So I just got back from getting almost hit by a bus. No, this is not one of those ‘I saw a guy in front of me almost get hit by a bus and I’m turning it into my own story’ types of things. No. I was almost hit by an 8 ton (that’s my eyeballed estimate) D.A.R.T. bus over lunch. She had a red light, I had a green light - anti-lock brakes engaged as I swerved into an empty oncoming traffic lane to avoid getting wrapped around a light pole by AN 8 TON D.A.R.T. BUS!

I rate the experience 4 out of 5 stars. Let me put that in a graphic for you Amazon.com junkies out there:

Why, you ask, do I rate this experience so highly? Well, after a verbally assertive phone call to D.A.R.T. management (AND after the shaking started to subside) I began to realize two big lessons from the experience. As you may have guessed, I will elaborate on those lessons and try to get you to believe that this life changing experience can have impact on all of us:

Lesson 1, Deep Remorse. Firstly, and foremost, I deeply regret that I recently turned down an option to surgically attach 24/7 audio-video broadcasting onto my head. This event COULD have been brought to you live and quite possibly been commentated on in-the-moment by some unrelated person in Australia. Surely this would have some kind of valuable learning outcome in the Web 2.0 world that we live in. Dammit Froese - An opportunity missed that can never be reclaimed.

Lesson 2, Hyper-Awareness Preparedness through Unexpected Shock (or HAPUS). Probably the most important of the two lessons I learned, it immediately became clear to me how much better we perform after such an engaging situation. We think quicker, stay awake longer and are hyper-aware to the point that we brainstorm out loud better (You should’ve heard the ‘out loud brainstorming’ I did in my truck while I dialed 411 to get D.A.R.T.’s number!!). Folks, this is an easy connection to education: if we want teachers to be ‘on-their-feet-thinkers’, if we want administrators to really focus in on what’s important at a meeting or if we just want a principal to stay awake instead of dozing off at a staff meeting, then let’s catch them when they least expect it with an 8-ton bus!

Now, before you raise your hands in opposition, this can all be done without anyone getting hurt. Sure, the timing would have to be worked out, insurance would be a must and a few bystanders might get hurt in the process - BUT REALLY, we should do what’s best for our kids.

<<This could’ve been me. Except I don’t drive a Hummer, it wasn’t a school bus, it was the bus drivers fault and there were no firemen. But this could’ve been me. I’m not overreacting.>>

Let me be clear - trusting any given teacher to be a professional and make their own decisions in the classroom is a danger that should cause us all to shake in our boots as if George W. Bush were about to be re-elected president. They might open a door for a child that we do not want opened. They may get ‘all creative’ and fall behind the scope and sequence for all we know! They might, just maybe, even forget that there is a high-stakes test looming out there for a day or two… and THAT, my friends, would NOT be good.

How can anyone believe that we should do anything BUT make teachers follow central command more than ever, remove choice from their lives and/or make decisions for themselves???? Preposterous.

Beware. If treated like professionals, the world around you WILL fall apart. Ain’t no ‘lane ends’ about it.

It’s true. Hell froze over and it happened last night. It snowed in Dallas and technically dropped below freezing! So, I shouldn’t REALLY be surprised that my vote actually matters for once in Texas.
I just stood in the longest voting line I have ever had to wait in (primary/general elections) and it was the most diverse line I have ever seen voting. I cast my vote next to a Muslim woman and heard all different classes of people talking about coming back for Caucusing later tonight. It is an amazing time to vote. Standing amidst community members of many ethnicity’s, religions, social classes and beliefs allowed me to feel the most patriotic that I have ever felt in my life. This is what America is. This is what America should be. We were all united towards a common hope, a hope for change and a hope for a better country.

I know it will be different in the general election (and not separate/apparent), but I couldn’t help but chuckle at the empty Republican table, sitting and waiting for customers.

First, i will say that it takes me longer to type on the  XO keyboard than it does on my iPhone’s tiny little touch keypad. Granted, the keyboard is made for little fingers…

Moving on. I am working on my annual reinstall of my laptop and got all excited about dual booting my machine with the Kubuntu flavor of Linux open source OS. I’m the first to admit that I’m not  a full out computer geek and I don’t get ’super duper excited’ about the newest and greatest - BUT, I’ve always been FOR the open source products out there. After attending a session about a district that is using Kubuntu (albeit in small numbers), I started rolling around ideas about how i could do the same for my office work by moving towards online tools like our webmail client for Outlook, Google Docs, etc. After all, Linux installs have gotten much easier over the years so why not take the plunge?

I’m on day two. I have stuff to do. My laptop is down - still. I just wiped it out and am giving Linux the boot. After finally getting my hard drive partitioned right and getting half way through the installation, I got an error - no go - shut down - do it again. It was at that point that i realized, I HAVE to have Outlook up all day for my job. I HAVE to use Internet Explorer for specific applications we have in-district. MSN Messenger is the only chat application we have open to pilot (and what good is a chat client if it isn’t up-and-running on your machine?).

I realized I was defeated, slumped back to tech services and asked for the XP install disk one more time so that I could do a simple, one partition install. At home, this would work (IF I would be willing to give up the ability to do serious video editing). In Africa (where I might be helping to install updated computers), this will work IF there is a solid internet connection. In Irving ISD, it won’t be possible. Even our students are required to have IE for distriuct systems AND for state-wide testing systems (which would make it hard for any texas district to move full-out to open source). I know there are work arounds. I know. But I want realistic solutions. I want developers to push the limits (like Apple has done lately) and come up with ways that I can work online without making my forearms cramp up like they are now. What good are new devices if the usablity stays the same as the old ones? What good is free software if it is problematic and cumbersome?

I’m not happy with Windows - I hate the copy of Vista that is running on my video editing mchine. But XP works. It meets my job requireents for email, messenging and district systems. So, Kubuntu - you get the boot… a single boot to XP only.

I’ll still run Open Office only, but Outlook will have to be installed. With so much of my work being done through a browser, it should have been easier than this… it should have been doable. Guess I’m being forced to stay on the highway with this one.

With that, and with my hands and arms cramped from typing this out on the XO, I’ll finish the post. There are a ton of errors due to the keypad that i’ll have to fix when my laptop is back up and running, and i’m sure as heck not going to go through the cumbersome process of grabbing and embedding link from the XO when i can do it three times faster from my laptop.

And, on a positive note, I’m glad to know that I CAN post to Wordpress from here, that web 2.0 applications do work, and that kids around the world will have the chance to feasibly do the same…

Darren Wilson pointed out how listening to a conversation (to learn a topic) is much more engaging than being fed information. I immediatley brought up RadioLab as the two hosts of the show are always in some form of dialogue about any given topic. However, it isn’t really an inteviewer vs. interviewee type of exchange. No, it is a teacher vs. learner dialogue… one of the hosts is clearly ‘trying’ to understand the topic at hand while the other has done research or interiviewed an expert that answers the learners questioning. THEN, the tables turn - the roles switch when the topic is tweaked and the learner has the greater knowledge and begins to teach his co-host. Finally, interspersed in-between this continual boucing back-and-forth are stories (well told stories!) that support the learning exchange. The stories always have more than one perspective (narrator, additional characters, topic experts) and always have multiple levels of audio (sound effects, music placed at the right times to allow the brain to pause and reflect).

So, now the trick is to figure out how this approach can benefit my online modules - how do I work in:

• Teaching/Learning Dialogue
• Storytelling
• Multi-Layered Audio

And how do I do that in an environment that feels like an online course/online learning module. The thoughts are rolling…

Angela Stevenshas written about our current revisioning of our one to one laptop program in Irving, leading to some nice discussion about what the Academy of Irving ISD will do to take the next steps with community funded bond monies. Additionally, each High School campus has been asked to think about how they can revision their programs to make what we do with students more powerful and more effective.

One High School campus is seriously talking about the option of ditching Microsoft Office and installing only Open Office (open source software) on their laptops next year. This has me wondering if this change could be a rallying point for the campus. ‘We do laptops, and we do them differently.’ I hear a lot of talk about moving to open source, but 2200 students using Open Office may make a big statement.

More than just looking at installing a different software package, plans being discussed include:

• Adding a week of staff development focused on lesson development/technology integration at the beginning of the school year
• Integrating quality one-to-one styled lessons into district curriculum
• Scheduling a class of students that can work on projects to benefit the technology integration at the school
• Developing once-a-week teach sessions that have two components: 1) skills/ step-by-step on how to use something, and 2) idea generation time or thinking about how to use something in context. Teachers could be allowed to choose not only the topic to attend once a six weeks, but also choose whether they wanted the skills or the think piece.

Innovating is not just about doing something new, it is about making a decision to change. This campus is in the initial phases of thinking through that change, and it will require administrator support and a lot of work. But, it is clear what they are going to choose - and that sure ain’t ‘quit’ or ‘complain’. Those two don’t get you very far when the left lane ends.

We’ll see over time if this will work, but my idea is that we can put together a core group of writers from Irving to write about our 1:1 laptop program. A core group means the writing load is not on one person AND readers will get a variety of perspectives about our program. The design is coming along, now it’s time for content.