spent with the family. My wife has been extremely patient while I was working (and playing) my way through the M.Ed., so I’m planning on spending a lot more time with her along with The Boy and The Girl. The boy’s entire life and over half of the girl’s life have gone by while I’ve been working towards the M.Ed. degree. A greater presence in their lives is long overdue.

I should also be doing a little more blogging, and some more podcasting with the posse. I’ve got a show that was recorded in March that is still in production. I’m hoping next year the production process is a bit faster!

OK - that’s the state of my life as the summer draws to a close and a new school year looms in front of me full of new adventures in learning. If you are in the same situation, I wish you good luck and lots of fun in the coming year. Stay tuned for the details of my continuing learning journey and the meagre thoughts and reflections that pass through my brain.

I’m up for a few days holiday in beautiful Waskesiu located in Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan. I was pleasantly surprised (and my wife was somewhat dismayed) to find free wi-fi at the Patio Cafe in Waskesiu. The bandwidth seems fairly slow (compared to what I’m used to) but hey .. its free! Time to get back to the beach before my family disowns me.

Did I mention that I’m done the M.Ed.? More details to follow.

I am on a temporary media firewall status, having withdrawn from (most) media especially the internet. I am reading through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and I don’t want to unwittingly run into any spoilers. Once I have finished the book, which I am reading in short spurts between various parenting and household responsibilities. Once the book is done, the media firewall will be withdrawn. I may do this again in the future - take a week away from media - as a sort of mental cleansing exercise.

We’re having a lovely blizzard here today in North Battleford:

Time to haul the brass monkeys in!

Actually it’s not too bad of a day as long as one has the good sense to stay inside. Most students are at home today (smart) and most of the teachers made it to school (not so smart, but dedicated). All our essential services - utilities, phone, high-speed internet and Tim Horton’s - are still running, so we will weather out this storm.

Ah - it’s great to be Canadian!

Declan has uttered his first word, and that word is …

Burp

He’s definitely a boy, noted my wife. I’m just waiting for the day he figures out how to burp the entire alphabet, a skill sure to earn the respect of his peers when is 10 years old.

Ah, its good to have another Y-chromosome in the house.

I have a couple of days in Saskatoon this week, and today I did something that has been on my personal to-do list for a while - I saw the film An Inconvenient Truth. (Tangential note - I saw the film at the Broadway Theatre in Saskatoon. If you love films, and you like to see them in movie houses instead of megaplexes at the mall, this is the place to go!) An Inconvenient Truth is essentially a documentary presentation of Al Gore’s slideshow presentation that he has made around the world on the topic of global warming and climate change, along with some biographical bits about Al that provide some background not only about how he came to be concerned about climate change over the past 30 years but also some personal examples of how people can manage to ignore the truth of the consequences of their actions.

There are two levels at which I watched and appreciated the documentary. I suppose the more trite and insignificant level is as a teacher/instructional designer. The movie is, amongst other things, a great commercial for Apple and especially its Keynote presentation software. These are the tools we are shown Al Gore using as he crafts his presentation. As I watched the presentation, I appreciated how well crafted it was - not too much information on any slide, great use of graphics and video - and how well Al Gore delivered it. It brings home the point that a good presentation, like any form of instruction, needs to be carefully crafted, revised and polished over time.

The other level at which I appreciated the film was for its main message about climate change. Gore clearly explains the science and the data. Once this is out on DVD, I will definitely be using it in Science/Biology classes. There may be many skeptics as to the cause of climate change or the effects of carbon dioxide emissions, but I don’t see how any rational human being could see this without realizing the urgency to do something that reduces our carbon dioxide emissions, on a personal, national and global level. Although I’ve taught Biology for many years, and climate change has been a notable topic in my classes, I didn’t realize how quickly the changes may come upon us. The canaries have been dying in this global coal mine all over the place, and too many people with power are urging to keep digging.

If you haven’t seen this film, see it. If you have seen this film, see it again and take a climate change skeptic with you. You can find out where it is currently playing on the documentary’s web site. I note with some ironic amusement that it is currently showing in Calgary, home of the Canadian oil industry and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s constituency. I wonder if he’s planning to see it?

In addition to the new Mac, I had another major occurence in my life this weekend. While I was working alone at the school on Sunday afternoon, I had a grand mal (tonic-clonic) seizure. This was my fourth seizure in my life, but the first in 8 years.

I’m going to be recording some of my experiences and thoughts about this journey on a new blog called Brainstorms. Its probably where I’m going to be putting most of my on-line efforts for the next while, so this site will be a bit on the dormant side for a little while until I figure out where I’m going.