Category Archives: 2011

Mindfully Reflecting on 2011

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It has been a while since I have written in this space. Certainly not for lack of desire to write, but as happens to so many of us, life gets in the way.

This post is more personal than educational. While the year featured my first ever ISTE conference, and while I have learned so much, I need to reflect a bit here on this last day of 2011. So bear with me and read on!

In many ways, this has been a challenging personal year.  The most significant event was the end of my marriage.  The year started with the awareness that life was going to change dramatically.  And it has.  The groundless nature of 2011 for me has of course, caused pain, but has brought strength.

The strength has come from family, friends, and colleagues. It has come from reflection and prayer. It has come from a mindful awareness that this is my life, and I need to live it.

I don’t know where I would be without my family, who has helped me, driven me, listened to me, (even when I am sure I was repeating myself) and loving me. From dry cleaning to endless trips to the supermarket, they have been there.

My friends have been incredible. The amount of rides they have given me cannot be counted. The endless stories they have listened to shows the great patience that they have. They have seen me anxious, sad, peaceful, stressed, energized, disconnected, hyper connected, tense, fun, and happy. And some of that was all in one day!

So here we stand on the edge of a new year. And while I have learned that the present moment is truly all that we have, I will take a chance and think about the future.

2011 has been tough for me. But it has also been a learning experience, and I have made some great new friends in the process. So here goes.

I start the year with an open mind and heart. I want to work to show compassion and kindness in all that I do. I want to do whatever I can to bring peace to others. I truly want to be grateful, aware, and patient. I want to be present to every conversation and situation.

While I still feel pretty groundless, I am peaceful. I am also hopeful. I look forward to the great possibilities that the New Year brings personally and professionally. I truly believe that the great way that the year is ending for me will continue, so I am very curious and open to the newness of a new year.

So if you are still reading, thank you. I plan on writing here more frequently, and I am sure that some educational reflection will be here soon.

Happy New Year to you. I wish you Peace, Happiness, and God’s blessings.

Of course, you are welcome to leave a comment.

Peace.

 

 

An Open Letter To Amazon Regarding Accessibility

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I am a visuakindle app 2lly impaired person. That is something that I cannot change. Not yet anyway. I am a passionate educator who loves to read. I have an iPad, it reads to me when I need it to. I love to read books on it.

So I should also be able to enjoy the Kindle app as my sighted friends can. After all, having the Amazon library available to me would certainly expand my options. Don’t get me wrong Apple, the iBookstore has been great and it is growing. But the Kindle app will not work for those of us with visual impairments. So much for universal design.

I just purchased a new book on the iBookstore for $12.99. It is a book that I really wanted to read. Having just returned from the ISTE 2011 conference, I want to read Dr. John Medina’s Brain Rules. It is on the Kindle app for $2.99, but it might as well be free, as it does me no good at all. And the audible copy is $24.99!

I did contact Amazon about this a few months ago and was told that if I wanted the text to speech option, I should buy a Kindle. Interesting. So because I have this disability, I need to spend more money. My chosen reading device, the iPad, will work with everyone else that uses the Kindle app, but not people, including kids , like me.

As IOS devices become part of everyday life in so many schools, why would Amazon not make their store accessible to all?  That certainly would not affect their bottom line.  And oh, yes, I know some publishers don’t want their books to be TTS enabled. And as you can imagine, I find this thinking very short-sighted (no pun intended). But why make the app not be compatible with voiceover on the iPad, and other IOS devices?

Sure, the entire visually impaired community could buy Kindles. But since we really want the TTS option, the rest of the great features on the device really aren’t that useful to the visually impaired. But TTS is. And the IOS devices allow us to access the web and all of the apps, check and send email, tweet, find directions, read train schedules, and check the baseball scores, read the news and so much more.

So Amazon, can you find it in your heart to make that app accessible to voice over? Most apps are these days. You see universal design for learning is a real and necessary concept. ibook on ipadTechnology is leveling the field for so many people with disabilities, and isn’t that what we want as a people?  I think it is just a few lines of code. Come on, make it happen.

Thanks.

I welcome comments. Thanks for stopping  by!

Happy To Be Part of the Revolution

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Recently I was given the honor of being a regular contributor to a new blog called Voices From The Learning Revolution. This is a blog started by the great people at Powerful Learning Practice. I am one of 10 voices in the group and it is humbling to be among these great educators.

My first post on the Voices Blog was called It’s Always Opening Night-The Arts and 21st Century Learning. If you get the chance, stop by and leave a comment. And be sure to check out the other posts on the blog. We will all be posting regularly there.

Of course, I will continue to write regularly here at Imagine and Teach, my personal blog home.

Thanks for stopping by!

EduCon 2.3 Some Initial Thoughts

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Since arriving home from EduCon 2.3 I keep telling myself that I need to blog about the experience in great detail. But as I have read from many others, that will take time to sink in. I think I need much more reflection on what was an incredible experience before I can properly detail it here. But I feel the need to post a brief reflection anyway.

Opening Night Panel DiscussionIt is through connecting and networking that we learn. That is plainly evident to anyone who attends Educon in the true spirit of the unconference experience. I attended the weekend with 4 other innovative educators from my school. We had all attended last year and couldn’t wait to get to 22nd and Arch where The Science Leadership Academy is located.  And we were not disappointed.

We teach in a traditional school. But we are lucky to have the support of our school to attend EduCon and to support our 1 to 1 pilot.

One of the incredible things about Educon is the opportunity for everyone to meet the people that we have been connecting with on Twitter and on blogs in person. When you already have a connection with someone, meeting them in person deepens that connection and lets you know how tall they are! (Those twitter pics are small)

I will discuss the sessions that I attended in the next post and will certainly drop some names as well. But I can say, as I did in, my last post that the conversations in the halls, the library, the café, and just about anywhere were almost as good as the conversations in the sessions. I am already looking forward to next year, which will be my fourth.

So more to come.

Thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave a comment. A conversation is always welcome!

My EduCon Eve Post

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Tomorrow, my favorite PD adventure of the year begins. EduCon 2.3, the annual conference in Philadelphia is this weekend and I can’t wait.

Three days of conversation, inspiration, collaboration, learning, and connecting can’t be beat. The “unconference” is held at Science Leadership Academy, an outstanding high school in Philly. One of the best parts is that the event is a community undertaking, with the teachers, parents, and yes students making it all happen. Seeing this great community come together to handle about 500 of us crazed tweeting educators is impressive in every way.  They make us all feel welcome, and we really do.

So I am looking forward to the conversations, both the ones on the schedule and the ones that just happen. I am looking forward to seeing friends that I get to see rarely thanks to geography, and the chance to meet other friends for the first time in person.  I will attempt to blog over the weekend and will, at least, blog some final reflections when it is over.

I will be with a team of 5 from our school. Two of us are admins, and three teachers will be with us. So here we go. See everyone at EduCon.

If you are on twitter, follow the #educon tag. There will be tons of backchanneling.

New Domain!

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As of today, 1/16/11 the new location for Imagine and teach is http://imagineteach.org.  Don’t worry, my blog is still with Edublogs.  If you are kind enough to have this blog on your reader, the feed will work, you don’t need to change anything. Thanks for all who stop by here. I am hopeful that in 2011 I will post more regularly, and with luck, add some value to the conversations on teaching learning, and more.

Mashup -20

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One of the joys in my day is that I teach kids vocal music at second period. As an administrator, I treasure the time that I get to teach each day. But I already did a post about that here.

So as we approach the end of the first semester, it was time to think about a third quarter project for the class. So I posted a topic on the class ning site to get it started. And after reading the kids posts about how they want to be creative perform, and have fun, I got to thinking.

And I kept thinking. And then this struck me as a working idea that I would share with the students. I called it Mashup -20. Here is the outline of what I was thinking:

  1. Groups of 3 or 4, selected by the students themselves
  2. Choose 2 songs that were released at least 20 years apart.
  3. Create a three minute mashup of the two
  4. Use whatever tools you would like.
  • play music yourselves
  • use a karaoke track
  • Go on your voices alone

5. Perform the piece for the class

6. You can add video as well if you would like

So that is the idea. The students are sounding off on the Ning with their ideas, and they seem to love the idea. Once we settle on what we are doing, I will have the students create the rubric for me to guide how I will assess them along the way.

Should be fun and a great learning experience for all of us.

Thanks for stopping by, and please leave a comment if you have any suggestions, ideas, or just want to be in the conversation!