Multi-faceted Refractions

On Friday, April 18th, I attended a meeting of Lake Michigan Area Independent School (LMAIS) Technology Coordinators. Being a family with two cars, three drivers, and with my wife needing to drive to work and my daughter wanting to use the car so that she and friends could get ready for prom that evening (via a noon dismissal from school), I decided to see what I could do to reduce my carbon footprint in advance of Earth Day. Since the meeting was in downtown Chicago, I also wanted to save on fuel cost, parking costs, and the stress from driving through Chicago construction season.

On the way down was easy. My daughter dropped me off at the El stop on her way to school. Being able to catch an express train to the city, it was 9 stops and 30 minutes when I arrived at my stop. I walked the four blocks to the meeting. Because the meeting ended before the express trains began running, I had to start on one train and then transfer to a second to complete the train trip home. To get the rest of the way home, I found that there was a local bus route that would drop me within two miles of home. Catching that bus and then walking home, I completed my journey. Carpooling, walking, and public transportation. Cutting down on my carbon footprint.

On Sunday, I went to my local bicycle shop and purchased a used (recycled) bike that some larger teenager had outgrown (I am only 5′ 5″, so I can benefit from children growing as large as they do). Tricked out with a rack and panniers, I will be able to commute from home to work (5 miles) in style this summer, saving the gas and environment while become more physically fit.

Our school is trying to develop a sustainability initiative and while my individual acts do not seem like much, they are a step in the right direction and hopefully will model for other students and teachers different options.

For me, both personally and professionally, it has been a challenging year. This is especially true from late October through today, when it seems that I am along for the ride, rather than being in control of my life.

I am hopeful that these next two weeks allows for time to rest, rejuvenation, and reflection. I am aiming to completing many tasks on the home to-do list, do clean out the drafts bin of this blog, and to begin to plan for the upcoming 60 weeks, getting ready for the 2008-2009 academic year.

From the Chatzy Room created for the purpose of sharing this site:

vvrotny: Welcome to Tim Tyson’s first presentation
vvrotny: Limited attendence - too bad
Michelle from x.x.x.210 joined the chat 43 minutes ago
Michelle: thanks vinny
sharonp from x.x.x.33 joined the chat 42 minutes ago
vvrotny: Lead off with the Phantom Tollbooth
vvrotny: Scence with boy is is three feet up in air, grow downward so that feet touch the ground
JenW from x.x.x.186 left this message 41 minutes ago:
vvrotny: Milo grows up, changes perspectives, other boy always sees same
vvrotny: At age 30 35, 40, 50 do we see things in different ways?
Gerry from x.x.x.32 joined the chat 39 minutes ago
vvrotny: Grandmother, first principal in small town Ala, lived at the same time as Dewey, a man with “strange
ideas”. Didn’t change the way school is done. Now town is worse place to live
vvrotny: town gone downhill
vvrotny: Dewey - engaged in meaningful authentic tasks. Constructing artifacs that lead to usnderstanding
vvrotny: His question for teacher at Mabry - Who owns learning? Almost always is teacher
vvrotny: big challenge, get teachers to give up power
vvrotny: work, play, communicate, maintain relationships, conduct business, percieve lives has been
dramatically changed by technology
vvrotny: classrooms remain the same
vvrotny: What would you do differently if students really wanted to learn?
vvrotny: Students wanted to create content?
vvrotny: Make a real contribution?
vvrotny: School help them do that to help them in ways that are exciting and engaging
JenW from x.x.x.186 joined the chat 36 minutes ago
vvrotny: student at a school where teachers were going to attend sought out Tyson’s web site and
communicated about how cool it would be.
JenW: Tim is where again??
vvrotny: students believe most of what goes on at school is irrelavnt to their future
vvrotny: I think Tim retired from his school in Mabry, Georgia. On the circuit now
zemote from x.x.x.100 joined the chat 33 minutes ago
vvrotny: The is a time of metamorphis and transformation
vvrotny: times changing the destiny of civilization. We have chance to guide. School to be different
vvrotny: Passive compliance
vvrotny: students create something which is valued. Self directed learners
vvrotny: connectedness meaningfulness signifigance contribution. How do empower children
Chatzy http://www.chatzy.com/732159885923
2 of 2 2/29/2008 10:32 AM
vvrotny: example of student how wanted to come in on first day of summer vacation, to continue to work on
project he got an A on. Wanted to have global distribution through school, not via youTube without guidance
vvrotny: maybryonline.org
vvrotny: Tyson Convinced a new concept of childhood
vvrotny: when does meaningful start?
Amy Kenyon from x.x.x.32 joined the chat 19 minutes ago
vvrotny: Topics covered include:
vvrotny: Human Embriyonic Stem Cell Research
vvrotny: Commercialization of Drinking Water
vvrotny: Children’s Slave Labor on Ivory Coast
vvrotny: Saving lives in africa from Malaria
vvrotny: Poverty in China
vvrotny: Immaigration in the United States
vvrotny: projects done by 7th graders
vvrotny: It is all about relationships
vvrotny from x.x.x.32 joined the chat 40 seconds ago

Technorati Tags: iltce08 iltce2008 tim tyson mabry

Earlier this week, I received and email from the Google for Educators group that I belong to. In it, they introduced their Doodle4Google. Google is eventually going to award a student whose work is judged the best a $10,000 college scholarship and their school a $25,000 technology grant. The best 40 designs are going to be used by Google on their web site. Earlier this year, Google was encouraging students to work on several challenges, most of them documenting open source software. Complete three tasks, earn $100. Complete a certain number of projects and the student would earn to trip to the Google Campus.
I don’t begrudge the student who will earn a scholarship and the school who may get an infusion of technology that is desperately needed. I do appreciate the tools that Google is making available (Docs, Presentation, Earth, Maps, Sketch up) to educators for free. These are wonderful tools which provide the foundation to help reform education.

From a certain perspective, what Google is doing could be viewed as slave labor. By tapping into work efforts of children, most of them under the age of 16, Google is saving themselves thousands of dollars of their development time. At the cost of $875 per logo, which I am guessing that they can write off as a charitable contribution, they will now have 40 new logos to display. At a net cost of $0 development time for themselves.

This is the same way that Google hooked a few of my high school students into documenting different projects, which took them several hours to complete, Google was able to have tasks completed for less than the going rate.

So I am a bit skeptical about Google’s motives. Sure, I can understand their desire to build brand loyalty into young people, so that they are more embedded into the Google brand and culture more so than they may already be. Google may be no better than Ganz, with their Webkinz, and developing branding and developing the culture of social networking. But  why are they creating such a brand loyalty in young users? Are they making sure that they can stay profitable and continue to be a great investment for the future? Are they creating the Google Borg? Are we getting closer and closer to the predictions in the EPIC series of videos?

I think we may be and I am concerned. But I will let you decide.

_{Image from Dysonstarr on Flickr}

Technorati Tags: google

For those of you who have been following me via Twitter (vvrotny), you know that the past nine weeks have been stressful personally. This has caused me to be stressed professionally, first trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy and then during the last three weeks trying to play catch-up while juggling various follow up appointments. For both my wife and I, the Winter Break could not have come at a more opportune time.

During this past week, I have taken the time to indulge my inner teenager. When not attending family holiday celebrations or continuing to go to additional medical appointments, I have allowed myself the opportunity to do the things that I used to do. This includes sleeping in until 9:00 a.m. and staying up until after 12:00 midnight. During these times, I have been playing board games (Risk, Last Word, Malarky, and Blurt) with the family. I have been spending too much time playing video games (Guitar Hero II and III, Madden 05, and my favorite, NHL 2005) on the new used PS2 we got for the holiday. I have also watched too many movies (Little Miss Sunshine finally, Last King of Scotland, and Blood Diamond) plus rewatching last season’s Heroes with my children, since they just found out about this series this fall. I have also been catching up with the first season of Lost which my wife and daughter began watching with me during the second season.

Like I did when I was a teenager, I have spent a bit of time reading over the holiday. Like the old days, I ran out to my local newsstand to get the current issues of Baseball America and The Hockey News. I have been trying to finish reading  What is the What and Schulz and Peanuts.

I have not been neglecting the adult responsibilities that I have (grocery shopping, minor household repair and maintainence)  I have been focusing on silly irresponsibility and myself. And it has been fun.

As I flip the calendar to a new year and I switch from me time to work time over the course of the next six days, I look forward to sharing several other thoughts and ideas that have been running around in my head. Here’s to an exciting 2008.