Outside The Classroom

Grateful to chat with Rachael Postle-Brown a principal in Jenison, Michigan as she shares her challenges and efforts to support her staff. Also a surprise appearance by her daughter later on. Truly a delight to talk with this outstanding leader.

You can listen or watch here but if you’re a podcast listener you can also subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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This post was last updated on April 4th, 2020 at 11:41 am

What I hope to be a series, this is the first conversation with an Illinois educator sharing his story about the impact and experience thus far with Covid19 and what it means to him as a Learning Commons teacher.

You can listen or watch here but if you’re a podcast listener you can also subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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This post was last updated on April 4th, 2020 at 01:38 pm

I’m a bit of a cart-before-the-horse kinda person. As well as a #seatofmypants gu.

Sitting in numerous zoom calls, reading twitter feeds and other sources, it became clear that while we’re all dealing with the same kinds of issues, everyone is highly curious as to how each school, district, state, province or country is dealing with Covid19.

While seeing all this unfold, I decided within about 10 minutes to start a podcast. Having played in the podcast world for over 15 years. (BTW, shout out to the EdTech Posse) I thought I’d dust off my snowball microphone, revisit my Spotify and Apple Podcast feeds, noodle around with a few technical things and go.

As usual, I realized a bunch of things I hadn’t thought of or done and one of those things is a trailer or some way to introduce this to folks who don’t easily subscribe to podcasts or the #seatofmypants approach.

I’m excited to do this and already have educators from Australia, Singapore, China as well as the US and Canada. I have teachers, librarians, principals, Superintendents and other educators ready to share their perspectives … Read the rest

It began with this tweet:

I hear some suggest everyone should learn to code. Ok. But should everyone learn basic woodworking? electrical work? cooking? plumbing? automotive? Those are all good things but is time part of the issue? How do all these good things get taught? Just thinking out loud.— Dean Shareski (@shareski) September 10, 2018

When I say “thinking out loud” that’s not some kind of coy add-on, I truly am curious and enjoy hearing a broad range of perspectives. Gary Stager offered to take a deeper dive into this statement and so myself, Gary and Shana White took a stab at it. 

Gary referenced this slide as he shared:

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I said I would podcast more so I am. Just trying to be regular. 

Here are a few links to this podcast:

CBC Spark

Randoll Stross, The LaunchPad

YCombinator

Flipped Classroom Pros and Cons

The sound is pretty raw. I recorded while walking the dog and there was a bit of wind. I used Audcaity's Noise Removal tool but I probably didn't use it correctly. It's useable but not great. Good thing it's only 7 minutes.

Also if you'd like to subscribe via itunes, this link will put them in your itunes library and sync to your device if that suits your fancy. 

[podcast]http://ideasandthoughts.org/podcasts/podcast55.mp3[/podcast]

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Zac invites me to explore further my recent post and invites his friend Dave, who offers a different perspective. So we hop on Skype and talk. As a bonus, my daughter, a young teacher herself, joins us later on in the podcast to offer some of her own insights.  

I have to say, podcasting and conversation is a hugely underutilized format. The lack of ability to monitor, edit and delete ourselves and hear folks in authentic, real time conversation is something I'd love to hear more. So if you have 50 minutes, which I'm sure most of you don't, you might enjoy this talk and find out whether or not your dentist needs to be passionate and whether this idea of passion is as big a deal as we sometimes think it is.  You'll also learn what Zac will do for free. 

[podcast]http://ideasandthoughts.org/podcasts/podcast54.mp3[/podcast]

 

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dainec/59778641/… Read the rest

I ranted a little today about a word that’s bothered me for a while.

Even if you scramble around for a definition that’s not so offensive the best you get is: “thorough and exactness.”

Even those words easily can be translated to inflexible or “my way or the highway”.  I don’t get the fascination with some people and this word. This document doesn’t even define the term and this one says:

There are many definitions of the noun rigor, most of them related to some form of physical or mental rigidity or severity. Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary definition of logical rigor—“strict precision or exactness”—seems at least relevant to the educational context. The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English defines the related adjective rigorous as “extremely thorough. ” Yet neither of these definitions satisfactorily conveys the intent behind the word. To me, rigor implies the reaching for a higher level of quality in both effort and outcome.

“To me?” So now we’re just making up definitions? I’m not entirely opposed to the intent here but have to believe there’s a better word. As I said in the podcast, help me eliminate this word from the educational vernacular. It’s an awful word to … Read the rest