Welcome to a special Thursday edition of Tuesdays. It's week eight and I'm picking almost all favorites to cover. Here they are...
Tennessee giving 8.5 to Indianapolis
WIN
Tennessee 27 - Indianapolis 10
Jacksonville getting 9.5 from Houston
LOSS
Houston 24 - Jacksonville 14
Carolina giving 3.5 to Minnesota
LOSS
Minnesota 24 - Carolina 21
New Orleans giving 13.5 to St. Louis
LOSS
St. Louis 31 - New Orleans 21
Arizona getting 12.5 from Baltimore
WIN
Baltimore 30 - Arizona 27
NY Giants giving 9.5 to Miami
LOSS
NY Giants 20 - Miami 17
Buffalo giving 6 to Washington
WIN
Buffalo 23 - Washington 0
Detroit giving 3 to Denver
WIN
Detroit 45 - Denver 10
New England giving 3 to Pittsburgh
LOSS
Pittsburgh 25 - New England 17
San Francisco giving 8.5 to Cleveland
WIN
San Francisco 20 - Cleveland 10
Cincinnati giving 3 to Seattle
WIN
Cincinnati 34 - Seattle 12
Philadelphia giving 3.5 to Dallas
WIN
Philadelphia 34 - Dallas 7
San Diego giving 4 to Kansas City
LOSS
Kansas City 23 - San Diego 20
WEEK EIGHT RECORD: 7-6-0
2011 - 2012 Record: 57-52-7
2010 - 2011 Record: 130-130-7
2009 - 2010 Record: 138-125-4
2008 - 2009 Record: 139-120-8
Scott's Profile Pic
Scott Swindells
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Thankful for Challenges
Yesterday a teacher shared with me how difficult it was for her to copy a hyperlink from an email, open a new web browser, paste the link, and go.
These instructions (which were necessary steps to view the page because the default IE browser will not load the page that was emailed to her by her building principal) were, by her own words, "like hearing a foreign language" for her.
Her frustration took me back to several memories of experiences I've had learning something new, where everyone seemed to know more than I did, and proficiency for me seemed light years away. I even mentioned to her that I am not tech savvy by nature, and I remember learning myself the things I was showing her.
We talked about right-clicking vs. left-clicking, we talked about where the URL or web address gets typed in a web browser, we talked about how to find programs in Windows 7 (which was new to me only two months ago, actually) and several other tech tidbits that she was picking up for the first time. She said what MANY teachers say, that she was often embarrassed to ask for help, because so much of our job is based on digital tasks, and many people assume we all know how to navigate our way through them.
I offered some advice: this is no different than anything else you've learned. When you learn something for the first time, it is slow and messy. This is often a great benefit, though, because the time spent, the frustrations, dead-ends and failures, all combine to make a longer-lasting impact on our brains and help us perform better with any skill or task when we try it in the future. When someone does something for us, all we learn to do is ask that person for help. But when we work through the obstacles, we really learn, and we learn it for the long haul.
Today, I found myself needing to take my own advice.
Something that embarrassed me that I just did not know how to do for whatever reason was getting a passport. I was raised to "see the USA first," so I've been in 47 states, but haven't been out of the country for 20 years (other than trips to Canada and the Bahamas in the days when we didn't need passports to travel there). I was 12 when I got my last passport.
I need to chaperone a ski trip to Canada this Winter, and I've been told it can take months to get the passport, so I started with Google searches and asking friends. I was told to go to the post office, the UPS store, a notary, and many other places, and I reached several dead ends in the process because many of these places no longer do passport services. I find it strange that in the recent years when more of us are required to get passports, there are so many fewer places to get them! I drove to several places today, a task complicated by leaving my GPS at home (argh!) and found at least three places whose web sites claim do passport services, no longer do. I suggested to all of them that they should update their websites for people like me who, I don't know, skipped lunch, got lost, asked for directions three times and finally arrived only to find out you don't do what you claimed to do! By 1 p.m. I could feel the frustration rising and I began to see the similarities between my situation and the many teachers who I help with technology issues.
I continued my efforts in the afternoon. The application I found online was like any other government document I've seen... some parts were incredibly over-explained, and others -- the ones I was curious about -- had no explanation whatsoever. Do I need a passport book or a passport card? I didn't know. What was my old passport number? Let me check the wastebasket from my room in my childhood home 15 years ago when it expired...
The post offices that still have a Notary and will process passports, by the way, have ridiculous windows of time every day where they can do this (like 30 minutes!) and they are booked solid until mid-November. So after a frustrating day of dead ends, I still don't have the passport. I decided to go and sit through the probably painful process of walking in to the County Court House during business hours and turning in the documents tomorrow.
Some people would laugh at me for having so much difficulty with this process because I'm sure this is a simple procedure for many people out there, but for me it was difficult.
I'm kind of glad it was. In a few weeks, I am going to have to help guide anywhere from 40 to 80 high school students through this process when they start getting their passports to go on this trip. I am glad I can anticipate many of the dead ends they will face. I will not forget how I ended up solving this time-costly problem (or how I HOPE it will be solved tomorrow), and I will be better equipped to teach it to others.
This might have been a long, awkward example, but I hope the point rings true. Whatever challenges us (as silly as it may seem to others) is what teaches us.
These instructions (which were necessary steps to view the page because the default IE browser will not load the page that was emailed to her by her building principal) were, by her own words, "like hearing a foreign language" for her.
Her frustration took me back to several memories of experiences I've had learning something new, where everyone seemed to know more than I did, and proficiency for me seemed light years away. I even mentioned to her that I am not tech savvy by nature, and I remember learning myself the things I was showing her.
We talked about right-clicking vs. left-clicking, we talked about where the URL or web address gets typed in a web browser, we talked about how to find programs in Windows 7 (which was new to me only two months ago, actually) and several other tech tidbits that she was picking up for the first time. She said what MANY teachers say, that she was often embarrassed to ask for help, because so much of our job is based on digital tasks, and many people assume we all know how to navigate our way through them.
I offered some advice: this is no different than anything else you've learned. When you learn something for the first time, it is slow and messy. This is often a great benefit, though, because the time spent, the frustrations, dead-ends and failures, all combine to make a longer-lasting impact on our brains and help us perform better with any skill or task when we try it in the future. When someone does something for us, all we learn to do is ask that person for help. But when we work through the obstacles, we really learn, and we learn it for the long haul.
Today, I found myself needing to take my own advice.
Something that embarrassed me that I just did not know how to do for whatever reason was getting a passport. I was raised to "see the USA first," so I've been in 47 states, but haven't been out of the country for 20 years (other than trips to Canada and the Bahamas in the days when we didn't need passports to travel there). I was 12 when I got my last passport.
I need to chaperone a ski trip to Canada this Winter, and I've been told it can take months to get the passport, so I started with Google searches and asking friends. I was told to go to the post office, the UPS store, a notary, and many other places, and I reached several dead ends in the process because many of these places no longer do passport services. I find it strange that in the recent years when more of us are required to get passports, there are so many fewer places to get them! I drove to several places today, a task complicated by leaving my GPS at home (argh!) and found at least three places whose web sites claim do passport services, no longer do. I suggested to all of them that they should update their websites for people like me who, I don't know, skipped lunch, got lost, asked for directions three times and finally arrived only to find out you don't do what you claimed to do! By 1 p.m. I could feel the frustration rising and I began to see the similarities between my situation and the many teachers who I help with technology issues.
I continued my efforts in the afternoon. The application I found online was like any other government document I've seen... some parts were incredibly over-explained, and others -- the ones I was curious about -- had no explanation whatsoever. Do I need a passport book or a passport card? I didn't know. What was my old passport number? Let me check the wastebasket from my room in my childhood home 15 years ago when it expired...
The post offices that still have a Notary and will process passports, by the way, have ridiculous windows of time every day where they can do this (like 30 minutes!) and they are booked solid until mid-November. So after a frustrating day of dead ends, I still don't have the passport. I decided to go and sit through the probably painful process of walking in to the County Court House during business hours and turning in the documents tomorrow.
Some people would laugh at me for having so much difficulty with this process because I'm sure this is a simple procedure for many people out there, but for me it was difficult.
I'm kind of glad it was. In a few weeks, I am going to have to help guide anywhere from 40 to 80 high school students through this process when they start getting their passports to go on this trip. I am glad I can anticipate many of the dead ends they will face. I will not forget how I ended up solving this time-costly problem (or how I HOPE it will be solved tomorrow), and I will be better equipped to teach it to others.
This might have been a long, awkward example, but I hope the point rings true. Whatever challenges us (as silly as it may seem to others) is what teaches us.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
NFL Picks ~ Week Seven
Welcome to a special Thursday edition of Tuesdays.
An 8-4-1 week last week got me heading in the right direction as we cruise into week 7. Here are my picks against the spread:
Chicago giving 1 to Tampa Bay
WIN
Chicago 24 - Tampa Bay 18
Carolina giving 2.5 to Washington
WIN
Carolina 33 - Washington 20
San Diego giving 2 to NY Jets
LOSS
NY Jets 27 - San Diego 21
Cleveland giving 3 to Seattle
PUSH
Cleveland 6 - Seattle 3
Houston getting 3 from Tennessee
WIN
Houston 41 - Tennessee 7
Denver getting 1 from Miami
WIN
Denver 18 - Miami 15
Detroit giving 3.5 to Atlanta
LOSS
Atlanta 23 - Detroit 16
Oakland giving 6 to Kansas City
LOSS
Kansas City 28 - Oakland 0
Pittsburgh giving 4 to Arizona
WIN
Pittsburgh 32 - Arizona 20
Dallas giving 13 to St. Louis
WIN
Dallas 34 - St. Louis 7
Green Bay giving 9 to Minnesota
LOSS
Green Bay 33 - Minnesota 27
Indianapolis getting 14 from New Orleans
LOSS
New Orleans 62 - Indianapolis 7
Baltimore giving 8 to Jacksonville
LOSS
Jacksonville 12 - Baltimore 7
WEEK SEVEN RECORD: 6-6-1
2011 - 2012 Record: 50-46-7
2010 - 2011 Record: 130-130-7
2009 - 2010 Record: 138-125-4
2008 - 2009 Record: 139-120-8
An 8-4-1 week last week got me heading in the right direction as we cruise into week 7. Here are my picks against the spread:
Chicago giving 1 to Tampa Bay
WIN
Chicago 24 - Tampa Bay 18
Carolina giving 2.5 to Washington
WIN
Carolina 33 - Washington 20
San Diego giving 2 to NY Jets
LOSS
NY Jets 27 - San Diego 21
Cleveland giving 3 to Seattle
PUSH
Cleveland 6 - Seattle 3
Houston getting 3 from Tennessee
WIN
Houston 41 - Tennessee 7
Denver getting 1 from Miami
WIN
Denver 18 - Miami 15
Detroit giving 3.5 to Atlanta
LOSS
Atlanta 23 - Detroit 16
Oakland giving 6 to Kansas City
LOSS
Kansas City 28 - Oakland 0
Pittsburgh giving 4 to Arizona
WIN
Pittsburgh 32 - Arizona 20
Dallas giving 13 to St. Louis
WIN
Dallas 34 - St. Louis 7
Green Bay giving 9 to Minnesota
LOSS
Green Bay 33 - Minnesota 27
Indianapolis getting 14 from New Orleans
LOSS
New Orleans 62 - Indianapolis 7
Baltimore giving 8 to Jacksonville
LOSS
Jacksonville 12 - Baltimore 7
WEEK SEVEN RECORD: 6-6-1
2011 - 2012 Record: 50-46-7
2010 - 2011 Record: 130-130-7
2009 - 2010 Record: 138-125-4
2008 - 2009 Record: 139-120-8
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
The Steve Jobs Way
This week, I will take a break from my own ongoing diatribe about the need for technology integration and educational reform, and instead share the words of someone else ... someone who is saying the exact same thing. :)
Written in honor of the late Apple innovator, this op-ed piece from The Wall Street Journal is "The Steve Jobs Model for Education Reform."
If you are one of those who never thought you'd find yourself agreeing with Rupert Murdoch, who wrote the piece, you may be surprised.
Check it out and please share your thoughts!
Written in honor of the late Apple innovator, this op-ed piece from The Wall Street Journal is "The Steve Jobs Model for Education Reform."
If you are one of those who never thought you'd find yourself agreeing with Rupert Murdoch, who wrote the piece, you may be surprised.
Check it out and please share your thoughts!
Saturday, October 15, 2011
NFL Picks ~ Week Six
Welcome to a special Saturday edition of Tuesdays.
In my ongoing quest to pick every NFL game, a .500 week last week kept me at .500 for the year. Here are my NFL picks against the spread for week six...
Green Bay giving 14 to St. Louis
WIN
Green Bay 24 - St. Louis 3
Jacksonville getting 12 from Pittsburgh
WIN
Pittsburgh 17 - Jacksonville 13
Philadelphia giving 3 to Washington
WIN
Philadelphia 20 - Washington 13
Detroit giving 4 to San Francisco
LOSS
San Francisco 25 - Detroit 19
Carolina getting 4 from Atlanta
LOSS
Atlanta 31 - Carolina 17
Cincinnati giving 7 to Indianapolis
WIN
Cincinnati 27 - Indianapolis 17
Buffalo getting 3 from NY Giants
PUSH
NY Giants 27 - Buffalo 24
Baltimore giving 8 to Houston
WIN
Baltimore 29 - Houston 14
Oakland giving 6.5 to Cleveland
WIN
Oakland 24 - Cleveland 17
New England giving 6.5 to Dallas
LOSS
New England 20 - Dallas 16
New Orleans giving 5 to Tampa Bay
LOSS
Tampa Bay 26 - New Orleans 20
Chicago giving 2.5 to Minnesota
WIN
Chicago 39 - Minnesota 10
NY Jets giving 7 to Miami
WIN
NY Jets 24 - Miami 6
WEEK SIX RECORD: 8-4-1
2011 - 2012 Record: 44-40-6
2010 - 2011 Record: 130-130-7
2009 - 2010 Record: 138-125-4
2008 - 2009 Record: 139-120-8
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
High (Digital) Expectations for All
Good day, everyone.
We in education hear a lot about high rigor and high expectations, and we apply that well to the curricula we teach. We do not seem to apply the same ideas when it comes to technology integration, where we instead tend to "dumb it down" in a way we would never dream of doing with our curricular content.
I make this reflection without any data or numbers; it's not like I have found a way to accurately measure rigor, or a teacher's comfort level with different topics and how that relates to what he or she will expect from students. Instead, these musings are based purely on my observations working with K-12 teachers over the past four years. I can assure you, though, that it is a clear trend in our district, and perhaps with teachers everywhere, to expect a lot less from our students than they are capable of when it comes to their use of technology, the Internet, and 21st Century Skills such as collaboration, communication, tech fluency, and problem solving.
Why we might not have high expectations for student technology use...
Perhaps this is because we are used to being masters of the content we teach, and as education experts we have a good understanding of what challenges students within our content areas, but we are certainly not as fluent with our own use and understanding of technology, so we are not as well versed in how to challenge students to operate at a higher level with 21st Century Skills.
What we could do to raise the bar...
I've seen some very well-intentioned teachers, who fully understand the value that mastering 21st Century Skills will have for their students, attempt some very bold integration strategies only to end up lowering the expectations by over-managing the project. For example, the teacher who wanted to expose students to myriad web 2.0 sites, and introduced all of them to her students, but then created a rubric requiring her students to use every single site in the project they created. What if, instead, this teacher was able to step back from being the expert on the technology, and focus on the other curricular lesson objectives, while allowing her students to demonstrate their mastery of these objectives in different ways? If we apply the same principles of D.I. to technology use, we'd see that it is not about the specific technologies our students employ to learn, it is that they learn by collaborating, creating, discovering, and solving meaningful problems.
This week I saw a teacher pull back from assigning a project (one that would have been excellent even if done with scissors, glue, construction paper and pencil) because he wasn't fully versed himself in the medium (Google Docs, in this case) that the students would use to create, share, and collaborate on the project. His hesitation was based on completely understandable, responsible and professional concerns. But the bottom line is that this teacher, like many of us, was not ready to have the same high expectations for his students' technology use that he would have for the standards he teaches in his course.
The students were going to make publications that would have been set in the 1920s as a project to show what they have learned in a unit on that decade (and they would have certainly discovered new knowledge in the process of creating this publication). The teacher wanted the students to work together, and he had an excellent overview of his expectations for the final product, as well as a well-planned rubric for how it would be assessed. The only hold-up was that this teacher is not a regular user of the website where his students could create, share, edit, and publish their work. It would be the students' responsibility to design the layout of their publications (or find the appropriate templates), and it would be their task to share the document with each other and their teacher. The project would be completed largely outside of class, other than a day or two to explain and set up the project in class. The teacher would have had to turn over a lot of responsibility to his students and allow them to discover and master the technology end of the project, but really no more than he was expecting them to do with discovering and thinking critically about the content. But he was not ready to put a task like this on the shoulders of his students, most likely because this would have been a challenge for the teacher himself to complete if he were the student.
I am not criticizing or singling out this teacher, or anyone who draws back from challenging students with high expectations for their technology use, because we all have reservations about expecting from others what we cannot yet master ourselves. All I am saying is that, for the good of our students, we need to make ourselves comfortable teaching outside of our comfort zones. We need to be able to assign challenging tasks that our students can solve, even when the solutions are not 100% clear to us.
We can master the content and simply manage the students as they master the technology, and perhaps discover solutions together.
We in education hear a lot about high rigor and high expectations, and we apply that well to the curricula we teach. We do not seem to apply the same ideas when it comes to technology integration, where we instead tend to "dumb it down" in a way we would never dream of doing with our curricular content.
I make this reflection without any data or numbers; it's not like I have found a way to accurately measure rigor, or a teacher's comfort level with different topics and how that relates to what he or she will expect from students. Instead, these musings are based purely on my observations working with K-12 teachers over the past four years. I can assure you, though, that it is a clear trend in our district, and perhaps with teachers everywhere, to expect a lot less from our students than they are capable of when it comes to their use of technology, the Internet, and 21st Century Skills such as collaboration, communication, tech fluency, and problem solving.
Why we might not have high expectations for student technology use...
Perhaps this is because we are used to being masters of the content we teach, and as education experts we have a good understanding of what challenges students within our content areas, but we are certainly not as fluent with our own use and understanding of technology, so we are not as well versed in how to challenge students to operate at a higher level with 21st Century Skills.
What we could do to raise the bar...
I've seen some very well-intentioned teachers, who fully understand the value that mastering 21st Century Skills will have for their students, attempt some very bold integration strategies only to end up lowering the expectations by over-managing the project. For example, the teacher who wanted to expose students to myriad web 2.0 sites, and introduced all of them to her students, but then created a rubric requiring her students to use every single site in the project they created. What if, instead, this teacher was able to step back from being the expert on the technology, and focus on the other curricular lesson objectives, while allowing her students to demonstrate their mastery of these objectives in different ways? If we apply the same principles of D.I. to technology use, we'd see that it is not about the specific technologies our students employ to learn, it is that they learn by collaborating, creating, discovering, and solving meaningful problems.
This week I saw a teacher pull back from assigning a project (one that would have been excellent even if done with scissors, glue, construction paper and pencil) because he wasn't fully versed himself in the medium (Google Docs, in this case) that the students would use to create, share, and collaborate on the project. His hesitation was based on completely understandable, responsible and professional concerns. But the bottom line is that this teacher, like many of us, was not ready to have the same high expectations for his students' technology use that he would have for the standards he teaches in his course.
The students were going to make publications that would have been set in the 1920s as a project to show what they have learned in a unit on that decade (and they would have certainly discovered new knowledge in the process of creating this publication). The teacher wanted the students to work together, and he had an excellent overview of his expectations for the final product, as well as a well-planned rubric for how it would be assessed. The only hold-up was that this teacher is not a regular user of the website where his students could create, share, edit, and publish their work. It would be the students' responsibility to design the layout of their publications (or find the appropriate templates), and it would be their task to share the document with each other and their teacher. The project would be completed largely outside of class, other than a day or two to explain and set up the project in class. The teacher would have had to turn over a lot of responsibility to his students and allow them to discover and master the technology end of the project, but really no more than he was expecting them to do with discovering and thinking critically about the content. But he was not ready to put a task like this on the shoulders of his students, most likely because this would have been a challenge for the teacher himself to complete if he were the student.
I am not criticizing or singling out this teacher, or anyone who draws back from challenging students with high expectations for their technology use, because we all have reservations about expecting from others what we cannot yet master ourselves. All I am saying is that, for the good of our students, we need to make ourselves comfortable teaching outside of our comfort zones. We need to be able to assign challenging tasks that our students can solve, even when the solutions are not 100% clear to us.
We can master the content and simply manage the students as they master the technology, and perhaps discover solutions together.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
NFL Picks ~ Week Five
Welcome to a special Thursday edition of Tuesdays.
I bounced back last week with an 11-5 record, bringing me back to .500. Here are my NFL picks against the spread, carrying the momentum into week five...
Indianapolis giving 2 to Kansas City
LOSS
Kansas City 28 - Indianapolis 24
Minnesota giving 2.5 to Arizona
WIN
Minnesota 34 - Arizona 10
Philadelphia giving 3 to Buffalo
LOSS
Buffalo 31 - Philadelphia 24
Houston giving 6 to Oakland
LOSS
Oakland 25 - Houston 20
Carolina getting 6.5 from New Orleans
WIN
New Orleans 30 - Carolina 27
Cincinnati getting 2 from Jacksonville
WIN
Cincinnati 30 - Jacksonville 20
Pittsburgh giving 3 to Tennessee
WIN
Pittsburgh 38 - Tennessee 17
NY Giants giving 10 to Seattle
LOSS
Seattle 36 - NY Giants 25
Tampa Bay getting 3 from San Francisco
LOSS
San Francisco 48 - Tampa Bay 3
New England giving 9 to NY Jets
PUSH
New England 30 - NY Jets 21
San Diego giving 4 to Denver
WIN
San DIego 29 - Denver 24
Green Bay giving 6 to Atlanta
WIN
Green Bay 25 - Atlanta 14
Chicago getting 5 from Detroit
LOSS
Detroit 24 - Chicago 13
WEEK FIVE RECORD: 6-6-1
2011 - 2012 Record: 36-36-5
2010 - 2011 Record: 130-130-7
2009 - 2010 Record: 138-125-4
2008 - 2009 Record: 139-120-8
I bounced back last week with an 11-5 record, bringing me back to .500. Here are my NFL picks against the spread, carrying the momentum into week five...
Indianapolis giving 2 to Kansas City
LOSS
Kansas City 28 - Indianapolis 24
Minnesota giving 2.5 to Arizona
WIN
Minnesota 34 - Arizona 10
Philadelphia giving 3 to Buffalo
LOSS
Buffalo 31 - Philadelphia 24
Houston giving 6 to Oakland
LOSS
Oakland 25 - Houston 20
Carolina getting 6.5 from New Orleans
WIN
New Orleans 30 - Carolina 27
Cincinnati getting 2 from Jacksonville
WIN
Cincinnati 30 - Jacksonville 20
Pittsburgh giving 3 to Tennessee
WIN
Pittsburgh 38 - Tennessee 17
NY Giants giving 10 to Seattle
LOSS
Seattle 36 - NY Giants 25
Tampa Bay getting 3 from San Francisco
LOSS
San Francisco 48 - Tampa Bay 3
New England giving 9 to NY Jets
PUSH
New England 30 - NY Jets 21
San Diego giving 4 to Denver
WIN
San DIego 29 - Denver 24
Green Bay giving 6 to Atlanta
WIN
Green Bay 25 - Atlanta 14
Chicago getting 5 from Detroit
LOSS
Detroit 24 - Chicago 13
WEEK FIVE RECORD: 6-6-1
2011 - 2012 Record: 36-36-5
2010 - 2011 Record: 130-130-7
2009 - 2010 Record: 138-125-4
2008 - 2009 Record: 139-120-8
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
A Stitch in Time...
Something I hear a lot: That seems really great, but I don't have time to learn it.
Come on.
Come on.
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