Lucky Pilgrim

Metro Foodie Tajnik

2013-11-16T15:13:00.000-08:00

What's a Tajnik you ask? It is Polish for a secret hiding place. However, V & M Polish Kitchen on 13 Mile Road in Royal Oak should not be a secret. It should be on every food lover's frequent flyer route. It is especially great for comfort dinners and breakfast.

I am not a food writer in general. Though I love to eat, this blog isn't really about food but it is about the things that I appreciate and notice in life and V and M restaurant is one of them. Unfortunately, it is also often nearly empty. I do not want to see it go away.

All the food is homemade by a woman who looks like the quintessential Polish Granny. We often stop in to buy her pierogi to take home and parcel out as if they were golden truffles....only better. They come with your choice of four fillings; bacon and potato, sauerkraut, farmer's cheese, and cheese and spinach. They are all worthy endeavors.

I highly recommend the Polish Omelette for breakfast. It comes with smoked kielbasa, sauerkraut and swiss cheese, a delightfully decadent combination that is so gosh-darn good my mouth waters every time I drive past the place. For dinner you simply must try the combo so that you get all the delicious things I already mentioned, smoke kielbasa, sauerkraut, perogi along with a luscious, tasty stuffed cabbage.

I've been told the true test of Polish cooking is the pickle soup. V & M's pickle soup is a deep, tangy salty balanced perfection. The wait staff is incredibly attentive and friendly. Basically, the restaurant makes you feel right at home. I highly recommend it on a cold winter's night, if not before.

Forgiveness

2013-07-29T09:38:00.001-07:00

Forgiveness, a set on Flickr.

“When the time comes to you at which you will be forced at last to utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you'll not talk about the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”
― C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

We went to GilChrist with intention. Burn our journals. Forgive our past. We knew the pipeline construction would be in full swing but deliberately went anyway.

We did the work we came to do. The ceremony was easy. Bearing witness...awful. You can see some of the wreckage in the pictures but photos seldom do justice to the enormity of any landscape and these are no different.

I should have recorded the sounds. There were two that still haunt. A hawk that circled and cried out over and over again. The screams were somewhere between outrage and heartbreak. That was my interpretation anyway. Hawks seldom announce their presence. It kind of defeats their purpose. The other was heard on and off all day Friday and Saturday. The breaking of trees. Cracking them off at their roots. It seemed more violent than if they took a chainsaw or ax to them. Instead they bulldozed them. Most splintered as they fell. At the end of each day they burned the stumps and left over, unusable pieces in immense, smoky fires. Up and down the corridor. It was sort of like the burning of Fangorn Forest in Lord of the Rings, except more open, more machinery, no evil wizards. Humans, not Orcs.

The sky was full of dark, heavy clouds, for the most part. The weather turned cold. Coincidence? I think not.

But it wasn't all gloomy. The bees still went about their business. The sun broke through on occasion. The journals burned. All my reckoning and bad poetry. It felt, not good, but somehow right. They were 30 years of repeating myself to myself.

It is easy to be mad at the men who carry out this task. But, I must own my place in it. I drove to GilChrist. A Chevy Malibu. 30 miles to the gallon at best. We left flowers on their trucks. It was a peace offering but also a hope that we, and they, can be conscious of the price of convenience. I know the earth will forgive. Me?... I'm working on it.

Summer Learning, Sunshine, and Theta

2013-06-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

Photo by Megan Black

Summer Learning Loss? Hogwash, I say. Bananas. Balderdash. As if learning something different isn't learning. There are a million ways to grow your brain in the summer, none of which has to do with memorizing math facts. Not that I am against math fact memorization. I'm old school when it comes to some things and that is one of them. Unless of course you try and try and it just doesn't happen for you and then I say, no sense spitting into the wind. Use a calculator.

We all need a rest. We need to get bored. Remember that? It was when I actually slowed down enough in summer as a kid that I discovered what I really liked to do. And, I noticed things I never noticed in my hustle and bustle. As an adult, one of the benefits of being a teacher is that I get this same opportunity every year. It isn't that I stop learning. Au Contraire. I prefer to believe that my mind works differently. Deeper. More creatively.

Energy Psychology, one of the interests I plan to investigate this summer, says that when our brains are in Theta state there is a free flow of learning that not only enters our brains but flows right into our nervous system all the way down to our cells and DNA. Theta is the primary brainwave pattern when we are born until we are nearly 6 or 7. It is the pattern of immersive play. After the age of reason, so to speak, we only enter Theta phase just before sleep, just upon waking, in deep hypnosis, or deep meditation. I hope to spend a lot of time in Theta and sunshine for the next several weeks.

When visiting the alpha or beta states I may attend one of these Professional Developments. Maybe you might wish to as well.

Edutopia Virtual Workshops
Brainpop Webinars
Discovery Education Network Webinars

If you are a Michigan Educator please check out Learnport's offerings. Some of the folks I admire the most are hosting classes with Michigan's Virtual Learning in conjunction with Learnport.

Summer is a great time to plan, practice, and play with technology integration. In fact, a couple years ago my Specials teammates and I made a cheesy, but fun, silent movie that demonstrates training and planning are the meat and potatoes of successful integration. The brief but hopefully entertaining, silent film is embedded below for your enjoyment with apologies to Chaplin and du Fresnay.

In the meantime....

The Teacher will be able to:

Sleep late
Lay down in the soft grass and watch the clouds roll by
Grow tomatoes
Put your feet in a cool stream
Read
Watch the doings at a pond
Climb a tree
Listen to the birds
Breathe
Notice
Appreciate

Good to Great with Technology from Megan Black on Vimeo.

Splits Baratta: Adaptive Tech and the Maker's Movement

2013-05-30T08:13:00.000-07:00

Contrary to what you may be thinking, Splits Baratta is not an Atlantic City show girl. She is a special needs duckling. Hatched just this Memorial Day, Splits is a champion for the Maker's Movement. She was born with a duck form of hip dysplasia. Hence the name. Other duckling Moms may have given up on Splits but not Angeline Baratta and her duckling mom mentor Beth Ahee. Beth suggested Ang move Splits in with the healthier ducklings when Splits and her sibling, affectionately known as Tumor, were languishing in the incubator. Splits went to Ang. Tumor to Beth. Both were welcomed into their brood. Tumor began to thrive within hours. So much so he was renamed Butterball. Splits made her way to the food dish where she spread out and stayed, making her none too popular.

Cut to Rosemary Barker, the Grosse Pointe Academy's consistently cheerful, ever determined, school nurse. She looked into the duck defect and discovered that it can be corrected with physical therapy. It was suggested that the duckling's legs be taped together. Splits was not at all happy with this arrangement. (Her outrage was adorable though.) So, Rosemary tenasciously tried a number of different everyday objects to force Splits' legs together including a tiny condiment cup and a toilet paper roll. This combo seemed to do the trick. When Splits is in the cup she can move her little winglets to balance and stand. When she is in the toilet paper roll she is calmer but it holds her legs in place. After just a couple of sessions, Splits was walking more normally. We are confident after a few days of physical therapy she has a fighting chance at a quacking good life. (Sorry. I couldn't resist.)

The maker's movement is founded on playful inquiry. Rosemary's quest was born of necessity. This makes a powerful combination. Jay Silver, wearer of merry pants and inventor of Makey Makey, An Invention Kit for Everyone talks about all the uses of his whimsical kit in his fascinating TED Talk: Hack a Banana. Jay shares the story of a father who used his kit to make computers more accessible for his child with Cerebral Palsy. Depending on the nature of the spasticity, many people with CP are limited to a single switch for communication with a computer. This resourceful Dad put the Makey Makey Kit into a glove and used Conductive Paint to create a circuit along the thumb and first finger. Viola! His child now has multiple entry options. The Makey Makey Kit along with Conductive Paint opens adaptive technologies to a whole universe of possibilities.

We will have an Innovation and Design Center at GPA next year, filled with fun things like Makey Makey, Conductive Paint, A MakerBot 3D Printer, and littleBits . I can't wait to see what they invent!

MaKey MaKey - An Invention Kit for Everyone from jay silver on Vimeo.

What is littleBits? from littleBits on Vimeo.

Ayah Bdeir is the inventor of littleBits. She is also the wearer of some cool and funky boots.

The World is Watching: a Guide to Citizenship in the Digital Age

2013-05-22T11:57:00.000-07:00

simplebooklet.com

Interesting Ways to Use Aurasma-Augmented

2013-05-17T13:04:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I attended EdCampDetroit . This is a free and righteous gathering of dedicated teachers coming together to learn from each other. On the first beautiful Saturday after a long Michigan winter no less. While there, I attended an App Smackdown and learned from Erin Klein of Kleinspiration about Aurasma. Scratch that. I really learned about Aurasma from the Ted Talk, Image Recognition that Triggers Augmented Reality given by the inventors last year but I had a lack of imagination of ways I could use it in the classroom. What Erin did was share with us ways she uses Aurasma in her second grade class which I will write more about after I explain what it does for those who may not know.

Aurasma is an Augmented Reality App. If you are unfamiliar with Augmented Reality I cannot describe it better than Commoncraft. Check out their entertaining and informative video on the subject here. Augmented Reality in Plain English

It helps to have an understanding of the vocabulary involved in using this App. So here are the basics:

Triggers are the static images (reality) that the video or photo content shows through (augmentation)
Overlays are the photo and video content (Augmentation) that lays over and plays through the static image trigger
Auras are the completed combo of triggers and overlays.

At least that is my understanding at this point.

Erin told us she uses Aurasma to teach vocabulary, tapping into kid's natural love of hamming it up. The kids create a vocabulary card with a drawing as the trigger. Then they get a classmate to video tape them acting out the word as the overlay. Once the aura is created by matching the overlay to the trigger, from then out when a student holds an iPad or iPhone on the Aurasma app up to that trigger they see the wee thespian's video.

Ms. Klein also used Aurasma on Back to School Night to have students introduce themselves and the classroom through their "About Me" pictures. This got me hepped up and thinking. I thought of Tom Barrett's Interesting Ways Series. Tom set up and published for collaboration, Google Presentations of various web 2.0 tools and how they can be employed for learning. The way it works is various teachers simply add a slide to the presentation creating a community garden of useful ideas. I wondered if anyone is doing that for Apps. A quick Google Search seemed to confirm that for this app at least no one has done it. My apologies if someone has. However, I decided to put it out there and collect your great ideas in one spot. If you would like to add to the Interesting Ways to Use Aurasma in the Classroom Presentation, please do so.

I have embedded below my How to Aurasma Presentation that I put together to help my teachers feel more comfortable with using it and creating their own Auras.

Merit Pay....Really?

2013-05-07T12:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/93193895@N00/3435269871
Steve Wampler Photography

Do you know of anyone who went into teaching for the money? Don't get me wrong, I am all for paying us more but most teachers are not motivated by cash. In fact, according to the research people in general are inspired by things other than money. Daniel Pink says what really drives us is autonomy. I would like to add to that recognition, relevance, and appreciation. Even though most educators I know would take a bullet for their kids, they are not martyrs. Pleasers? Possibly. Suckers? Absolutely. Gratitude gluttons? Come on, who isn't?

Nine out of ten teachers surveyed say they went into teaching to make a difference, one child at a time.

Photo by: Megan Black

So when the powers that be talk of education reform and motivating teachers why not use reason and listen to the research. If you want to see us perform better give us the support we need. Motivate us with merit autonomy. Give us the "Google Twenty Percent Time" during the school day or week. (More things to do at home on our sofa do not count.) Most of us would happily chew gravel to have a week, free from the burdens of standardized testing, meetings, and curriculum mandates. Where we could decide how best spend our time or improve our instructional ideas.

If you really want to rock our world, give us 3-5 days a school year to select our own professional developments and send us to them. Gratis. With a seasoned substitute at the helm in our absence.

Merit Massages would be nice too. A brief thank you note will turn a teacher's day around. Coffee... Chocolate... Scotch...

Fabulous Five Free Apps for STEM

2013-05-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

STEM...STEAM...Potato...Potato... Whatever the acronym, education in the US these days is focused on improving learning in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths. Wise educators recognize that the Arts are a critical component of this process. How can we build if we can't design? How can we design if we can't imagine?

There are many great STEM resources out there on the iPad. Personally, I am a bargain fan though so I am highlighting free resources. You don't get any better than free.

The first three are all created by Autodesk. I believe they must see these apps as an investment in their future employees because not only did they create engaging and visually stunning apps that really make your brain hurt and give them away, but they also provide free training for educators on their STEM website.

AutoDesk Digital STEAM Applied Mechanics teaches basic mechanical engineering principles through games in these five topics: Energy and Work, Forces, Loading, Power, and Mechanisms. Players learn these principals by playing games that apply them. I learned that my understanding of forces and loading are far superior to those of Power, Mechanisms, and Energy and Work. I tried playing each of the latter three games several times and each time I lasted less than seven seconds before the game was over and I lost.

Digital STEAM Measurement is an app where even the tutorial is pretty nifty. You click your way through each of the measurement topics and get a brief, entirely visual introduction to the various forms of measurement. Topics covered include: Linear Measurement, Perimeter, Area, Volume, Angular Measurement, Proportion, Weight, Liquid Volume, Temperature, Mulitple Variables, BTU, and Power. It looks wicked, awesome cool too!

Digital STEAM Visual Design teaches the language and basics of design. Players can wade to their knees in 3D design as well. The Elements explored are: Space, Point, Line, Shape, Form, Value, Texture, and Color. Principals covered are Balance, Emphasis, Rhythm, Unity, Proportion, Contrast, Continuation, and Economy.

DIY Nano HD helps students investigate the nanoscale through DIY projects. What is the nanoscale you ask?! (Insert maniacal, cartoon-villain laughter.. Moo haw haw..) Why the nanoscale is the scale of atoms and molecules...of course! DIY Nano has three main elements: Activities, Videos, and WhatIsNano.org. The activities are fun, well explained and organized, and are simple to do with most materials easily and inexpensively acquired.

NatureTap fuels the bio science lover's needs. It comes with a grid of various birds from all walks of life. You can see stellar photos of them and listen to their calls while reading an Audobon-esque description. Then you can test your new knowledge by playing games and completing puzzles. With a free registration you can also get the Spiders and Insects grid. For $0.99 you can learn more about mammals, reptiles & amphibians, and wildflowers with more areas slated for development.

The Beauty in Diversity

2013-04-28T14:41:00.000-07:00

I've been extra busy lately pulling together a media show for a charity my Dad works for called the Race Relations and Diversity Task Force. Every year the RRDTF puts on a breakfast honoring diversity champions. These champions are people in their organizations (schools, businesses, non-profits) that work tirelessly to bridge the distances between us. I can't share with you the entire program I put together, but below are the quotes and pictures I assembled. Enjoy.

Girl EmPower, Not Just for Chicks

2013-04-22T11:04:00.000-07:00

Girl emPower

I must be wearing my lucky pants today because I am in the right place at the right time. Everyday I get to work with incredibly cool people, one of which is my colleague Denise Phelps. Denise is one of those teachers that kids remember for the rest of their lives as someone who made them feel heard and seen and who made them realize their power and worth. She must have done the same for her daughter Laura Phelps because she and her partner Andrew Cavanagh just won the Presidents' Equal Futures Challenge Notable App for Girl emPower . The app is designed to help inspire civic leadership in girls. Perhaps an unintended bonus outcome you get from using the app is the realization that inequality in government is still appallingly present! (For Example, there are 435 seats in congress yet women only occupy 81 of them. There are 100 senators and yet only 18 are female.)

But let's focus on the positive and this very righteous app, shall we? What does Girl emPower feature? Well, your journey starts with a map of the US. You can hone in on women representatives from various states and read their bios, find out about the issues that inspire them, and read their recent Tweets.

You can easily locate and contact your own representatives by inputting your zip code into the connect section.

The Watch tab of Girl emPower connects you to the recent US government You Tube uploads on the latest hot button issues. At this writing there are press conferences on the Boston Marathon Bombings and Gun Violence featured into Girl emPower's feed.

The Learn section will show you How a Bill Becomes a Law through a nifty, interactive, graphic organizer. Girl emPower gives you Fun Facts about the government and how it works in a flip book. IMHO, the best part of the whole shooting match is the In Their Own Words section. Laura and Andrew curated oodles of video clips of phenomenal femmes talking about what it means to be a woman leader and why it is crucial we work toward equal representation.

The last stop on Girl emPower lets you quiz yourself on what you learned about the US Government.

I am going to throw down a challenge here and ask parents and educators not only of girls but of boys as well to have them explore Girl emPower. Until our young men learn to admire strong, female heroes and role models, there will be no lasting equality.

Watch below as The Man himself, President Barack Obama announces this noble, brave, and free app.

Build Books Like A Boss

2013-04-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

One of my esteemed colleagues sent me on a quest recently to find an iPad Book Creation App that will allow no limits on uploads, embed video and audio files, and generate and share QR Codes. We also thought it would be handy if the App could integrate with Google Docs. No small task right? Turns out there is just such an iPad app called Creative Book Builder. I learned all about it from Jeremy Brueck on his excellent blog Raised Digital. So, as with all quests I came home with more treasure than anticipated. Not only did I learn of a better book creation app than the one I previously recommended but I can now follow a terrific new blog. Win. Win.

You can use Creative Book Builder in a variety of ways in the educational setting. Obviously you can create your own textbooks and stories. It offers a simple way to assemble professional looking student portfolios. Because of the easy integration of Google Docs classes can work on collaborative projects and publish their findings as a whole. There are other book building apps out there but I know of no other app that does all the things that Creative Book Builder does. It also exports to a variety of sources to make sharing simple and easy.

3D Sweet

2013-04-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo by Oliver Quinlan:
http://flickr.com/photos/oliverquinlan/7837768262/

Want to hold in your hands the visions you see in your head? 3D Printers let you do just that...after a very, very long time. Magic happens but 3D printers require the patience of trees.

My favorite part of Ironman is when Tony Stark is in his lab bossing around robots and manipulating objects he invents in mid air. I want my own form of Jarvis. A 3D printer is a step toward realizing that fantasy.

This summer I plan to attend a class to learn how build my own 3D printer along with a colleague at Michigan Tech. Here's the skinny on that. 3ders.org Maybe your school can afford a 3D printer. More likely they can't. However, that doesn't mean you can't design 3D objects and see them.

Here are good resources for 3D printing:

The 3D Printer Experience This site is home to many different kinds and sizes of 3D printers. It has design tutorials on the site. You can scan and print a 3D version of your head using your cell phone camera. They have a design app as well.

AutoDesk 123D Printing Services will let students design models with online tools by dragging pieces together. Their models can then be sent to 123D Make and printed. Students can construct their models without a 3D printer.

cc licensed ( BY ND ) flickr photo by Detlef Schobert:
http://flickr.com/photos/detlefschobert/2508157192/

Mission Street Manufacturing is focused on making 3D printing more affordable and accessible for all.

The Following are sites focused on design for 3D printing. They are pretty nifty:

Shapeways

Sculpteo

Makerbot Thingverse

Freedom of Creation

Ponoko

Mural.ly Visual Awesomeness

2013-04-08T09:56:00.000-07:00

There is a new service out there called Mural.ly. It is sort of like Padlet (formerlyWallwisher) meets Pinterest. If you are one of those visual thinkers who likes to organize and sort with pictures rather than word lists, this is a tool for you. Before all the snazzy gadgets, I was the kind of geek that would post ideas and important papers on cork boards and move them around. I also like to brainstorm ala Dr. House on white board. Mural.ly allows you to do this digitally. What is better is that you can invite others and work on boards collaboratively yet keep those collaborators and your work exclusive and secret until you are ready to share with the world.

Mural.ly not only allows you to post websites, videos, pictures, and published content, you can also import your cloud services like Google Drive and at that to the mix. This makes Mural.ly a natural tool for schools. Once you create a board you can then turn it into a presentation! Voila!

This is a screenshot from a Mural. ly I am putting together to build our STEM/STEAM curriculum here at GPA. You can see the toolbar on the left and the navigation tool on the right. Below the picture is a short introductory video with a sexy voice over.

Join the Moby Fan Club

2013-04-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

In the title of this post I refer to the orange robot, not the singer songwriter or the great white whale. Moby the singer is cool too but this is about one of the oldest and best technology integration resources in education, BrainPOP. Surely you already know what BrainPOP is but did you know you can become a BrainPop Educator? I would like to encourage you to sign up if you haven't already. It is free even if your district or school does not belong to BrainPOP. One of the reasons BrainPop has remained current and relevant is that it listens to teachers and constantly evolves.

For those folks not in the know BrainPOP and its babies, BrainPOP Jr. (For Grades K-3) and BrainPOP ESL, are standards aligned, entertaining, informational videos on most important topics in the K-12 curriculum. The videos are brief, to the point, and use an Abbott and Costello format with Tim (a sharp young man) explaining things to Moby (a silly and none too bright robot.) They usually start with a question in a fan letter and end with some kind of a joke. Each video has follow up quizzes that can be taken in a variety of ways. There are additional fun features like comics, experiments with Bob the Lab Rat and more. Last year, BrainPop added Game Up. They partnered with some of the best educational game sites on the Internet, like the Jason Learning, to align game based learning with their videos and quizzes.

So why become a BrainPop Educator? Because every month they will email you their newest offerings. They offer free professional development webinars. You have access to free standards based, core curriculum aligned lesson plans. A recent feature added is the Make a Quiz Generator. You get badges and embed codes for your classroom website. They have graphic organizers, activity pages, and Interactive White Board resources for you to use as well. It is a Las Vegas Style learning buffet.

The latest offering from BrainPop is a video on Ethics. It clearly explains what ethics are and why they aren't always so clear. BrainPop Jr. features a terrific video on Chief Joseph. Every month BrainPop has a theme and most relate to your well known classroom themes. April has Earth Day and on BrainPop it is Earth Awareness month. Throughout the month they will highlight the videos that relate to this theme and offer some for free on a rotating basis.

Photo Credit: "http://www.flickr.com/photos/30571774@N02/2864825391/

Finally, if do not have access to a subscription to BrainPop and you would like one, BrainPOP posts funding sources and research they proves its success in the Educator's section. Either you can fund your own classroom or you will have an aresonal of research driven data to present to your administrators to show them what a valuable asset BrainPOP is to any school.

The Nerd Herd and Tattle Box Tales

2013-04-02T09:55:00.000-07:00

The Nerd Herd at Cobo by Megan Black

Kevin Honeycutt kicked off the MACUL 2013 conference by challenging all of us to tell our story. He said, "We (educators) are dying of humble. We are so busy helping kids that we don't feel we have time to tell our story. Other people are doing it for us and they are getting it wrong." Telling our story, promoting the work we do, was reiterated time and again at nearly every presentation I attended. All three of the keynotes at #MACUL13; Kevin Honeycutt, Adam Bellow, and Steve Dembo were on point, inspirational, funny, and poignant. All tell a great tale. My gratitude for having sat in their presence among like minded/hearted others is immense.

Gwyneth Jones, The Daring Librarian, calls us, affectionately, the nerd herd. Incidentally, she championed story telling as well. However her focus, at least in the presentation I saw, was on telling the story of libraries and librarians. She challenged book lovers, in this age of budgetary cuts, to unite under one banner and promote the importance of having a trained expert on staff dedicated to the modeling and teaching of all forms of literacy.

My spot is in the school library. I call it my spot and not my desk or office because it is simply a chair and a couple of drawers at a lovely platform in an expansive room of beauty and community scholarship. I am not the librarian. Nor could I hold a candle to the generous, mighty woman that runs the library at Grosse Pointe Academy. Jane is indeed humble. I am not sure others notice the careful thought and quiet passion she puts into her work. She reads. She organizes. She listens. She has the uncanny ability to match the right book to the right kid. To my great fortune, Jane is rooted and wise. Not sure how I could have managed this year without her to talk me out of a tree or two. I love to listen to her read and it is clear the kids do too. But I digress.

Personally, I'm more at home in the hype girl position, telling the story of others, giving my students the credit. Likewise are most educators. Teachers will not sit, or use the bathroom, or drink water so that they can go without using the bathroom. They will survive on stolen nibbles from recycled snack bags so that they can return messages or xerox or laminate during the 20 minutes allotted for lunch. Non-Believers think school personnel only work from 8-3 and get the summers off. No, from 8 to 3 is the time most adults who work schools deny every bodily function in order to serve. The rest of the waking day is spent planning, reflecting, problem solving, grading, and holding the ginormous weight of the responsibility of every child in their care. And when a student of theirs accomplishes a great task or is recognized for their growth and character, most of the educators I know will deflect or deny their own contribution and shine the light right back on the student and their parents. That's the way they roll.

So, while I don't feel comfortable sharing my successes, I promise to work on that, in the meantime, I love a humorous anecdote. The Tattle Box was a classroom management strategy I put into place to keep my sanity. It paid off in unexpected ways. The purpose was to let kids state their truth but also make certain it was important before I took time out of the rest of the learning to address it. They wrote down their beef and I dutifully read them at the end of each day. The hidden treasure was this, kids are hysterical. These are a few that earned me a free adult beverage in the past. The names have been changed and the spelling upgraded to protect the innocent.

"Hector burped in my face. And it smelled…..And he laughed."

"Amber S keeps using the word marvelous over and over again even though it is really annoying and she calls me Señor Smarty Pants and I DO NOT LIKE THAT ONE TINY BIT." (Yes, that's right, all capitals and each word was underlined.) By the way, Amber S (not her real name) racked up a whopping 412 tattles that year. She still holds the record. She was a fantastically talented button pusher.

This next one was sweet. "QuVon called you white, Ms. Black!!!!! (I am) But I told him you jus' light skinned." (I can't tell you how honored this made me feel.)

And my personal favorite of all time tattle must have taken place in the boys bathroom. It went like this, "Miguel and Oscar peed on our shoes. On purpose. They were holding their privates like pistols and told us to pick up our feet and dance." Ah...I miss the Tattle Box.

This is a link to Kevin's Keynote Address at MACUL. It cannot be embedded but you can stream it and it is well wroth the time. It is titled "Launch Me" and it is just the rocket fuel you need to get through to Summer. (Currently the video is not playing but there is a work order in to fix it. Try book marking it and coming back later. I promise it is worth it.) http://www.mistreamnet.com/vidflv.php?who=macul2013.openkeynote.032113

MagsblackDetroit's photostream

2013-03-29T17:48:00.001-07:00

MagsblackDetroit's photostream on Flickr.

Wade through the first dozen and you will be rewarded. At least I hope so.

SOLE and the Granny Cloud

2013-03-06T10:53:00.000-08:00

cc licensed ( BY ND ) flickr photo by LeonArts.at:
http://flickr.com/photos/leo-gruebler/6330296212/

Recently a revisit to Sugata Mitra's brillant TED Talk "Sugata Mitra Shows How Kids Teach Themselves" has been published. This one is titled "Build a School in the Cloud." Both talks are not only worth while, but funny, insightful, and thought provoking. Mr. Mitra invented SOLE which stands for Self Organized Learning Environments . It is this movement that earned Sugata Mitra the Ted Prize given each year to an "Exceptional individual who wishes to inspire the world."

Sugata discovered that if he simply put a computer in a hole in the wall in some of the worst slums of India, children would find a way to use it and learn from it. He also discovered that they did not keep this information to themselves, they taught it to others. Ten to twelve year olds learned microbiology in a second language as well as experts many years their senior with only two ingredients; technology and encouragement. Not enough can be said about the later.

Sugata had the theory that the students would improve even more if they had some one who encouraged them in the way a "Granny" does. Please do not mistake this for false praise. Grannies say things like, "You can do it, just try a little harder." Or, "Remember what you did here, well take that and apply it over here." Or more importantly, "Don't be afraid to fail. Nothing great ever happened without mistakes or messes."

The Granny Cloud invented by Sugata consists of British Grandmothers volunteering their time via Skype to read to and encourage learners in remote areas of India. These students are not only developing their academics, they have acquired Cornish accents and a greater sense of self.

After watching Sugata's first talk a few years ago, I experimented in my own relationships with my middle school students in Detroit. Many of my kids rarely received any kind of encouragement. For some I had to earn their trust that I was genuine. It took time and consistent effort. Some never stopped teasing me and started calling me "Granny" even though I never told them the impetus of my ways. However, universally they ate it up faster than Cheetos or candy. And once I had them hooked, they never wanted to disappoint. I realized I had a killer motivating force in my tool belt. So, why don't you try a little Granny love yourself? Come on, I know you have greatness in you! Think of the hearts and minds you can change for the better. Go on now...

A Geek's Paradise

2013-02-26T10:53:00.000-08:00

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo by coschda:
http://flickr.com/photos/coschda/4359939963/

The message is loud and clear. All you have to do is see how emotionally handcuffed some students beyond the age of eight are when they are asked to solve a problem, invent, explore, or create. They have become so adept at following directions and being guided they fall apart when given the opportunity to make their own decisions. And I am sure you will agree, dear reader, that this is not good for anybody.

STEM is the new buzz word. Education is crazy about acronyms and our own secret jargon. We have had our personal version of texting for ages. In order to clue in those out of the club, STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. These are areas where for years Americans have been slipping in the global stats. Personally, I am more fond of STEAM which includes Arts into the mix. After all, Einstein himself said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." And I believe a dearth of time playing and creating is more to blame for the data than a lack of instruction in these areas.

Nevertheless, we certainly need to change what we are doing to develop minds in these areas. More than ever real world challenges and problem solving can be tackled and utilized as a learning opportunity at younger and younger ages. In order to facilitate this at Grosse Pointe Academy I created a Symbaloo ( a sweet, visual matrix of web links) to carefully researched sites for STEM. I called it A Geek's Paradise because this New Dork happily spent hours exploring these resources. The links toward the top are for younger students and progress in age and ability as you descend. Enjoy!

Old School Meets New School

2013-02-25T06:48:00.000-08:00

By Megan Black

I love pens and paper. Always have. I collect journals and notebooks. Never feared, only craved the blank page. Another thing, I am a doodler. It helps me listen. This is why I was gladend to hear Sunni Brown's TED Talk stating that research shows that doodling improves our comprehension and creativity. If you are like me, having a stylus and the Penultimate App would greatly improve your iPad experience. Penultimate used to be .99 cents but now it is free. It integrates and syncs sweetly with Evernote. You get virtual moleskin notebooks and can select grids, lines, or blank pages. You can change colors and widths of the pens you use.

Here are screenshots of a doodle and note book pages taken in Penultimate.

I want to wholeheartedly recommend Penultimate as a wonderful old school meets new school way of learning and keeping notes. It also saves trees while you get your doodle on.

What is on our Student iPads?

2013-02-21T06:54:00.000-08:00

Below are interactive images created using ThingLink, a free web 2.0 tool. With ThingLink you can upload images or pull them from photo sharing sites or the Internet and insert tags into them. The tags can contain links and text descriptions.

These ThingLink images were created of screenshots of the iPad App pages on our student iPads that we share. Hat tip to Jeanette Stepanek for the inspiration. Jeanette was asking if there was anyway I could help her preview what apps are on the iPads so she can better plan for her upcoming lessons. While I provided lists earlier in the year, as time progressed the list evolved. Plus, it is far easier to remember images that reflect the actual device than text based lists.

On the images below, scroll over them and you can link to the app in iTunes as well as preview a brief description of what that app does.

A word to the warning for GPA faculty; although these are the apps on all the student iPads on the carts for Grades 1-8, they may not appear in that order or on those same pages on the different iPads. You will need to teach the students to search for the app icon you want them to use.

Helpful Posters with iPads

2013-02-20T10:42:00.000-08:00

I recently created the top two posters to address two issues we have at my school where we share iPads on Carts. Others are welcome to use or reuse as necessary. Special thanks to teachers Veronica Alatorre and Claudia Leslie for the idea.

By Megan Black

This is how to add an email to shared iPads on a cart and more importantly how to delete the account before returning it to be used again.

By Megan Black

I also included this iPad Tips Poster by Simon Haughton.

Please visit his blog to download a copy. He generously shares it.

http://www.simonhaughton.co.uk/2012/10/ipad-tips-poster.html

Will the Real Change Agent Please Step Forward?

2013-02-11T08:21:00.000-08:00

Photo by Megan Black

The deeper I get into this year of evolution at The Grosse Pointe Academy the more convinced I am that my real purpose has little to do with technology. Technology is simply the modus operandi. The instrument. The widener of possibilities.

Gadgets are glitz. Gizmos are glamour. I'll admit I'm dazzled. But in order for this relationship to last there had better be meaty conversation. Shared values. Mischief and giggles.

We should stop putting forth that the focus of 21st century education is embracing technology. We should however, consistently remind ourselves that teachers are humans who fell in love with learning. We heard its whispered promises in the dark and followed it to whatever end. Trusting ourselves as learners and lovers of language and ideas. Finding the inner courage, determination, and humility to mess up, over and over again. To seek. And wonder. And mull.

The magic and the metal behind excellent teaching is when you take whatever is available to you and use it to craft your story. Or share your students' stories. Or listen to the stories of other souls in foreign lands and hold them as your own.

And so this is where the tech becomes a bonus. Because technology makes creating, communicating, and collaborating so darn accessible.

I believe my mission lies not in breaking new ground. I am not a giant or a lion of courage and frankly, I am a bit of a klutz so don't put a machete in my hands. Nor am I a navigator. I get lost between the kitchen and the bathroom. No, I do better directing from the back of the troop. Noticing, looking, listening, and telling about it.

Photo by Megan Black

And let me tell you just a few of the astonishing changes I have witnessed at my tiny school. I've seen teachers get so excited about discovering new apps and interesting ways to use them that you'd think they were given the magical ability to metabolize bacon and fried chicken without the calories or cholesterol. Impish first graders with missing teeth have schooled their veteran instructors in the hidden capabilities of programs. The lunchroom conversations have turned into best practices and collective problem solving think tanks. In short, we are becoming a community of learners and scholars. The devices are not responsible for the metamorphosis. The catalyst is the desire and persistent striving of all our tribe to grow.

An iBook from the Great Perhaps

2013-01-31T10:13:00.000-08:00

http://brenhamtechdaily.blogspot.com/

“Francois Rabelais. He was a poet. And his last words were "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." That's why I'm going. So I don't have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.” ― John Green, Looking for Alaska

“For she had embodied the Great Perhaps--she had proved to me that it was worth it to leave behind my minor life for grander maybes" ― John Green, Looking for Alaska

Confession time, my latest obsession is with John Green's writing. His books are insightful, wise, and utterly brilliant. However, this post is not about John Green or his novels but about a heavenly iBook titled Hot Apps for HOTS by Lisa Johnson and Yolanda Barker. Lest it seem misleading, Hot Apps for HOTS is an educational book featuring free apps to use to engage Higher Order Thinking Skills in the classroom. I use the quotes as a metaphor hoping this iBook with all its adventurous possibilities will lead your classroom to grander maybes.

Lisa and Yolanda have smartly assembled this book with fun tasks related to cooking, tapping into the secret foodie in all of us. Each task utilizes one or two free apps and includes thoughtful, easy to follow instructions. They list the goal of each task and the level of Bloom's Taxonomy it incorporates. With minor effort and imagination it is easy to see how you could take their tasks and recreate appropriate ones for your curriculum at your grade level. They are that transferable!

In short, Hot Apps 4 HOTS is free and uses free apps in educationally sound, easily interchangeable, engaging ways. Teachers at all grade levels that have access to iPads in their classrooms are missing out on an invitation to a great perhaps if they do not download and add it to their bag of tricks.

Screenshots were taken directly from Hot Apps for HOTS and annotated by moi.

Beware of this App

2013-01-29T08:10:00.000-08:00

Snapchat is meant to be silly but can be scary.

Parents need to beware of the Snapchat app on their child's smart phone or mobile device. I recently learned of Snapchat from a parent who attended a presentation I gave on Digital Parenting. SnapChat can be downloaded for both Android and iPhone. Try as I might to be up on the latest in social media no one can keep pace with the vast network of ways in which kids can communicate these days. However, this is one app that you should actively look out for and discuss with your child.

Snapchat was created to be a picture sharing app that makes it safe to send silly photos to others without the long term consequences. The idea or hook being that Snapchat will permanently delete the photo after six to twelve seconds depending on the settings the sender selects. It is also designed to notify you if someone takes a screenshot of the picture. Note that it DOES NOT prevent the screenshot, just notifies the sender. There are already hacks and work arounds for this and they are widely published. Regardless of the embarrassing digital footprint that could develop for your child, believing they are safe from such consequences, you probably do not want them sending pictures and text that you cannot monitor.

These are two of the tamer Twitter posts I found when using the hashtag #snapchat.

I learned of more great tips in Patrick Larkin's Blog Post "Are you sure your Child isn't using Social Media?" I would carry that question one further and ask, are you sure the social media sites your child is using are the only accounts they have? In my experience, there are kids, even kids widely regarded as role models, who have opened secret email accounts and social media accounts under pseudonyms believing this prevents them from ever suffering consequences for their online behavior. While I am not a fan of helicopter parenting and I am certain no parent can completely protect their child, I do believe consistent communication and a proactive approach can minimize the risk and maximize the learning and social benefits. The secret is balancing latitude and limits. Leading by example and encouraging positive ways to manage their online identity are also critical. For more information from greater minds than mine please visit these resources.

Common Sense Media
Common Sense Media is a must bookmark for any parent. They review games, websites, apps, movies, books, albums etc. for age appropriate material. They also give critical reviews.

OnGuard Online This site offers a free online comprehensive guide to protecting your child when it comes to all things digital

Raising Digital Kids This is made by the gentleman who created many of the slides in my presentation, David Truss. Of special interest here is his guidance on how and when to set limits on digital time.

Connect and Protect Wiki Dave Sands is a District Principal and father of four. He put together a wiki that offers insight into a lot of social media tools as well as Internet based tools used in education. It is also a portal to many other resources

The Door That is Not Locked This site by Canada is separated into age appropriate resources.

Instagram What Parents Need to Know

SnapChat Photos That Self Destruct This article is a great write up for parents on how to handle this app.
Tumblr Why Kids Love it and What Parents Need to Know

A Parent’s Guide to Twitter
Twitter is the new Facebook but most parents do not know how it is used and do not monitor. There are less privacy controls than Facebook and a greater chance what gets posted can go viral. Because it works in the same way text messaging works many kids are posting more private and inappropriate content.

Google + Safety Center

FacebookforParents

MinorMonitor This free resource will monitor your child’s Facebook page and send you e-mail alerts when there is inappropriate activity

Picture Issues

2013-01-22T06:36:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you have to listen to needs of the people. The Grosse Pointe Academy moved from the PC world to the MAC over the past year and one of the most frustrating issues teachers face involves iPhoto. It is a great program for creating instant slideshows but try to send a parent a picture via email or upload a single photo to a newsletter and the hoops are insurmountable. iPhoto wants to import photos automatically from any storage device connected to a your Mac. The key is closing it out or importing both to iPhoto and to the pictures file. I have created a screencast on how to upload photos directly to your picture file on a MAC below. There are also written instructions with pictures if you prefer to learn that way in this Google Doc. The print instructions go on to explain how to import the pictures into the new interface of gmail.

Another frustration users run into is that now that we all have better digital cameras the file sizes are enormous. This makes it difficult to send lots of them via email and it makes loading times lag on websites and online documents. The best way around this problem is to resize the photos prior to mailing them or inserting them into digital documents. Online content does not require the vast size and pixillation photographers prefer for printed photos. You can still see a beautiful image with about 75% less of the file size. My favorite tool for this, picresize, is free and online. You can resize your images one at a time or in large batches. The upload and download is smooth and fairly speedy. There is a screencast for this process posted here.