(This is post for Slice of Life, as facilitated by Two Writing Teachers each Tuesday. We write about small moments. In March, the Slice of Life goes daily for a month. Consider joining the effort to write every day.)
It was one of those nights and aims to be one of those days …
Peace (with one eye open),
Kevin
PS — If need information about the March Slice of Life challenges, here you go:
PSS — a bonus Zeega to celebrate Slice of Life
(This is a post for Slice of Life, a regular writing feature with Two Writing Teachers).
Neither the dog (his name is Duke) nor this dog (my nickname in social networks is Dogtrax) wanted to brave the great outdoors this morning. The blizzard is here, and even as I write this, I can hear the winds whipping around the neighborhood.
Juno has arrived.
We think we’re ready: extra food, extra water, generator near the garage door, a trip to the library to stock up on additional books, etc, etc. I sort of wish I had slept in a bit more but the howling winds and the antsy dog had me up and outside.
Outside this morning, Duke was nearly dragging me to get back home, jumping on his back legs as if he were kicking his motor into high gear. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad out there, and I hope the snow is cold enough that it won’t cause power lines to fall.
Hang tight, if Juno is near you. Stay warm.
Peace (in the winter),
Kevin
PS — I brought my camera outside, but most of the shots didn’t come out. These two did, and the hues of the world are interesting, particularly against the black lab background of Duke.
(This is part of Slice of Life, a regular writing activity facilitated by Two Writing Teachers. We find small moments to write about. You come write, too, OK?)
Our video production budget would make the penny pinching budget dudes in Hollywood very proud: seven cups of hot chocolate and a overflowing plate of nachos as pay for the acting team. The creative energy that is going into the filming of my son’s second feature film? Priceless.
As the script for Robbers on the Loose 2 (a sequel to his last film, shot three years ago and featured at a local film festival) took shape in the past few weeks — written with friends, with advice from his parents and brothers — the excitement of shooting a movie took hold. Organizing the schedules of nearly 10 kids (all nine and ten years old) has been difficult, and we have about one-third more of the movie to shoot.
I won’t give away the story. Let’s just say, someone is on the loose. But in the script that they wrote on their own, I noticed references to the first movie, foreshadowing for something to be stolen, the use of frames within frames (done in the editing process), and the boys’ obsessions with Nerf guns (only one girl is in the acting team, as the police officer. She’s the best actor of the bunch.)
As an independent media activity, making a movie is interesting and complicated, as my 10-year-old son is finding out. He has his crew rehearsing their lines, making adaptations to the script, adjusting his vision to the reality of what is available to us, and more.
I am merely the camera operator, adding in some advice when I think it will help. (I am also taking still photos of the filming, which is where these collages came from). Seeing my son and his friends pouring over the footage of the day is such a nice sight to behold, as they laugh at the retakes, and critique their own performances.
What more could you ask for?
Peace (on the loose),
Kevin
(This is a Slice of Life post, where we zoom in on the little moments of life. Slice of Life is hosted by Two Writing Teachers. You should write a slice today. Use the hashtag on Twitter #sol15 if you do)
I just knew it. Sunday’s night’s forecast for Monday morning looked iffy, with rain and snow and ice and the temperature hovering just around freezing. Sure enough, the morning began with a series of phone calls: my school district, my wife’s school district, my sons’ school district, and then my wife’s cell phone — where she also has the cancellation texts sent — started to pipe up with an early morning soundtrack of alarm.
No school. (Well, no school for the boys and I — my wife, an administrator, still went in and worked in a quiet building all day).
So, what did I do?
I guess the snow day had a lot going on … I just didn’t realize it until I wrote about it.
Peace (in the daze),
Kevin
(This is a Slice of Life post, where we write about the small moments of life through a larger reflective piece of writing. It is hosted by Two Writing Teachers, and you should join us.)
I saw this Savage Chickens cartoon by Doug Savage yesterday and thought, maybe it’s not just teachers and students who find the first day back after a long break sort of disjointing.
We eased back into learning yesterday in my classroom, after catching up with our holiday gatherings, mishaps and adventures. There was a sort of glazed look on my students’ faces — you know that look? They are used to sleeping in, not waiting in the frigid morning air for the bus — so I kept the pace moving along — handing back writing assignments (what did I do over break? I read student writing), introducing the concepts of Figurative Language that we now move into, and then shifted into giving them time to finish/publish their science-based video game projects.
If they were done with their video game projects, their assignment was to play other students’ games and give feedback. Lots did. It was good. We had a few “ahhhhhh” moments but mostly, we are now ready move into our learning again today.
The new year begins … now.
Peace (in the share),
Kevin
(This is part of Slice of Life, a weekly writing activity hosted by Two Writing Teachers in which which bloggers write about the small moments. Come join us! Write your slice!)
The boy, maybe more than 8 years old, sat with his back to all of us. On the floor, near his knee, the tin of colored pencils sat open. On the chair, situated like a table, a small notebook was open and propped up against the back of the chair, a handheld Nintendo DS was open to a game screen. His fingers held the colored pencil, and he examined closely the screen, and then he began to once again color.
He was oblivious to the rest of us in the waiting room of the pediatrician’s office, where I was sitting with my son, waiting for our turn to get called to the exam room. The only sound other than the chattering of the office staff was the gurgling of the fish tank. All of us were watching the back of this artist, mostly absentmindedly. Just something to stare at during the waiting.
I watched him, too, though I suspect I was more interested than others, for whatever reason. As I had walked past the boy artist, I had noticed the game on his DS open and his illustration underway was stunningly beautiful, a painstakingly detailed imitation of the screen. I was intrigued. I watched as he slowly, carefully, methodically put away one colored pencil and then carefully, slowly, methodically chose the next color. There was nothing random to what he was doing. It was all very deliberate.
Then, a bit of panic. His fingers searched for a color. Moving pencils back into place. Fingers. Fingers. He glanced around, and I could see something in his eyes. He quickly looked at the ground. He looked on a nearby bench. He put all the pencils away and stood up. He checked himself, hands on pants and in pockets. Glanced around again, for the first time seeming to acknowledge other people in the room, if only to silently accuse us of theft of a pencil. I almost wanted to say, I didn’t take it! I didn’t steal any of your pencils! Do you want me to help you look?
But his mother and older brother came out of the examination room, and he quickly packed up his art gear, gave one last look around, slammed shut his DS, and in seconds, he and his family were gone. Me? I kept looking around for that boy’s lost pencil, for what if that were the exact color he needed to finish his drawing and it was nowhere to be found?
What then? And I could not help wondering later, what color?
Peace (in the artist),
Kevin
(This is a Slice of Life, a regular writing activity facilitated by Two Writing Teachers. Come write with us.)
I’ve often harped on and on against using the dichotomy of the digital natives versus the digital immigrants. It’s a false dichotomy to say that young people “get” technology and adults don’t. All of us are in the middle, depending on the situation and context and technology. And yet, every now and then, a student will do something that has me scratching my head, discovering some workaround they figured out that I would not have thought about.
This one from yesterday had me scratching my head, and also giggling out loud.
A little pretext: my students are working on a persuasive piece of writing in which they review a video game. It was due yesterday, and one of my students was on a family weekend ski trip, so she worked on her paragraph in the car on the way North. Apparently, all she had was an iPod, so she found one of the Art/Drawing Apps, and used the text feature to write her paragraph that way (Can you get that picture in your mind? This kid in the cramped back seat of the family car, huddled over an iPod, tap-typing in a program designed for drawing?)
She could not figure out how to print it out, so her mother emailed me the file and asked that I print it out, which I had gladly do if necessary. But when I opened up the file, this is what I saw:
Yes, tiny tiny type. If anything, my screenshot does not do justice to how small those words really are. So small, in fact, that when I held it in my hands, it was like looking at a collection of ants on the page. (Granted, I have old eyes … digital immigrant eyes?) It reminded me of that famous scene in Spinal Tap, with the tiny Stonehenge on stage. You know what I’m talking about, right?
‘This Is Spinal Tap’ – ‘Stonehenge’ from filmc3ption on Vimeo.
Anyway, the student and I were both amused at the paper I printed out. She even declared, “I can read it just fine, Mr. H,” and then bent down, eyes very close to the paper, and started to read it to me …. before bursting out laughing.
Last night, they tried a few ways to get the text bigger but of course, the app converted the text into the drawing itself, making the text un-editable, so it is final. In the end, they took a screenshot of the writing and sent that to me, and that’s just fine.
Peace (in the tiny tiny writing),
Kevin
(This is part of Slice of Life, a weekly writing feature hosted via Two Writing Teachers. Narrow your lens. Write. Share.)
You’d think with all the video game design work I do with my students that I would have already been kneedeep into Minecraft. My students certainly are. Me? Not much. No real reason except time to dive in always slips away from me, but now that my youngest son is using and loving Minecraft (and even joined a Minecraft club at our public library), I figured it was time to dip my toes into the blocks, so to speak.
So, I asked my son, teach me Minecraft.
And we proceeded to spend about 45 minutes with the Minecraft App (we also have the fuller version on the laptop), and together, he helped me build a doghouse for the dog/wolf that we spawned in the world that I began to create when we started to play in Creative — not Survival — mode. (Getting the vocabulary down …) I had to remind him to talk me through the learning, not do it himself. (such a teacher)
OK, so now I get a bit of the appeal of Minecraft. I was never quite oblivious to it but I can see how the building and wandering in the world is a pretty fascinating experience. I spent some time “flying” high above the world, watching the contours being drawn out in each direction. That was pretty nifty, to think we were in the map as it was being made.
And the dogs seemed pretty happy.
Peace (in the craft),
Kevin
(This is part of the Slice of Life writing activity sponsored by Two Writing Teachers. Come join us by writing about small moments each Tuesday.)
Something strange has happened in the dynamics of my classroom in the past two weeks or so. I’m not sure exactly where or what it springs from, and I struggling right now with how to right the ship, too. There are always pivot points each year in a classroom culture where the mood of a group of kids can suddenly turn from what you thought it was to something you were not expecting it to be at all.
I am at one of the pivots, and I don’t like it at all.
Sometimes, the pivot a good thing. Maturity kicks in. Friendships blossom. A cohesiveness emerges. You hope that, as the teacher, your work around community building has paid off, that the small things can make a big difference in the way kids see themselves, and the world — the small world of the classroom as well as the large world of the World.
Right now, my class is sort of in opposite mode, and I obviously won’t go into specifics, but there’s a small clique of students who are making negative ripples as part of social posturing, and I am worried about the tide. I’m not turning a blind eye to it. I’m addressing what I see, and what I hear, and what I hear about, as quickly and as judiciously as I can. I’m using positive reinforcement and negative consequences. Parents are involved. The administration is involved. And I am reaching into the teaching bag for all I have, in hopes I can change what needs to be changed so we can move forward with positive energy — all of us.
Still, youthful social dynamics can be a powerful force. On their own, each student in this clique is a nice kid. As a group, they become something I barely recognize at times when I hear some of the stories of how they treat others in the hallways, on the playground, on the bus. And, online, too. Never in the classroom, though.
I’m struggling to make it right, and it makes me sad and frustrated to know this, too, is part of teaching, when so many of my students just want a safe and fun place to learn each day.
Peace (in the think),
Kevin
(This is part of Slice of Life with Two Writing Teachers. We write about small moments. You write, too.)
They were standing in line, waiting to put the laptops back on the computer cart. We’d been gaming in the classroom, working with Gamestar Mechanic to begin the process of understanding video game design by playing and analyzing games. This week, they will start the initial stages of storyboarding and building their own science-based video games.
“Girls don’t like video games,” he said to no one in particular, and there was a moment of silence as all the girls turned around to stare at him. He seemed taken aback. “I mean, they don’t right? Girls don’t like video games?”
He spoke that last line as if he walked into a pit of vipers because there was a sudden burst of loud response from the girls. I think I saw a few of his friends shake their heads, knowing what was coming.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Of course, I like video games. I’m probably better than you.”
“We may not like the same games, but we like games.”
He seemed a bit shaken by the response. That’s good.
“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbled, and that gave me a teaching moment to talk to the class about the stereotypes we have of gender and technology. It’s true not every girl likes video games. Not every boy likes video games, either. But some girls are great at both playing and designing video games. And we had just had a long discussion on game design elements, where plenty of girls shared deep thoughts about design and and the games they played. (Had he even been listening?)
I think he got it. I do. And if not, the girls are going to set him straight. Count on that.
Peace (in the room),
Kevin