changelog @ tengrrl.com

tengrrl — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 23:51:41 -0600

Fiddling around with paper titles for the English Journal call. Wondering about "Plagiarism or Censorship? The Battles over Using Wikipedia in the Classroom." Not really sure I like it, but oh well. I've written 11 words.

Published a lesson plan revision, a new 6-8 lesson on using books and their movie adaptations: Cover to Cover: Comparing Books to Movies.

Proposals

tengrrl — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 01:08:47 -0600

I'd like to get something written for the English Journal due next week on doing the right thing, but I'm having trouble getting started. The call talks about academic honesty, plagiarism, and cheating. I'm thinking about perhaps doing something with how online sources complicate things, especially when teachers aren't even allowed to take kids to online sites. It can fit the topic. I just haven't managed to get going on it.

Instead I'm off to happy procrastination land, looking at a CFP that has a proposal due January 1. Why work on something due in a week when you can worry about things due in six weeks? On a whim, I checked the Computers and Composition calls a few weeks ago and began thinking about this one: A Thousand Pictures: Interfaces and Composition.

Here's the question: Would it fit to talk about how computer interfaces are represented in children's literature? I'm not quite sure where I want to go with the idea, and I'd need to do some reading on interface design to write anything. But I'm thinking of some books that attempt to fake what IM screens and emails look like as well as picture books that show computers with their interfaces on the screen.

I'm just not certain if that's a good topic, or it's ridiculously simplistic and laughable. And there's the bigger challenge that I'd need to do a lot of reading on interface theory-wise. I'm not even sure what to read. It's hard to read on a topic when you have no idea where to start—and even harder still when you're not sure if it's a topic that would fit the call. Maybe I should go back to the EJ call.

Lesson Revisions

tengrrl — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 23:24:35 -0600

Finished my work on the markup and tidying of our revision of the 3-5 lesson Get the Reel Scoop: Comparing Books to Movies today. The whole process took close to 7 hours. I hope the next one goes a bit faster. Only 8 to 13 more revisions to go. Now to begin work on the 6-8 revision of the lesson.

Figuring out the Inbox blog entry

tengrrl — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 00:42:12 -0600

So today I flailed about trying to figure out what to write for the blog entry. It needed to tie to 21st-century literacies, but I was feeling really lost on what to say. Going through the copyeditor's comments seemed a lot easier than trying to come up with something new to say. As I was sitting there trying to figure out what to do, I thought, "I wish this were as easy as writing teaching stories for the manuscript. That's what I do best. Oh, wait, why can't it be that easy? Just write a story on one of the 21-century literacy issues." Thank goodness the voices in my head talk about these things a lot. Otherwise I'd still be trying to figure out today's entry, which ended up being I Was a Mac. They Were PCs. :)

Back to the Copyeditor

tengrrl — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 00:35:11 -0600

Got a handful of things done today: Inbox Ideas done, Inbox Announcements done, Work on Feb 08 calendar done, South Park character made (don't I look cool?), Hallmark ornaments mom needed purchased, trip to the bookstore completed.

But the important thing was finishing the notes on the manuscript and leaving it on the copy editor's desk before I left the office this evening. One more step completed. :) Supposed to have page proofs back after Thanksgiving. This part seems to be flying compared to actually writing the draft.

Still things to do, like get an author photo, do all the related lesson plans, get the companion website set up. Looks like it's going to be a busy time for a while. And that's without thinking about the ReadWriteThink and Inbox work I need to do.

Sam's

tengrrl — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 23:59:53 -0600

Took a trip to Sam's this afternoon. I hate going to Sam's. It's such a struggle not to come home with super-sized packages of things that I don't have any place to store and get deathly tired of before they run out (or they spoil).

I managed reasonably well against the challenge. Got bags of candy for the office, which was the goal, peanut butter for the squirrels, and only 3 food items for me. I've decided to try the all protein diet, no carbs again. I simply have to do something before the season of eating descends and things get even worse. So I got prosciutto (which turned out to be very, um, questionable when I tried it tonight), smoked pork chops (mmm), and some sausage.

Unfortunately this evening the Carbonara that I tried to make with the proscuitto (diet starts tomorrow) is really sitting poorly. It's burning. I added some Emeril Parmesan Italian thing from the frig and the garlic and spices set the acid reflux aflame. I've gulped down extra Prilosec and a double dose of Pepcid AC. I ate some chicken soup, bread, and milk. They settled things down for a few minutes, but it catches fire again not long after.

Heaven help me if this is like that sickness after the Gaming Forum at Purdue last month. I can't afford to be down tomorrow. I have to finish editing the book and write all the text for the Ideas, Announcements, and Blog for INBOX. Besides the Honey Nut Cheerios and chicken soup diet I end up on when acid reflux is bad is wholly incompatible with the all protein, no carbs diet. Hoping for an overnight miracle.

Christmas Ornaments.

tengrrl — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 01:09:48 -0600

Took my trip to the Hallmark Holiday Open House this morning, and got 4 additional ornaments:

Plus I had a gift certificate that if I spent enough (which I did) I got a free gift bag of goodies:

Left to right, that's a penguin treat bowl with a little ladle. I'm thinking I'll fill it with M&M's and put it on my desk at work. There's a 2007 porcelain bell (not sure what I'll do with that), a snowman snowflake ornament (very cute), and a reindeer ornament. Yes, I know it's too early for Christmas, but these are all limited edition things. Gotta go when they come out or you can't get them.

Beyond that I ran some very mundane errands—socks, toothpaste, and shampoo & conditioner. Got a really interesting blogging book at Borders too, but I'll leave that review for later when I've read a bit more of it.

Copyediting Day

tengrrl — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 10:47:32 -0500

Today has been completely about going through the copyeditor's markup of my manuscript. I managed to read through the manuscript twice, adding and deleting and responding to the different notes that the copyeditor made. It wasn't too bad. She cut and rearranged some things for clarity, but she also made some mistakes (e.g., changing a "further" to "farther" incorrectly).

What's left is checking two details on writing assignments described as examples and going through the bibliography. I used a lot of Web sites, and the copyeditor didn't understand how I got some of the information. I do have a bibliographic query I need to get advice on as well. Will post to techrhet tomorrow to figure out that issue.

It all felt "real" today. I'm not sure that I will believe I have written a book till I have it in my hands. Still, I have an NCTE stock number (10850) and everything. I even have the books team getting a testimonial for the back of the book for me. Only problem now is that I really yearn to be at CCCC for when it comes out. Vain I guess to want to be there, but I wish I could get there. Oh well. Need to get back to figuring out tomorrow's Hallmark trip (November ornament open house).

Halloween 2007

tengrrl — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 10:38:07 -0500

I'm not sure that I should put this online, but I'm trying to be brave. Here's the Marketing/Professional Development Ensemble costume. We won the office competition :)

Click To Play

For the video to make sense,
you also have to know about the
children’s book

Duck has been a running gag for years now. Halloween 2004 the Professional Development team actually dressed up as Duck's presidential campaign team (I was having severe back problems and had to be wheeled in on a cart). I had secret service and a protester in the crowd. I had spent that fall campaigning for duck on our office window, posting Duck's cabinet choices and other entertaining political messages (Duck's stale campaign blog). It's about time for Duck to get on with his '08 campaign.

WANT: write once, post often tool

tengrrl — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 11:10:37 -0500

Okay, here's what I want: go to one page, write a blog entry/update, click "Post," and the info merrily zings off to all the sites I want it to—Blogger, Facebook, MySpace, etc.

Sort of the opposite of Plaxo. Here's a reasonable explanation of Plaxo in the An Unmanageable Circle of Friends article from the Washington Post:

On Aug. 6, online address book Plaxo introduced Pulse, its solution to the walled garden syndrome (i.e., if you wants to see a pal's Facebook entry, you too must belong to Facebook; to gawk at his Flickr photos, you too must Flick). Pulse users can stream everything from Amazon wish lists to del.icio.us Web markers directly into Pulse accounts. To Wellman's point, they can also separate which groups of people receive which types of information.

I want to go to a single site and be able to cross post to all my different (and appropriate) places. I know such a thing could lead to abuse. Would be the dream tool for spammers. The problem is that I have different people who follow me in different places, and it's beyond annoying to have to post to each site separately. So c'mon, someone come up with my dream blogging tool.

Searching for Miracle Tools

tengrrl — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 11:57:43 -0500

I've finally got goals written out for FY08, and they call for a lot of tracking and logging and scheduling. My head is swimming as I try to figure out what tools will work for which part. I think that I need three different things:

A system to track different content for ReadWriteThink (RWT) and Inbox that lets me apply tags or index the content. I need to be able to report on a quarterly basis that X lesson plans addressed NCTE's strategic goals focus on (as an example) multimodal literacy. Mostly I think I'll need numbers and percentages. I may need intersections (e.g., X lesson plans addressed (1) multimodal literacy and (2) elementary students). But in addition to numbers, I'm probably going to need to point to the related lesson titles or Inbox columns. A running tally wouldn't be enough. It's more complex than that. So, do I need a spreadsheet? a database? something else?
A system to schedule and track Inbox topics and promotions for all the staff involved to use. Each week, I write the Ideas and blog and search for news. Some other folks on staff choose the final news stories. Once I know the focus, I pass that info along to the marketing staff, and in return, they send me details on the announcements for each week. I need to create some kind of schedule that allows for longer-range planning. Right now, most of this happens on Monday. I think I need a giant table with columns for strategic governance focus, likely current events, ideas focus, blog focus, and related announcements. Possibly breaking out the announcements by the different areas (conventions, books, journals, professional development, membership). Is it a giant, shared spreadsheet?
A system for a learning log that documents info on publications, positions, policies, etc. that is used to inform RWT and Inbox work. As an example, what I need to do is read an article, position statement, or similar document and then log the details on that piece, noting how it might connect to specific issues. I think some kind of tagging or indexing is paramount. A sample note might be something like this:
"article name: rest of article name" from Journal Name explains how a teacher used small-group reading activities to explore the way dialects are represented in Huck Finn. Topics include literature, dialect, small groups, secondary, adolescent literacy, reading, Journal Name.
At first I thought I might need something like a hopped up and branded del.icio.us system that pointed to the Web pages for these things (they'll all be on the Web in some way, though the public might only be able to get to abstracts). Now I'm wondering if it's just a super blog with tags. Ideally, though, I'd need to be able to find intersections of tags (e.g., resources on secondary + literature). I don't know that there's any blog tool that does that. Hmm. I think it's far more than a spreadsheet, and I think tracking all this on paper would be counter-productive. Maybe there's some other tool that would do what I need.

So I need three miracle tools, ideally tools that are very simple to manage and set up. Hmm. Time to incubate for a while. Maybe the answers will come to me. At least I have some freewriting on what I need done.

Restarting Life . . .

tengrrl — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 01:11:30 -0500

Returned to work today after taking sick leave every day but Tuesday last week. I think that I'm about 75% adjusted to the new drugs that I'm on, and I've had a good chance to rest and get stress-free.

Today at work went well. Got the ideas for the Comic Creator revision written up and sent out to the designer. Spent time trying to figure out my FY08 goals, but they have to wait till tomorrow. Did some busy work this evening and dug through some more news for this week's inbox (which is going out Wednesday because some folks who need to work on it are out of the office).

Then there's what I didn't get done. Spent some good time last night before I fell asleep trying to think through the plan for the repartitioning and reformatting of my world. Came up with some nice ideas, but haven't had time to type them up tonight. Got sidetracked with something else, and it's late now. I'd probably be up another 2 hours trying to think through the ideas for the new things I want to focus on. Disappointing not to get to it. Need to make sure that I get it done tomorrow.

Upgrading . . .

tengrrl — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 00:14:23 -0500

must restart life tomorrow. need to repartition and reformat all aspects of existence. searching for install disks.

This Just In...

tengrrl — Fri, 18 May 2007 14:34:26 -0500

In today’s e-mail from NCTE’s Senior Editor on my book manuscript:

“Attached are the reviews of your MS. As you’ll see, they’re all positive (yay!), with varying amounts of suggestions for revision.”

Maybe I really and truly am an author!!! :-)

Incognito

tengrrl — Wed, 16 May 2007 00:30:29 -0500

I have blundered into the problem with an open, online existence. How do you say the things that you need to when everyone is watching? How does an author control her readers?

Now I of all people know that you shouldn't put things online that you're not willing to let anyone in the world read. But there's a difference between putting something out there for anyone to read and putting something out there with your name on it for anyone to read. But is an anonymous existence the same? What happens when you lose your readers? Does a text matter if no one reads it?

I planned to come home and write tonight, but I couldn't figure out how. The more I think about it, the more silenced I feel by my circumstances. It's been a very hard month, and I'm not sure whether the right thing to do is stand up and write the story or scrawl it away secretly. Unfortunately, I don't have the answer.

Family

tengrrl — Mon, 07 May 2007 01:32:27 -0500

Things I've Come to Understand Because of 4/16

tengrrl — Wed, 16 May 2007 01:14:29 -0500

I love my brother-in-law as much as my brother. I'm sure I have for a long time, but I didn't realize it consciously till 4/16.
Feeling secure isn't about locking all the doors. It's about feeling I don't have to and I'll still be okay.
I know what it's like to have an asthma attack now, and I know that there are two Virginia state police officers who are the nicest men in the world. Thank you for taking care of me when I broke down with that asthma attack.
I have learned that a poet's words can give a community a path out of their sadness. I had no idea a poem could ever be adopted so thoroughly. Literature is a powerful thing.
I found that I have compassion for a mass murderer. What he did was horrible, but I'm glad the Va Tech community found a place for a Hokie Stone for him in the memorial.
I understand what it was like to want a gun. For a day, I wanted a gun, and I wanted to know how to shoot it to defend myself. [You're all safe; the feeling passed.]
I still feel safe on campus. At 1:30 AM Friday, I was walking around by myself. I have not let someone take that away.
There are times when knowing that everyone in my family is physically safe isn't enough.
I know which people in this vast world really care about me. They IMed or emailed on 4/16 to check on me. One of them even showed up outside my office building to give me a hug on the 17th. Some of them are still checking on me. Some people still haven't said a word. The categories of who does and doesn't care about me have become very transparent. [edit: This was misread as indicating that I have/had a list of names. I don't/didn't. 5/15/07]
That I'll never understand and I desperately want to know why.

tengrrl — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 01:57:08 -0500

Normally all these ribbons seem silly and pretentious to me. Today, this is the best I can do. I don't have words for it.

Reading My E-mail While Chris Writes His Blog

tengrrl — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 14:53:46 -0500

Click To Play

Chris.tv got a little boring. Okay, sure the writing teacher in me was entertained for a while by watching him compose his blog entry on the mashups from Thursday night. Once I saw that his composing process was fairly normal however, I wandered off to do other things. This is the result.

Again, even though Bwana disagrees, I must emphasize that using iMovie does not involve sacrificing kittens.

Soundtrack:
Download "NYC Trippin'" (mp3)
from "All The Pretty Lights"
by Soul Ballet
215 Music
More On This Album

tengrrl — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 20:27:04 -0500

OMG!!! Gaze upon the beautiful present that I am saving up to buy for Dr. B to carry to her knitwit jamboree. It is going to match her shirt PERFECTLY!!!

Today's Twitters on Tech/Ed

tengrrl — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:04:20 -0500

Is cursive an unnecessary curse? http://tinyurl.com/35tln3
more on diff between HS and college needs: http://tinyurl.com/2ygza5
survey in HS doesn't match deep needs in college: http://tinyurl.com/2c9qzh
adult literacy influences family involvement. duh? http://tinyurl.com/25mtyp
fired for being more tolerant than the school system: http://tinyurl.com/2gj4gr
what it really takes for no child to be left behind: http://tinyurl.com/2g86e6
the idea his pedagogy was to blame never occurred to him. http://tinyurl.com/2l8vmw it must be the laptops. couldn't be him.
write congress on NCTE recommendations for NCLB: http://tinyurl.com/24ml5u
Latinos Online? Language AND Access in the Digital Divide: http://tinyurl.com/28nt2k
measuring growth against standards, rather than grading: http://tinyurl.com/2ptbgy
Student free speech on MySpace: http://tinyurl.com/3222bw
CT law to "protect" kids from the [online] world: http://tinyurl.com/2pwwru
Vulgar language!!! Banning the Chocolate War: http://tinyurl.com/2utcpz
on the nonsense of timed writing samples a la SAT essay: http://tinyurl.com/38x3nf
why smaller can be better: http://tinyurl.com/2qybwc in academic conferences that is.
classroom activity on book banning/burning and F451 http://tinyurl.com/2vlf87

A Five Things Meme

tengrrl — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 20:55:46 -0500

Because Dr. B has forced me to, I am completing a A Five Things Meme. My task is to name five things that help me be successful every day. Not clear to me if the dear Dr. B is going to accept the first ones that come to mind:

Get out of bed.
Find diet brown soda.
Take my medicine.
Put on clean underwear.
Sleep as much as possible.

Chances are that she's not going to accept that however, and since I'm meeting her tomorrow for coffee and she will bitch-slap me, I will offer these:

Organize things topically—my email, my feeds, my papers, everything. If all my stuff just flowed into one giant bin, I'd spend all my time trying to figure out what mattered. Divided up into folders, I can quickly decide when I need to pay attention to things and when I can let something wait.
Let things go when they don't matter—well, I try to anyway. I'm not so good at this, but when I can make it happen, it's very helpful. For instance, I have spent years of my life with piles of bills and various receipts and documents in piles to be filed. Eventually I get them filed, but they sit there and fill me with guilt AND end up taking far too much time when I do get to filing them. About 6 months ago, I realized that all this filing was a waste of time. I very rarely needed to return to a bill or whatever. I got an 8.5 by 11 amazon box, and began just dropping bills, etc. in it. If I need the January bank statement, I know it's in there, but chances are I won't. Much easier. Basically, when I can, I try to figure out when doing "the perfect thing" or "the ideal thing" can be replaced with "the simplest thing" without causing any harm.
Set up audio alerts and rules&8212;everyone who hears my computer thinks I'm crazy, but I know by the sounds whether an email is one that I need to go read immediately, a routine email I can read later, or even spam/bounced mail that I never need to look at. It's a sort of computer-version of caller ID, but I don't even have to be in the same room as the computer. I just have to be able to hear it.
Focus on tasks—If I'm at work, I try to spend much time as possible on work tasks. I multitask with the best of them and may be working on 3 or 4 things at once, but I try to avoid doing any personal stuff in the office and I've been trying to do less work stuff at home.
Do a little bit every day—Every day, whether it's a work day or not, I check my email, watch various work-related websites, and so forth. Keeping up with things every day helps me avoid ever having a huge pile to overcome. I use a modified Getting Things Done method to figure out what I need to take care of right away, delete what doesn't matter, and prioritize what I'll take care of later.

Today's Twitters on Tech/Ed

tengrrl — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 00:26:15 -0500

students quieted with clothespins http://tinyurl.com/yr2lna in what pervy world did this make sense? wonder if she was "highly qualified"
maybe the problem is how we decide what "highly qualified" means... http://tinyurl.com/29nw5d
map mash-ups: http://tinyurl.com/2j7uyp classroom: have students map childhood places, places in fiction/nonfiction, biog places on authors
when we personalize edu via tech http://tinyurl.com/2belu6 will we be able to ditch the one size fits all assessment system finally?

Today's Twitters on Tech/Ed

tengrrl — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 23:58:57 -0500

poor word choice in the news http://tinyurl.com/25snvr do ppl really believe this nonsense? disappointing. now gingrich is a liar & a bigot!
MarcoPolo named "Best site to download free lessons" in Edutopia's 2007 Readers' Survey!!! http://tinyurl.com/2ggpk5 Go Us!!!
The Colbert Effect is all well & good http://tinyurl.com/2465bo but when am I going to finally find some Americone Dream in stock???
another generic cyberbullying article http://tinyurl.com/37llckfav line:"1 kid may start a rumor...someone is sexually promiscuous or has a sexually transmitted disease, & it spreads overnight" which spreads? :)
so what's the wrong url? :) http://tinyurl.com/32bvar and why didn't the teachers check the links ahead of time?
student moons teacher http://tinyurl.com/2xxyls yes only danger is on the Internet. no problem with general behavior if you keep 'em offline
claims s/w makes no diff in test scores. http://tinyurl.com/26olcj limits of study: few pgms, inexperienced teachers. disheartening. how about instead choosing the best s/w and exp. teachers? can't remove pedagogy & prof dev from the equation & pretend it doesn't make diff
Cali HS teacher discusses proposed podcasting class http://tinyurl.com/2876m7 he shoulda put up a podcast on it :)
new nclb tests for dyslexic et al. proposed http://tinyurl.com/yqtup5 why can't we just get rid of all the tests and just teach?

Today's Twitters on Tech/Ed

tengrrl — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 22:47:21 -0500

warn them about myspace/facebook, but not too explicitly. ahh the smell of lawyers. http://tinyurl.com/2bfsfd get real (& up-to-date) please
heh. http://tinyurl.com/29xr77 not sure about Easter eggs in public school, but a GPS hunt? some bunny's witty :-)
UK suggestion NOT to TXT/IM students: http://tinyurl.com/ypk6p7 um, college students... okay, can you convince them not to msg US?
arguing to "fully" include ELL in NCLB http://tinyurl.com/ysy75a I'd rather a system that pays attention to real learning. kids != numbers
on the value of personal story and memories in the classroom: http://tinyurl.com/2az5wh
Spellings' black hole: cost/evolution of tech makes teaching fundamentals to educators take too much time. http://tinyurl.com/26u5ct geesh
snapshot of Internet resources a teacher is using while teaching Shakespeare http://tinyurl.com/29xu92
lesson ideas for using out-of-date edu resources with up-to-date classes: http://tinyurl.com/yt6jwt
Spellings on tech & education? http://tinyurl.com/34ph6t Next to last paragraph is the kicker. How about paying attn to learning, not #s?
usual rant re: cyberbullying http://tinyurl.com/36suqn why is 'cyber' the focus? it's not tech that causes the problem. focus on the ppl!
pop opinion on copyright changes http://tinyurl.com/3534x5 wd make nice addition to the music-copyright lesson http://tinyurl.com/39pm8h
MySpace as safe (rather than the normal alarmism!): http://tinyurl.com/2g3hth