I’m leading a workshop this morning around Common Core and Digital Storytelling, and how technology can be used in the classroom. This is a hands-on session, and I want participants to be making digital stories. It occurred to me that using digital storytelling ideas to create book trailers is a valuable activity (and one that I have watched others in my Nerdy Book Club circle doing).
So, here is a sample that I created for our summer reading novel, The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick. I did this one in iMovie, but our session is on PCs, so I will be doing a second version as a tutorial using Photostory3.
Peace (in the trailer)
Kevin
I’m not a programmer, or coder, and I have never worked on a software developer team, so I am not sure exactly what spurred me on to pick up Team Geek by Brian Fitzpatric and Ben Collins-Sussman. Both of them work at Google, and I had heard a bit about this book through one channel or another, and it piqued my interest. I’m glad I got it and read it.
While ostensibly about the ways that a team of software programmers can work together, and avoid chaos and friction as much as possible, the book’s larger theme of how people can come together, learn from each other, respect each other’s expertise and work on larger ideas in collaboration with each other really resonated with me in these days of Personal Learning Communities and Communities of Practice and whatever other term is popping around the educational circles these days.
With great humor and lively writing (ie, humans are “giant intermittent bugs” of code), Fitzpatrick and Collins-Sussman put a premium on four main traits of a group that can work together:
- Humility
- Respect
- Trust
In their view, a solid team and its leaders keeps these three ideals intact at all times. It’s simple, but powerful. We need humility to admit that we don’t know everything and are always in search of better information that someone else might have. We need to respect the interests and expertise of our colleagues, even when their interests might not jive with our own. And we need to trust that together, we can do a better job than if either of us were alone, and we need to believe that the team has our best interests at heart. If that isn’t applicable to the ways that teachers and educators come together to plan curriculum or talk about students or shift into big changes (Common Core, anyone?), then I don’t know what is.
At the end, the writers admit that while they were writing about software teams, they really weren’t writing just about software teams. “Our stories are essentially about the art of maintaining a healthy, functional community — any community … Humans are tricky to deal with no matter what the context, and software development has the same community-health issues as any other group endeavor.” (158)
So do educational groups.
Peace (in the code of HRT),
Kevin
PS — here is one of the videos they did for Google about programming with humans in mind. It will give you a taste of their humor.
I admire Neal Stephenson for honesty. He begins his collection of essays and stories — Some Remarks — with the admission that some of the pieces may not hold up so well over time and that he feels a bit odd as a published novelist to suddenly pull together his essays and shorter ideas into a book format. And while I didn’t find all the pieces worth reading through ’till the end, I didn’t feel all that guilty about abandoning a piece, either. I think Neal would understand.
That said, there are some intriguing pieces in here in which Stephenson — whose Snow Crash is still one of my favorite cyberpunk novels but I could not get into his System of the World series — explores technology and culture from an introspective and inquiry angle, and Stephenson the informational writer is fun to read. He brings a lot of voice and wit to the page. Two pieces that come to mind are the one about China and how technology innovation is changing China’s (and Hong Kong, and Taiwan) role in the world and the longer (a bit too long, perhaps?) piece about the laying of the longest undersea wire system in the world that later became one of the main pathways for the world’s data information flow.
There are a couple of interview transcripts, too, that are interesting to read, particularly as you realize how Stephenson grapples with the label of science fiction writer in the literary world. And I did enjoy his final piece, in which he explains to the reader why he does not take time to respond to readers, noting that if he replied to emails and letters and spoke at more conferences, he would have less time to write his novels. And, he explains, he would rather be a writer than a “correspondent.” Nice done.
Peace (in the article),
Kevin
It’s been years since I have cracked open the pages of a John Grisham novel (although I have been intrigued by his new youth series about a kid detective. Theodore Boone). But the theme of baseball never ends in our house of three boys, and with our family trip to the beach last week, I grabbed and packed Calico Joe as part of my mix of reading. I remembered why I have not cracked a Grisham novel in a while (the writing) but I also remembered what makes Grisham so popular — he’s a decent storyteller.
Calico Joe follows the aftermath of an event years in the past when the narrator’s father, a professional baseball pitcher with a mean streak at home and on the mound, may or may not have intentionally beaned the best prospect coming into baseball in generation, ending Calico Joe’s career and creating a whirlwind of controversy that the narrator (Paul) seeks to resolve. It felt like I was watching a movie, such as The Natural, as I read the book, and I finished it in a single day. (And in fact, the story is inspired by the real events of the death of Ray Chapman, the only major league player to be killed by a pitch)
I liked how baseball and personal history came together in this novel, even if the writing itself wasn’t necessarily my style. I was hoping for something with little more substance, even though the relationship between Paul, the son and narrator, and Warren, the father, is complicated. But it’s complicated in a conventional way, you know? Still, it’s hard to argue with a fast-paced, quick read at times, and Calico Joe is just that. I would just wait for the paperback version, that’s all. Maybe next summer.
Peace (on the field),
Kevin
As someone who reviews graphic novels, I saw my fair share of Steve Jobs biographies get churned out when the Apple co-founder passed away and Walter Isaacson’s book about Jobs hit the best-seller list. This one — Steve Jobs: Genius by Design — by Campfire Books (which puts out a lot of interesting graphic novels based on popular and obscure myths and stories) is nicely done, and could easily pique the interest of students who know a bit about Jobs but not enough to understand him as an innovator who suffered lots of failure before success.
The book follows Isaacson’s story closely, it seems to me, and the publishers are right to start out with a lengthy disclaimer, acknowledging that they were piecing together the story of Jobs’ life through multiple sources in a hopes “to celebrate his legacy.” And the book nicely balances the pros (Jobs’ much celebrated ability to see technology through the lens of design and use his gut instinct for development of ideas and products) and the cons (his early abandonment of his daughter and harsh treatments of employees and friends). As with other pieces, this book shows the complicated person Jobs was to the public (and probably even more complicated to those he was close to in private).
Campfire also has posted a preview of the book, which is handy for teachers when considering the purchase.
Peace (in the graphic novel),
Kevin
Kate Messner’s Capture the Flag intrigued me mostly on the issue of setting. How do you use an airport locked down in a snowstorm as the entire setting for a mystery story? Messner shows how, as her three young protagonists work frantically to discover a stolen flag (of great national and historical importance) before the storm clears and their flights leave. I was reminded a bit of Agatha Christie, for some reason. Not so much for the writing — their styles are very different — but for the claustrophobic nature of the setting, and of course, the wily intelligence and persistence of the detectives.
In this novel for middle school readers, Messner brings together three young people — Anna, José, and Henry — who begin as strangers sitting together at a gathering in Washington DC with respective relatives yapping it up with other adults, and end up teaming up in the airport after they learn that the flag in question has been stolen. The three kids suspect the thieves are not only in the airport, but so is the flag. The story unfolds at a quick pace, with its fair share of red herrings and dangerous situations, and Messner weaves in themes of politics, immigration and secret societies to fill the pages. She even leaves open the very real possibility of a sequel — a wise move for these three kids who have proven their worth when the flag gets recovered and the thieves exposed.
Oh, and can I just say: the cover to this book is very cool and intriguing.
Peace (in the stars and stripes forever),
Kevin
Before the end of the school year in June, I had read Taylor Mali’s What Teachers Make (in praise of the greatest job in the world) book of essays about education, which is like an extended riff off his very famous poem about teachers. It was one of those books that did not deserve a place in my bookcase. No, it deserved to be in the hands of another teacher. So, I wrote a little note in the inside cover, asking the person who got the book to read it, and pass it along to another teacher. (I think Bud Hunt gave me this idea of passing the book forward. ).
As it turned out, one of the participants in a workshops I gave over the summer around Common Core was the teacher in whose mailbox at school I had put What Teachers Make. She’s a colleague in a grade below me, and I figured she would enjoy Mali. She sure did, gushing about the essays and thanking me for turning her on to Mali, and then I asked her the question that was on my mind: Did you pass it on?
She did, and now I wonder if the book will make its way through various networks in our school district, and as I consider that, I think: that surely was a good investment that takes advantage of the physical network of teachers that I am part of. I love that idea of a book of inspiring essays slowly making the rounds, and I hope the book doesn’t fall into the hands of someone who just files it away. That book is meant to be read, and appreciated, by teachers. And it would be different if our principal or superintendent had given us that for a reading assignment, don’t you think? There is something in the power of grassroots connections among teachers, and we don’t always figure out how to use those connections to our advantage.
Maybe someday, the book will drop in your hands, too. If so, read it and pass it on, won’t you?
Peace (in the story),
Kevin
PS — here is Taylor Mali, slamming his poem that inspired the book:
Middle School: Get Me Out of Here is the second graphic-infused novel by James Patterson (he, of many many books) with writer Chris Tebbets and illustrator Laura Parks about the middle school life of Rafe Khatchadorian, a budding artist with an incredibly imagination matched by an incredible ability to get himself into extreme trouble. Here, Rafe is starting seventh grade at an arts magnet school but his family is in upheaval, as the diner where his single mom works has burned down and mom has lost her job. So Rafe, his sister and his mom need to move in with his grandmother in the city, and start anew.
Perhaps it was because I already knew Rafe (from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life), but I liked this book better than the first. And as with the first, the illustrations by Parks are wonderfully detailed, and provide a great partner to the written story, too. The pictures don’t just complement the text; they advance the story, and bring the reader into the mind of Rafe, with all of his quirks and imaginative ideas brought forth on the page. So, even as the story advances along linear lines, the illustrations provide various jumping off points for the reader. Here is a perfect example of a book that would not hold up without the illustrations.
I won’t give the story away, but suffice it to say that like the first book (where we slowly learn that Rafe had a twin brother who passed away when they were both three years old), this book has a family story that slowly unfolds, opening a window into the heart of Rafe and allowing him to see the world, and his own place in it, a little differently. I appreciate that in a book. The setting of middle school, particularly the seventh grade, gives Patterson and Tebbetts plenty of room for Rafe to feel isolated and connected and confused about a lot of things that come with the pre-teen years. It is Rafe’s art, and Parks’ illustrations, that give him, and us, balance.
Peace (in middle school),
Kevin
I guess I must be late to the discovery of Douglas Rushkoff. But, better late than never, right? I just finished his Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for the Digital Age and I have to say, it was just what I needed: a perfect balance of a message that I try to articulate (put young people in the seat of knowledge and creation) with warnings about the shifts that are taking place in our culture around technology and digital media. In the end, Rushkoff is positive about the possibilities but the theme of needing to understand (if not create) the underlying programming of technology and be aware of its biases is a critical part of understanding our times.
I have more little sticky notes in this short book than I know what to do with but Rushkoff explores many interesting themes in lively writing and under the guise of technology and media have certain qualities that either complement or hinder our own desire and needs when we sit down at our devices.
Finally, as the title suggests, he implores us to know something about the ways of programmers. He doesn’t necessarily argue that everyone should be a programmer (although it is interesting that Rushkoff is now part of the Code Academy, which is built around the notion of educating the public about code) but he does believe that some ancillary knowledge about the 1s and 0s underneath the source code provides us with an insight into the intent of the technology, and maybe provides us with a path to adapt it for our own needs.
Peace (in the program),
Kevin