Keep Moving Forward...

Lab tinkering

2012-02-01T11:36:00.000-05:00

3D modeling in Sculptris, some advanced Photoshop work, and dissecting an iPod touch. Just a few things going on in the Lab this morning.

Note: The slideshow has captions... click on the comment icon to activate.

Character Animation: Andrew

2012-01-30T11:59:00.000-05:00

Andrew's building on some great work he did in eDesign in the Fall semester with a project in character animation. Here's what he's up to this semester.

post from: http://andrewgaydaportfolio.tumblr.com

"My name is Andrew Gayda, I am currently doing an independent study for graphic design. Last year I took E-Design and wanted to continue in that same path. I have narrowed down my interests and have chosen to start doing logo design. I really wanted to design cartoon characters on the computer. I figuring that I could incorporate them into my logos. Some people may think that drawing cartoons is immediately drawing the finished product. There are many different steps that help you get that finished product. If you think that I drew this wolf without any steps you are mistaken. I did about 3-4 steps before the wolf was finish. Im going to walk you through what I did. The first step was I found a cartoon character that I liked and began to SKETCH out the shapes of the animal. I put “sketch” in all caps because it does not have to look pretty or anything like your picture. The sketching is just a guide line. Once I got all my shapes matted out I began to go over the sketching but with more detail. I really brought all those crazy lines together into one. That is when you will be able to really see your object. When you go over your outline dont trace those lines, have fun and give it real shape. As you can see on my wolf I didn’t draw a strait line for the back, I curved it and over lapped the lines to give it an arc. Overall it will look a lot better. The third step is all about color. Always do the color after you get the entire body assembled. The color is not as hard as people would imagine. It doesn’t have to been that complex, pick one color for the base. I picked a nice grey, not to light and not to dark. Use the Paint Bucket tool because if you were to draw it on there it would mess up your lines. After you have picked a color, find the darker version of it and lightly paint on the sides of the lines. A tip in doing that is when you use the Magic Wand tool it will highlight the body. After you have dont that turn down the opacity of the brush to about 45%. Paint the sides of your object but not all. The last step is refining your picture. Anything you see that does not look good try to fix it if you can. Some examples of things that I had to fix were color, thick or small lines, and shape. Dont stress in how your picture doesn’t look anything like the picture in the book, make it your own."

SOPA, PIPA and 'The Blackout Protest'

2012-01-18T17:44:00.003-05:00

Browse around the internet today and you'll see 'blackout' protests on Wikipedia, Google, Wired, Wordpress, BoingBoing and, so CNN reports, thousands of others.

What's SOPA and PIPA all about?

Good question.

Here's Wikipedia's explanation, and what Google put up today... and I'd encourage you to look at a few others.

I framed up a few discussions on this with a tale about something called 'Act 60' in Vermont education, a 'ready, fire, aim' sort of legislation which many of my long standing friends viewed as, well, let's just say 'less than than stellar.'

SOPA and PIPA as written would have a dramatic impact on the web as we know it. Some support it, some vehemently oppose it, and some are calling for it to be much more refined and by a wider audience before it's goes to vote... hence the 'ready, fire, aim' analogy.

Where do you stand on this?

Interesting questions indeed.

Holiday Wishes

2011-12-22T08:03:00.001-05:00

Many moons ago I remember asking my Mother what she wanted for Christmas. I received an answer I didn't quite expect.

"What I'd like" she said, " is to sit around a table with all those folks who are no longer with me. I miss their voices, their quirks. I miss the way they laughed. All that time I spent going through the motions, the food, the wrapping, the gifts and how it all seemed stressful seems so foolish now. Too often, I guess I found myself wishing I could just get through the Holidays. I wish now that I spent more time talking to them about how they felt about Christmas, what their memories were, what did this day mean to them. I'd love to hear them tell some of the old stories again. I often wonder how many of those stories I never heard at all. I guess I wished I'd spent more time talking to them about who they were and what they felt when I had the chance. Sitting around the dinner table with all those folks again, that's what I want for Christmas."

Happy Holidays, AP

Exploring effort and self motivation

2011-12-20T14:29:00.000-05:00

Here are a few quotes from a post by Seth Godin called Self Directed Effort is the Best Kind that speaks volumes about the trials of education.

"There's an entire system organized around the idea that we're too weak to deliver effort without external rewards and punishment. If you only grow on demand, you're selling yourself short. If you're only as good as your current boss/trainer/sergeant, you've given over the most important thing you have to someone else."

and...

"The thing I care the most about: what do you do when no one is looking, what do you make when it's not an immediate part of your job... how many push ups do you do, just because you can?"

What makes you tick?

What's holding you back?

Education Revisited: Homework

2011-12-04T12:40:00.001-05:00

We've started our exploration Tech Research called Education Revisited. We challenge the perception of school, learning, teacher and student roles, and best of all we ask each student to redesign education.

Surprisingly... the results are similar year-to-year when students redesign education.

Here's one... Students want to 'do' homework differently. Here are a few that come up:

Many would like to see homework done in class, where there's more time to work on things, especially together. We discuss the 'flipped classroom'... where lectures go home and collaborative problem solving work is done in class.
No homework over breaks. Here's a good video on this one:

Some sort of guidelines for planning. Most often what frustrates students the most is the inability to plan day-to-day as to how much homework they'll have.
Homework load effects that classes they take. For students who are exceptionally busy after school, looking through the course descriptions and talking to peers about potential homework loads on classes is common practice.

Education is changing. Are we changing with it, actively trying out new systems and ideas... or are we simply saying 'it's always been this way' and / or going on 'business as usual'?

Good questions, indeed.

Engage...

Sleep

2011-11-17T18:14:00.001-05:00

The Force is with us. We were just discussing this in class ; )

Thoughts?

The Social Media Puzzle... it moves fast

2011-11-10T11:58:00.000-05:00

In the Social Networking we've taken on a difficult issue in Assignment 20.

Social media has threaded itself into our society. For many, it's amplified struggles with long standing battles: our penchant to entertain ourselves, struggles in how we communicate, relevancy, learning, connecting, peer pressure, social cliques, harassment, stalking... you name it. People get scared, and in many cases, justly so.

With all those issues per se, Social Media has also opened up incredible opportunities in our world to make connections and to learn.

Each student in the class has been asked to dig deep and explore the feelings of the older generation, an adult on campus and also one (or both) of their parents and / or guardians on this issue.

These tools didn't exist 10 years ago... but every generation has had it's issues, it's distractions with gadgets, and struggled with the social issues around them. Here are a few to refresh the memory!

Just ask someone who's over the age of 30 now what their parents thought of them 'spending so much time on that ridiculous telephone,' or how they 'could spend so much time watching television!'

We were receivers back then primarily... we watched and listened for the most part. Now it's about creating, publishing and group conversations. With the advancement of technology though, computers, the internet, mobile technology, the transition from what we term web 1.0 to web 2.0 (and 3.0 on the horizon)... all those old traditional conversations are accelerated, they get magnified.

What does that mean for our future? Gaining some perspective of the past, present and future... we're hoping... will help ; )

Going to be interesting!

Music and movies playing in a classroom?

2011-11-06T17:11:00.000-05:00

Once we have our opening discussions in class, we play music or a movie in the background.

Here's how.

The class often chooses, or I do, music or movies. Most often we choose to play music in the background while we do group project work. We choose movies during individual project work.

Here's why.

I've always thought it's relaxing for many students. It's a degree of civility in a classroom... treating it less like school and more like a home environment, a learning environment. We started down this path seven years ago now and never looked back. After all, we don't often go home to do work and sit in uncomfortable furniture, under bright fluorescent lights, deprive ourselves of all food and water, have no complimentary music or the like, and then expect we'll do our best... do we? We seem to do this in school though, and all too often I think. I've always felt, if we put some effort into making school look, well, less like 'school,' less like an industrialized environment it'd be more civil... more inspirational.

Most often folks don't understand why we serve up movies on the classroom. First off, I ask people to focus on their work, and not on the movie. The movies, with low volume, play in the background. We'll spike the volume when we take a break for some great scenes... the Balrog on the bridge... that sort of stuff. Of course, much like a window, there are times you look up when something great is happening, or you just need a break. Bit like real life ; )

Further, we pick movies we can learn from, ones that inspire people. Creative stuff. The ones that bring dreams to life and have great messages. Inspiration... is a good thing.

Third, it threads nicely into discussions and practices on learning to work in a different environment and to manage distractions. Many folks are used to listening to music when they work. Often times this is heavily frowned upon in school. Never really had anyone give me a good reason why. I've often said 'admitting you're easily distracted is the first step to recovery.' Do you need to reposition yourself in the room? Adjust the volume? I think it's safe to say that anyone who's worked out of the school environment has had to learn to deal with distractions and figure out how they work their best.

Fourth, Almost all of the movies we choose carry great appendices... great documentary footage about how they are made. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, as an example, in the Extended Editions, carry heaps of material about crafting, problem solving, hard work, creativity, and fun. Far better to play it than just discuss it. It's too cumbersome in length to play and just watch... so, we play it while we work, stopping here and there when something great comes up.

We thread in clips too that we find about films, like this one, a look inside the new shooting of The Hobbit in 3D. New material that comes out revealing creativity, problem solving, skill development, and dedication... craft.

For some, it is distracting out of the gate, no doubt. Many have never experienced a classroom environment like we have here. I'm guessing many though will never experience a work environment like they have in a traditional school model. That statement... could lead to a lot of writing ; )

This speech by Rogier van der Heide, speaks volumes to why it makes sense to change the concept of the classroom, from the colors used, to the lighting.

I'd encourage you, if you've never done it to give it a try. Turn down some bright fluorescent lights, create an environment, and coax folks to learn from the experience. Never know what might turn up. It's worked great here.

What's next? Our work here continues to challenge the concepts of a 'master schedule' and the potential of internships. Many other schools, of course, have headed dow such paths already. Again... discussions for another post.

#edchat
cross posted at: creativeStir.blogspot.com

eDesign Creativity

2011-10-27T22:22:00.003-04:00

Here's a glimpse at some of the great project work cooking in eDesign this semester. Check out some of the individual blogs listed below to see more.

bankedsgn
xfallenangelscrybloodx
roryedesign
edesignsbykatem
cpearce13
built2win
jnunnikhoven
e-connor
omaeder
david-edesign
carolin-barden
chickenwingkids
vermont802
2000circles
e-designcjishu
nfrench-jiberish
awesomestuff3
skitheeast23

SocialNet Guest Speaker Series: Mr. Pete Nicholson - The English Teacher Tale

2011-10-25T10:50:00.000-04:00

Our second guest speaker, Mr. Pete, 'Mr. Nic,' Nicholson.

Topic: The transition from high school to today.

Here are our cliff notes from the day.

__

Communications major 'by default.' Unsure of what he wanted to do.

Internship on 10 o’clock News in Philly. Found the career to be cynical. Looking for tragedy all the time.

Interviewed for sales postion. Door-to-door type thing. Couldn't really see himself doing it. He didn't want to be the most annoying man in the world.

Sister got him a gig at Nickelodeon in the copy room.
Worked up to being a production Assistant: “first real job.”
MTV show ‘Unlimited.'
‘Show went too high brow to be successful. Should have been more trashy.’
Overall, the PD job was a 3-yr gig.
Constantly praised for work ethic... and made him wonder just how bad other employees were who had his job previously.
Had a philosophy... get there before your boss and leave after.

One day he had his existential moment where he asked himself, "is this it?" Decided that the current career path he was on wasn't working for him. So he saved up his money and decided to buy a used car and he followed Horace Greeley's advice and he went West. Started hoarding money. Packed up shop.

Traveled 8 months alone from Missoula, down the West coast, through New Mexico, and all the way back to his brother in Vermont.

Read ‘The Alchemist.' Book had a large impact on his thinking.

Started asking himself ‘what am I going to do when I get back?’
Started daydreaming of teaching.

Took some classes in Albany to get English credits and then moved to Bristol and went to UVM to get his Masters in English.

He and his then girlfriend, now wife, decided to move back to Manchester and it was after he moved back, he then interviewed for the teaching position at BBA which he obviously got and the rest, as they say, is history.

As career went on... stopped thinking about perfection and more process.

Life is not without battles. Self doubt and the like.

SocialNet Guest Speaker Series: Financial Do's Dont's and How. With Mrs. Lisa Souls

2011-10-25T10:42:00.000-04:00

Many thanks to our first guest speaker in the Social Net class, Mrs. Lisa Souls.

Topic: Financial Do's and Don'ts. How to get started.

Here are our cliff notes from the day.

___

What should you look for when your borrowing money?

Interest rates and the cost of funds.
Looking at interest rates, you need to look at late fees and the interest rates.
Everything you spend money on goes to a credit report over time and it will follow you for seven to ten years.
The biggest form of debt is due to credit cards.

Unsecured: Buying a t-shirt on credit, the bank won’t take it back
Secured: Mostly real estate, if you don’t pay, they will take it.

Credit

There are three major credit card bureaus. 300-850 worst to best credit.
You get three free credit reports a year.
Make sure, even if it seems like you're too young, get a credit report. myannualcreditreport.com is a free credit report.

Make sure you can pay off your monthly bill. The interest is sky high so don't use a credit card as a loan.
Get a credit card and pay it off each month. Don't spend what you can't afford. Credit cards themselves aren't bad... how we use them can be. Don't treat it as a loan. The interest is far too high. Don't feel 'entitled' to money you don't have.
Small purchases equal small payments and will help you to establish a credit rating.

Find a credit card that offers benefits that have value to you: money off at the pump, travel benefits, etc. They change all the time. keep up on it. There's no magic formula.

Federal vs. Private loans:
FHA (federal housing administration) is a conventional loan which guarantees the money. Since you don't have the money to put down on the loan they will put down more but they charge more as well. It is not the best program but it helps some people.

Investing

“Save money for a rainy day.” Set a budget. Save at least 10% or 5% if you can out of your income every check. Too many people who could save money don't. Most of them in that scenario end up paying for it later. Life throws obstacles at you.

401k. Take a certain percentage of your salary out of your check directly, tax free, and employers will match it. Usually ranges from 3% on through 5%. This is only applicable if you work for a certain company. If you don't contribute, they wont pay. If they offer it, take it. It's free money!

* Summarized by the class in collaborative editing and published by students.

RIP, Steve. We'll miss you here.

2011-10-05T20:36:00.000-04:00

A few minutes ago I saw the announcement that Steve Jobs had passed away.

I stopped my work and headed to the Apple web site and found this.

Apple's tribute on their web site...

Simple, elegant, to the point, and it didn't take very long.

Just the way Steve would have liked it.

RIP, Steve. We'll miss you here.

#ripstevejobs
#stevejobs

Good one ; P

2011-10-01T12:10:00.002-04:00

My friend Claudia posted this earlier today.

Refitting our Social Networking Course Description

2011-09-24T11:44:00.003-04:00

We had a discussion if the Social Networking course description was as good as it could be.

So... we had at trying a refit.

Here's the old one:

What role does technology and social media play in your life? Is it a source of entertainment and grounded to more typical school functions like reading, research, and writing? If so, there's a good deal more it can do. How can you leverage these tools to build an extensive learning network? How can you learn to deal with information overload? How can social media be leveraged into, well, more? Here are some other questions designed by your peers who created this course: What practical knowledge and tools will help you in the future to understand the world of finance, budgets, credit cards, online investing, amortization rates, taxes, individual retirement accounts, and mortgages? What resources will help you manage stress, and understand the role of nutrition in this modern world? We'll explore the questions from the class by leveraging social media... for you. We'll also use these tools and skills to connect with guest speakers. These speakers will discuss their areas of expertise and also how they made the transition from high school into the responsibilities of adult life. We'll use social networking skills to collaborate in and out of class and help you learn about how to head into your future. This class will consist of collaborative work, group discussions, explorations and projects designed by the class.

Here's the new one:

Ever get worried about life after high school? Need advice on finances? Credit cards? Bills? Online banking? Health? College? How to deal with roommates? How about nutrition? Cooking? Cars? Aging? Retirement? What practical knowledge do you need to help you into the future? We'll frame up questions as a class, and we'll find answers. We'll invite guest speakers in to share their expertise with the class on themes we design and also to discuss their personal transition from high school and into life. Along the way, we'll explore and uncover a deeper layer of using social media. We'll help you sculpt your thoughts on how you appear online, what you should know about these tools, and help you learn to leverage them to help you in the future. You'll learn more about how to learn, and how to communicate in this hyper-fast world. You'll gain deeper technology and social media skill, and gain a wealth of practical knowledge for your future. It's a course designed by your peers and explores your new questions each semester.

Thoughts?

Anything we should add or change? Even better, design one of your own and tell us about it. Add your comments below. Your thoughts are very much appreciated!

Evolving... Blog name and 'SocialNet' course name

2011-09-23T10:47:00.000-04:00

Image from: CafePress:
http://www.cafepress.com/+uss_enterprise_history_tile_coaster,472671744

I did some tuning today here on this site to refit the side menus... make things easier to find... especially for folks visiting the first time. I also posted our new Assignment Assessment forms, and a few other minor things.

The lab here has evolved... and keeps doing so.

Originally, this web site just housed the Tech Research class. The we moved in Hardware and Networking class (now taught by Mr Morrison), eDesign, and the new Social Networking course.

With these new course additions, the title of the blog (bbaTechResearch) may not, well, fit any longer.

Should we keep all the courses combined here? Is there a better title to house them all, something that encapsulates what we do?

Should the Social Networking course move onto its own blog?

As for the Social Networking Course... is this the right name for the course? Is there a better title? Something more descriptive?

We'll see where the discussions head.

Your thoughts on these matters are appreciated (add a comment!).

Keep moving forward...

AP

Class Discussion: First speaker

2011-09-23T10:38:00.000-04:00

The Social Networking class has chosen 'Finance' as our first topic. We've framed up the following ideas for our questions and will send out an invitation to a guest speaker today! We're hoping to bring the guest speaker in next week.

Finance:

What should you look for when you borrow money?

Setting a budget: Especially in college:

Credit cards: How do they work?
Interest?
How does monthly billing work? Is interest charged monthly on unpaid balances?
What are some 'credit card traps' to watch out for?

Mortgages? How do they work?
Interest rates?
Paying on principal?

Car loans?

Online banking?

Safe investing?
CDs, Roth IRAs, Interest on accounts. What's the best option?

Saving money 'for a rainy day.' Problems with spending to your budget limit.

How did you get to where you are?
Did you want to do this when you were in high school?
Job path?
College experience? How did you manage this path?

What do you see as the future of your job?

What was your personal journey from high school into college, the workplace, to where you are now?

Other questions we should ask? Perhaps ones we should leave out for another time?

Thoughts?

Secrets to Success... To boldly go...

2011-09-08T12:47:00.002-04:00

We tossed this quick speech up by Richard St. John Thomas on the secrets to success and had a quick discussion. Quick speech... good message. Simple.

The discussion and challenge we discussed with students...

Make something of this school year.

Don't go through this year feeling like school is something that's done to you.

Be an active participant.

Challenge yourself to learn.

You... hold the keys.

If you don't like your opportunities... seek out new directions, new programs, new initiatives to change things for the better.

Explore your curiosities.

It'll take: persistence.

It'll take courage... to admit what you don't know.

Embracing the challenge will help you build skill... and strength.

If you can do that... who knows where it might lead.

'To boldly go...' requires a sense of adventure.

Engage...

Goodnight Irene

2011-09-05T19:13:00.002-04:00

Well, where to begin...

Here I sit on Labor Day, just over a week after Hurricane Irene and it's tropical storm alter ego washed through Southern Vermont.

It's been an exhausting week-long roller coaster. My endurance was tested through it. It's been awhile since I've felt 'that' kind of exhaustion.

If you've been on the web or out and about you've seen the devastation from the storm and I won't recap it too much here. The pictures and music tributes popping up are like a wave themselves: Roads, bridges, homes, and in many cases livelihoods washed away.

Back last Sunday, we knew the storm would land but certainly didn't expect this amount of damage.

Up until then I'd never experienced a flash flood.

I walked outside around 1020am. There were just puddles in the road and it was raining... hard.

Roughly 10 minutes later I heard a car drive by and sloshing some serious water. I looked outside and grabbed a camera... here's what I found as I looked down the road North:

I walked inside to look across the other side of the house, then out front again... 10 minutes tops. I walked out in the road in some sandals to see how deep it was... and could feel the water rising up my legs as I stood there filming.

Just then a truck drove up and a water logged fellow leaned out and and said the brook had run over and the flooding will get a lot worse... and we'd better get out. Here's the video of these two gents driving up:

I walked inside and told Janice and the kids, calmly so... it was time to evacuate. It's a surreal thing to say really to your family... You go into a bit of an overdrive mode, a facilitator who keeps folks from panicking. The next 10 minutes ran the gambit of emotions, especially for the munchkins.

What would you take, what would you do if you were told to evacuate your home in just a few minutes?

Almost exactly 10 minutes later we had the car loaded, two dogs, a few bags of clothes and were ready to drive out. I asked Janice to open the garage door and I ran inside quickly to make sure things were locked up. As I rounded the corner into the living room someone was pounding on the door.

I opened the door and found a member Fire Department... he told me in short order that they were evacuating homes. If we wanted to go they'd take us now... and that they may not be able to get us later.

I explained to this fellow that we had the car packed and were ready to go... and he told me the water was too high. "You'll flood the car and never get out. The end of the road is already washed out in your neighborhood." When I looked over his shoulder to one fellow standing in the road, the water was almost two feet high on his legs.

In roughly 10 minutes the water had gone from 2-3 inches to over two feet... and was moving fast.

37 minutes... and counting...

They asked how many folks we had, if the dogs were friendly... and they helped us carry two kids, two dogs, a small bag of dog food and we piled into the fire truck. We picked up two more neighbors on the way out and just a few minutes later were off onto Richville Road... which was now completely submerged in five inches of water.

Skipping a few details here about crossing a bridge you could no longer see... we were off to Town Hall... the emergency shelter.

There were some great folks at the shelter, taking out what they had, helping folks be comfortable. Water and some snacks started to arrive. I was working with the kids, we played a game... I flitted about on the web answering texts from friends asking how were doing.

About two hours later we were picked up by some friends with an invite to stay over. Reports came in that power, water and sewer had been shutoff to our neighborhood. On the way to their house... I felt it felt a bit like some sort of Disney ride... rivers pounding bridges, washing out house foundations... trees tumbling down peoples lawns in floods of water. Trees rifling down Benson's Hole, a gorge of sorts, hitting a small ravine that now resembled a ariel ski jump and then bursting into pieces.

I watched a large lawn tractor mixed in with trees and a full size propane tank roll down someones lawn in the flood and on down the river.

In the back of my mind... I was wondering how our neighborhood and how our house was doing.

It was a long night.

37 minutes... puddles to evacuation... what could I have done differently... what would be destroyed... what would be left...

My mind went over the pictures we might lose, my children's drawings the generations of family christmas things... my guitar, music equipment, music charts, comic books, baseball cards, books and toys. The equipment in the house... the furnace... the water heater... the pellet stove...

... reams of old handwritten notes from baseball, from classes, from clinics...

Then you here stories of houses washing away. Bridges being torn away. Towns becoming isolated islands, impassible to any road in or out.

It was a long night.

By the next morning, now Monday, the water had receeded. I skimmed an email that our opening in-service had been canceled... no doubt a good thing. We waited for the roads and bridges going to our development to be declared open and then worked out way in. Most of the road into the development had washed out. Boulders... narrow lanes to and fro... and we worked our way over to the house.

It looked like the water line had gotten up about a foot away from the house.

And I thought about how lucky we might be.

We entered... the first floor was dry. Intact. No damage.

We went inside and checked the basement, and found this... a picture I took after I started to move things around a bit.

It's a odd feeling... a flood, seeing your belongings floating around. I sloshed over to the bulkhead, grabbed some tools and... started to walk around in the water... scanning.

As I stood there... my oldest baseball glove floated by.

It's just stuff. And everyone was safe.

"I was sentimental when I was old."

I pulled my guitar case out of the water... and watched the water drain from the case. I opened it... and poured the water from the sound hole. Ruined. I picked up the stereo, the Wii, Wii Fit. A strange effort to... maybe salvage some items... some water logged electronics. Somewhere along the way I put a tape measure in the water. The mechanical room, the finished basement and all contents were under 8 inches of water.

By the time I stuck the first sump pump in 1.5 hours later (a neighbor brought down a generator) the water had risen to 14".

We pumped for 4 hours with one, 1" pump and the water went from 14"... down to... 14".

Then the cavalry arrived and I put three pumps in. Over the next 8 hours we pumped from 14" down to 2". We called it quits around 11pm. I had to eat, take a shower... and get ready for the first day of in-service...

I didn't sleep that night.

I spent most of the time wondering how much more damage there was, what we'd return too the next morning. Before I knew it, as I walked around our guests neighborhood...

I thought of an old Tom Waits line in a song... "the dawn cracked hard like a bullwhip..." and it did.

On the way I to school I stopped by the house to see if we'd gained water... and was very happy to see we didn't. My thoughts were on all the work to do... and the thought of heading out that morning to our school in-service that Tuesday morning was a bit, for lack of a better term, like wading through fog. I hadn't slept in 48 hours and was by no means thinking about working meetings, opening speeches or the like. After some short meetings at school I headed back to assess the damage in more detail.

The list of casualties was long: Furnace, water heater, pellett stove, stereo, speakers... pictures... artwork... my guitar... decades of comic books and graphic novels, baseball cards...

It's a long list.

After I started vacuuming out the water and lugging some stuff out...

... the cavalry arrived.

The BBA Girls Soccer Team and some others helped carry things out of the basement. Their efforts saved me countless hours of exhausting work... emptying out a storage room... marching things to the garage, the lawn to dry or straight to the dumpster. Rob Hunter, Nancy Strain, a new teacher at BBA... about 22 folks in all. Full to empty and ready to muck in just over three hours.

Rob Hunter, Anthony Boucher and I... moving two water logged couches...

The surreal part for me came that evening. Janice, Doug Rawson and I pulled apart reams of water logged pictures and laid them all over the first floor of the house... every surface... over 30 years worth of memories... some dating back over 60-70 years.

It's a surreal feeling... pumping out your basement, looking at decades of pictures all laid out, sorting through water logged things, wondering what the financial impact just might add up to...

After another 16 hour day, we called it and went for some sleep.

On Wednesday... the first day of classes for Freshman and my Junior Advisory... I skipped out. I needed to get a bunch of appointments in motion to get things running again... and then get on to mucking. The water had already soaked up the insulation and sheetrock nearly a foot over the last 24 hours. I got a quick text from my friend Chris that am. He said he'd be over the following day to help out. I sent a text back saying I'd dive in, do what I could today. 20 minutes later he walked in... appointments canceled, ready to dive in. 10 minutes after Chris arrived Todd Ameden dove in too with tools in tow.

We worked for 10 hours to muck out the basement. Here's a bit of it:

The effort those two gents put in for our family that day is something I won't soon forget.

After they left, I continued sorting through boxes, tossing water logged... stuff.

The pictures were saved for the most part. A good thing, no doubt.

I ran out of gas that night... after staying up over 72 hours and exerting that much energy left me pretty taxed. I checked the basement fans and dehumidifiers and had something to eat. When I came out... some neighbors had showed up. They moved all the remaining stuff out of the basement and into the garage and helped us clean up a bit. For the 12 people that helped out... it was about 1/2 hour of work. For Janice and I... it would have been another long marathon of work well into the wee hours of the morning.

I remember going to sleep that night... barely.

In the days that followed, things were drying out. The dehumidifiers were drawing out over 20 gallons of water every six hours.

The house was at a standstill... rather than a rapid decay.

Friday night, Janice and I helped a neighbor muck out. Saturday, another 14 hours of tinkering for another few neighbors.

When a person at school asked why I was out helping other neighbors dig out most of the day Friday and Saturday... I simply said "I couldn't sit at home. So many folks had helped us out over these few days... after a bit of sleep. I felt the need to do the same."

I've told many people since this started... if you're going to go out and exercise... go help somebody instead.

With the threat of more rain on last night, Sunday night... I checked the basement every two hours... pumps ready if needed.

Not a trace of water came in.

Four dehumidifiers continue to parse the air... down to about 12 gallons total every six hours.

Today, this Labor Day... I shored up a good slew of work lost from this crazy week... and tonight... at long last, I feel ready to get some sleep.

For all the great folks that helped us out... those who came and worked and hauled, those who checked in offering help, those who brought us a generator and pumps, the great folks who brought us food... the folks who helped us get our power and hot water restored...

To the BBATA...

To BBA itself and the incredible group of students who dedicated their time to help us and the other folks in our neighborhood...

You all helped peel off layers of exhaustion and stress for this family and so many other folks here in the community.

My friend Dan French sent a note out yesterday... about gearing up the neighborhood for an Oktoberfest of sorts...

I'm in...

... and I'll be sending out a lot of invitations.

It's raining hard at the moment again... and I'm finding my thoughts wander back... an urge to check the basement, my mind flits over the location of the pumps like fingers flitting over some controls... and that we caught the mold before it took flight.

Everyone's safe.

The basement is drying out.

Things are moving forward.

Goodnight Irene.

Keep Moving Forward...

2011-08-21T13:19:00.000-04:00

We've got a new course coming up this semester and here's where my mind is wandering on it today.

http://creativestir.blogspot.com/2011/08/drifting-thought-on-new-course.html

Steady rain and a porch rocker spell

2011-05-15T21:21:00.004-04:00

Whispers from the past called me today.

I listened.

My grandparents were farmers and way back in the day my parents would pack up every Friday afternoon and drive up to spend the weekend there... most every weekend.

On the way there... my father would sing. A deep baritone. Same songs. Every time. I still remember them all.

As we'd ride... we'd see who could spy the water tower first in town. A windy, slurving ride... that seemed to open up magically onto a giant flat.

And to the farm.

The farm was a giant playground to me. Sheds. Woods. A large hill out back with a winding path up to a sugar house. Open fields across the road with a tractor road... two strips of dirt that led on toward a stream... and a bridge to the hill beyond.

There was always a strange array of tools about. Bizarre looking hand tools... wrenches, hammers, shovels, forks, rakes, sickles, chains... Tractors... trailers... wagons... big and small... giant.

There were piles of sawdust and hay... for leaping.

Haylofts.

Animals.

I'd roam with cows. Herd them about. Roam the hillside with them. I'd walk... and they'd follow. I'd run with barn cats... wiry fast, nimble... easily spooked. I'd hang strings about the hallway for them, tie a nut, bolt, or washer on each hanging piece and swing them... and watch 15 or 20 cats bound about.... or sit like they were watching a tennis match... something I think of today every time I see people watching tennis. I had adventures... conjuring mythical monsters, saving the world... protecting the creatures in my care.

My cousins were about often. And it was always fun. Jackie was closest to me in age and the one I spent the most time with. Other neighbors were around my age too. And we played. Badminton. Frisbee. Endless bike rides. We'd wrestle. Race. Hide and seek. Adventure. And we'd sit on the porch and recover.

My parents often worked a very large garden at the farm which sat on a flat up a slight knoll from the farm house. At the top of the knoll betwween the house and garden sat a large white propane tank, a big beast I used to think looked much like a monstrous cow... an excellent garden guardian. I'd serenade my parents... the tank made an excellent drum... an acoustic marvel of highs and lows, clicks and clacks for some drumsticks I fashioned out of some tree branches. After a while my father would encourage me to take a break from drumming and he'd time me while I ran laps around the garden ; )

We had bondfires... and yes, far away from the propane tank. I can still taste popcorn from an old, long handled popcorn popper... that's still hanging in my garage today.

For some reason... this all came back to me today. And the rocking chair on my porch own porch called me.

To sit. And to slow down.

And my mind started wandering.

The farm was a grand setting. A rural farm. The main road stretched from the left horizon off to the right, a long straightaway that always prompted folks to open up the throttle on their cars. The farm connected to the horizon -like straightaway by driveway which was lined with some tall swaying pines. The driveway was lathered in rough gravel... and it had a sound to it. It would announce that someone was coming... if the long stretch of road didn't.

It was a cast of characters that visited. I'd listen to them all tell their stories, catch up on business, plan out the hay season, share a beer... or two... or three, or pile in for some dinner. People spent a lot of time visiting. I can still see their faces, the lot of them. It was a community hang out. Always someone visiting.

The porch on the house off the driveway acted much like an amphitheater to it all. Especially to the sounds of the wind... and the giant swaying pines that lined the driveway. It was always breezy there... or so I remember. An old farmhouse, a large barn... sheds... tractors... cows... and the smells. Smells from the kitchen always swirled around.... roasts, biscuits, bread, cookies. They swirled in with... flowering crab and pine trees, flowers, cut grass, hay, cows...

A haven to a cast of characters... all of us.

The porch back then had a few rocking chairs on it. Deep ones, a few with a graceful lean backward. The kind that catch you. I used to rock back then... to find shade, have something cool to drink... to prepare for the next adventure. Over time... it became more of a habit. I'd let my mind wander. In the shade. In the breeze. I'd dream. It was a habit I learned from my Grandmother as I think of it. Ihave visions of her... sitting... and soaking it in... and slowing down.

It can be a struggle to slow down your mind these days. We move from one thing to another. A relentless sort of pace. Another bill to pay, another meeting, another project. Prepare for tomorrow. Washing. Cleaning. Shopping.

Today though... was different.

It's raining today... all day, a steady rain. I've always loved sitting under a porch, in a rocking chair, especially when it rains. And slow down my mind... ever since I was a kid.

Birds.

Greens.

Smells.

And I breathe deep.

And I slowly rock to and fro.

We have a lot of flowers about. Flowering crab trees.

My mind wanders from place to place.

Baseball. Getting ready for playoffs. Lots to tune up.

Bills.

A great article to read. Or two. Or three.

End of the school year rush. Usually the time of year when folks want to schedule meetings urgently before the end of the year. Some get frantic. Some stressed. Lots of emotion. Then come the cool parts of shoring up the years work, the chats with folks on the cusp of graduation from high school, and with those who are returning from college to check in. Catching up with people, hearing how their time here helped them... is endlessly rejuvenating to me and I'm grateful for the stories they share.

Birds flying here and there.

Steady rain.

And all the sounds the rain brings. An acoustic, soothing marvel.

My grandparents house... I can picture it vividly. White with green shutters. The clothes line. When the wind would rise up... the trees would sway, almost like strings being played...

The sheets always had a fresh smell to them... from being hung out...

I'd sit on the porch...

and I'd rock.

and I'd listen.

and my mind wander where it needed to go.

And I'd dream.

And I'd slow down.

And watch it rain.

And I'd go traveling... right there in that rocking chair.

Just like I did today.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad... on the porch

Inspiring Ideas... Dec 19, 2007

2011-05-06T11:14:00.020-04:00

1st floor design we sketched out back on Dec, 19, 2007.

I drafted the post below up in the Summer of 2009 and decided, at long last, to publish it. There’s a campus master plan brewing now, exploring ideas for the next round of improvements at BBA. I’ve mentioned this idea Brian Gawlik and I drafted up back in the day to a few people over the years. Most recently Neil Freebern asked to see some of the drafts.

'Here goes'...

...

Dec 19, 2007... It was a pretty typical scene. Around 6pm I stopped by Brian Gawlik's office to say I was headed out. The usual banter, a few jokes, thoughts on the day, and on what’s coming up, a discussion on education, politics, the future. Brian mentioned he'd been thinking a lot about the discussions we kept jumping into about conjuring up a new workspace, new programs and how we’d spin the idea of a new building. 5 minutes quickly turned into 10. About then we sat down at the table and started sketching out ideas.

4 hours later… we'd drafted up quite a view into the future:

Create a Fabrication Shop, connect two sound stages (black box style / green screen rooms), video and audio editing rooms, computer labs, an open common area / lounge / screening room with movable furniture, cafe, create partnerships...

After realizing it had quickly become 1130pm... we had a good laugh and decided to head home.

I remember I barely slept that night. Brian reported the the next morning he’d barely slept either, and showed me some sketches he’d continued on that night on the project space. We reviewed the sketches and bounced around some more ideas. That day I started pulling pictures off the web that matched the look and feel, modern warehouse style from our conversations and sent the link to Brian to view. We chipped away at the ideas over the next few weeks and joked about how improbable it was that the school would build any new facilities any time soon.

Close to retirement from BBA in the Spring of 2008, then Headmaster Chuck Scranton announced the scope of the upcoming five-year plan to the Faculty: The need for a new wood shop, ideas to expand the program, the thought of a new dorm for students, the idea of creating a magnate program at the school. Immediately following the meeting, Brian and I fired up the conversation again, how the new building idea anchored a vast number of the goals Chuck announced that day... the chance to create a modern, innovative program facility.

Then Brian got quite sick. Our conversations became sporadic... an email here and there from the hospital.

Brian came back to school for a short time and was pleased to hear the idea was still brewing. “Keep at it,” he said. “That’s one hell of a program.”

And then after what seemed like a very quick couple of months, Brian passed away on December 8th, 2009.

I’ve thought about the idea we conjured up that night often and about what he said that day in the hallway about keeping the idea going.

So here it is from the notes Brian and I worked on that evening, way back on Dec 19th, 2007, the pictures we saved to a Picasa album on the look and feel a day later... and how idea took off with the the idea of revamping the wood shop into a Fabrication Shop.

...

Fabrication Shop:

Metals, woods, plastics, 3D printing.

Basic through advanced and independent work.

Open work spaces, project tables.

(MIT Fab(rication Lab) kits as a basis to build off (30k base).

http://fab.cba.mit.edu/about/faq/

The Shop would be an anchor for:

Basic through advanced wood classes. Integration of the wood classes into:

Theater and drama dept: Set design, building.

New and creative fabrication ideas for all classes. Insert: 5/2009: Serving: MPA, Wood, Science (engineering class), art studios.

Multiple avenues for cross curricular projects, integration with art studios, sculptures, large murals.

Staging areas for projects. Mobile racks to move objects in and out of staging areas.

Garage door for projects to exit outside to theater and to bring in materials.

Connected to the shop would be two sound stages / green screen rooms, one large, one small. One or both could be built off the shop to move sets in and out of... Garage door access from the Shop into the sound stage.

Dressing rooms / prop rooms for sound stages.

Bathrooms.

Attached to the sound stages: The opportunity to merge high end computer lab/s, digital film, audio engineering, and music. Audio and video editing rooms... Collaborative spaces.

Conference room: Project planning, production meetings.

Storyboard space.

Common area for screenings and large project meetings, a large white wall to project on: movable couches and chairs, configurable space.

Small cafe integrated into the common room: The building has the potential to be open more hours, weekends etc for projects. Student staffed and opportunities for more advanced culinary work.

Look and Feel of the Facility:

Open collaborative style.

Idea for 1 ½ story: Open space over common area. Open staircase leading to second floor.

Green building scope, natural light, glass, open industrial style scope.

Images from the web on look and feel, industrial style (Picasa).

Creates a magnate program for BBA.

Enormous draw for International Students.

Potential for yr 13 program (gap yr film institute program, cheaper than college... (West coast) yr 13 program style), and partnerships with a Grad School.

Grad school partnerships: Film crews, shared expertise, project leadership, collaboration, indy film / documentary showcase potential: Partnership with Tisch Grad Program, NYU: Grad students lead to film crews. Contacts: Kyle Komline, Tim Velsor (as of Dec, 2007).

Leads to facility being open longer, Summer... lots of possibilities.

Possibility of grad students integrating into dorm supervision?

Modern, Weta-Works style, multi-function, cross-curricular creative project space.

Site ideas: Maintenance building site across from the Rowland Center. Move Maintenance across the road, refit that nonfunctional garage space. Rectangle or L...

... End notes

I found this video later of High Tech High in California, a warehouse style, modern space with hands-on labs, project work and some great philosophies on learning.

Good memories and interesting ideas for the future. Hey, when you start dreaming... who knows what can happen. Who knows where it might lead. Engage. AP

Digital Dossier

2011-05-02T12:03:00.003-04:00

This video below, 'Digital Dossier', (discovered from a Twitter post from @bonniebird) speaks about the digital footprints we accumulate in our lives. With each passing year, the digital traces we leave behind will increase.

Curious what your digital dossier looks like? What might it look like in the future?

I get very concerned when I hear of schools simply blocking social media services, engaging in no discussions on these fronts, of simply practicing an 'out of sight, out of mind' sort of approach. There's no better time to start discussing and exploring these types of questions in schools.

Engage.

Monday Landscaping

2011-04-24T23:29:00.000-04:00

I'll be out Monday April 25th repairing the field with the baseball team. It's a great day to keep tinkering on final presentations. The Force is with us. See you Tuesday! AP

2011 Varsity Baseball Team
Saturday April 23, 2011
Landscaping in rain, sleet or shine!

eDesign Creativity...

2011-04-11T13:04:00.001-04:00

In one of the latest assignments in eDesign, students took on the task of creating a collage based on the project themes this semester in the A block Tech Research class. Here's the list of themes:

Garrett: Fish and Game Wildlife Management, Adam: Survival kit , Eric: Bass guitar design, Hannah: Movie making, Ryder: Sound editing, Hannah: Nutrition in schools, Emily: Digital Photography, Kyle: Horror films, Heather: Horse Management, Dylan: Forensics, Jenny: Horse nutrition, Trevor: Building iPod app, Sunny: Two subjects: History of war, and Monsters of Legend, Rachel: Music Genome Project, Lucas: Technology, Jenn: Two themes: Tolkien, and bad movies.

After the collages were created, the Tech Research class voted on their favorites and here they are respectively:

1st Place: Veronica:

Three entries tied for second place: Emily, Ethan, and Jimmy.

In all, the collages across the class came out great. Many thanks to all those who entered and to those who voted.

The Photoshop Effect...

2011-02-15T12:45:00.001-05:00

After the break the eDesign class will be exploring Photoshop digital photo editing in more detail. Lots to discuss!

New Course... Engage

2011-02-11T15:00:00.011-05:00

For roughly three years we've been kicking the idea around of a 'Senior Seminar' type course here, specifically to meet the needs of our students graduating and moving into the world. We've had many discussions on 'starting here' and the need / opportunity to incorporate these tools into many other areas of the school. Hopefully the work that students do here can be a beacon to open doors in other curriculum areas. Here's one of my original posts here on my personal blog from when we started brainstorming with students on this topic.

Colby Halligan ('11) and Luen Proft ('11) shored up the work this semester that Anders Ax ('08) and a host of others began and we again passed it on for approval.

We received notice this morning that this new course was approved so we're off and running. We'll be announcing more details about the course, asking for feedback online from the academic community here and abroad as to what to include, ideas for guest speakers, and for projects. Think tank sort of stuff: The essence of social networking... and moving forward.

Many thanks to Jenn Hyatt and Neil Freeburn for their input and also the cast of people who contributed ideas along the way.

Engage, AP

SOCIAL NETWORKING: A SENIOR SEMINAR
1 credit Level 2
Seniors (available to Juniors if there is space available)

What role does technology and social media play in your life? Is it a source of entertainment and grounded to more typical school functions like reading, research, and writing? If so, there's a good deal more it can do. How can you leverage these tools to build an extensive learning network? How can you learn to deal with information overload? How can social media be leveraged into, well, more? Here are some other questions designed by your peers who created this course: What practical knowledge and tools will help you in the future to understand the world of finance, budgets, credit cards, online investing, amortization rates, taxes, individual retirement accounts, and mortgages? What resources will help you manage stress, and understand the role of nutrition in this modern world? We'll explore the questions from the class by leveraging social media... for you. We'll also use these tools and skills to connect with guest speakers. These speakers will discuss their areas of expertise and also how they made the transition from high school into the responsibilities of adult life. We'll use social networking skills to collaborate in and out of class and help you learn about how to head into your future. This class will consist of collaborative work, group discussions, explorations and projects designed by the class.

Lots Going On... Engage.

2011-01-22T20:01:00.002-05:00

My thanks to the everyone in the 1st semester Tech Research and eDesign classes for their work. We covered some great individuals projects, thought provoking classwork and design work.

Lots going on...

The new semester fires up Tuesday. Another eDesign class and the first run of a modified version of the Tech Research class for Freshman while D and E block Tech Research continues.

A few students are firing up an internship this Spring with me to develop a course for next year. The idea centers along the lines of a Senior Seminar type experience. The hope is the course will challenge our conventional thoughts on education, introduce many practical threads for students as they move on to the next step, bring in some great guest speakers (educators, business folks and Alumni!) and explore a student centered feedback loop for the students to deliver messages to the school on their perceptions on education. We'll look at length at the master schedule too... what could be possible with some flexibility and creativity. Very excited about where this can lead.

Next week I'll be headed to the Educon conference in Philadelphia. WHOOHOO! There's a great slate of discussions planned and I'm excited to meet many of the folks I've collaborated with online over the past few years.

Work has started on a faculty study group to explore project based learning, pedagogy and the role of technology in the future of this school. The Educon trip next week is part of this work. We've started a professional development blog for the group to share resources as we go.

Board work with VITA-Learn and I'll be working on a conference in the Spring, likely April, on project based learning, pedagogy and specifically the impact more personalized technology can have on these fronts.

Another baseball season is on the horizon too. Lots to do. Work continues with the 643DP Foundation to improve the local playing facility, we'll be looking at a Spring trip (possibly to Cooperstown, NY and the Hall of Fame) and addressing some much needed All-Star selection and season schedule refits for the league. I'll also be working on planning renovations for the local little league fields too and the Summer youth clinic. It looks at this time that negotiations to lower the Summer camp price through the school were successful. I think this will lead to increased enrollment and ultimately better service to the community.

On these baseball fronts too, I'll be working with other folks in the State at the VBCA to run our Spring clinic and to develop a Junior All-Star game. We've discussed the Junior game for two years now and it's time to set it in motion.

On a personal note... it's time to tear out the floors in the house. Green bamboo, fresh paint throughout, cast out some furniture... perhaps a renovation of a bathroom and add a first floor pellet stove. We'll see how things sugar out.

Grad course for SNHU? We'll see what they are up to in the Spring or Summer.

Then there's starting that Masters program... hmmm.

Mix in a few trips here and there to Boston and Burlington, some good company along the way... some blogging here and on my personal blog...

We'll see what else gets conjured up.

Should keep me busy until June!

Engage.

Updated Social Media Stats: Did You Know?

2011-01-05T10:44:00.000-05:00

Karl Fisch started this years ago with videos called 'Did You Know.' Here's the latest entry. Pretty incredible statistics. I don't believe school can or should avoid discussions on social media. At some point, hopefully soon, it' will be considered irresponsible not to enter the discussion. Embracing the strengths and potential, actively discussing pitfalls, well, we'll get a lot further than simply ignoring it. Especially if we are educating students for 'their future.'

The Brian Gawlik Studio

2010-12-20T18:46:00.000-05:00

Familiar faces... family, friends... old and new came together this afternoon to dedicate the Studio here in the Smith Center to Brian Gawlik... and the dedication on the memorial so reads:

THE BRIAN GAWLIK STUDIO
dedicated to the memory of

Brian Gawlik
1961-2009

Brian came to Burr and Burton in 1999, a year after the Smith Center for Communications opened. Thanks to a generous gift from Barbara Riley and Gerald Levin, the lower level had been fitted out with a state-of-the art digital television studio complete with digital cameras, two editing bays and Avid editing stations. With his rich background in professional video editing, and news production, Brian brough just the right combination of talent, experience and personal skills to the task of setting up a vibrant communications program for students.

Under his expert, sometimes teasing, yet always gentle direction, his students became the writers, producers journalists and designers of their own news shows and films. He had high standards for their work in class and for how they conducted themselves out of class. He wanted them to have real-world experience and be professional in all they did. He was as likely to be seen instructing them in the finer points of tying a tie as checking light levels. Many of his students have gone on to work in the industry. None of them will forget him.

Brian also helped many local community organizations who came to him with requests for his experience in film and audio technology. He was unfailingly generous with his time. He is remembered by many in the community for his years as a volunteer with Race for the Cure cure committee responsible for the annual Summer event to benefit breast cancer research.

Born on March 25, 1961, in New York City, Brian moved with his family to Sunderland, Vermont in 1973. After receiving his undergraduate degree from Lyndon State College in 1983, he worked for the college's NewsLINC program. He went on to be a freelance editor and videographer for CNN and MSNBC and worked for Galaxy Broadcasting in Bondville before coming to Burr and Burton.

Brian Gawlik, teacher, mentor, and friend, died on December 8, 2009 after a long and courageous fight with cancer. He was 48 years old. He is honored and missed by the Burr and Burton community, but his legacy will live on in the students who benefit from the program he began.

Sheets... and Math(ematics) in Education

2010-12-06T22:50:00.008-05:00

We've plowed into our 'Education Revisited assignment in a couple Lab classes here. Alex Sheets, who used to teach here at BBA, sent on this great site called vihart.com/doodling to chime in our discussion on mathematics.

Here's a great vid from the site. I love this sort of stuff!

Here's another:

Earlier this week in this 'Education Revisited' assignment we asked:

Is it necessary to teach mathematics today the way we usually do?

We took on this speech on TED by Conrad Wolfram in class earlier this week. Is it necessary to focus so much on hand based computation when we teach math?

Wolfram talks of working with students on:

1. Posing the right questions.
2. Real world math formulation.
4. Math formulation. Real world verification.

Step 3. in Wolfram's sequence is 'Computation' and he poses that that's where illogically spend most of our time these days with students, why too many feel disconnected with math. I'd say he's right.

Keep the doodles in mind above doodles above and take a look at Stephen Wolfram's heady speech on 'Computing the Theory of Everything.'

Imagine project work where we use powerful tools like Mathematica, where we focus more effort on steps 1, 2, and 4, where we use the web and incorporate the principles of design into work in schools... instead of focusing so much on repetitive paper based computation. Exciting stuff.

We once thought venturing to the moon was beyond the scope of humanity. Standing on a corner and using something like a smartphone... was science fiction 25 years ago. Making movies with special effects like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, like Avatar or Inception used to be impossible. Might we use things like GapMinder to visualize very complex urban societal problems and conjure up solutions more quickly? Might we venture on to the fabled 'Star Trek Warp Drive' where we travel at the speed of light... or beyond the speed of light? It might sound crazy. Then again... it might not.

So... Business as usual... or a new frontier? Some great discussions brewing. Many thanks to Alex for passing on that site. AP

The Path From the Past to Present

2010-10-20T22:54:00.014-04:00

Some folks contacted me recently from another school district. They wanted some advice on how to open up new technology programs, new ways of thinking. They described that their network was extremely locked down to the point of being unusable... used for basic word processing, presentation creation (mostly PowerPoint) and for basic web research. They described a disconnect between IT service policy and the needs of education. Often debates would go on for years with no motion. No one was listening and too many people had genuinely given up. Consensus was always trying to be reached... and never could be. People were beginning to feel worn down.

I told them that our journey here has not been without bumps. It's been a laborious process at times and not without some tough, heated discussions… but we have made some progress. I started chatting over some of the five year history here and how our proposals have pushed some folks to think forward rather than about status quo. It didn't happen magically. Here's a summary:

Five years ago we started out by proposing a refit the rooms here on the floor. We shut off the bright florescent lights and added some indirect lighting, painted over the institutional white walls and took the desks out of rows. We painted two tech classrooms, extended the new look to the hallway (4 colors), put up some artwork and even tossed new color in the bathrooms. Students participated in it all and it's proven to be a great space for work here. The work drew attention from some other areas of the school and brought to light on very important question: 'Do classrooms need to look like, well, traditional classrooms?'

The old network structure here five years ago was very locked down and basically not functional for any sort of progressive or collaborative education in our new 'tech' classes. As we proposed changes we discovered a high level of frustration with other teachers and students on campus over the level of desktop and internet control… not atypical to educational institutions. So, we did our surveys and proposed a shift to a new Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). Some intense discussions and debates began. The thought of moving to a more open philosophy is difficult for some. It took a considerable amount of time to convince some folks that a locked down approach stifles educational opportunities and growth. It ultimately builds dependency and increased demands on IT services as well. Heavily restricted access also leads to user frustration and promotes very generic use of powerful hardware. The first step negotiated was to restore more local rights to computers in supervised Labs. The move (grouping Lab computers for more access rights in Active Directory) opened up educational opportunities in the Labs. Over the next year advanced access to local computers was opened up for everyone else on campus. Routine service calls initially went up (as expected.)… and then quickly plummeted far beneath previous levels. It was the first step in the overall Acceptable Use Policy change. Many discussions and lobbying then continued for more advanced access.

We had a Hardware / Networking class that was more based on book work, so a hands on Lab was created with donated machines and tossed away the books. A quick trip to Boston for some donated gear, some makeshift tables, some tools, wiring and we were off and running. Installs and experiments began for students on relevant hardware and diverse OS installation / configuration, and networking experience. Hands on learning. Refurbishing machines led to a logical next step.

We created 'a Refurbishing Program' for old equipment here on campus. Donated machines and older machines on campus were reconditioned for students to take home. 1. To begin address large problems with equity of access for students. 2. To introduce a new IT service and professional development model on campus. The program was turned over along with the Hardware and Networking class to Kevin Morrison and more intense development went into the 'Tech Research' class model.

We proposed a Student Help Desk model where students participate in tech support and training on campus for adults and peers. As a first step students introduced adults on campus to blogs and wikis via a 5 minute presentation and then adults headed down to the Labs here for training. Much to the adults surprise, about 15 students were on hand to assist with instruction. There was no lockstep group instruction, rather we dove in on a personal level and began grouping people by needs and proficiency. After that one session those 15 students setup appointments with faculty and staff over the two weeks that followed to continue web development. The training initiative was a smashing success. More detailed Help Desk proposals have followed here over these last 2 years. The program here still sits in sort of a 'beta' mode, far beneath it's potential… but it's still successful. In the meantime this proposed Help Desk model has been passed on to 9 other schools, 3 districts, incorporated into the Digital Wish Foundation Laptop initiative and is now modeled in the upcoming State Technology Plan for 2010.

As more flexible desktop computer projects got underway across campus and the Tech Research class kicked into a new gear, the next phase of our AUP proposal centered that the philosophy of internet filtering here be changed from 'what to allow' to, simply, 'what to block.' We switched to OpenDNS to filter (simple and free). We focused on simply blocking pornography and malware / spyware and left everything else alone. The decision was made at that time to continue to block all sorts of social networking on campus at this time… so we proposed that it be made accessible in supervised Labs: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Ning, Blogs, Wikis, etc. As we expected, it was a widespread success and opened up more relevant discussions with students on our tech courses immediately. More faculty craved access to YouTube and other social networking sites across campus and more proposals and discussions over the next 1.5 years led to open access for all participants to social networking sites campus wide. The result Students and teachers were encouraged to discuss the use of social networking tools rather than simply deny use. Relevant and challenging education for the times at hand.

We moved on to propose a switch from Microsoft Exchange to GMail for Domains, later retitled Google Apps. More collaboration tools, quicker development, more accessible to students outside of school, hosted services (by Google) and… free. 2.5 years from first proposing the switch, after a number of meetings and rather intense debates the proposal was accepted and implemented. Since the shift there's more collaborative document sharing, shared calendar access, and less training initiatives related to email are necessary. Better yet, use has skyrocketed. It's been a fantastic success.

Reduced hardware needs, software licensing costs and the overall simplicity introduced to the network by these initiatives led to increased use on campus and the need to purchase more bandwidth to the internet. With all the money saved in infrastructure it was easy to reallocate money for more bandwidth. Once installed, projects continued to get more diverse by including video and audio content and higher level, more reliable and faster web research.

More widespread use of social networking tools led to the school taking on Twitter as a notification system and to develop presence on Facebook.

A widespread increase in use and demand across campus led to the need to install a new wireless infrastructure. We did our research here and by cost and feature comparisons available across the market, we proposed AeroHive as the vendor to meet our needs. 1.5 years after our recommendation was sent in, it was implemented. Along with the change, access was opened up for students to bring in their own devices.

There have been countless presentations on the items above and some tough discussions to get to this point… our present. There were many times I've wished it was easier to bring these ideas to fruition. Regardless, more collaboration and discussions are taking place about how to use technology… rather than simply locking things down, pretending it doesn't exist… and moving on, business as usual as so many educational institutions seem to do. Change… can be difficult for educational institutions… but it's necessary if we are truly educating students for their future. It's not for the sake of technology. It's about education and opportunity. It's about teaching kids to leverage these tools into something... instead of denying access and promoting that they are, in fact, only good for the purposes of writing, basic research, and entertainment.

I mentioned to these folks that we had the same debates about television years ago. The movie Good Night and Good Luck frames Murrow's famous speech to the RTNDA on this matter quite eloquently.

That old television debate is just magnified this time. It's just moving faster this time... and that's why schools, with their slow development curves have a hard time adapting. For many, the discussions and motion on technology is 'just one more thing.' What we've tried to help people understand is... 'it's not an add, it's a shift.'

I'm not sure if the tale of nearly five years of development helped these folks in spirit, but it did show them a map of sorts at least of how we got to the present. There are places where these shifts happen in a much more streamlined fashion, where energy is redirected into the projects themselves rather than simply bringing them to fruition. Often when you seek advice from other institutions it can be viewed as threatening to some internally... a comparison of sorts. Simply put, I assured them that research is a lot better than reinventing the wheel all the time... which too many schools seem to do. Research will also save folks from what I call 'pilot project and sub-committee hell.' There are formulas success, and they are easy to find.

I referred these folks to our Proposals page to view our pieces discussed here in more detail.

We continue to field requests now and again... but many have traveled down these roads already now. It's time, hopefully, to move forward again.

We've got a number of other proposals floating out there that have evolved from our discussions and detailed research out and about. One has been in discussion for as long as 10 years... one-to-one computing. Some others proposals are just a year or two old and a few others that are brand new. We'll discuss these in the next posts… Present and Future Discussions.

Engage.

Fall Semester 2010 Underway

2010-09-22T15:28:00.004-04:00

We're off and running.

Folks have chosen study topics, started journals, assembled materials, software and equipment to help the projects along. We dove into some tips to get started and took on Diigo and Twitter to help expand research and open up resources ala aggregation. Our camera stock is on the move for digital editing projects and recording interviews. Discussions on the news are also underway with more to come in the next few weeks. Discussions on project management are being woven in every day as well. Chinese, German, Japanese and English students and the Google Translator are in full swing. Not bad tinkering for about 20 days.

Here's a list of the projects underway in the Lab thus far this semester:

Facebook Security

iPhone Technology and App Development

Oceanography

Video Effects and Editing

Gimp

4 Digital Photography and editing projects

Military Technology

Social Networks and Communication

Engineering

C++ Programming

Tattoo Technology

Event Management and Scheduling

Adaptive Camouflage

Space Tourism / Transportation

Sustainable Energy

Logo Design / Illustrator and Photoshop

Autonomous Vehicles / Urban Planning

Small Business Technology / Management

Online Education

Modern Journalism

Music Composition

Bike Design / Engineering

Swimming Technology

Psychology Technology

Some projects will wrap up quickly while some others will weave on through the semester or even all year, continuously expanding. Multiple project threads in the same room, multiple languages, class projects, discussions and collaboration. I'm always curious to see where people go. For so many, it's the first chance to explore their own interests.

On the horizon we'll take a few breaks from projects and take a look see at some philosophies of education, how technology has pushed changes in 'school' and learning and folks will analyze their thoughts on 'education' and 'entertainment.'

Just getting started. Engage.

Message from one of our Alumni, Jilli Deibold

2010-09-01T16:08:00.003-04:00

Getting messages like this... never gets old.

Jill Deibold
So I was talking with my academic advisor about my Calc 1 class I had signed up for. As soon as I walked in he was like, "I don't think you should take Calc..I think we're going to put you into a web design class using Flash CS4 and Dream weaver, I'm sure you haven't used it yet but I think you'd be interested in it more than Calculus"

I then told him about my tech classes at BBA. He was impressed to say the least with the very idea of the class :3

I'm gonna miss not having you as my tech teacher this semester though : )

6 hours ago · Comment · Like · See Wall-to-Wall

Many hands make lighter work

2010-08-26T16:24:00.002-04:00

On the 21st I took a tumble down some steps in the rain while carrying a friends munchkin. I very happy to report that the munchkin is intact... Not even a scrape as I was able to pull her onto my chest as I fell. My tailbone and lower back... Not so much. Took a ride down four steps and onto the pavement. Hey, all the more reason to wear a cape! The fall left me pretty sore with some good bruises. Not a great way to end the Summer!

On our return trip to Manchester I needed to shore up the Lab for the Guidance Dept to work with the Senior class for Wednesday am. Kevin Morrison, our neighbor Stephanie, my two kids, and Janice helped me shore up the room: resetting tables, computers and cables, cleaning and some touch-up painting. Many hands make light work. Something that usually takes me about 7-8 hours we knocked out in just under three. Many thanks to the crew for their help. I couldn't have done it without them.

I'm on the mend and improving day to day. Now it only hurts when I breathe! Hahaha!

-- Posted from batphone

Technology and Performance

2010-08-19T18:31:00.003-04:00

This marks my third year back on a bike... And I've loved every second of it.

I whisked out these three years on a Trek 1.5 road bike. It carries itself and me on some Bontrager SS 25 rims and Select B 25x700 tires. The bike came with 23s and they had some trouble toting around 215 pounds of me so Trek swapped them out at no charge... Which I appreciated immensely. The 1.5 has an aluminium frame, and carbon forks in the front. Ipgraded to a longer neck extension (for free at the local bike shop... Battenkill Sports Cycling Shop... Thanks Robin!) because I like to lean forward more. I like to ride at 100psi in both tires since moving to the 25s... Helps it feel a bit more free on the road. With the tires at 100psi and the aluminum frame being stiff on the 1.5 I compensated a bit to accommodate for distance rides by putting on a softer seat, a Serfas RX+ (which was not free but well worth it). I also upgraded to some dual function Shimano pedals so I can ride with clips or shoes. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but I've discovered over these three years I never ride with shoes! All told the 1.5 is a significant upgrade from the old 17 pound Vista Espada I used to ride no doubt.

I piled on more distance this Summer than the previous two years, averaging about 325-400 miles per week and a high one week of roughly 500. All that time on the road can lead to some thinking.

300 plus miles per week, and a trip average of about 50-70 miles seems my comfort limit on the 1.5 in my hips and lower back. Long trips with some almonds and other snacks, some water mixed with water and occasionally orange juice has kept me fueled... As well as some stops for some great delis along the way. The extended distance got me to thinking about looking into some new bikes... Some bikes that are less rigid, that carry a bit more flex. To boldly go...

Based on how much I've enjoyed this bike I'd certainly look at a Trek Again. The 2X series seems similar to what I've got so I'll look toward Madone series as a next step. Researching components and specs led me down the high end path a few days ago... like a Time frame and some Zipp 404s. Just those two components though are more than I'd spend, likely in the $6500 range! Like most things, there's no limit to the amount you can spend on bikes.

So... With a drive inside to put more distance on a bike... What next? Stick with the 1.5 and upgrade a few more components like new pedals and shoes? Having some shoes that are lighter and more stiff would be a good thing I'm thinking atm. It'd help me drive more power to the pedals with less foot flex.

As I look at new bikes... Is my goal to go more distance? Faster? Both? Just to enjoy a new sled and seek out it's limitations?

I'll also be switching from Gatorade to Hammer Fuel for longer trips for sure. Tastes less sweet while having and equal amount of sugar while offering up more protein and carbs. Seems like a good ticket.

All good questions.

Perhaps I'll go for another ride and give it a think.

-- Posted from batphone

Keep Moving... In the Right Direction

2010-07-15T11:18:00.004-04:00

I saw this interview with Sir Ken Robinson on a post by Dan French.

Encouraging stuff.

Course Descriptions

2010-05-20T10:06:00.022-04:00

Image created by Morgan Lendway, class of 2010

Each semester students and alumni help carve out new paths for these courses. The revisions here are often a product of our class discussions, emerging trends, technologies and curiosities. Here's the current course descriptions below.

My thanks to all those folks, current students and alumni, who continually participate in these revisions. It's inspiring to work with you and a privilege to have your input. AP

TECH RESEARCH LAB
1 credit Level 2

How many times have you said, “I’d like to try that?” Ever wanted to explore a topic but not dedicate a full semester to it? What if you had the opportunity to propose your own topic and bring that interest to fruition either working in a group with your friends or on and individual project? What if you could study alternative energy, technology in “green” buildings, hydroponics, how skis are made, or even something like how technology is shaping the future of education? That's the trick here: You choose the topic. You also choose the duration of your project. Take on up to three different projects in one semester, devote an entire semester or year to a project, take multiple sections of this course simultaneously, or extend topic tracks into successive years by repeating sections of this flexible course. With up to twenty different projects underway in the room at the same time it's a pretty dynamic atmosphere. Along the way, we explore how technology is changing the news, education, business, the cell phone landscape, the Internet, e-commerce, collaboration, computer gaming and entertainment, and even the future of medicine and aging. We incorporate modern web apps like Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, Twitter, blogs, and aggregators like iGoogle. On top of it all we seek to polish up your project management, research skill, public speaking and collaboration skills. It's a chance to explore your own diverse interests, or even get a jump start on a career or major all while you work in an alternative learning environment. Traditional course offerings not spark your interest or something you read here make you curious? If so, Tech Research is the course for you.

PREREQUISITE: Sophomore, Juniors and Seniors or permission of instructor.

SOCIAL NETWORKING: A SENIOR SEMINAR

1 credit Level 2

Seniors (available to Juniors if there is space available)

Ever get worried about life after high school? Need advice on finances? Credit cards? Bills? Online banking? Health? College? How to deal with roommates? How about nutrition? Cooking? Cars? Aging? Retirement? What practical knowledge do you need to help you into the future? We'll frame up questions as a class, and we'll find answers. We'll invite guest speakers in to share their expertise with the class on themes we design and also to discuss their personal transition from high school and into life. Along the way, we'll explore and uncover a deeper layer of using social media. We'll help you sculpt your thoughts on how you appear online, what you should know about these tools, and help you learn to leverage them to help you in the future. You'll learn more about how to learn, and how to communicate in this hyper-fast world. You'll gain deeper technology and social media skill, and gain a wealth of practical knowledge for your future. It's a course designed by your peers and explores your new questions each semester.

eDESIGN: DIGITAL ART, VIDEO, AUDIO, AND WEB PUBLISHING

1 credit Level 2

Rekindle your creative and experimental spark in this course and dive into the creative world of digital design and build your skill at the same time. Our project themes here range from the dark and mysterious to fun and whimsical. Rekindling your creative spark may prove more fun than you think. Students also design their own themes here with the intent of sharing their work with friends and family and publishing their work to the web. In the first half of this course students will explore and develop skills in digital design by experimenting with programs in the Adobe Suite like Photoshop, and various open-source programs like GIMP. In the second half of the course, students will learn basic and modern techniques of web publishing using a variety of tools including various blogs, wikis, through feature-rich applications like Dreamweaver and even on to mobile devices.

2nd Semester Presentations Begin... Today!

2010-05-19T07:53:00.000-04:00

Three presentations kick off today in D block. We'll post some updates as we go. Engage.

Acceptable Use Policy Advice... and a Good Dose of Common Sense

2010-05-08T17:33:00.011-04:00

A friend called me recently for advice. He works in a school district and they have been hammering out a revised Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). He described that the discussions on this new AUP been going on for over a year, meetings were now bi-monthly, in complete gridlock and the current draft they were working on had expanded to 31 pages.

I told him a quote from Phillip K. Howard's TED speech: "The constitution is only 16 pages long."

As you might imagine, the AUP draft he sent was loaded with restrictions on web access, programs, hardware, personal devices and a long list of resulting penalties.

I told him I felt the document would lead to paralysis, that it was educationally irresponsible for the needs of modern students and educators. The perspective of 'out of sight, out of mind' won't help.

I encouraged him to pass on a series of drafts from other districts to the committee to help them gain some perspective on where neighboring schools were headed educationally. I also recommended that the AUP should be no more than 3 pages, preferably 1.

I also offered up that it would be a healthy shift to discuss what they wanted to do educationally rather than simply what they will prevent people from doing.

In sent him the link to Howard's speech below to watch and to pass on to the committee. Howard's speech speaks volumes about refining general principles and goals.

What do you think?

Evolution

2010-02-23T13:10:00.005-05:00

I've had many discussions on the role of technology in schools, society and our lives over the years.

I like this video. A lot.

The Fringe Benefits of Failure

2010-02-07T11:43:00.003-05:00

I was prowling the web recently and stumbled on this Harvard Commencement speech by JK Rowling on the subject of failure. I spent the rest of the day mulling it over after watching, thinking about where I've been and how I've done things along the way.

When we do fail... we have to learn to pick ourselves up. I've failed many times in my life. There are times when I've picked myself up quickly and moved on and some others where it has taken me some time to regroup and get moving again.

Rowling touches on another theme that hit home for me. When it does take some time to get moving again I often think of something my father told me many moons ago: 'Surround yourself with good people and good things happen." Years later he added some more wisdom: "There are a lot of fair weather friends out there. Spend more time with the people who truly look to help you when the chips are down."

Rowling's speech conjures up a good deal of other thoughts too. What thoughts will it conjure up for you?

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo.

Under the Weather

2010-01-26T08:57:00.004-05:00

Rule # 1: Don't post messages on Facebook to the like of how it's been ages since you've been sick.

Managed to get myself a sinus/respiratory infection/flu... thing... over the last week. Rather than getting better over the course of the week though I've steadily got worse. Currently I'm just about unable to speak. This may please some co-workers (kidding, I think)... but I can tell you it's no fun at all. Sore throat, fever... blah.

The bad news though is that I'm missing a unique day at school. The schedule has us closing out 1st semester classes in the first half of the day and opening up the second semester in the second half. Interesting idea. The chance to meet with folks after exams is a great idea... something not readily practiced in education.

So... to all my first semester e-design and RLab students, my thanks for your work. My sincere hope is that you learned to see more threads in the world, more opportunities and more things to keep a careful eye on. Drop in and say hi anytime.

To all those folks coming into new semester classes: The courses you are enrolled in change all the time. Your predecessors in the first semester provided valuable feedback that will help shape the course of your journey here this second semester... and possibly many more days in your future.

Here's a quote I like:

"All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger, but calculating risk and acting decisively. Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer. - Niccolo Machiavelli

I'll stick with sloth today though...

Back to bed!

The Decade Ahead

2010-01-03T17:06:00.014-05:00

There's no end of avenues to write about that happened over the last ten years. World events, nature, the economy, education... It'd be a long entry. So, I decided to try and summarize it all... succinctly... and here's what I came up with:

WHOO!

That about sums it up I think.

There are tons of summaries anyway out there already.

What's ahead in the next decade? Thats where my thoughts usually land. Here's a few thoughts on the technology front:

We're entering a new era of visual data summaries and search on the web, an era where we won't just talk about data being king... it will be. Searching the 'real-time web,' seeing trends develop as they happen is on the front burner of every major search engine, and hoards of businesses.

Social networking will continue to expand exponentially. Smart phones, laptops, netbooks, tablets and e-paper... the affordability of these tools will bring billions of users and volumes of information into the web. These tools will also continue to bring incredible opportunities for folks to learn and enrich their lives. It will be increasingly easy to use but it will take refined skills to take advantage of it all. There will be new social challenges with this development too. Discussions have evolved from the dangers of reading newspapers to texting while driving. It's no different from every era in education... another 'new' era in information, education and connectivity. It's my hope that "The Tipping Point,' a phenomenon summarized by Malcom Gladwell, will at last hit education in the main regarding technology. We're close I think. 'Out of sight, out of mind' won't get us anywhere we need to be. We'll gain far more ground by focusing on building skills rather than business as usual. Shifting to smart boards is not the answer. The tools themselves are not the answer... but we've started down a path to meet these challenges, to engage these discussions... a start toward increasing skills and building fluency. It takes access. Getting folks involved is the key.

How will education shift in this next decade? We'll see. Hopefully online courses, alternative schedules, internship opportunities, revised school lunch programs and the inclusion of technology will offer great potential for education. There are some encouraging developments out there. The Virtual Florida program (and this one too... there are two) and the Science and Leadership Academy in Philadelphia are two innovators that come to mind.

The Human Genome Project will continue lead to new advancements in medicine in both proactive and reactive care. The advancements will push on research around the expansion of regenerative medicine, organ replacement and extension of the human life span (see The Methuselah Project). Were in for some incredible debates in the coming decades.

Discussions on conserving energy, alternative fuels, propulsion, new materials like Aerogel... we're headed for some interesting times. $4 a gallon for gas two summers ago while oil companies made record profits... still doesn't sit well with me. Solar energy, wind power, alternative fuels, short range autos and cycles... inspiring design and new innovation is on the horizon.

I can't help but wonder what 'phones' will look like 10 years from now. Skype, Grand Central/Google Voice, the Blackberry, iPhone... they've all changed the face of how... we stepped into the mobile access era. Something more than just a phone. Will conventional household phones exist 10 years from now? I'm guessing no.

There's far more to write about but we'll get onto that later this year.

What were we doing 10 years ago? Giving a look at what's available today will help. What will we be discussing 10 years from now? Students entering 1st grade will be halfway through their high school career 10 years from now. What will their education look like? What will the collegiate realm look like? Global / online commerce and business? What tools will be in folks hands? What will we be driving? Stay tuned.

On a personal front... what a trip it's been. I've had the fortune to work with some great folks along the way and we've done a good share of innovating and development. The thought of building on that work...

Let's get to it.

In Memoriam-- Brian Gawlik

2009-12-09T23:42:00.008-05:00

photo by Thatcher Friant.

" All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
Gandalf the Grey, Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

Brian Gawlik, a teacher, colleague, friend and a member of our family here at BBA passed away today, Tuesday at 3pm after a lengthy battle with cancer.

I first met Brian about 8 years ago now. Tales on a State technology listserv and word of mouth spoke of an innovative high school television news and independent film program at Burr and Burton Academy. I had to see it all for myself so I packed up a few teachers, a few techies and headed out to give the program a look. Brian and I hit it off immediately on that visit. We spoke at length that day as we walked around about the students and the learning process, of the power in creative projects, ones where you had the flexibility to experiment and explore boundaries. It was tough to leave that day as I recall.

Some years later as fate would have it I came to work at Burr and Burton in 2005. Brian and I seemed to pick up where we left off. As I looked to settle into BBA and to Southern Vermont I don't think Brian could have been more accommodating. I thanked him for his help one day and he simply said "I'm not going to give you my Bud Light." He gave that familiar quirky grin and chuckle so many of us have come to appreciate over the years. I often remember him looking this way as he was holding court behind his desk.

The next two years passed pretty quickly. Through it all, Brian and I had many chats in his office after school on creativity, how technology is shaping the world and the direction we would steer programs here at BBA. We spoke on the alternative environment in our department, how we'd turn tides toward more student centric services with technology use on campus, how it would become more personalized. We chatted on philosophy, life, movies... you name it. Time disappeared during those conversations and our 'quick chats' often went on past 6, 7, even 8 or 9pm on occasion. We'd start on a topic, start redesigning something, tinkering on some equipment or the like and the time would just fly.

One day stands out to me now of them all as I write this. I remember I tossed my coat on at about 5pm and headed over to Brian's office say goodnight. I stood in the doorway and we started bantering. Before I knew it, we were both sitting around a table and we were drafting cross curricular projects, project teams, a new facility, a revolutionary construct that threaded together many of the stated goals and needs of the school. Every piece we discussed that night just snapped in place. We sat for a bit after, amazed at what we just drafted up and both decided that it was probably well past time to get home. We came back in the next morning and swapped stories about how neither of us could sleep, how we mulled over details of the program, and how in Brian's summary the whole project "just felt right."

We continued to toss ideas around on the project over the next months. Then Brian's health spiraled and before we knew it he was off to the hospital. I did get to chat with him a few times about how we'd get back to planning, how we'd write it up in a formal proposal to pass on. The day never formally came to be. We chatted over it again recently in his brief return to teaching and he urged me not to let the idea go. "It just feels right" he said again. I told him how much I agreed, how I'd flushed out more details in the Lab with students with the intent to pass it on. I don't think Brian could have seemed more pleased when I told him we'd continue. "Keep at it" he said. "That's one hell of a program."

I get rather choked up when I think of the day we drafted it all up. There were a good many days I had like that working with Brian.

As I came to know Brian over the those few quick years I learned a bit about his many health struggles, how he conserved energy day to day and how he worked his mind and body through his deep array of medication: His "bag of tricks" he called it. He spoke on just one occasion to me about how he missed his old physique, "the one I used to hike with" he said. Brian kept his health trials quiet and constantly focused on innovation and mentoring students... and an endless drive to help people. As I came to know him over these years he decided, much like the quote at the top of this post states, that he was going to make the best of it all.

In a short time here I came to know that Brian was the driving force behind television news, independent film, the Riley Power and Light group, audio productions, audio and filming at graduation, play lighting and artistic design, the VPR suite, artwork for press releases and slide shows and countless hours of tech support for so many individuals here. He was an advisor to countless folks and a good friend to many.

A few days ago we'd received word that Brian's health had taken a major turn for the worse. On Saturday the 5th, Dan Short, Michael Grossfeld, Logan Spencer and I took a drive up to see him. Brian held court, seemingly behind his desk again and told stories of how he was fascinated and grateful he was with his doctors and nurses, how lucky he was to have them on his case. He described his whole illness as magical and how lucky he was to be alive at this time to see it all unfold. About then he told us "how amazing it was that we had accomplished so many things as a civilization. We drove a remote control rover on mars. We have incredible things like iPhones and e-books now. Go figure we still cant make medication that tastes better than this stuff" he said as he held up a half cup of something that looked like Wite-Out. We all had a great laugh. He went on again and again at length about the whirlwind of activity in the Facebook group that Nikki Grossfeld set up for him. Brian said he was "amazed that so many people would take the time to send on best wishes." Then he had a good, deep belly laugh and said "hey, maybe this will finally be the thing that opens discussions on social networking in education!" "Look," I said, "there were easier ways than all this to prove a point." We all had a good laugh. Deb Ehler-Hansen, Freddie Templeton, Neil Freeburn and Kevin Morrison joined us later on that day. We all felt lucky to be able to see him again, had a good many laughs and tossed back thoughts as the conversation rolled on that it was the last time we'd all hold court with him again.

I was able to see him again Monday night the 7th. I arrived and Wendy Gawlik was reading sentiments from the Facebook group. Brian was again reminiscing about people, projects and deeply grateful that so many folks chimed in. One story rolled into the next. It was easy to see that Brian was getting tired. His family came back in just then and it was time for me to head back. The last time I saw Brian I shook his hand and said simply that "next time around I hope it won't take so long to find each other." We both got a bit choked up and I told him I'd be up Wednesday night if things worked out. As usual he thanked me for coming and said "night, Adam. Have a safe trip back. Take care."

My father told me this once: "Surround yourself with good people and good things happen." I came to know Brian Gawlik as an eternal optimist. I'm very grateful for our time together, for the inertia of our chats and his boundless generosity. Brian set many people and initiatives in motion here... the very threads of hope and inspiration. Brian enjoyed his craft thoroughly. He made the most of the time that was given to him and inspired so many of us to do the same.

AP

Refit

2009-12-07T10:38:00.007-05:00

Many folks have asked me why we play music and movies during project work in Lab classes. There are detailed answers certainly. Some reference how promoting a relaxed atmosphere aides a wider variety of learning styles, how it creates a relaxed learning environment much like we'd have at a home, how the 'informal' atmosphere actually promotes individuals to collaborate with others and small groups are a few typical replies. Most often my reply though is simply "why not?" After a few days in here most feel it's odd not to have something playing in the background.

An old PowerPC G4 iMac with 512 megs of ram, that great model with the cone shaped base has been our music server over the last four years. New class demands in podcasting, video archiving and production work, and increased student connections dictated the need to move to a more powerful computer. In this case a refurbished a first gen Intel mac we upgraded to 2 gigs of ram fit the bill. We exported the iTunes library and swapped over the external drives.

We'll shore up the old G4 to be another audio production machine or to pass onto a student for a basic access workstation. Right tool for the right job. One of the many benefits or our recycling program here.

Engage. AP

rLab Hashtag Feed

2009-11-13T14:06:00.006-05:00

Why Use Twitter?

2009-11-10T15:19:00.003-05:00

This Twitter post from Guy Kawasaki came across my Twitter feeds recently:

19 Blogs You Should Bookmark Right Now:

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/19-blogs-you-should-bookmark-right-now.html

I looked over the 19 folks cited in Kawasaki's post , liked what I saw, and decided to funnel a few of them into iGoogle and Google Reader to see what they serve up on a regular basis. This new set of reading has opened up many resources for folks doing projects here in the Lab and for me personally.

So, why use Twitter?

It's safe to say it's doubtful I'd have stumbled across some of these insightful bloggers without seeing Kawasaki's Twitter post.

I was very skeptical when I first started using Twitter. I nearly gave up a few times but instead decided to stick with it, to explore it. I've been using Twitter for over two years now and the folks I've subscribed to have served up some great resources. Invest some time into it and it might do the same for you.

RLab Presentation at SVES

2009-10-22T15:27:00.007-04:00

Many thanks to Joy Stewart and the the folks at Maple Street School for organizing the Southern Vermont Educators Symposium. Thanks also to the folks who sat in on the 'RLab' presentation today. I always appreciate opportunities to chat on the rationale behind the RLab course, the evolution, and the changes it inspires both personally to students, adults, academically at our school, and to me as a guide.

As promised, here's the presentation I brought embedded below using Google Docs. For those that are unfamiliar with this type of player, here's a quick overview:

You can play it here in this embeded window but it's quite small. The slides will forward every 10 seconds. You can use the 'Open in a new window' button (looks like a tv screen in the vid control panel) to blow it up full screen or just click here to view the presentation full-screen online. If you do so the controls to move slides should appear on the lower left.

The beauty of it being online? As we make changes to this presentation you'll always be viewing the most current version. Save the presentation link as the post here will get buried in the blog as we ad posts.

These are the slides presented at the conference session with a few minor edits... a quick effort to explain some things further because I'm not narrating. We usually don't put so many words in slides, but for archiving purposes and viewing it with no narration it makes more sense.

Make presentations with a boatload of slides or just a few? We chose a boatload this time. The slides here are also wordy because there's no narration cooking along with it.

We never did get onto the question of "how are student projects archived?" Here's the answer! Hey, I promised we'd get to it!

Each student in the course is given access to the server volume that houses our RLab class folder. Your tech staff can help explain how to set this up if you want to head this route.

Our class folder contains the following:

Course introduction presentation
Class intro videos
Grading/ evaluation information and examples
Public speaking and presentation tips

We also have a class folder called 'Project Development Steps.' This folder contains documents on explaining guidelines and project responsibilities:

Directions for sending in class assignments via email.
Creating and submitting a project proposal.
Developing and maintaining your class journal.
Developing and shoring up a syllabus for your project.
Project presentation guidelines: Presenting to the class.
Archiving guidelines.
Final Project checklist.

All student projects are stored in one folder called 'Project Archive'. It is organized as follows:

Year/Project title/Individual

An example:

2005/Digital Art/StudentName

All 'digital art' in the year go in the 'Digital Art' folder. Projects with unique titles go individually by year and subject ie:

2005/AmphibiousVehicles/StudentName

As you can see we archive things by 'year and project title' rather than by just project title. There are a few reasons I can explain:

It's easier to find peers.
Students build off projects already done by their peers.
It's easier for me to see project evolution on topics by year.
It's rather amazing to look back and see the list of what's been done in each individual year: Year/Project Title. Our subjects seem to expand by year.

Guidelines for archiving project work we use currently:

The following docs are saved in PDF format: Journal, syllabus, and presentation to the class. No presentations are saved in powerpoint, keynote or even open office format or online. Program versions and features change all the time and saving in a PDF format keeps it simple. PDFs also force folks to present material clearly, sans animations and embedded content.
Video must be saved in Quicktime format and referenced in the syllabus and presentation to view if applicable.
Examples of work ie pictures, artwork etc must be saved as either JPEG or GIF files.

Here's the format folks see:

2005/DigitalArt/StudentName

Journal.pdf
Syllabus.pdf
Presentation.pdf
and a folder called /Materials. This houses videos, art prtfolios, pictures, etc.

We chose this format structure for the following reasons:

It's simple!
The file formats are universal / they've been around for a long time.

No stone left unturned, no complex archiving system headaches, no surprises. Clear expectations, simple organization. Love it!

Students can use search capabilities on computers to scan the archive in bulk for keywords or scan traditionally by folder view for year and title. Whatever works for them.

We've had many discussions on moving this project archive into a digital system, much like the OpenCourseWare initiative at MIT. We were concerned about format issues into the future and server cost and maintenance. Plus, this format we're using works very well. Who knows where we may head though. We've also found this document style/folder format also allows students to take projects with them easily too by copying onto cds, laptops, keychains etc.

If you have questions or want to chat further please feel free to contact me.

Thanks for tuning in, AP

Stories

2009-10-11T18:03:00.014-04:00

Post and artwork by Emery B. Class of 2010

The scope of work done in this class is life changing. The work done here can hardly be called work. It is exploration in to areas of the world that students actually find interesting, some for the first time. It is learning that motivates and excites learners. My work here in the lab has reached past the walls of the classroom. The graphic art I spent my first three classes working on expanded my artistic eye, trained me to work digitally in a more efficient way, and even changed some of my artistic tendencies when it comes to painting or pencil drawings. The study I'm doing this year on the philosophy of education has my mind spinning 24/7 because it's so relevant to the rest of my life. The work in this class is something I'm proud of because it was all done through self motivation.

My adventures in this lab started by chance. I thought I might like to work digitally as an artist instead of always on paper or canvas, so I took eDesign my freshman year. I loved it so much that I wanted to keep working with this type of art; Rlab provided that opportunity. For two rounds of the class I worked on graphic design, even landing a local job through Mr. Provost in designing. By the time my senior year rolled around I had started to realize what a godsend this class was. I could do anything and everything that interested me. I've been thinking a lot about education as a career so this year I' studying the philosophy of education. It's turning out to be a great study.

The assignments in this class are extremely thought provoking. They range from issues with technology in society to the growth of video games over the years. All assignments give students the chance to give their opinion on a subject, which is key. I've found that personally I am more motivated by a question that I can freely analyze rather than repeating information already given, and I've observed this motivation in my peers. Again, it's hard to consider the "work" in this class as work. It's fun, it's interesting, and it's relevant to the rest of our lives. You won't find those qualities in many other classes.

The idea of self-designed projects is probably the biggest thing for me in this class. Through this class I learned for the first time how to take my education in to my own hands, and I don't mean managing your own homework schedule. It allows students to invest themselves personally in what they're learning by choosing their own subject matter, gathering their own resources, and managing their own time. I found myself getting far more excited about this class than any other because it was my own. The motivation found through this class doesn't stop here, I learned to apply it to other courses I was taking as well.

I got a ton out of this class. Far more than I had expected. I learned more about digital art and am learning about education, but I also learned a lot about myself. I realized what drives me, and what doesn't. I found better ways to manage my time and better things to use it on. I got a new perspective on where I really want to go with my life, what I really think is important. For me those realizations would be worth sitting through 100 textbook-driven classes, but I'm glad that's not what it took; this is an experience far from that "normal" education we've become accustomed to.

I think this class was the next step in perspectives on learning. I'm already at a point in life and in education that has been changed because of this class. The principles stressed through this curriculum --freedom to explore, self-invested education, and learning to use the resources we're provided with these days-- are things that can and should be carried through the rest of our lives.

Stories

2009-10-08T11:21:00.014-04:00

I asked some alumni and some current students too to tell their tale about their experience in the Lab. What about after the course? Does the work here resonate beyond the walls of the school into the future? Their choice of format. Their observations. Their perspective. Their words. Unedited.

We'll be posting these stories now and again. Reflection is an important part of what we do in life... or it should be.

"Engage."

Captain Jean-Luc Picard, USS. Enterprise. Star Trek, TNG

First up: Arianne, from the class of 2009.

Image from: http://theonlyharlequin.deviantart.com

It was freshman year and everything was a new experience. Every new step that I took was on new ground, in this new school, Burr&Burton Academy in Manchester, Vermont. As I looked at my new schedule on where to go next, I find that I have 'Tech Research.' I was told to take this from my friends that I had recently made that were a year older than me. I had transferred into this class a few weeks late because I did not want to be in Orchestra Instrument class or whatever it was that I chose because playing the trumpet wasn't really my thing.

As I venture into the basement of the Smith Center, only wild thoughts were traveling through my brain, as I wondered what the hell I did in Tech Research. I didn't know a thing about technology or computers at the time. I walk in and take a seat between two other students, both foreign exchange, and this was way back when the tables were arranged in rows. Where now it's tables around the room, in a much more friendly, comfortable setting. The lighting was dim and there was a single ray of light coming from the ceiling, coming down upon the man that introduced himself as Adam Provost. He started with “ "Good afternoon, my name is Adam Provost and I have a big head."” I wasn't sure how to take that. I mean I guess he was kind of right, it was slightly large, but I was surprised in the way he introduced himself into my life.

The memories fade as the years go on, but the time I spent in and out of the class, the first year I took it I even transferred out and took gym, but then the next year I gave it another chance, and so on I continued to take it. And I did this, not because ' oh you can do anything you want in that class, its like a free block' as I heard so many times. I took it because I had this man talk to me about things in the media, new technology, showing the class interesting videos from TED. And watching loved movies like Lord of the Rings. I listened to his stories about his life and the problems he faced and overcame, and all the while I was quite inspired. If he can get through all that and become this man I see now, then I know I can become someone too. Someone important, and someone loved.

The class assignments were rare, which was nice, but at the same time when we did have them, it took a lot of personal thought to respond on such topics like the movie Goodnight and Good Luck, or how we felt about taking college courses online, the list was small, and hard to remember, but I know that when I answered the questions he asked, I was being honest and thoughtful. And I did it because I wanted to. Not some bull that most students like to puke up on their paper to get a good grade and go on with their lives, I wanted to know what other people thought, and I wanted to let people know what I thought about those topics.

I learned Photoshop in that class which is one of the most important things in my life now, because that's kind of like the mainstream art, done in Photoshop and uploaded online. And it has made my art more lively and colorful, and if I didn't have it, I don't know what I would have done. I learned a lot in that. Also on how presentation is everything. If you come in to a work office looking for a job and you're wearing hobo clothes, there's a high chance that you are not going to get that job. When you speak publicly, you want to enunciate, and you want to speak loudly, make yourself the center of attention and let people know what's on your mind. And how could I forget how to get up in front of class and talk about random things that we all thought up for, for the impromptu speeches.

I am now a freshman in Montserrat College of Art in Massachusetts, and almost every day during my classes, whether its drawing on paper, on a computer, or just listening to a teacher speak, I think of Tech Research and critique my day to day life. I think to myself ' wow that teacher should take some pointers from Provost on public speaking, she's not keeping my attention at all.' Silly things like that, I am reminded of all the things I learned in that class. It was on of the best things ever because I wasn't learning things that were to be thrown back up on paper and handed in and graded, I was learning things to use in the real world, and things that I will need to know and do.

I came out of that class, honestly, a person with a whole new perspective on life and how to think about it.

Social Media: Participation in billions... except in schools?

2009-10-02T10:01:00.016-04:00

This morning I had a chat with a teacher from Northern Vermont who explained that all social media access was banned at the school where they work. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, AllTop, Delicious. Run down the list and it was blocked. I was a bit surprised to hear that all blogs and wikis were blocked as well, but this one I'd never heard of before: Amazon.com. The rationale was "some people here don't feel students should be able to access book reviews or view comments." I stopped asking what else was blocked.

I was asked how we approached/proposed changes to filtering practices here at BBA. I said the first step was to start talking about education and not about filtering.

After we finished our chat I took to the web for a few minutes to see what folks were publishing on 'social media in education' lately.

There are a bunch of 'Social Media Statistic' videos out there like the one below I found embedded in a post from UCLA from a Social Media and Marketing class. The participation statistics are staggering as usual. Give this a peek:

There's a slide in the video about Apple reaching 1 billion downloads in their App Store in just 9 months. One billion sales in 9 months! I remembered reading a few days ago in the NY Times that the Apple Apps Store (via iTunes) has just surpassed 2 billion downloads. The second billion took five months. We'll see how long it takes them to reach three billion.

Now, I'm not saying we should teach 'social media' in schools simply because of Apple's success.

What I am saying is that it'd be difficult to debate that we are not in one of the most collaborative times in the history of civilization. Participation in billions, revolutionary times in how we communicate. I can't count the number of times I've used this phrase on topics around technology: "Building skills using these tools seems a better way to go than 'denial of service' don't you think?"

Collaboration shifts

2009-09-30T20:16:00.004-04:00

Had another group of visitors in the lab today, this time from Southern Vermont Supervisory Union to discuss Google Apps. Nice group of folks. We discussed how we proposed the shift here, why we did, how we moved both educationally and technically, the increase in usage and collaboration, cost savings and the like. Looks like we'll be heading down to do a presentation in October.

Taking it all in

2009-09-30T11:48:00.009-04:00

Our discussions about the news in class leads down a number of paths. I rarely watch a conventional newscast anymore. Aggregation, the ability to bring data to you rather than search for it page by page, is the direction I take and work with students to do as well.

Sadly the use of aggregation tools is not commonplace in many education circles. Many tools to aggregate data on the web are blocked in too many schools. Proposals in the Lab have moved a good bit forward here on our campus and we're headed for some more discussions throughout this school year I'm sure.

I get asked a lot out and about how I keep up on things, how to manage loads of information, what we work on with students in the Lab, etc. The logos in the pic above are a few of the major information tools we work with in the Lab. At the center of the activity is iGoogle. If you're not familiar with it, iGoogle pulls in feeds you subscribe to from all over the web into a 'newspaper sytle' format. Each site below appears in a small window or 'widget' on the page. Here's a link to a picture of my blog tab/page in iGoogle that may help if you've never seen it.

The advantage to using iGoogle? If it didn't make sense above, here's another way to dish it up: All this information appears in one page. Rather than visiting each site individually the stories all come to me. Again, it's a bit like creating my own newspaper really. See something I'm interested in on my page, I just click on a head line and it brings me to the site to read the article.

Here are a few I subscribe to: In the main tab (or window) I pull in my personal email, calendar and the following news sources: NY Times, AP Newswire, CNN, BBC, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Digg and the Huffington Post. I grab more tech centric news sites as well in: Slashdot, Wired, Gizmodo, Google blog, Google Docs blog, Google Operating system blog and Mashable.com. I add in ESPN for some sports headlines.

I also have a TwitterFeed which pulls messages from my personal Twitter account. With Twitter, once you get past the "why would I do this" question, subscribe to a few folks and try out a few posts it's easier to see why Twitter can be very useful. Dedicating some time searching out folks who will inspire you and subscribing to them, then things take off. I pull the TED website posts into iGoogle as well for updates on what's been posted along with a TED Fellows blog. We use a number of TED speeches as conversations starters here in the Lab. If you haven't checked out TED.com do yourself a favor and give it a try.

All the headlines from the sites above, all visible on one page.

On another tab/page in iGoogle I subscribe to a number of blogs: Guy Kawasaki (he has a few), Will Richardson, Seth Godin, David Warlik, Chris Lehmann, Liz Davis, Carl Fisch, Samba blog, ReadWriteWeb, PresentationZen and a handful of others. These blogs offer up insights on education, business, technology, collaboration, some good common sense and the like.

Three other tabs I have open in the web browser itself are Alltop, HootSuite and Delicious. AllTop gives me a snapshot of loads of things cooking on on the web, top stories or groupings of things by interest. We've used it quite a bit on research projects in the Lab and the more I use it the more I like it.

HootSuite is a web based Twitter client that has proven quite useful. Subscribe to a large number of folks in Twitter and it can get pretty unruly to keep track of. That's the point though with Twitter... you don't need to see and read everything! Seeing who responds to you directly, what you send and what you receive in separate columns has proven very valuable. HootSuite offers a bunch of other functionality as well but I won't go into it now.

I use Delicious to tag and search web articles all the time. The real strength of Delicious though I think is to see who else 'tagged' the same article you did. Finding people with like interests aka researching similar subjects, well, it's a bit like having a research assistant... without paying for one.

That's a snapshot of what I use personally and what we work on with students here to branch out in their projects. I've been at this since iGoogle first came out. I've tried others. I use Google Reader frequently as well.

Why do this? I feel like I get an incredible snapshot of the world, my interests and my functional tools in a few pages. I feel more connected and informed. It's promoted me to read more... the list could go on and on. Helping people become more informed, to find inspiration, to become better researchers, to promote reading... that's what we aspire to do isn't it? At one point we felt like libraries were inventive.

I can't say I feel this is innovative by any means at this point. Many individuals and schools are doing this in some fashion. The danger I think is that too few students are using these tools in education. We've made some great strides here at BBA changing perspectives on the value of these aggregation tools and keep having discussions on how folks can use them. I've always said we'll get a lot further by promoting sophisticated use rather than pretending it doesn't exist.

Thanks for tuning in, AP

Inspiration

2009-09-23T13:42:00.001-04:00

Inspiration is a funny business. Exciting place to be, yes?

-- Posted from batphone

RLab

2009-09-21T11:51:00.001-04:00

We got a tip to apply to present at a local conference. Here's the ditty we sent in:

RLab

With the ever increasing power of the internet and our access tools, self-directed learning is certainly in our future. This movement presents the potential for some great shifts in education today. New opportunities are at hand to collaborate, promote more sophisticated use and to pursue self-motivated interests in a traditional education setting.

We felt that traditional course offerings, especially in "tech," were far too limited. In 2005 a new course called RLab (aka Tech Research) was created to "think different."

Students pick their own project studies here in the RLab. With as many as 20 projects going on in the same room and over 60 per semester things can get quite interesting.

We cast away the traditional structure of a class and promote students to control the duration of their project work here. Explore a topic you’ve been curious about for a minimum of five weeks or, as this course can be taken multiple times, extend your study over multiple semesters. Many students repeat this course multiple times and either extend study projects or venture off into new territory. One student has taken this course five times, extended their study over multiple semesters and worked toward professional level certifications. Students decide.

Following the OpenCourseWare philosophy from MIT, all project work is archived with a journal, syllabus, presentation and examples of work for future generations of students to build upon.

Along the way we explore class themes on how technology is changing the face of learning, literacy, education, news, collaboration, government and our personal lives. Each assignment issued to the class is continually modified by all participants for future classes.

Each student is asked to explore "what makes them tick" as a learner, a presenter, a collaborator, and to develop self-discipline, project management skills and their own "philosophy of education."

Our class discussions have led to a series of proposals that have changed the face of access on campus as well as training, infrastructure design, IT support and discussions on the the shift in education in our future.

We feel like we're on to something. The innovative structure has led to gender equity in classes. Many students that repeat the class multiple times and a high following from post graduates and a diverse depth of project work that crosses many skill levels. The scope of the work here presents some new perspectives on "students with learning disabilities and limited registers of language" as well. We'll show you what we're up to and provide resources to get you started if you'd like to participate. All our work is published under a Creative Commons license. See our web site for more details:

http://bbatechresearch.blogspot.com

Ed Jenkins and some perspective...

2009-09-08T16:47:00.002-04:00

Catching up on some reading after a three-day trip I ran into a tweet (a post on Twitter for all you non-twittering folk) from Dan French pointing to the video below. The fellow speaking in the vid is Ed Jenkins, a professor of social media at USC.

Good vid!

After prowling around a bit I found that the speech is an excerpt called "The Tech Fix" from a relatively new PBS FrontLine series called: Digital Nation: Life on the virtual frontier. Digital Nation is followup to a series we've viewed in the Lab here and discussed over the last two years called Growing Up Online. The two series appear to be hashed together on this new site.

I didn't see a place where you could view this new program in it's entirety... which I sort of like. Great material for our recent discussions in the Lab lately on our discussions on the differences between generations, how it applies to learning and technology. Here's an ditty on what we've been discussing:

Generations: Summary from Don Tapscott, Grown Up Digital

Baby Boom:
January 1946 - December 1964: 19 years, producing 77.2 million children, 23% of the US population

Generation X:
January 1965 to December 1976: 12 years, producing 44.9 million children, 15% of the US population. Also called the "Baby Bust."

The Net Generation:
January 1977 to December 1997: 21 years, producing 81.1 million children, 27% of the US population. Also called "Millenials," and "Generation Y."

Generation Next:
January 1998 to present: 10 years, producing 40.1 million children, 13.4% of the US population. Also called "Generation Z.

Some introductory statements that have spurred on discussion:

"Gen Next" is using technology differently: Cell phone: it's a music player, alarm clock, camera and obtw, it's a phone too.
Broadcast: Up to about 1997. TV as thee source of news, weather, sports. Listen to what was being told to you. Very little participation by letters to the editor, etc.
Collaborative Era: 1997-present. Participatory era. Multiple sources for news. Multiple ways to collaborate. Most in the collaborative era don't have a "land line" phone (traditional house phone).
Writing less, less effective... or differently? Dramatic increase in writing from the broadcast to collaborative era. Online writing via blogs, wikis, facebook, texting.
The average "boomer" watched roughly 22.4 hours of tv per week.
TV now as background noise?
Customization and conversation instead of a lecture.

I skimmed through the Digital Nation site to see if Jenkins had other contributions and I clipped out links (11) that I could find and pasted them below. I'll use these clips as discussion points... probably tomorrow and over the next few days.

Future shock and information overload:

The Human behind the avatar:

Your kids on social media:

The tech fix: This is the one that made it to YouTube that you saw above.

Defenders of the book:

Educational games already at play:

After, well, many years at this... and the journey from music student to consultant (all the way through), lab aide, network administrator, tech coordinator, on through classroom teacher - I still land on the same themes:

Denial of service is no way to educate people.

It may not be about "right" and "wrong."

It's called a "personal computer" not an "institutionalized computer" so lets treat it as such.

We're close to a tipping point... and always will be so let's keep moving forward.

What we teach now should be relevant and thought provoking for today... and especially for the future.

Let's get a computer in every student hands to address the issues of opportunity, equity.

Time to cook dinner! That's a theme I land on frequently too ; P

Oh the times they are a changin'

2009-08-20T17:26:00.001-04:00

I just finished up a few hours work porting the RLab web site over to this new blog. The old site was a hybrid effort of some dreamweaver, Photoshop and a blog. There were a few reasons for the change:

Let's face it, blogger.com is more reliable than any service we can put up in a business or a school.

Blogger and other similar web sites have all the issues figured out with serving up the info on multiple browsers, especially those on mobile phones.

It's free.

Students wanted to make the site more compatible with rss feed readers.

Students wanted to include the ability to have readers comment on posts.

Foremost, though listed last, students will be adding a significant amount of content here this year.

While I'll miss regular dreamweaver sessions, Photoshop tinkering and such, it's more the nostalgia I'll miss than anything. I started out creating web pages back in the day writing HTML code with notepad. Focusing on content will be a gas as will posting from this phone during class. Blogger has many custom layout options, like the ones at pyzam.com for instance, that make it very easy to make changes as well as many other templates and custom build options. We'll see what happens.

Mission accomplished.

As I mentioned before, I picked up an iPhone this summer. I've spent some time with it as a reader... using it to soak up books, blogs, podcasts and journals out there that I used to read on a computer. The result? I'm reading more. It's been stellar. I still enjoy the feel of a book, the pages, etc but... This has been more convenient for me, easier on the eyes - hey I read a lot and the text size on the phone is adjustable, as is brightness, portait or landscape layout etc. Podcasts in particular have been great to have more readily available on the go. An iPod aint just about music ya know! As I mentioned on another post earlier, having an iPod, a phone, web access and apps like this all on one device has been just the ticket.

That gets us onto a few other similar threads.

I dove into facebook this summer. Many thanks to some former and current students for showing me the ropes. I've discovered I should have jumped in long ago. Now, I'm not advocating that it beats a good sit down chat, but let's face it, it sure beats conventional mail, email and smoke signals. I stayed away from it for so long only because I felt I had no time to dive in and not because of the fact I teach and coach. I've always felt and still advocate that you shouldn't post things online you don't want people to see. It's really that simple.

That brings up the concept of "friending" in facebook. When I jumped in I was surprised how many friend requests I recieved. Many folks have contacted me to be friends who I barely know. Some of those requests are still waiting in the confirm or ignore space. Well discuss this in the Lab quite a bit this year. In all, facebook has been a stellar communication tool an I'm looking forward to using it more. Go figure.

After a summer of wailing on an iPhone and all it's mobile connectivity and literacy power, facebook and a slew of reading, I've come to the same conclusion: mobile computers are still no substitute for a laptop. While its convenient and there are numerous opportunities for creativity, collaboration and literacy, a laptop has far greater creative potential. Two things pull to the surface as I sit here: 1. Folks that don't have this sort of access are really missing something. 2. Students in particular are at a distinct disadvantage if they don't have access to a computer... Because school is supposed to be a creative place rather than just a place to access information isn't it? Therein lies the discussion on "institutional vs personal" computing." Putting the personal back in personal computing makes the most sense.

Now, it's not to say that iPhones in education or netbooks for that matter are not worth their salt. It's just that a computer, with all it's potential and power to create, program, edit sound and video, to draw, etc is better. I don't believe waiting for devices to evolve further will get us closer... Otherwise we will never stop waiting.

We've been discussing laptops here for education for four years and I'm hoping the discussions move forward in this coming school year.

Yes, I'm interested to see how the Apple tablet computer rumors sugar out.

We switched to Google Apps this past year and the results have been stellar. We increased reliability, ease of use, the number and depth of tools available and the training material, shifted IT support staff time away from hardware and configuration time to working with people and... It was all free. We have more money to direct toward bandwidth and other educational needs. We've also participated in many Statewide discussions and chats with other schools. Mission accomplished. Well, almost...

One last item remains with Google Apps here and that is in the functionality of the Google desktop, commonly known as iGoogle. The functionality was disabled last year due to the fact that some controversial material could be added... Swimsuit flashcard style shows sort of stuff. What were hoping to bring forth this year is that we'll gain far more by talking about creative use than denial of service. The aggregation of data, the ability to essentially "create your own newspaper" far outweighs the other concerns. Building user sophistication will get us further. In just two days of tinkering with folks on iGoogle in the Lab we made some great strides and then it was shut off. Discussions should resume soon.

This lends me toward another thought though. As tools get more integrated will we need instituitional email any longer? We are already seeing sites integrate with each other. I use Twitter and now it's possible to send my "tweets" (posts on Twitter) to facebook and delicious (delicious.com). It's pretty common for folks to forward mail from seperate accounts to one they routinely use. Many folks I know forward mail from multiple accounts to one single one and then sign the note with the appropriate "from" signature. Google Voice is headed in this direction on the phone side, giving you the tools to be your own phone hub... ring all your phones at once, route certain callers to certain phones... for free. How long will it be before academic institutions are challenged to abandon their email systems? We shall see. For now, the tools are not integrated well enough and there's great power in having access to lots of tools (we could go back to the laptop for students thread here but I'll move on... you get the idea).

Writing this on a phone while I sit on the deck overlooking the water on Lake Champlain still seems surreal to me in a way. So does sending it to the new RLab blog on this phone and having it publish to the web. So does using the same device to check the start time and pitching matchups for the upcoming Red Sox game, moving over to check my email... All while I take a picture of my sandals for this post... all while I listen to big band music on earphones.

Hey... I was riding my bike the other day and I answered the phone, talked, hung up and used voice control to switch playlists on this "phone" all without touching the device itself, just a little control pad on the head phones. The song that came up? The Times They Are a Changin' by Bob Dylan...

... They are... thankfully...

... And I love it. It's one of the most exciting times in the history if the world, in education and in the quest for literacy and knowledge. I'm in. Are you?

Sent from batphone.

Mobile post test

2009-08-19T13:07:00.001-04:00

How 'bout that.

Sent from batphone.

Porch thinkin' at days end

2009-07-10T21:44:00.002-04:00

I've gotta say, carrying a phone, iPod, camera with a web browser and all these info aggregation tools in one device has been a great ticket thus far. I'm capturing more spontaneous photos, accessing info on the fly, and automating some routine tasks. Take one event today as an example.

A few days ago I installed an app called ReQall. I was standing in line for a coffee yesterday and called ReQall to experiment. I told ReQall to "send a (coworker) a note tomorrow asking when the new projectors are coming in." ReQall sent out the note the following am and I received a response from my coworker today with an answer. A digital secretary service. Sure, I could have sent the note myself but it's pretty convenient to call a service, have it transcribe your voice to text, decipher the command words in the note of "send" and "tomorrow" and have it actually do it! Thus far I've setup ReQall to add things to my Google calendar, send me text reminders, send email for me and remind me of tasks I have floating about. It's also free. Thus far, it's been a great experiment. There's a delay when you call ReQall, while it transcribes your voice but thus far a delay of 5 to as long as 30 minutes has not been a factor. Texting the service provides quicker results. The trick here is that it writes it to my calendar, sends me reminders via txt messages, etc all from spoken words or style (verbal or written) sentences. Going to run more experiments.

In the last week I've attempted to move away from the computer more for my reading, email and writing. Thus far, the iPhone has fit the bill. With these new capabilities I've been reading more, jotting down notes in a variety of places and taking far more spontaneous photos I otherwise wouldn't shoot because I rarely dragged around a camera. I've been on the mobile version of facebook, tossing out some txts with friends I used to speak to once a month. Ideas are flowing, I'm storing info in places where I can access it later in a much more seamless fashion. Great stuff.

My dog, Otis, has had enough though of me on this phone over the last hour. Picture of Otis shot, cropped and dropped the blurbs you see on the pic using the phone in about two mins. Editing photos on a phone... amazing. More later. Time to play fetch. Good dog.

Diving back into the mobile connectivity world

2009-07-06T16:18:00.001-04:00

It's been ages since I have carried a cell phone. While it's been a nice break I'll say there are times when it's damned inconvenient. The new iPhone packs a lot of integration features that can replace a large portion of my information based desktop activity aka reading blogs, quick emails, news, calendar tinkering etc. So... I dove back in. Bit like eating ice cream I guess. If you don't follow that then try having some ice cream (a large bowl definately helps) and give it another think.

I've Been Thinking...

2009-02-22T17:31:00.002-05:00

A good friend of mine uses the title "I've Been Thinking" as the title of one of his blogs... and it seems fitting for this post.

Here's what I had been reading before this last school break:

Two books:
Disrupting Class

Grown Up Digital

Going through regular blog updates by:

David Warlik, Seth Godin , Jeff Jarvis and Will Richardson

I read through the New Horizons Report and one from the Web Use Project.

All of these the titles and bloggers above are worth multiple entries here themselves. But that's what's got me thinking... about taking a break. These books, reports and bloggers continue to share a common theme in that education is moving altogether too slowly and so often in the wrong direction on the technology front. Collaboration, creation, exploration and advanced use are too infrequently in place. Technology in many school settings is limited to how many computers the school has and most of those are used for general access. While a word processor is certainly easier to use than a manual typewriter it does not explore the potential of the machine. Add in limited web research opportunities, to say nothing of collaboration opportunities. Too many collaboration tools are restricted from use. Too many signs that prohibit or severely limit the use of technology use are still visible. Lots of potential slipping by I think. A Vermont education / technology listserv at UVM discussions reflect the wide scope of themes and discussions and the thoughts of the participants on these subjects.

It's not the first time my mind was buzzing and I was a bit frustrated with the same old debates on whether technology had a place in education, if students were too plugged in. So I took a theme that was running through the many of these blog posts on "what is education for" and decided to give it a good think on a trip I was taking to Disney in Orlando, Florida with family and friends for the break. A perfect time to unplug, separate from reading, take a ton of photos, get some sun and let my mind wander.

Here's a bit of what caught my eye.

It had been just over a year since I had been in an airport. Wireless access, plugin stations for power, laptop, cell phone, and pda use were, well, everywhere. I decided to sit back and just watch it all for a bit. Then I got the itch to talk to some folks about what they were doing. Here are a few quotes I jotted down.

"It's so much easier to stay in touch."

"If you don't collaborate, if you don't network in my business you're done."

"Ebooks, video and podcasts are how I educate myself now. I have access to everything I need and more ways than ever to find new things."

A lady I spoke with reading on a Kindle (the old version) tossed out a gem:

" It's hard to unplug sometimes. I get used to the connectivity, used to the stream of information coming in. I used to feel the same way with books though and in college. Learning how to manage it, how to separate from work is more important than ever. This is better for me now though. I can access what I want and it's easier for me to find information, to find something new."

Here was another beauty:

"Our company just got these blackberry's. For a bit honestly I was thinking it was time for me to get another job. Now that I'm getting used to it it's saving me a lot of time and I've been thinking more and more about how I work and keep in touch with people."

At Disney, cell phones and, as you'd expect, digital cameras were everywhere. I spoke to a few folks on how they used digital photos:

"I can capture everything I want. I used to be worried about the cost of taking photos. Not anymore."

"I snap everything I can now to capture our time together. My parents lost all our family albums in a fire. Almost 30 years later I lost all my photos to a failed hard drive. Now I back everything up and I'm snapping photos like crazy."

"We all have cameras, my three children, my wife. I decided to do this because my Father only appears in a handful of our old pictures because he was the one behind the camera all the time. I want my wife and kids to have photos of me too. It's also been great to see the world through the eyes of my children. Seeing what they feel is important is an eye opener. We take less formal pose pictures now and we're getting more shots of how we act, how we live."

I have relayed this theme to folks for many years. My own Father appears in about 20 photos in our family albums. This gent and I chatted for about 20 minutes on the subject and shared some ideas about how we talk to our own children about taking photos. I split use of a camera between two children to this point but plan on adding another so they can both take photos at the same time after this chat we had. We both seemed to agree in this conversation that folks in our generation and those earlier seemed to take a lot of photos of places we've been. Now these places and scenes are readily available on the web. I told this chap about the projects with SeaDragon and Photosynth , geo-tagging and the like and it led the conversation further down this path. Capturing family members in those scenes and the emotions, the nuances of our families and the people around us we agreed was easier than ever before. We also agreed that our children seemed to take to this shift naturally.

I took tons of photos, video clips and enjoyed the time away from reading on education, the sun and the change of scenery and close family time away from all our household lives. Disney is an interesting place. It's like stepping into my childhood imagination at times and one hell of a high quality theme park. It's also overrun with expense and commercialism. It's inevitable though to provide a scene of that high quality it seems. Walt Disney would have been a fascinating person to chat with while he was building the idea and beginning construction of it all. Selling that idea to investors had it's trials I'll bet. Perhaps it would provide insight into selling one-to-one computing locally and in the State. Walking around in t-shirts and shorts in the sun in the afternoon and returning home to shovel 10 inches of snow from the walkway sticks in my mind. Traveling the world is certainly something we should all do more of if we can.

The time away also reinforced once again that we're on the right track here in the Lab. Diverse challenges, loads of debate and discussion on all these issues in education and the role and use of these technology tools will get us closer to seeing it's potential. Ditto for the continuing quest to fire up innovative programs.

The trip also got me thinking about how this blog is used for the Lab. More posting, more discussion and.. we'll see what else is on the horizon.

On the horizon: Great work with students this semester will happily consume much of my time. Baseball starts up soon and there my continuing quest to leave the realm of general manager and dedicate more time to coaching. Burlington High School is coming to see the inner workings of the Lab and our scope of courses at BBA in March. Various presentations on what we're doing here at conferences and at other schools, foundation work on a State laptop pilot, further discussion on the shift in education and opportunities at hand will take place. Foundation work to improve local fields and instructional programs will certainly take some time. Whipping up a great local baseball clinic, that's definitely needed and in the works. We'll continue to refine our Help Desk program and direct people onto the potential of a one-to-one computing program here and the countless opportunities it can present to students to take part in education and skills in the changing world. Exploring creativity, the world and your role in it. A fine goal for what education means I think.

One of the blogs read today just pointed me toward Yale University's entry into the OpenCourseWare movement. Another point that giving folks access to technology and then modeling and promoting sophisticated use can lead down great paths.

... and Heath Ledger just won the best supporting actor award for his role as the Joker in the Dark Knight. Not to be bias as a Batman fan, but it's well deserved. The tragic death of a brilliant actor.

Lots to give a think. Lots of lobbying to do. Some good pizza will help I think.

Inauguration Day: January 20th, 2009

2009-01-20T08:55:00.001-05:00

Opening a new semester on inauguration day presents pretty stellar opportunities for discussions. Introducing a new class takes a back seat to the scope of this day in the history of our country. I have many tales to tell from my college days, what this day means to me in history and hope to hear many from folks in the Lab here as well during our conversations. Each President seems to be measured historically to some extent by the motion of their first 100 days in office. Immeasurable challenges face our new President in this term and the motion and discussions I've heard thus far seem very promising. Here's hoping that party politics can be cast aside on some of these items and that the best solutions are sought out and implemented. It's a great moment in the history of our nation and of humanity.

Holiday Wishes...

2008-12-19T13:37:00.005-05:00

Many moons ago I remember asking my Mother what she wanted for Christmas and received an answer I didn't quite expect at the time.

"What I'd like" she said, " is to sit around a table with all those folks who are no longer with me. I miss their voices, their quirks. I miss the way they laughed. All that time I spent, going through the motions, the food, the wrapping, the gifts and how it all seemed stressful seems so foolish now. Too often, I guess I found myself wishing I could just get through the Holidays. I wish now that I spent more time talking to them about how they felt about Christmas, what their memories were, what did this day mean to them. I'd love to hear them tell some of the old stories. I often wonder how many of those stories I never heard at all. I guess I wished I'd spent more time talking to them about who they were and what they felt when I had the chance. Sitting around the dinner table with all those folks again, that's what I want for Christmas."

Happy Holidays, AP

BBA Help Desk Proposal Update

2008-11-14T13:11:00.000-05:00

Our full proposal was reviewed and a "beta test" model is being considered for the Spring. Discussions will resume over how many students will participate as well as the manner to proceed on the proposed Lab and IT Office location shift. Here is a document that has the evolution of our summary proposal and detailed notes including assessment examples, structural notes and points of emphasis. Discussions will resume over the coming weeks.

Help Desk 2.0: Proposing a New Direction for Technology Training and Support on Campus

2008-11-09T22:38:00.002-05:00

In the business world a technology support department typically services a similar group of users, hardware and a core group of applications. Workstations in the business environment are often locked down, only certain applications are allowed to run and strict policies govern user activity.

In education though, administration and some classrooms need business class information terminals while some others demand flexibility, the kind of access that allows creative exploration and use.

Further, traditional support structures rarely incorporate anything more than reactionary training initiatives on core support programs (grading, school databases, office applications). As a result most schools have no training programs, sporadic dog and pony shows, or very expensive models that involve IT integration specialists who most often are often not infrastructure literate and train users only on systematic approaches.

With all those variables, IT support departments in education typically structure themselves in a business model. This rigidity often results in stifled educational opportunities.

Education often focuses on training adults and expecting the results to trickle down to students. The cold, hard facts are that students are often more technically literate than adults. Rarely are students provided advanced access, a venue to interact or collaborate in training initiatives or participate in technical support beyond the traditional classroom setting. Incredible opportunities exist if we shift these traditional philosophies.

Building off two years of success with the IT Internship Program, we unrolled this new Help Desk Proposal this Fall. This new model has students and adults working to create a Help Desk for their peers... everyone on campus. Another step in putting the "personal" back in personal computing. Our final round of discussions on this new proposal continue this week. We'll post our detailed plan shortly.

Look "SEE"

2008-09-19T13:12:00.002-04:00

"Stanford Engineering Everywhere" hit the web yesterday. Building on the OpenCourseWare (OCW) philosophy, "SEE" adds more instructor content, video and collaborative work into the free information mix. It's easy to get inspired when you see the quality of this content being given away. There are more resources available on OCW too if you are new... or old at it:

http://ocw.mit.edu

MIT has a lens for high schools too:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/hs/home/home/index.htm

http://www.ocwconsortium.org  

http://ocwfinder.com

Toss in OLPC, other one to one laptop initiatives and the evolving use and functions of cell phones (Google Android phones are due out soon and here's a post from them on "The Future of Mobile Phones")... gourmet stuff.

Creating opportunities and inspiring a passion for learning are as important as ever don't you think ?