Thoughts On Teaching » Personal

Am I Dreaming?

Todd — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:20:21 +0000

I can’t believe it. Yet, I also can believe it at the same time.

Last Thursday

We have a special schedule on Tuesday and Wednesday! Because we want to drive up to Sacramento and hold a rally opposing the Governor’s 10% cut in the education budget, we’re letting school out at 11:30! This means a block schedule with periods 1-3 meeting on Tuesday and periods 4-7 meeting on Wednesday! Mobilize the students! Sign permission slips! Have students write letters! Post the schedule on the Web site! Announce it on School Loop! Change your plans to make way for this new schedule! This is important! We’ll pass out paper schedules on Friday during 3rd period!

Today (at 4:01pm)

Hey… We had trouble with the permits in Sacramento, so we have to postpone. Nevermind on that special schedule business. Tomorrow is a regular day. Though they’ve all gone home now, tell everyone. Make phone calls. Update the school Web site and School Loop.

!!??

Did my district just make two horrible decisions about scheduling back to back? Did they really just make the same mistake twice in a row? Really?Similar Posts:

2007 In Review

Todd — Sun, 13 Jan 2008 06:25:19 +0000

I spend a lot of time on teaching. From grading papers to puzzling out tomorrow’s lesson to just being at work, there’s not a lot of free time in my day. But there is some. How do I spend that time? And what do I have to show for 2007? When not standing in front of a group of students, I’m reading, writing, running, or watching.

Reading
Writing
Running
Watching

I read more in 2006 than in 2007. I can blame some of that on comic book publishers, though. One title that I read only released three issues in 2007. Another only released two. But that’s a poor excuse for my low page count. I don’t know how it happened, but I only read 9 novels. (back up)

A book editor read my blog and I am now published; that feels good. But, in addition to reading very little in 2007, I didn’t write much, either. Not a single story begun and just a solitary movie review pieced together back in January. Only 85 entries are timestamped 2007, where I wrote nearly twice as many (160) during 2006. Yikes! If I’m not reading or writing, what have I been doing with my time? (back up)

Summer of 2007 found me with a mission: run 100 miles by the end of August. Some weeks, I ran every day. Other weeks, I only ran two days. But I met my goal, pounding out mile 100 on August 31. In June, 3 miles was called my long run. By August, I added 4-, 5-, and 6-mile routes to my neighborhood running. (back up)

I watched a lot of movies last year, getting sucked into both Lost and the new Battlestar Galactica over the summer. But even before the summer, I was watching more than in 2006. (back up)

Reflecting

It ends up that my most productive month was July, where my reading, writing, running, and watching were at or near their peaks. My least productive month was October. Imagine that: productivity high the month I didn’t have to report to work and low the month when the first set of grades were due.

When I first thought of how I’d put together an entry for Dan’s contest, it struck me that Netflix stores a fantastic mine of information and no other example used that. Quickly copying and pasting my complete rental history into Excel gave me a way to play with data.

Initially, I was going to compare my running and watching habits. “Maybe there’ll be a pattern,” I thought. “Surely my running and watching are inversely proportional.” A few graphs later, that didn’t pan out. As I started thinking about presentations as storytelling, I realized that the data I have tells the story of what I do when not in the classroom. That’s when I moved to Photoshop, where all slides were finally created. My iPhone nabbed all the photos in the background, taken in my hallway atop a bookcase draped with a comforter.

That’s the story of my year.

P.S. One of my favorite design blogs wrote a timely entry about a problem I experienced during this whole process. I got around the color shift by using Photoshop to adjust the Brightness/Contrast on the GIFs, but the resulting images just about tripled in file size. Not a problem for me here, but I shudder to think of what I’d have to go through if I needed these files to stick around their original 45 KB.Similar Posts:

Published!

Todd — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 19:38:53 +0000

I didn’t want to say anything here until I had the book and check in hand. Well, the book arrived yesterday and the check last week. It’s long been a goal of mine to have something published in a print source; that’s now happened and I’m excited, honored, and humbled all at the same time.

“Camera Phone? Bring It!” found its way inside Issues That Concern You: Electronic Devices in Schools. Thank you to the folks at Thompson Gale, specifically the Greenhaven Press imprint. It’s probably quite a risk to publish a blog entry from some random teacher who happens to write things down from time to time.

A mix of technology sites, newspapers, student papers, and education publications, here are the other sources used:

If you’re interested and the table of contents (PDF) looks like it might be up your alley, grab a copy.

For completists, I’m also honored to have been interviewed for two other books and an as-of-yet unreleased research project. Who knew it would happen this way?

Thank you for reading, ’cause it helps me write. I’m always open to other opportunities, so if I can help, feel free to contact me. Meanwhile, I’ll keep writing.Similar Posts:

Thanksgiving Day Loss

Todd — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 19:57:50 +0000

I ran 6.2 miles this morning. My watch read 51:56; I’ll update after the official ChampionChip time is posted. That’s all good, but I’m pissed.

In the final stretch of the race, a guy appeared next to me. I kept pace with him and had a brief conversation.

“Don’t let me pass you. That’s how we both run faster,” I panted.

He chuckled. “OK. Sounds good to me.”

And we both trucked into the finish at a much quicker pace than we would have without each other. But after about 5 or 6 pumps, my left arm caught the wire of my headphones, pulling the ‘phones out of my Shuffle, bringing Ben Folds’s “Rockin’ The Suburbs” to an abrupt stop, and sending that Shuffle all the way over to the other lane, the one walkers were finishing the 5K walk in. It distracted me enough that I didn’t run as fast as I could have and that guy beat me through the gate. Just barely, but he beat me.

He probably would have anyway. I’m not a fast runner and never have been, but I’m pissed because I feel like I could have shaved off a second or so. To top off the feeling that I didn’t throw everything into the end of an otherwise successful run, I lost my $50 investment in a refurbished iPod Shuffle. I feel like I just threw a $50 bill on the ground and stomped all over it before I let someone else pick it up and spend it on whatever they want. A woman (“Blonde, pony tail, white shirt, pushing a blue stroller,” an appreciated description that didn’t narrow things down too much) apparently picked up the Shuffle, but I didn’t find her. The lost-and-found didn’t have a Shuffle. They now have my name and number scrawled on a random piece of scratch paper, but I only have the smallest sliver of hope that I’ll see that thing again.

I lost my Shuffle on the morning of my favorite of the holidays. Hope yours goes better than mine’s starting.

Happy Thanksgiving.Similar Posts:

This Is Not A Drill

Todd — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 17:31:08 +0000

No one was killed and no one was injured. That’s the good news.

As I’m reading chapter four of The Great Gatsby out loud to seventh period, the fourth time I’ve read this chapter out loud in the same day, the lights start to flicker. Eventually, they shut off completely. Students get distracted and look around to figure out what’s going on. They see it before I do. Smoke. Lots of it. “Everybody, third base!” They flood through the doors and beeline to the softball field outside the classroom. Across campus from us, an electrical transformer blows up. This is not a drill.

There is no “All clear, teachers return to your classrooms” announcement. No feeling of “How much more instruction can I get in the final minutes of class once we go back?” No one has attendance rosters with them to check off names because you don’t go back to your desk in an emergency. Students aren’t standing near their teachers. There’s no way to tell who is here and who is not, other than each teacher knowing that all of their kids left the classroom and came out to the field. Students, just get off campus and go home in the opposite direction of the flames. This is not a drill.

With loud BANG! BANG! BANG! sounds of wires whipping back and forth inside a large electrical box, flames shooting out, black and gray smoke pouring into the sky, we usher students further out onto the track. Backpacks sit inside classrooms, PE uniforms adorn some instead of regular clothing, purses wait on top of desks next to open books. Students aren’t allowed back into the classrooms. They go home as is, iPods, cell phones, and keys behind locked doors on campus.

The footage a student shot with his cell phone has been picked up by a few news outlets and even the electricians wanted to see it. It apparently gave them some worthwhile information. I’ve said it before: bring your camera phone to school.

On Thursday, we opened for an hour so students could come back to 7th period and pick things up. Roughly 20 out of 30 students showed up to my class. School was canceled that day. It’s Friday and school is canceled again. With four days to work on it, we’ll be open on Monday. Have a good weekend. This is not a drill.Similar Posts: