The dog days of summer are upon us in the ‘burg. Temperatures have been in the 90’s for days with the humidity rising, rising. I’m someone who actually enjoys climbing into a hot, stifling car after a hot, stifling day. The heat seems to have a cleansing effect on my mind — pushing any number of worries and nagging concerns out of my head while my brain cells simply absorb the hot, web heat and push on.

Working as a 12-month employee at a University results in a conflicting set of pressures and releases when the summer rolls around. On the one hand, the quietness of campus suggests a time for reflection and exploration. There is more space to breathe and turn my attention to both the nagging and the exciting projects that I haven’t gotten to during the year. On the other hand, late August looms like a thunderhead in the near distance; every day feels like a slippage closer to the edge, and, as a result, every day seems to never have enough hours in it.

For the last two years, I’ve been also working as a part-time employee at UMW. This changes the dynamic of summer for me in interesting ways. The contradiction of calmness and pressure is compressed into fewer hours and days per week. This is my second summer in this position, and I’m experiencing the same mid-summer anxiety that emerged last year at this time as a I realized that all the projects I had planned for the long, indulgent summer work days ahead of me will not reach completion.

The only solution I know to this dilemma is to try be more gentle with myself and my expectations for myself. I spend less and less time beating myself up about what I haven’t (or won’t) accomplish, and try to relish and enjoy the work that I am doing. I think this may be what they call mental health. Who knew it could feel so good!

I don’t talk about it much in this space, but the rest of my waking hours are, unfortunately, not filled with afternoons eating bon-bons and soaking my toes in a warm foot bath. For the last year, I’ve been embarking on another adventure, pursuing freelance Web development opportunities with a handful of small businesses. It’s work that I rarely mention in this space because it is, horrifyingly, commercial and doesn’t meet the rarefied and laudatory standard of public good that working in higher education seems to symbolize. (that last bit is supposed to be a bit snarky )That said, I really love my Web development work, even as it pushes me outside of my comfort zone — often much further out of my comfort zone than the work I do in edtech. I’m a one-woman shop, so I do it all — site design and information architecture, graphic design, and search engine optimization. I do it all, but I’m definitely better at some of it than I am at others. This work has helped me tremendously in honestly identifying not only my strengths but the things that give me true pleasure. (A difficult life lesson for me has been to learn that just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you have to enjoy it.) I like being a one-woman shop, though. I like being my own boss. I like knowing that the only person I really have to answer to is me. And even though there are parts of what I do that I like more than others, I love how each of the different aspects of the freelance work I do forces me to activate different types of my intellect and creativity.

I’m also shocked on a regular basis by how my work in the heartless world of commercial Web presence and search engine optimization often informs and transforms my thinking about technology in higher education. While I don’t talk about my freelance work much in this space, I think that’ll change soon. I want to find a way to bridge these two worlds I live in and to try to make sense of the larger issues that confound and inspire both domains.

The biggest professional event by far, however, this summer is turning out to be a last minute course addition by the department of computer science here at UMW which they’ve asked me to teach. The course is a 100-level class on Digital Storytelling that Jim Groom debuted last semester. Jim, who is one of the most generous and supportive colleagues I’ve ever worked with has been pushing the department to add a section this fall and pushing them to consider me as the instructor. A few weeks ago, it looked like it was a no go. But this week, I received an email from the chair informing me that they had received permission to add the course and asking if I would be willing to teach it. Yikes.

I’ve never taught a course before. I didn’t TA as a graduate student. I have zippy experience or knowledge about where to start this process. Luckily, Jim has generously offered to work on this together. And I’m planning on using this space to beg, borrow, and steal any suggestions, resources, or information that I can.

I’m hoping that I’ll find the gumption and fearlessness in my own self to blog this experience regularly. I want to lay bear the anxieties of the first-time instructor, the challenges of someone new to the classroom in this role. I also want to use this space to reflect upon whatever successes or failures emerge.

I’ve spent my whole professional career working in some aspect of higher education. I’ve spent years of my life partnering with and counseling faculty on their own teaching. While that work has happened through the lens of technology, my work regularly jumps into the domain of general pedagogy and course development. I love this work. It isn’t easy, but it’s very rewarding. I’m a bit shocked by how daunting I find the proposition of teaching my own course. I’m a bit embarrassed by how new I feel to this, how inexperienced I feel. I’m going to try hard to put that embarrassment aside and embrace both the newness and the discomfort. I’m going to trust that my network, my friends, will offer a safe landing place for my ideas, my reflections, and my fears.

If you’re looking for a post about instructional technology, the demise of higher education, or the woes of hacking software to bend it to your will, move along. This isn’t the one for you.

Five years ago today at 4:16 in the morning, my whole world changed. The universe sort of hiccuped, spun 180 degrees, and then came sharply back into focus on this:

From the moment my daughter was born, she challenged everything about me, about my expectations, my needs, my worries, my hopes, and my values. She literally saved my life, forcing me to work harder on making myself a better, happier, stronger person so that I could be the best, happiest, strongest mom possible.

Every stage of her life so far has been marked for me, as a mom, with overwhelming joy and sadness. The most unexpected part of parenting, for me, was the realization that with every new phase of rite of passage, a previous one was lost. Being a parent is about living within a constant balancing act of loss and triumph. I frequently find myself mourning the days when she was one and not walking but beginning to find language. When she was two and finally moving and finding an internal determination that simply overwhelmed me at times. When she was three and preparing for the arrival of her brother while suddenly also emerging as a whole person, with viewpoints, talents, and fears. When she was four and had just begun to discover the joys of learning, of being a big sister and role model.

Today she turns five, and she is this remarkable, spunky, outrageous little girl. She can be charming and sweet one moment and a firestorm of willpower and determination the next. She loves princessess and bugs, superheroes and butterflies. I regularly find rocks in her pockets in the washing machine that she has collected to bring home to her father. She is a person whom I love to talk to, whom I look forward to seeing every morning. She makes me crazy. She makes me worry. She makes me laugh. I miss and treasure all the things she’s been to me, and I love every second of what she is now.

For some reason five has seemed like a huge birthday to me. Perhaps it’s because I can actually remember being five myself. Perhaps it’s because this is the first birthday where she’s seemed to actually process the meaning of the passage of time. Perhaps it’s because as she turns this age I see the last remnants of babyhood, toddlerhood fall away. For whatever reason, this birthday has unearthed a sea of memories and feelings about my first days and weeks with this child and about the five years that have brought us to here.

I’ve mentioned in this space before that next year my family embarks on the next great adventure of childhood — my daughter’s entrance into public school. It’s a transition that I, frankly, am approaching with a great deal of trepidation.

For the last 18 months, she’s been attending a small, private school in our town. We put her in there at about 3 1/2 years old because the daycare/”preschool” she’d been going to since she was a baby was seriously underwhelming us as she got older. She seemed lost in the crowd whenever we’d pick her up, and she seemed entirely unchallenged by the environment.

When we picked her current school there was no more space in the 3-day preschool (which would have been their first choice for her given her age), so she began attending a 5-day, half-day program. As a result, we ended up with an amazing teacher who my daughter simply fell in love with. She also blossomed over the course of the next six months.

It helped that her class was only five students. She gots ton of attention and nurturing and that built her confidence tremendously.

When this year rolled around, the school felt it was okay to put her into the five-day, full-day kingergarten class despite the fact that she was only four. We were okay with that because, again, the class was going to be small (8 students) and the new teacher was also fantastic and very fond of Madigan.

To say she has done well would be an understatement. She’s loves reading, spelling, and all the science they expose the kids to. (One thing I LOVE about this school is that they don’t dumb down complex concepts — instead, they figure kids will get as much as they’re able and they’ll be interested in learning more. Since the themes come up again and again as they get older, they’ll gradually expand their knowledge.) She’s less interested in math, but just doing just fine for her age-group.

Her social/emotional development is probably exactly where it should be for her age which means she’s not quite as connected with the older students but it doesn’t seem to bother her so it doesn’t bother us. For the most part, we’re still the center of her universe and the kids at school are these interesting creatures who she gets to observe and interact with every day. That’s fine — she’s got lots of time to make best friends.

Next year, she’ll be old enough for our public school, and a few weeks ago I went ahead and enrolled her. The school has an excellent reputation — and they’re the only school in the county that offers a combined K-1 classroom. I think that will be a good transition for Madigan since it will allow them to more easily meet her where she is in various subjects.

One mom whose daughter is also moving to the new school has been encouraging me to see if they’ll place Madigan as a first grader. I think this is probably not a great idea. The 1-year age difference isn’t a bit deal now but it will be a much bigger deal when she’s a pre-teen or teenager — particularly when you figure that a lot of parents/schools are holding boys back a year. I really don’t want my 12-year old daughter contending with almost 15-year old boys in her class in the future. Yikes.

So our school seems like a pretty good bet. Good reputation. A program that’s more flexible than most. But it has a lot of the problems that a lot of public schools are facing right now: big classes (25+ students); state and federal emphasis on standarized testing (although I’m hoping this isn’t really an issue yet at the kingergarten/1st grade level); and some very serious budget cuts in the county which could threaten music, art, PE, and special activities like field trips.

The alternative, keeping her at her current school, presents it’s own set of challenges. It isn’t cheap and while we could manage it I’d kind of rather take some of that money and put it away in her college fund (assuming that, you know, there will be any colleges when she’s 18). I love the idea of her being in this protected, “safe” space for a while longer, but I know that eventually we’d probably need to transition her and the longer we wait the harder that transition will be on her.

And I’m also cognizant of the fact that I live in a privilaged world where private school is even an option. Public schools need engaged parents who have the time, energy, and resources to challenge inadequate thinking about education. I think I could be one of those parents, and I would want to be a part of that conversation for ALL kids, not just mine.

I’m also a product of a really good, really privilaged public education, and I have a fundamental belief in the ideal of public education. And, for the record, I have lots of wonderful friends who are fantastic public school teachers. My reluctance about this decision is in NO WAY a rejection of teachers as any whole. In fact, my concern has a whole lot more to do with the systems that these teachers are forced to operate within and how little they do to empower the excellent educators who are in the classroom. I want to be a partner with and advocate for those teachers, and I fundamentally believe that parents’ voices are the most important (and, unfortunately, perhaps the most absent) voices in the conversation.

There’s another aspect to this whole situation that is further complicating. My own work in higher education has led me to question the very frameworks of education that we’ve built in this country. And I want to challenge myself to apply those same philosophical realizations to my children’s educations. But I don’t want to do it to the detriment of what IS working in those systems and spaces, and rectifying those opposing views is really hard.

I simply can’t bring myself to reject the institution of public education. Frankly, I can’t bring myself to think of public education as an “institution.” That’s not to say that there aren’t alarming and increasing examples of public schools (K-12 and higher education) that have truly turned education into, at best, an assembly line of content delivery and, at worst, penitentiary-like babysitting. Those are harsh words, but I know that there are some pretty appalling situation out there that students and teachers are having to operate in, and that breaks my heart. BUT I think that grouping all public schools into this pot is dangerous. Yes, school days are long, but, you know what, I spent long hours at school and they were filled with wonder, friendship, play, exploration, and hard work. I never felt like I was being passed along an assembly line. BUT, again, I was lucky. I get that, too.

I know the classroom will be bigger, and I worry about Madigan getting lost.

I know the students will be more varied in their abilities, and I worry that Madigan won’t be challenged.

I also know that I can’t protect her from everything that is hard. I can’t give her a “perfect” education, because that doesn’t exist.

In the end, we’ve decided we’ll move her to the new school and we’ll watch. If we start to sense that she’s getting lost or isn’t getting challenged, we’ll try to move her back to the old school. But even doing that gives me pause, even in those circumstances. I don’t want to turn my back on this.

I NEVER in my wildest dreams thought sending my daughter to kindergarten would be this hard.

A funny thing has happened to my social network (or personal learning network, if you prefer) over the last few years. It’s grown. A lot. About two years ago, I started to follow and pay closer attention to the digital humanities field. I think it was a combination of things that brought be there: work with Gardner Campbell on a grant proposal, Jeff McClurken’s digital history class and his hints at this broader landscape, the work of my colleagues in DTLT with folks at CHNM, Scholars Lab as well as their participation in THATCamp. I came at the whole thing kind of sideways, really.

Then during this past year, my own interests have caused me to expand my followings to quite a few K-12 people. That culminated, in particular, at EduCon where I added quite a few new people to both my blog reader and Twitter (more to Twitter actually — Twitter handles are more easily shared in some ways than blog addresses).

The cross-fertilization is interesting and enlightening. There is certainly a lot of overlap, and it’s always cool when the perspective of a group in one area casts a new and unconsidered light on another. I notice certain practices and trends among the different groups that are interesting, as well. The Instructional Technologists tend to (sometimes) be focused more on practical technology; the Digital Humanisits tend to (sometimes) talk a bit more about theory; the K-12 Colleauges tend to (sometimes) talk mostly about classroom practice. But those are all (sometimes) generalizations and I follow lots of InstTechs who are great at theory; DHers who can run circles around me in terms of technology; and K-12ites who have their heads in big picture stuff as well as vital day-to-day practice.

I, myself, identify as an Instructional Technologist, but it’s a self-identification I have always approached with trepidation — even before this expansion of my network (and world). Truthfully, I hate the word “instructional.” It smacks of a mundane, task-driven, industrial model of learning that I don’t find compelling or interesting. I don’t want to instruct, frankly, or help others instruct. I have less trouble with the word technology but I hate the “ist-ing” of it — as though there is someone who can “do” technology.

That said, I don’t have the credentials or chops to call myself a Digital Humanist. My educational background is heavy in the humanities, but I don’t have the terminal degree that seems to mark most of my colleagues in this field. And, truthfully, there’s a reason I don’t have it. I spent a large part of my early 20’s flirting with the notion of a PhD in English literature, and made a conscious decision to go get a Masters, instead, in education (instructional technology, again). At the time, Digital Humanities wasn’t really an option I could consider professionally. There was amazing work being done with digital technology in humanities programs, but it seemed to be on the fringes and I don’t think I had enough perspective on my life, my profession, my future, my goals to conceptually push myself into that area. (What 22-year-old does have that kind perspective?)

(I’ve never really considered a path in the K-12 world. I’m not sure why. I guess higher ed had me at hello. Seriously, my last K-12 experience (high school) was less than stellar (although my primary public education was fantastic), while my entire college career was a trip. I’m also a product of my own context — I’m the daughter of a mom who is a college professor and a dad who might as well be one. )

The expansion of my network has been amazing. Truly. But, I have to confess, it’s also been a bit daunting and, often, a bit paralyzing. I find it harder and harder to follow the myriad threads of thoughts and conversations. I often feel my own version of Imposter Syndrome as I struggle to understand the theoretical underpinnings of the conversations. I rarely have enough time for the self-education that I seemed better at staying on top of a few years ago (when my network was much smaller). I worry about speaking out because the landscape, debates, conversations feels more liquid than I’m comfortable with. As my network has grown, my voice has also seemed much smaller, and, so, I have become content (or complacent) with sitting back, listening, observing, often wishing that I could contribute more frequently and with more value.

There’s also the fact that my preferred way of thinking through ideas has always been in conversation — sustained conversation. Most of my conversation with my network happens on Twitter and it’s great at somethings. But distributed 140 character microblogs aren’t really the stuff, necessarily, of deep, sustained conversation. I’m realizing, increasingly, that blogging is a struggle for me because the  conversational dynamic isn’t really in my natural comfort zone either. I spew a lot of stuff out here (and that’s great for thinking through ideas in my head) but it’s hard to sustain any ongoing conversation beyond that. Truthfully, I think I’m at my best in terms of thinking through ideas when I’m talking to my colleagues in the offices at UMW or over dinner with friends at a conference.

I believe strongly in the idea that rather than running from the onslaught of ideas and information coming at us in this new digital age we need to be more mindful of curating and sharing what matters to us. But, honestly, I’m not sure I’m doing a great job of that now. And no amount of GTD is going to help.

But I try to be gentle with myself, too. There is no perfect answer or response to any of these dilemmas. I will never feel wholly engaged, wholly enlightened. I will always feel a little bit of an imposter. I  will always struggle with naming what I am. That’s partly how I’m programmed and it’s partly how humans are programmed. As I grow older (and maybe a bit wiser) I hope to become more comfortable with that uncertitude. And I hope to iterate to something better.

On Thursday, I’m scheduled to present at ACCS in Charlottesville. This will be my first real conference presentation since summer of 2008, but, one thing hasn’t changed. As usual, I’m woefully under-prepared and starting to get nervous about pulling my act together. A nasty cold bug that took me down last week didn’t help; it seriously interrupted the day or two of planned conference preparation that I had set aside.

And, to make matters worse, I went and proposed a session on a brand-new topic, one in which I little expertise and even less business presenting on. Fun, fun, fun!

The good news is that whenever I start to talk about the proposal I get excited, because there is a lot in it that I find fascinating. That’s got to count for something. I hope.

My goal when I proposed this idea was to force myself to work through some ideas that I’ve been trying to sort through for some time. The first step, I’ve decided is to try and map some of them out here.

Here’s the title and abstract:

Collections, Collages, Curation, and Community: Visual Literacy in a Digital World

With the growth of the social web and “Web 2.0″¹ tools which allow people to create, publish, and commune around ideas online, educators are presented with a number of innovative ways to explore and encourage a new kind of visual literacy. From sites like photoshop.com and aviary which bring previously expensive editing software capabilities to the masses, to the handcraft marketplace of etsy which encourages users to curate, collect, and share (images of) objects, to social shopping sites like kaboodle and polyvore where anyone can generate a custom collage of items they desire, people are using free, flexible tools to share ideas, visually.

As I said above, the core idea of this presentation has been brewing in my mind for some time. It started, in large part, when I was away from UMW on maternity leave and for a variety of reasons found myself visiting new Web sites — my mind was in a different place, I guess. At one point, I started to spend quite a lot of time at etsy.com; I think I was searching for pictures for the baby’s nursery. I became really interested in the site, the community that had sprung up around it, the way in which the site itself supported its community, and, in particular, the various ways you could explore the collections of etsy artisans.

If you visit that last link, you’ll be taken to a list of various ways you can find items on etsy, from traditional categorical listings to a visual interface that allows you to browse entirely based on a color.  The one that really captured my imagination, however was Treasuries. A Treasury at etsy is a “curated shopping gallery.” There are a limited number of Treasury spots on etsy; if you want to create one, you have to wait for an opening. Once you get a spot, you give it a name and then fill it with up to 12 items (and 4 alternates).

Zoom Zoom Zebra on Etsy

For me, the treasuries are like visual candy. Each one has a theme, from something as abstract as “oh my spring drips” to simply “beauty.” Items on etsy are varied enough (from art prints to clothing to toys to food) that a given treasury can embody a range of senses and experiences, conveying color, texture, light, pattern, taste. There appears to be a community at etsy that regularly reads these treasuries and comments. I was struck by how the simple act of curating a collection of items could be used to convey an idea and form community. The simplicity of the treasury seems key — a single theme, 12 items.

So, I think etsy is what started me thinking about these ideas, particularly community and curation. Then, somewhere along the way, I came across Adobe’s kuler Web site. This is some serious, single-minded curation. Kuler lets anyone create and share a color palette. You can browse other people’s palettes, rate them, leave comments, copy and modify them. You can even download palette files that you can then import into Adobe Photoshop.

Exterior Fresh on kuler

If this single-mindedness seems bizarre, consider the number of palettes that have been shared on kuler as of today: 16, 547. To me, that represents some (perhaps long-tail) commitment by a group of users. (For fun, check out the Pulse section where you can compare the color distribution in palettes between different countries and seasons.)

Then, last fall, a professor in UMW theatre department, Kevin McCluskey, approached us for advice for his beginning costume design class. One of the problems he was running into was that students simply couldn’t draw, yet. They might have very fine ideas, but their lack of drawing experience meant they couldn’t share them effectively. Kevin knew he couldn’t teach his students to draw and learn the fundamentals of costume design in a semester; the fact of the matter was, if they were going to pursue this discipline they were going to have to get serious about drawing at some point soon, but, for now, he needed a way for them to be able to convey their ideas, visually, without depending on their own drawing skills just yet.

I volunteered to look around for him. I was hoping to find some kind of tool that would allow students to scan or copy images from other sites and then collage them together to share their ideas. My hunting turned up a couple of interesting sites, most notably kaboodle and polyvore. Chances are, if you’re not a serious online shopper you won’t be familiar with these sites. They’re essentially meta-shopping sites, where a community has developed around sharing your latest find. Both sites also offer a tool for collaging together items from to create a particular “look.” Not surprisingly Kaboodle’s Styleboard and Polyvore’s Sets are full of personally-curated fashion collections. But they are not exclusively so, and members who do something different seem to be just as likely to garner comments and kudos from other community members.

City Girl by dazzlelight22 on kaboodle

In the end, while Kevin was really interested in the ease with which students could create collage and annotate them with text and visual effects, he decided to go a different route (more on that later).

Judging from the frequent appearance of young male actors and musicians, it’s a good guess that the primary audience of both Polyvore and Kaboodle are young and female. This also go me thinking; I wonder how many of our incoming traditional-age college students will have had experience with a site like this.

Why do I care?

I guess I care because Kaboodle and Polyvore and Etsy and Kuler are all online communities that focus on visual communication as the primary means of expression. The “meat” of the conversations that happens at those places is some kind of visual representation — curated collection of objects, a simple but powerful color palette, a collage of clothing or photos. Behind each of these representations is some kind of idea that the community member wants to express. Not just express, but publish, share, and hopefully build connections about and around. (The word I keep coming back to is commune.)

As I mentioned above, Kevin decided not to use Kaboodle or Polyvore. The resulting images just weren’t in high enough resolution to be very effective for his purposes. He decided, instead, to have them work with photoshop.com or the image editor (Phoenix) at aviary.com.

Which brings me to the next part of what I want to talk about in this presentation. Because, in addition to the sites and online communities that have native tools for creating and sharing collections and collages, the bar for simply creating any kind of visual digital object is getting so low it’s almost silly. Photoshop and Aviary may not be as fully-featured as a desktop image editor, but as basic image editing tools, they offer a fantastic feature set.

And, the fact of the matter is, the whole idea of visual communication of ideas is something our students are increasingly involved in all of the time, in more general, agnostic ways then perhaps Etsy, Kuler, Kaboodle, or Polyvore respresent.

Take the Cheezburger Network, a slate of sites that grew out of I Can Haz Cheezburger internet phenomenon. A significant number of the sites revolve around images created and contributed by the community. Comixed is built around user-contributed comic strips; GraphJam consists of fake, usually humorous, visual representations of data. These are the two most overtly visual CN sites (they require users to significantly modify, enhance, or create something). However,  many of the other CN sites are simply premised on someone uploading a funny, ironic, cute, disturbing photo and titling or captioning it.

Use of to go boxes on GraphJam

It’s probably worth betting that a lot of college students frequently visit and follow at least one of the Cheezburger Network sites. They are, at the very least, frequent consumers of this digital visual culture if not frequent creators.

My larger point (and I think I have one) is that we are all of us increasingly surrounded by online experiences that are deeply if not exclusively visual. We are creating and consuming ideas on a regular basis that are rooted in entirely visual experiences.

I think there is a strong possibility that our traditional undergraduate students are consuming and creating these kinds of visual texts. The ideas they are creating in this space may be primarily humorous, ironic, or not-safe-for-work, but they are still becoming savvy authors in this new medium.

As educators, where are we meeting them? Are we considering visual literacy and authorship in our curriculum? Are we, ourselves, comfortable with or competent at providing and evaluating these experiences?

Visual literacy and visual communication aren’t new concepts, of course. And, if you haven’t realized it by now, I’m not an expert in either. But what’s new and different and interesting to me is how low-threshold online tools are making it easier and easier to develop this literacy; how commercial and special-interest sites are providing opportunities to further explore and share visual creation; and how, generally, we are seeing a growing number of popular, high-traffic sites built exclusively around visual communication and the resulting community experience. As educators (and people who support educators) I think we need to pay attention to what’s happening in this space.

That’s a very rough outline of what I want to talk about. Wow, is it rough. If anyone has read this far and had any thoughts, I’d love to hear them. But, regardless, I think I know what I’m going to talk about now.

Human DNA by Grabthar on Flickr (CC-By-NC-SA)

I have several posts that I plan on writing about my past weekend at Educon. Before I proceed, let me just get one thing out of the way: this was one of the best conferences I have ever been to. I’m going to talk in a future post about why I think this was, but, in the meantime, if you are someone who has an interest or investment in the current state of K-12 education, I strongly consider you attend Educon.

Specifically, however, I want to talk about my first ah-ha moment at Educon. On Friday afternoon, I arrived at the Science Leadership Academy and went on about an hour long tour. I attended with Jeff and Jen, and they were along for the tour too. It was led by two students at SLA, a senior and a junior, and they did a fantastic job of showing us around and answering questions about what it’s like to be a student at this school.

About half way through the tour, we found ourselves in a biology classroom; I believe the class being held was a biotechnology class. When we walked in the students were in small groups, and each had a laptop open. They were obviously talking and referring to something on their computers. While Jeff, Jen, and the student guides continued around the room to talk, I stopped to observe what was going on.

After about five minutes (the students had been working before we came into the class, but I don’t know for how long), the teacher asked them all to direct their attention up front. Then he called on one student to report back to the class about what his group had found. I realized that each group had been searching online for protocols for an experiment they were, presumably, getting ready to conduct. The teacher led the students through an exercise in which they shared what they’d found. As they talked, he wrote the steps up on a white board. He quickly noticed when they left something out, and would question them until they noticed the error. He asked other students in the class to chime in when the protocol they found was different.

In essence, the students were collaboratively writing the steps they needed to complete in order to conduct this experiment.

The experiment was one I know well. They were getting ready to extract DNA from their own saliva. I know this experiment well because I vividly remember conducting it at my high school (I attended a magnet school for science and tech in the late 80’s-early 90’s.) I can remember standing in the biotech lab at my school, waiting for the DNA to become visible in a tiny clear vial with a black plastic top. I probably still have that vial somewhere; it was one of the most profound experiences I had in high school. The truth is, the experiment isn’t that complicated or hard to do. But for me, at 15 or 16, knowing that the cloudy smudge in the vial was my own DNA was like poetry.

But, as I watched the students in that class I felt a deep sense of sadness, too. I couldn’t really understand why. Over the course of the next day or so at Educon I talked to a few people about what I had witnessed, and, gradually, I realized what had touched me so much about the experience.

The school I attended is known, in particular, for turning out elite young scientists (although I was never one of them). Students can take an impressive number of courses in topics that aren’t offered at many of our colleges or universities. Upon graduation, they are often poised to move directly into advanced science, technology, and engineering courses of study, and many of them go on to graduate degrees and impressive positions.

SLA, I realized over the course of the weekend, despite the “science” in the title is less interested in turning out elite scientists and much more interested in turning out elite learners. The former is appropriate if you are 15 or 16 and destined for the life of a scientist, mathematician, or engineer. The latter is appropriate no matter what path you choose.

What made me so sad? I did that experiment in high school. It touched me, deeply. But I didn’t work with my teacher to research and develop my protocol. I was handed a book or a sheet of paper with steps that I had to follow, precisely. I was graded on how well I followed those steps, precisely. My school thought it was training me to be a scientist, and it valued me, as a student, by how well I fit that mold.

But since I didn’t choose the path of Elite Scientist upon graduating (and I knew this fairly early on in my high school career), I spent most of those four years and many years afterward, feeling inadequate, unintelligent, and unimportant. What a lesson.

SLA seems to be teaching its students to become the best learners they can be. There is no one mold to fit; there is no one answer to any question. Students are expected to be as much a part of the questions and answers at their teachers. What a lesson.

I thought a lot about the title of this post. My first instinct was to call it “On Training Learners” or “On Making Learners.” But that was because my instincts were derived, I think, from my own high school experience where I’m afraid my school’s instincts were to “make” or “train.” I suppose you can make or train a scientist; but you can’t make a learner and you probably shouldn’t “train” one, either. You can, however, teach a learner, and hopefully you can teach them to be a learner, forever.

Aside from last year’s Faculty Academy, it’s been almost a year and a half since I’ve attended a conference. This was a personal decision on my part. I chose to come back to UMW part-time after my maternity leave and staying home with my family has been my number-one priority. But last January, I listened in on Twitter as my friend Jen attended EduCon, and so when Jerry asked me if there was a conference I wanted to attend this year, I knew EduCon was the one. From Jen’s tweets, I could tell that the conference was inspiring her. But there were some other really important reasons why I was really excited about the possibility of attending EduCon this year.

First, it’s a K-12 conference. Working in higher ed, I often feel like there is a big disconnect between the people I talk to regularly about technology, teaching, and learning and the people who are doing the same kinds of work in K-12. I find this disconnect concerning and uncomfortable. Students proceeding into higher education are experiencing a continuum that starts, these days, in grade school. Technology is being “integrated” from K through grad school, but it doesn’t seem like we talk to much about that continuum. The elephant in the room when that topic comes up, I think, is that higher education has done a bad job, in general, of acknowledging this continuum. Technology isn’t just a trajectory — learning is a trajectory. Teaching is a trajectory. Do we in higher ed (professors, technologists, librarians, administrators) engage with our colleagues in K-12 nearly enough. Do we understand the forces they’re negotiating? Do they understand ours? If we don’t talk and collaborate more, then how can we provide an learning experience for our students that makes sense?

The other reason the K-12 aspect of this interested me is that I’m a parent with a daughter about to enter kindergarten in our local public school. My daughter has been attending a private school for the last 12 months — first for 5-day preschool. This year, she was moved up into 5-day kindergarten, but she won’t be old enough to enter the public school until the fall. We’ve decided to move her, and I’m suddenly finding myself trying to figure out what, as a parent, I need to pay attention to as the transition occurs. Her current school is fantastic: her classes have been small; the students are amazing; the teachers are dedicated. But I, fundamentally, believe in the idea of public education, and I want her to have a public school experience like I had. At the same time, I hear horror stories about budget cuts, SOLs, and NCLB. My understanding of these issues is rudimentary, at best. I want to start to really understand what today’s public school teachers’ are facing. I want to understand the reasons why some teachers and parents are choosing private school instead. I want this information so that I can make an informed (non knee-jerk) decision about my childrens’ future. I’m hoping EduCon will be a place where I can begin my education.

There’s another reason why I’m really excited about EduCon, and it’s more personal. The conference is held at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. Here’s a brief description of the school from their Web site:

The Science Leadership Academy is a partnership high school between the School District of Philadelphia and The Franklin Institute. SLA is an inquiry-driven, project-based high school focused on 21st century learning that opened its doors on September 7, 2006.

Twenty-two years ago, I started high school at a school was then an experiment in science education. That school is now well-established and well-respected (and also, still, controversial). My time at Thomas Jefferson was fraught. It was intense, challenging, demoralizing, and inspiring. I left with a great education and a pretty damaged self-esteem. It took a while to get past that legacy, but, given the choice, I’d probably go again.  SLA seems to have a lot of the same goals as Jefferson did when it was starting out. I’m fascinated to hear how another science high school is starting up 20 years later. I’m particularly interested in learning more about the vision of Chris Lehmann, the principal (and, apparently, force of nature) behind SLA. I’ve been following Chris on Twitter since Jen started tweeting at EduCon last year, and he is funny, inspiring, and obviously incredibly dedicated to his students.

The third reason I’m so excited about EduCon is also personal. 12 years ago when I decided to go back to graduate school to student technology and education, my dream was to go into museum work. In particular, I really wanted to work at a science museum. Science and technology museums have always been places of wonder for me. I think it’s because, when they’re done well, then wed narrative and science. The best museums tell really good stories, and the thing I’ve always found most interesting about science has been the stories hidden in the details. In this country, we’ve been bemoaning the state of science education for decades. I think SLA has struck a magic partnership by working with the Franklin Institute. Why not let a museum into the classroom to do what it can do best — make science real and relative? And why not let students into the museum where the practice of making museums can be the ultimate model for making and sharing knowledge?

Around the same time I was applying for graduate school my husband and I had just started dating. On one of our first dates, we drove up to Philadelphia to go to the Franklin Institute. I remember thinking this was the kind of place where I wold love to practice education and technology some day. I don’t know if a dream like that will ever come true. (I really do love working in higher education.) But this weekend I look forward to reliving those dreams and getting inspired.

In our offices at DTLT we are all frequently victims of listening to each others’ diatribes against any number of forces threatening higher education, online community, and the world, in general. One of Jim Groom’s favorite topics to rail about is “Twitter is killing Blogging.”

(I could go look for a post on his blog to link that last sentence to, but, truth be told, the man is so prolific that a) it takes nine years for a search query to process on his blog and b) when you do get the results, invariably there are so many posts related to your search terms it takes nine years to find the one you’re looking for. I don’t have nine years, so I’m not going to try. Color me lazy.)

I frequently push back on his statement because a) have you seen the man’s Twitter stream? Talk about people who live in glass houses b) truthfully, Twitter has become *my* main form of staying on top of the pulse of my online network and I DON’T LIKE BEING CRITICIZED.

But I’m here to publicly acknowledge that Jim may have a point.

Sometime last fall I stopped using Google Reader. I’m not sure how it happened. Maybe it was when my iPod Touch died briefly (thanks, Graeme!) and so my Reader button got removed. I think it was more gradual, actually. Over time, I’d started to rely on Twitter to tell me when my contacts had written a new blog post. As time passed by I figured that I didn’t need Reader. I was seeing people’s posts. Maybe not ALL of them, but, frankly, what I was seeing was enough to keep my busy. Maybe, for me, Twitter was just a better way to stay on top of the blogs I read.

Bad, Martha. Bad, bad, Martha.

Last week, I finally re-opened Google Reader. I was scared to do so, actually. I thought it would yell at me (kind of like my fear of going to the dentist.) Actually, it was very kind and gentle. For most of the blogs I read the number of posts that were marked unread was actually pretty small. I’m not sure why. There was lots of stuff I hadn’t seen that wasn’t marked unread. But I didn’t complain.

I started picking through the list, visiting some sites I hadn’t been to in months. And I realized that Twitter was a very poor substitute for an RSS reader. I had missed whole topics of conversation. More importantly, I had missed almost *all conversation.* I guess it never occurred to me that although (some) people post to Twitter when they have a new blog post up, there are no tweets about comments. Duh.

So, I’m recommitting to my reader. And, hopefully, you’ll see more of me around your blog parts. And, Jim, you were kinda right.

Okay, now that that’s done, let me tell you why I really don’t suck after all. (As if there was really any doubt.)

As of about a week and a half ago, I am the owner of this Web site and domain. Up until then, the University of Mary Washington (where I work part-time), owned this piece of the WorldWideInterTubes. But a year ago, I finally got around to having them transfer ownership of the Web hosting space to me when it came up for renewal. I had to wait another year for the domain to come up for renewal so that I could officially own that too.

I decided to do this upon coming back to UMW after my maternity leave. It just occurred to me that I didn’t really want my Web site to be owned by anyone but me. That’s not to disparage UMW in anyway; it’s just that this space (however infrequently I update it) had become an extension of myself. It isn’t just my professional space for my work at UMW. It’s much more than that.

I think this seems like a natural progression from where I started with this space — as a place to experiment with for my work in DTLT. I still continue to do that from time to time, but I have other sandboxes to experiment with at UMW (including UMW Blogs and our own departmental Web hosting space). What I want now is to fully stake my claim to a small corner of the Web.

I also want to be able to cat blog without guilt.

Several reasons why the above is true:

1. My personal WP blog is so out-of-date in terms of version, I’m embarrassed to tell you what version I’m using.

2. I’ve been so bad about staying on top of my blog, I just found two nice comments buried in my spam from months ago. I’m a loser.

3. Did I mention I never blog?

4. I never blog

5. I have stopped using Google Reader, which means not only am I a bad blogger, I’m a bad blog reader. Shame on me.

Okay, enough with the self-loathing. I’m off to upgrade my blog and turn over a new leaf (again.)

I rock.