Dear John Hodgman,

Some days, I wonder just what in the world I am doing. For example, I was reading through John Hodgman‘s articles in Wired magazine and remembering his book, Areas of My Expertise, and then was pondering just how closely his last name resembles mine — man versus son. So I got to thinking about the name Hodge, and so I composed this (supposedly funny) letter to John. And I emailed it off to him (an email account for him was in Wired). And I decided to podcast it, too. And now I am blogging it. Sigh.

John Hodgman


John Hodgman

Read my letter to John HodgMAN.

And then listen to my audio of the letter. Letter to John.

I’ll be sure to let you know if he responds. 🙂

Peace (with humor),

Kevin

Machines and Us: The New Literacy?

This is an intriguing video that examines the New Literacy movement from the perspective of humans having (some) control over information, or at least, examining the phenomenon of how technology may be shaping our thinking (so is it really the machines having control over us?). It was created by a professor in digital anthropology (!) at Kansas State University.

Check it out:

[youtube]6gmP4nk0EOE[/youtube]

Interestingly, if yuo go to a site called Mojiti, you can see how people are leaving their own comments embedded right inside the video: http://mojiti.com/kan/2024/3313
Peace (in the flow of info),
Kevin

So You Wanna Be a Rock Star

I just finished reading an excellent book by Jacob Slichter, who is the drummer for the band Semisonic, called So You Wanna Be a Rock and Roll Star. Slichter writes about the path his band took to the top with the hit Closing Time — with the classic line “Every new beginning starts from some other beginning’s end” — and the path off the top as they lost support from their record company and failed to connect with their audience again. His insights into the writing, recording and performing process of a musician on the wave is humorous and indicative of the pop culture world. Things move quickly and then implode.


Although Slichter is not the primarily songwriter in the band, he does pen a few of the tunes that get noticed by record reviewers and at the end of the book, he writes about the experience of being on stage, performing your own song in front of a large audience.

“For me, each hearing of a song is a trip inside the mind of the songwriter … Listening to my songs, I feel that the circuit between the performer and the audience is complete.” — Jacob Slichter, of Semisonic.

That passage really captures the intense and electric rush of playing an original song that just connects with the crowd of people in front of you in a special way.

Peace (on the stage),
Kevin

My Classroom

I was tagged by Maria for a meme about the layout of my working space, meaning my teaching space. So here goes:

My classroom is the old computer lab, before everything but the outlets got ripped out when our technology budget was cut to nil and we needed classroom space. So I got moved one year into the room with the noisy server and air conditioning (the only room in the building that is nice in the hot summer months). The layout is tricky because the server is in a closet that we have to keep out of reach from curious children. I have managed to keep a long desk in the back of the room, which is helpful for laptop work, and in the center of the room is where the student desks are located, in different arrangements at different times of the year. My desk is off to the back corner, and it is a place I only rarely am at. It’s mostly a repository of “stuff” and I am not stuff!

But, hey, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? (I used Gliffy to create this)

Now, who to tag? How about Gail, Eric, Susan and David.

Peace (with teaching space),
Kevin

Student Survey

The image “http://www.unl.edu/casnrde/images/survey_icon2.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.The introduction to our Making Connections Weblog project (through the National Writing Project) involves an entrance survey, just to gather some data about student perceptions and use of technology. My students took the survey the other day (online, through Survey Monkey) and it is quite interesting to see the results.

Some observations:

  • Almost 80 percent of my students say they are on the computer more than two hours every day (that’s a lot of time — too much time, if you ask me — they should be outside, playing football or tag or something)
  • Almost 60 percent say they regularly use Instant Messaging to communicate with friends (and we often see the results of this IM in the morning, with hurt feelings and rumors run amok)
  • 50 percent said they enjoy writing (whoo-hooo) and almost 20 percent said they love to write (double whoo-hooo). Four percent said they don’t like to write at all (boo-hoo)
  • 78 percent said they think they write better on computer than on paper (interesting and not sure how to interpret that, although we talked about it in class)
  • 86 percent that schools SHOULD teach how to appropriately use technology to communicate with others.

All in all, interesting, and it will be even more interesting to compile the data from all six school districts involved in our project. I’ll share that out when it comes together (now I need to learn Excel)

Peace (choose A, B, or C),
Kevin

OnPoEvMo: Sleepwalker — February 2007

I was thinking deep about one of my students — a boy whose past is written all over his face every single day and he is one of those students who doesn’t care about school, doesn’t try to make any effort, and doesn’t connect with other people on any emotional level. He worries me to no end.

So I wrote a poem about him for my OnePoemEveryMonthforaYear project, just to try to get at my own understanding of who he is and what he is going through.

Sleepwalker

Listen to the poem

You sit —
hands on the fidget —
your mind a million miles away,
writing — the last thing you want to be doing
and you listen to the voice but don’t react.
There is no one in the room but you, and your thoughts.
You move forward — trudging up from slumber, a silent sleepwalker of life —
waiting for something or someone that you are certain will never come:
a hero, a savior,
a messenger whom you wouldn’t recognize anyway because heroes have knocked before
and then disappeared before you could even answer them
— that’s how far away you are —
and there you are, staring vacantly at the open door, open into the wildness of your heart;
the wilderness; the place where you again wonder why it is that you are here
and worrying about nothing more than survival.
Sleepwalker, you move among us but are not of us.
The wound lies so deep, so far down,
that the tenderness that comes of kindness is like the painful knife of the past.
You reject it all just for the sake of protection,
and in doing so,
your slumber grows deeper and deeper until you are nothing more than just a shadow cast upon the wall.
Awaken, sleepwalker, and let us see you.
Awaken, sleepwalker, awake!

Peace (with patience and understanding),
Kevin

The Reflective Teacher

Can I point you to the Reflective Teacher?

At this site, there is much to enjoy but I particularly like two features:

I’ve added both haikus and some sentences, and it is just a nice and easy way to write, reflect and add to the discussion of other teachers. Plus, boiling things down to a single thought — no fluff — is tricky.

Take a visit and leave a sentence.

Peace (with brevity),
Kevin

Cue Black Sabbath Music

This is from a fun quiz site that asks a series of javascript questions and the results place you as a superhero. According to the site, I am …. Iron Man!

You are Iron Man

Iron Man
75%
Spider-Man
65%
The Flash
65%
Green Lantern
65%
Catwoman
55%
Superman
55%
Hulk
50%
Batman
45%
Robin
40%
Wonder Woman
40%
Supergirl
35%
Inventor. Businessman. Genius.

But that’s not all. I also am a villain (aren’t we all?)


You are Magneto

Magneto
76%
Apocalypse
75%
Lex Luthor
69%
Venom
68%
Dr. Doom
65%
Mr. Freeze
64%
The Joker
64%
Catwoman
58%
Riddler
54%
Juggernaut
54%
Two-Face
54%
Dark Phoenix
52%
Poison Ivy
51%
Green Goblin
38%
Kingpin
37%
Mystique
26%
You fear the persecution of those that are different or underprivileged so much that you are willing to fight and hurt others for your cause.

Click here to take the “Favorite Superhero Movie” Poll

Peace (with power),
Kevin

When to Wall off the Garden

My National Writing Project colleague, Eric, has been thinking and reflecting upon when and how to protect students when they are writing on-line, which is something I do all the time, particularly with the launch of our big (six schools, 15 teachers, more than 200 students, and four Weblogs) project called Making Connections.

I liked what Eric wrote and so I don’t think he will mind if I share it here:

High Level of Safety

  • Completely “walled garden” where all student interaction is monitored, occurs on a school-affiliated website, and is not open to the public.
  • Any podcasts, videos, or images are also hosted only on this site and require approval before uploading.
  • A single class blog, forum, and wiki, all linked to a student account and inaccessible by any public visitors.
  • Students are not encouraged to read blogs, keep an aggregator, or access/use sites like Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube, Google Docs, and the like.

Medium Level of Safety

  • All interaction is monitored, occurs on a school-affiliated website or service designed for educational purposes (elggspaces, learnerblogs, ClassBlogmeiter, etc.), and some sections are open to public viewing, but not interaction (no way for visitors to leave comments, etc.)
  • Students create and upload podcasts, videos, and images to the school site, but prior approval is not required and can be viewed by the public.
  • Class blog and individual student blogs, forums, and wikis are all linked to a student account and are accessible by public visitors, but no interaction is permitted.
  • Students read blogs selected by the teacher and learn to find and cite resources through Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube, and the like.

Low Level of Safety

  • All interaction is monitored, but may occur mainly or exclusively on open-source services (though likely those designed for educational purposes). All sections are public and open to interaction.
  • Students create and upload podcasts, videos, and images to open-source services and link or embed them in their own blogs, wiki, or forum.
  • Class blog and individual student blogs, forums, and wikis that students modify and determine access levels on a post-by-post/page-by-page basis.
  • Students read blogs selected by the teacher, as well as those related to their interests and research. Students also access and use services such as Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube, Google Docs, and the like.

I find it helpful to first consider what are the aims of the project and then what level of security do you need. Our Making Connections project is completely sealed off from the public, primarily because of the large number of students but also because teachers felt they had a better chance of getting administrative support that way.

Still, part of what we are doing with our project is teaching Internet safety and even with the “virtual garden” walled off, we stress that students should not give out personal information and remind them that these protocols are something they should also be following in their lives outside of school (You should have seen the faces on some of my students when I talked about tracing IM messages, email and how every computer has a distinct IP address).

Peace (with information),
Kevin

Slings and Arrows

My wife and I just finished up the first season of a show out of Canada called Slings and Arrows, which centers on an imaginary theater that has traditionally performed Shakespeare but has become mired in commercialism and internal strife. It’s a comedy, but with serious undertones about the state of Art these days.

(The show’s tagline: “The real show is backstage”)

Characters include:

  • The longtime director who has stopped expected big things from the plays and dies in the first episode, only to return as a ghost to haunt the troupe and demand that his skull be used in Hamlet on stage.
  • The former stage star, who is certifiably crazy (really), but who comes back to the theater to direct Hamlet with a Hollywood movie star who has never done theater before as the main man with the haunted vision.
  • The aging starlet who was the former star’s lover but slept with the now-dead director just when things were getting good, and now has a thing for very young men, and whose life only revolves around the power of being on stage.

If you like Shakepeare and if you like the HBO-styled dramas (think Six Feet Under), then check out this show. We rented it through NetFlix.

Peace (in the lights),
Kevin