Restored Faith in Humanity

I don't use my blog to talk about my students. I respect their role and mine and try to generalize our experiences for the world. But what happened last week is not something I can overlook and it needs to be shared, but I have changed the names to protect those I'm mentioning.......

This is one of the best group of kids I've had the honor of working with. I don't worry that these students will grow up lacking values, or empathy, or compassion. I know first hand what these students can do. I am one of three teachers that helps with the Student Council at Fairmont High School (my role is quite small compared to Sara Gudahl, she thrives as their advisor). Last week we, the advisors, counted the ballots for homecoming. The senior class votes for 10 students (5 girls, 5 boys) to represent them on the homecoming court.

Now I must admit, I'm not always a fan of homecoming. I love the tradition of coming back to your high school, the week long activities, ironman volleyball, powderpuff football, and then topping it off with the football game on Friday night. What I don't like are the tears of not getting on the court, the drama between those that did and did not. Every girl should get a crown just for surviving to their senior year of high school. Every boy should be king for a day.

We counted, double checked, and compiled approximately 140+ ballots this year. In doing this, we compare names that seem to be receiving larger numbers. As the dust settled and final candidates surfaced, the integrity of this class of students was evident. John was voted to be one of the candidates. I have know John  since 7th grade. I have watched him grow up, mature, develop into an amazing human being. He has built relationships with his teachers and the student body. John is loved by his classmates, teachers, anyone that knows him. In fact, in one of my classes, before the ballots were distributed, a fellow senior stated "I want to get him on the homecoming court" and instantly the rest of the class piped up in agreement. And know we know they did it!

Now you're probably thinking he would be the obvious choice to be chosen by his peers. I'm sure many of you have a "John" that comes to mind, and you're probably thinking to yourself he's the stereo-typical candidate, and you're right, he is. So what makes this story so special and brought tears to all our eyes? John is autistic. Does that change your thoughts?

How Can We Disappear from Our Phones Today?

I enjoy Saturdays. Not a big surprise, most people view this as the best day of the week. My best Saturdays are spent at my home, enjoying my surroundings, recharging, and on the occasional day, tearing into cleaning my house (aka the cleaning "nazzi" has shown her ugly face.)

I take tackling the house cleaning duties not as a chore but an opportunity to put right all that has been torn apart during the week (or weeks depending on long it's been). For me, it also mean jammin' to some tunes as well via Apple TV and iTunes, and I'm sure my new neighbors are just loving this!

So on this particular Saturday, as the tunes are radiating throughout the house, Billy Joel's tune Vienna came on. Now I've listened to this playlist more than a dozen times, but as I listened more closely to the words, these rang out:

slow down you crazy child

and take the phone off the hook

and disappear for awhile

I remember what it means to take the phone off the hook (showing my age a bit here). No one can contact you, peace and quiet, you could truly disappear. Why can't we do that today? Well, let's think about it, what happened when you called someone who took their phone off the hook? You heard a busy signal. Assumption: the recipient of your call was on the phone, you figured they were home, but you can't reach them or leave them a message, you just have to keep trying. I can't do that with my cell phone.

Sure I can let it ring and go to voice mail. Assumption today: Your phone is somehow permanently attached to some part of your body 24/7 and the recipient is ignoring you. I can shut my phone off entirely, but then it goes directly to voice mail. Assumption: The recipient forgot to charge their phone so I'll just keep calling and leaving voice messages. So when I turn my phone back on, the disappearing act I tried to do has created a task of returning calls, answering message, and doing what I was trying to avoid by disappearing.

While I can't say I miss having a landline, I do miss the disappearing act that came along with it. I have sympathy for my own children that will never know what that's like. 

We Want To See Who You Are!

My school district is embracing the Google+ world, in particular the communities. My principal has created a community for the teachers & staff in our building and shares announcements, weekly calendars, common core information, staff birthdays, etc. I will say it has cleaned up my email inbox immensely, and I love that the information is always available and organized (there's my Type A coming out again, dang!)

One positive is being able to put a face with a name. Most would not deem our staff extremely large, but our building is, and I can go for weeks, sometimes months, and not see my co-workers, or necessarily know who all the new staff are. So we strongly encourage having actual pictures in our profile, and not clip art or avatars. Because of this I've been paying closer attention on Google+ and Twitter to those that I connect with and what their profile picture says about them. Could I pick them out of a group if I saw them? Does it portray who they are? Or what they teach?

It's easy to do, just click on your profile picture in Google+ (or the blue man if he's still hanging around) and choose Change Profile Photo. Whether you use a school photo, selfie, or random shot of yourself doesn't matter. Just make sure your profile picture is clear and allows others to recognize who your are, because I know you're not a Fighting Irish (aka Segar)!

Clean Up Those Sticky Notes

Anyone who happens by my office will see I love sticky notes. I have them pinned to my bulletin board, they cover my computer desk, I have stacked of different colored ones in my drawers, I LOVE THEM! I actually think it's an addiction I need help with, but that's a problem for another day.

While I love my notes, and the feeling of crumpling them up when I've completed the tasks on them, they don't travel well. In fact, Hansel and Gretel should have used them instead of while pebbles to find their way home through the forest. So alas, my notes are only as good as the office I have placed them in, until now...(insert cheezy infomercial voice over here)

Google has once again rescued me with Google Keep.  It's an app (iOS and Android) and a website! Here I can make endless sticky notes for every task or job I have to accomplish, from my laptop, desktop, or phone. I can color code my lists (great for us A type personalities), include check boxes so I can "check off" what I have done, share them with my students or colleagues, set up reminders, and if my list becomes extremely long and detailed, I can copy it to Google Docs!

I have even shared this tool with my students as an option to keep track of their assignments, tasks, or whatever they need to do. Check this out! I can't believe how much more organized I feel by using this tool!

Holy Shortcuts

I am a keyboard shortcut user. This goes way back to my college days using Lotus 1-2-3 and truly being a "typer". Ever since then, anything I can do with a shortcut I do. And I've have been living the illusion that I knew most shortcuts out.....that was my first mistake.

Gmail has a whole array of shortcuts, far beyond the basic formatting ones I use often. Open your Gmail (or school GAFE email) and use the keyboard shortcut Shift + ?  Do you get a screen like the one below?

Holy Shortcuts! Things I never knew........

Just goes to show you, learning never ends, even at the age of ......... hahaha you thought I was going to tell you how old I was?

Digital Citizenship - Not only the School's Job to Teach

Ultimately all educators have a common goal for their students: to teach them to use the curriculum in the “real world”. But what is the real world?

As I see it, this is when students will be forced into decision making circumstances, affecting their life and well being, without the aid of a parent, teacher or other adult to guide them.

The decisions we adults faced in the past are not even close to what today’s students are exposed to. Students today have all the benefits of technology, but with these benefits comes great responsibility: aka Digital Citizenship.

And school isn’t the only place the topic can come up. So many habits and characteristics are learned from home. I always refer to the idea of saving money in Personal Finance. How often and how much a student saves starts long before there is any school lesson about it. There are birthday and holiday gifts of money that open the door of opportunity for parents to teach their children about the importance of money, saving and spending.

The first time your child used a piece of technology, whether it was a family device or one of their very own, did the topic of do’s and don’ts occur? I’m sure it did. DON’T get it wet. DO ask for help using it. Be careful NOT to drop it. DON’T use after 9 PM. And on and on. While these are great rules and each child should learn to take of and respect their device, where does the Digital Citizenship conversation come in? Who tells a child what to do when they come across an inappropriate website or pop-up window? Is your child able to distinguish between what is true and not true on the internet? When does a child realize that Facebook posts and Tweets can be permanent footprints, even if they have deleted it?  When a college is Googling them to determine admittance to their school, or a prospective employer is checking them out for possible employment, is a little too late.

My hope is that digital citizenship becomes a topic of discussion at home the first time technology reaches a child’s hand. There will never be a time in the life of today’s students that they will not be exposed to technology. It is continually changing. As new websites, apps and devices are developed, the conversation should occur, again and again and again. As a parent, I want my children to always be safe, but I know I can’t always be with them. Knowledge is power. Knowing my students, and my own kids, have the knowledge to make good decisions regarding digital citizenship helps me know they will be safe.

SpeakIt! Loud and Clear!!

One of the special needs teachers in my building came to see me today looking for options of software that would read text to her students. She showed me a few things she had found, but each was, of course, a purchase that needed to be made. Now consider that she has a few Android tablet devices in her room for student use, and multiply that purchase price by the number of devices. Dang!!

Once again, Google to the rescue. Since she came to visit I've been playing around with the SpeakIt! extension. What do I like best about it? Students select the text they want read back to them and simply click the extension in the bar and the reader begins. I like this much better than options I've seen that just read the entire page. If a students needs to hear a paragraph, or set of instructions, multiple times, IT'S POSSIBLE!

And the voice you hear almost sounds like a real person! The pronunciation is a little different on a few words, but for the most part students are going to get the information read back to them in a clear, precise, pleasant voice.

Now the cherry on top of the sundae: have you ever checked out the Bookshare website? This same teacher shared it with me. It is an accessible online library for people with special needs and it allows you to look up your book by title, author or ISBN. How great is that?

And if keeps getting better... This assistive technology that Google is providing us in the school, is also something parents or students could download and use at home! Is it Christmas today, or what!