I spent the morning at Big Rock Ranch, which was once and may still be part of Skywalker Ranch (yes THAT Skywalker Ranch) and which is where GLEF makes its home. Marin County teachers and multimedia enthusiasts gathered to talk about multimedia in Marin’s schools. The event was sponsored by GLEF, the Marin County Office of Education, and the Marin Learning Conservancy.

The program was short — 8:30 to noon — but packed a big punch. Kristina Woolsey kicked it off by telling us all about the Golden Age of Multimedia and specifically the MacMagic Classroom, which started in 1991 at Davidson Middle School, and ran right up until last year. She showed a video of kids in the program that was just amazing: using multimedia in a collaborative environment to create projects that showcased learning and included student reflections on the process and on their own personal development.

Afterward, there was a panel discussion featuring two of the teachers from the 1991 MacMagic classroom (Karla Kelly and Steve Arnold), Kristina Woolsey, Reed School District Superintendent Chris Carter, and 8th grade teacher Anthony Armstrong. We talked about how technology tools can help kids get past learning blockages, and how teachers are really working on the same things now that they were then, although the tools have gotten more diverse and plentiful.

Anthony Armstrong spoke next, and he totally knocked my socks off. This is not to say that Kristina didn’t; I think my socks have been so repeatedly knocked off by Kristina that I just check them at the door when I go to hear her speak. Anthony teaches 8th grade history in Marin and he talked about how he uses Wikispaces in his classes. And he really uses Wikispaces. He knows it inside and out, and he pulls in videos and polls and Wordle diagrams and all kinds of other tools too. His students have to use primary source material that he pulls together and links from the wiki — including texts, videos, images, and everything you can think of — to construct their own understanding of events in United States history. Anthony is very firmly off the stage in his class, and the students are on it. His kids work collaboratively to understand why people made the historical decisions they did, to argue for other options that might have happened, to explain the context of events… they debate and write and record videos… and they do the wiki work as homework. In class, they work in groups using their own pencil-and-paper notes to have conversations about what they have discovered in their research. In short, at the end of his talk, all of us in that room were ready to enroll in his class. I know I was.

When he was done, the panel came up again to talk about how that kind of teaching and learning can happen in more classrooms. Anthony credited colleagues (in particular, Jennifer Carrier Dorman) that he met through their blogs for giving him ideas and helping him along the way, and pointed out that a lot of this work exists, because other teachers have put together things for their classes. He encouraged other teachers to reach out and contact someone whose projects they admire or have questions about.

All in all, it was an amazing morning. I came away with some practical things I can use, too, even though I’m not a teacher: a new angle for Smart Objects, which I’m struggling with for the K-12 Horizon Report right now; ideas for how to work on projects at home with my own son, who is in 3rd grade and not bored by learning, and who won’t ever be if I can help it; and a renewed desire to help public education be something more than what a lot of it is now, instead of just turning my back on it as I am so often tempted to do.

Thanks to all who organized and spoke at the event today. I am so glad to have gone.

(Photo credit gratefully given to stoobydoo for Illuminate Yaletown 2009. Thanks for using Creative Commons!)

And the instructions:

What would your own album look like if you were in a band?
The image is what mine would look like.

Follow the directions below and find out yours…

Here are the rules:

1. The name of your band is the first random Wikipedia article you get here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

2. Your album name is the last 4 or 5 words from the last random quote you find here:
http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3

3. Your cover art is the third photo you find on flickr’s interesting last 7 days here:
http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
** Rachel’s rule addition (yes, you know I had to make up a rule): Reload until the 3rd image is under a Creative Commons license allowing you to use it! Then use that one.

4. Assemble in your favorite image editor.

5. Post in note – add photo and tag your friends!

Have fun!

When I was little he built me a bicycle out of parts and I rode it for years, until I outgrew it. He would pick mangoes and starfruit from his trees for me and my sister. My memories of him are a mix of my own stories and the stories of my parents; my dad, for instance, tells how Giddo didn’t approve of him and stopped speaking to my mother after they were married. Then one day there was a knock on their door, and when they opened it, Giddo stood there with a full bag of groceries in each arm. I was just passing by, he said, and Dad laughs, remembering. It’s a four-hour drive from Orlando to Tallahassee, where we were living, Dad says. I was just passing by.

David met Giddo in 2002, in Belize at my cousin’s wedding. My two-year-old son toddled up to Giddo Mike, craned his neck way back, and said, You’re a really tall man, thereby securing himself in his great-grandfather’s good graces forever. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone grin so big as Giddo did just then. He took David’s hand and they walked around looking at turtles in the fountain and little blue crabs along the driveway.

My indestructible Giddo passed away peacefully yesterday morning at the age of 88.

As-salamu alaykum, Giddo.

I hit “reload” to find out what everyone was doing just before I quit for the night.

Nothing.

Blank white page, little spinny Firefox icon. No updates. No avatars. Okay, I thought. I can cope with this. It’s late, and I can just check in the morning. No problem.

Except I can’t. It’s STILL DOWN. I can’t say good morning to the Twitter world. I can’t find out how the class went for @BryanAlexander in San Francisco last night. I don’t know whether @blamb and @cogdog got their morning coffee. How was @mburtis‘s birthday? Is @mapetite still sick? I DON’T KNOW.

Which raises a question for me: why does it matter so much? Obviously Twitter gives me something that, when it’s not there, I miss. I feel unconnected, uninformed, unaware, and, yes, lonely, out here in the California satellite office of the NMC. I know you are all still out there, doing things. Maybe some of you can actually get to Twitter; I got a direct message from @mapetite this morning (it went to my phone), and http://istwitterdown.com gives me a resounding NO (linktribution to CogDog, thank goodness for IM). Great, so now I fear that everyone is happily twittering along without me. This is worse than being the last kid picked for the basketball team.

Twitter, where are you? Come back!

[Dear Reader: If you don't care how it happened but just want to know my five things, please skip down to the numbered list below. Otherwise, read on.] It happened thus: Brian Lamb twittered a Churchill quote and a link to his Five Things (written almost as long ago as Alan’s tap; as you will see, this is sort of a theme here), so I went to check it out. I’m glad I did, too, as now I know to bring my bulletproof vest to places where Brian is likely to be. In the post, Brian lamented that most folks had already been tapped ages ago (true, and a problem I shall face shortly). He also thoughtfully provided the link to Alan’s Five Things, in which Gardner C. and Bryan A. were already snagged, in a comment. Of course I followed the link, because CogDog’s Five Things were bound to be interesting (and again I was not disappointed). Imagine my surprise to find that down at the bottom of that post, I too had been tapped. Thing #0, therefore, is that I can be a little slow on the uptake. There, threw that one in for free. Five Things:

1. I can draw a mean Bill the Cat.
2. One of my early jobs was as a secretary. I sucked. Oh, I was so unbelievably bad at it that I can’t even tell you how awful I was. I hung on for six months through sheer bloody-mindedness and then I quit.
3. While it’s commonly known that I have a background in art, not many people know that one of the media I like to work with is metal. I prefer oxy-acet to arc welding… there is something alive about the flame that I don’t get from the sparks. Unfortunately I don’t have the equipment at the moment so it’s been way too long since I’ve had the opportunity to wield a flaming 6000-degree F (3000 C) torch.
4. In the spring of 1992 I spent a semester as a Peace Corps Intern in Libreville, Gabon. The internship program doesn’t exist any more, or didn’t last time I checked (mine was the second-to-last group. I don’t think this was my fault, but you never know). Twice a year, six interns were selected to go to various Peace Corps countries to do things like organize the central office library or, in my case, to set up and maintain their computer network. Yes, I hooked up an AppleTalk network, in Africa, and taught people how to use FoxBase, in French. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life and I loved every minute (except for the 48 hours when I had malaria; that I could do without). I learned to drink beer there, so I am naturally suspicious of any beer that you can see through.
5. I performed double trapeeze, Spanish web and shoot-thru (balancing ladder) in the circus when I was in college (sorry, no pix, don’t ask). My undergraduate alma mater, Florida State University, has a collegiate circus, and I performed in the homeshows. They take the circus on the road in the summer, but summer is such a lovely, pleasant season in Tallahassee that I always remained at home. Oh wait, no it’s not. I stayed home because I was broke and taking summer classes.

My turn to tap: as has been noted elsewhere, many have already been tapped. I couldn’t find a Five Things post from Gardner C., so I hereby tap him again. I further tap Vidya A., Martha B., Nancy W., and Fleep T. Go get ‘em, girls (and Gardner)!

I gather, from reading the Five Things posts of people I respect, that there’s sort of a feeling that this kind of thing is done in spite of our better judgement, and preserving the meme is frowned upon a little bit. I’m delighted that I could bring it back over a year after decent people thought it was over.

Thpthpthpthpthpthpthp.

Let’s talk about LinkedIn. I’ve been meaning to get, er, linked in for a while now, but only actually did it this morning after reading Alan’s very appropriately titled post on the topic. The very first thing I did was to send a couple of gauche, uncustomized invitations to co-workers (sorry guys). I hate, repeat hate, that I have to bother someone in order to add them as a contact. Yeah, I see the point; we don’t want unknown losers claiming us as their friends, and we want to be careful about who gets to contact whom. But can’t the email thing happen somewhere else? Like when I actually try to impinge on these people I claim to know by asking for introductions or information? Gah!

I was enticed by the two-degrees thing… I like the mathematics of it. And really, LinkedIn is a cool idea, and may yet prove to be a useful service for me. But I have sent four unsolicited emails to my friends, and it turns out that’s my limit. I just hate spamming people I know. So if all four of them admit to knowing me, I’ll have a little list of four contacts and I can enjoy the mathematics of that. And maybe other people who know me will spam me to become their contact (which is fine; if you know me, consider this an open invitation to add me as a LinkedIn contact). In the meantime I will slink off the site and try to shake off the greasy spammer feeling I got left with.

We started with Georgia O’Keeffe and Matisse. We read books about them first (I recommend the Getting to Know series by Mike Venezia), and then we talked about some of their works using my extensive library of art books. That was the point at which I realized exactly where all my money went while I was in college. It really is a nice collection. We went to the grocery store and bought large flowers that interested us — we each picked out one bunch — and then brought them home and drew them close up, like Georgia O’Keeffe. Tomorrow we will be drawing with scissors like Matisse.

This morning David, Craig and I made the trip to the city and visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. They have Femme au Chapeau, which is one of the images from the Venezia book, and I wanted David to see it. It could not have been a more perfect moment had it been scripted. We climbed the stairs and turned to the left on the second floor — you can almost see it right from there, but there were people in the way. We moved over toward it, and when a gap opened he saw it and pointed and squeezed my hand and gasped, “That was painted by Henri Matisse!” Why, yes, yes it was. Imagine finding that here.

We talked about how it looked, and how it was bigger than he thought it would be. I had told him the colors would look different than they did in the book. He wasn’t convinced, but that’s okay. Then we wandered through the galleries, looking at whatever interested him. Fountain stopped him for a moment, but he was perfectly ready to accept it as art. “It’s sculpture, Mom.” Yup.

We spent a few minutes in the Koret Visitor Education Center, watching part of a film that talked about Matisse and Picasso and their models.

I have a personal tradition when I visit a museum of choosing a postcard from the gift shop to remind me of one particular work that I enjoyed on that trip. David made his first postcard choice today. He picked Les Valeurs personnelles by Magritte, which is the painting he spent the most time in front of during our visit. Back in the car, he showed me Femme au Chapeau in his Matisse book. He admitted that his favorite part of the visit was the translucent walkway on the fifth floor. Fine by me: he had a favorite part.

A ticket, a postcard, a map, and a blog post — David at SFMOMA.

I'm a big fan of usability testing, and market research is its distant cousin, so I like to help; but I think it was the fact that she laughed that convinced me to stay on the phone. I'm glad I did. For the next 15 minutes I had a very entertaining time answering some of the most bizarre questions I've ever heard. The caller was great — she fully recognized the absurdity of some of them, and she did her job gracefully anyway. For example, the irony of the following sequence was not lost on her:

Caller: How many hours of television have you watched per week for the last 30 days?
Me: Zero [this is true, by the way].
Caller: Have you seen any television commercials for the phone book in the last 30 days?
Me: No.
Caller: I'm going to describe three television commercials for the phone book that recently aired in your area. Please tell me if you have seen any of them. I am not allowed to record your answer until I have finished describing each commercial, but they are not long. [90 second storyboard-type description of the first commercial follows] Have you seen this commercial?
Me: No.

Two more commercial descriptions followed the first one; by the time she finished, I was laughing too hard to speak. She waited patiently until I had recovered and thanked me for not hanging up. "Are you kidding?" I said. "This is the most fun I've had all day!" Apparently she loses a lot of respondents at the point where she has to read the commercials.

My favorite part of the call, though, was the personality assessment of my phone book:

Caller: If your phone book were to come alive and speak to you like a person, would it be authoritative?
Me: Is that really what the question says? I have no idea. I can't picture my phone book as a person.
Caller: So, I'll put "I don't know," okay?
Me: Sure.
Caller: If your phone book were to come alive and speak to you like a person, would it be polite?
Me: How many phone book personality questions do you have there?
Caller: Fifteen.

At this point she waited patiently while I lost it again. She ran through the personality questions with me randomly saying yes, no, or I don't know — the user study from hell, but come on, what kind of a question is that? Still, I was almost sorry when she ran out of questions.

If the marketing exec who approved those questions were to come alive and speak to me like a person, would s/he be funny? Probably not.

Every night I read a book or two to my son, who is six, just before he goes to bed. Last night we read McElligot's Pool by Dr. Seuss. We've read it before — he loves all the funny fishes. After we finished, he climbed up into his loft and I tucked him in and turned out the light and said "good night, sweet dreams" as I always do. That's when it happened.

As I was about to leave, out of the goodnight-moon quiet of his just-darkened room, I heard him say, "Mom… would it be okay if I read McElligot's Pool one more time?"

"You mean you want to hear it again?" I asked.

"No, I want to read it myself. Is that okay? I'll tuck myself in again after."

Is that okay? Is that OKAY? Of course it's okay! My boy wants to READ! He wants to actually READ the WORDS in a BOOK before he goes to bed. Is that okay? That's totally awesome. That's one of those things that they don't tell you about. Sure, there are nighttime feedings for 15 months and you don't sleep through the night forever. There are epic battles over eating food, wearing clothes, and using the toilet. There are terrifying moments when he falls down and cuts or breaks or bumps some part of his body and you can't fix it with a band-aid.

But last night I left the light on, and my son read a book to himself before bed.

I had no idea it would feel that good.