Learning to change, and changing to learn . . .
The thought in the title occurred to me a while ago as I was struggling to customize a new blog I'm going to call: fossils no more -- surrey's 23 things. This journey of learning that has overtaken my life in the past year has launched me into a new phase of learning and career and life that I had never imagined would be waiting for me this close to retirement.
Until lately, I had been imagining my retired self living in an isolated cabin somewhere on the coast as far from the hurly burly of the classroom as I could get and finally albe to slow down enough to enjoy a slower, more graceful way of being. I saw myself sitting with my toes in the water -- placidly watching the ferries glide by. They would be full of people being conveyed from one place of 'busyness' to another. I, the observer, on the other hand would now be detached from 'frantic'. I would muse about how different my life was from theirs, how I used to be like that, and how I had finally learned to relax and savour the passage of unstructured time with few demands and fewer responsibilities.
One day I might bake some bread -- or I might not. Another I'd catch up on correspondence. I might write real letters or a book. Or again, I might not. I would read. Classical music would drift out the window of the cabin. I would walk Thelma (my pup) on the beach. I would hold hands with my husband. We'd go for coffee and say hello to neighbours.
Hello!!!!!!! Now in this vision, there is a computer on my lap. I'm just back from a workshop or a session in a classroom somewhere and am emailing a contact to set up the next one. There's a new message to be gotten out in this blog, a project to finish for my Masters Degree, a collection of new posts to read in blogs I follow, an Elluminate session coming later to catch up and plan something new and interesting for kids with colleagues all over the world. There is a stack of Diigo "No Reply" emails waiting to be mined for new ideas and new tools. There are arrangements to be made to work with another class on a new project. I like to go to these as the energy and excitement of the classroom dynamic can't really be captured online, and I miss it. There are new tools to learn, and new people to meet and exchange ideas with somewhere online and 'inreal'.
I have become a learner again and have relaunched my life. This process has changed me and revitalized my vision of the active classroom. I almost wish I was back in the middle of my career -- figuring out how to bring this all off in my own classroom domain and feeling the old electricity of making it work for the kids and for myself. Note that I said 'almost' because I really want all of the fun of working in a classroom and none of the responsibilitiy -- i.e. the 3 (4?) M's: Marking, Management, and More Marking!. I know that this year I have to figure out how to have that and have retirement at the same time -- because in a way I have entered my second childhood. I am reopening myself to change & the process is changing me.
New favourite tool -- like Photoshop but free.
Last week was a technological week to remember.
Thursday one of our district helping teachers came to the school to show us the 'Kurzweil 3000' voice recognition (+ a whole lot more) software. It's used with students who have learning disabilities or are sight impaired. The main drawback is that even with a district license it will cost our school $300 per machine to install. We'll get 2 sit licenses fo a school of over 200. So it's wonderful software, but a lot of work will be needed to to learn a tool that so few kids will be able to make use of.
It ought to be available as a learning platform for all kids to access on all of a school's computers because it makes teachers rethink how to get kids to write -- especially in content areas. They have teamed up with the Max Warburg Courage Curriculum people and have a writing contest going on with a Kurzweil 3000 site license as the prize. That's a very nice prize if you're looking for a project for some of your students. Interestingly, Kurzweil 3000 can be run from a flashdrive or an external hard drive so it does not have to sit on one machine. We need more software like that so we can carry it anywhere and use it everywhere.
I'm going to have to work on how to get this same sort of writing process going in Earth Science 11 and try to find some free tools that will do the job.
Next the Glocal people did a pro-d where we learned to play with digital imagery. I have so many ideas of what to do with this free, open source software that I will fill future posts with them. Suffice it to say that my Saskatchewan colleagues will hear about it soon as I want to see if they are interested in getting some of their students collaborate with ours on an Earth Day partially flat classroom project. This stuff is really worth a look. It's really cool and free and open source and downloadable. I have to ask if it will run from thumbdrives!
They have been working out of the Surrey Art Gallery with funds the city acquired when we became an official Canadian multicultural centre. Soon Glocal will move to the Emily Carr School where they will be using their technology to involve people from all over the world in posting photos during the next winter Olympics which we host in 2010.
My third tech adventure started when I decided to run a '23 things' program for Surrey staff in January. I started in Edublogs and changed my mind. I tried Word Press and changed my mind, and finally settled on Blogger, but in true Hellman fashion I was not content to just use the templates they offer. I had to start tinkering and tweeking. But that's a story for another day.
Now at school we are working on a video for the school's annual Christmas dinner, and I am learning how to turn more of the process of building the video over to the kids.They have to use on my darling newlaptop because we don't have the sofware at school yet. I have to resist putting in my nickel's worth and try to steertheir work the way I think it should go. I have to just be the tech person and set the boundaries and let them produce it the way they think it should be done. It should be a hoot. (Oh,Oh . . . I forgot to download the footage so I'll have to break off, walk Thelma and get into school early.)
TTFN!
