Catching the stars on a New Moon

A view of the southern Vermont sky in mid October.

Lie under the multitudes.

Or, as the kids say, “go touch grass.”

Last year I began seeking out camp sites where there was the least amount of light pollution within a 3-hour drive of my home in Western Massachusetts. I then used a moon phase map to identify nights when there was a New Moon, and began using Hipcamp (like Airbnb for tenting) to find sites that offered an unadorned view of the sky.

The effort has been worth it.

This October the stars literally aligned. We had a great spot. No moon. No cloud in sight. The result was stunning and stirring. Looking up, a foreign tableau of thousands upon thousands of glimmers and shimmers. Awing in the truest sense.

I’ve already got three sites reserved for New Moons happening in May, August, and October of next year. Perhaps on one of those nights you too will gaze upon a molasses sky and find wonder in the innumerable piercings.

Third dispatch from home - The Office basketball game

So, this video showed up in my YouTube recommendations last night. Being a NBA fan who bleeds Green (yes, I followed the Celtics religiously during their 22-year championship drought from 1986-2008), watching The Ringer's analysis of the classic Office basketball game is about as much hoops as I'm going to get during the 2020 corona closure.

The analysis is spot on, the game footage is captivating, and the dry humor just adds to the overall enjoyment of the viewing experience.

The Office television show premiered in the spring of 2005, during my first year as a high school English and journalism teacher. Suffice it to say, I was pretty consumed by the demands of the job, and had little time to watch TV. Things didn't change much over the next few years, and The Office just ended up being one of those shows that passed me by.

About a year ago, my wife and I started watching Office episodes on Netflix. We still have a few seasons to go, but should have no problem finishing them before the show is removed from Netflix by the end of the year. I will say, the characters have grown on me, and are always good for a laugh - even when I'm not in the most amiable mood. To see them engaged in their warehouse game of roundball brought a smile - and more than a few laughs - to my face. 

Second dispatch from home - Trail maintenance

I spent about five hours today outside in the woods behind our house clearing and refining a series of trails that stretch for about two miles and connect with the Belchertown High School complex. I used a pair of clippers to trim small trees, shrubs, and branches along the route. I then took to the trail with my electric leaf blower and cleared off all the leaves and debris. This photo shows the trail before I hit it with the leaf blower. It's pretty well defined now.

It felt good to be outside, creating something. I know that getting outdoors is going to be essential for getting through this with my sanity intact. Fortunately, we have this fantastic wooded resource right outside our back door. I eventually plan to build a campsite with a firepit, wooden stools, tent sites, and a picnic table.

First dispatch from home - Coronavirus closes schools and changes life as we know it

Donning protective gear before going shopping.

It's been 11 days since all schools in Massachusetts were closed by Governor Charlie Baker, as a new form of a virus called COVID-19 made its way to the U.S. from China, infecting nearly half a million known people as of this writing.

In an effort to slow the spread of the highly contagious virus, the governor issued a stay-at-home advisory and closed all non-essential businesses.

As a high school teacher and parent of two girls under six, my days have been spent trying to provide enrichment activities for my students while also trying to fill the role of my daughters' teachers. And this is in addition to performing our normal household tasks. As my wife is also a teacher, she's in a similar boat, feeling the pull and tug between our kids, her students, and our regular roles as parents. It's been a challenge.

As we work to deal with this new conception of domestic life, folks in the medical field are taking on the Herculean task of helping those afflicted with the virus amidst a shortage of basic protective gear and necessary medical equipment. And a host of people, ranging from police and firefighters to grocery store clerks, postal deliverers, restaurant employees, and utility workers are trying to keep the basic tenants of civilization going despite the ever-growing risk of infection.

Given that we'll be out of school until at least May, I figured it would be a good idea to start documenting my thoughts and experiences during this unprecedented time in some kind of formalized way. I plan to invite my students to do the same.

Fellow educators like Kelly Gallagher and Kevin Hodgson have created some suggestions for journaling here and here. With schools unsure of how to proceed with remote instruction, I can think of nothing better than encouraging students to create written records of this time which could serve as primary source documents for the future. In my opinion, this is not the time to be doing packet work or trying to do what we normally do virtually. Nothing about this time is normal, and we should lean into that, rather than grasp vainly at old paradigms in hope they'll give us the meaning and structure we're looking for.

A friend posted the following list of questions on her Facebook page today. I feel they speak to what's important at the moment.

A brief winter post

A view of the rail trail behind my house.

For anyone who reads this blog from time-to-time, it's not hard to notice the decline in postings over the years. Marriage, a second graduate program, a CAGS program, and then the birth of my daughter last July are where I've been investing my time.

Given that I do enjoy writing in this space, I hope to carve out little niches here and there to post updates and reflections over the coming months.   

Sprout

Buds sprout in soil
Seasonal shift upon us
Bring on the sunshine!

Presenting at NCTE

Tomorrow I head into Boston for the 103rd National Council of Teachers of English conference. This will be my first time attending NCTE's national conference, and I'm looking forward to meeting some fantastic teachers and taking back great ideas to engage and enrich my students. On Friday I'll be participating in a poster session with other high school and college teachers. More to come!

A meditation on student engagement

It is our challenge to get students – and their parents and guardians – to bite from the apple of knowledge so as to savor its sweet, nourishing offerings. Too many of our neediest students think the tree of education is not for them, and instead gravitate toward the rooted vegetables of ignorance. We must become stewards of the orchard, and let all of our population know its gates are open for them.

Flickr Creative Commons Image by emoeby

Poetry Reading

In celebration of National Poetry Month, here's my reading of "Hemingway Never Did This" by Charles Bukowski.

Screencast videos and FETC 2013

Well, I'm here in Orlando, FL, putting the finishng touches on my presentation at the 2013 Florida Educational Tehnology Conference. FETC is the nation's most comprehensive edtech conference, and I'm excited to be a part of it. I'll be making a presentation on how I've used a free screen recording program, Screencast-O-Matic, to create tutorial videos for my students, which I've uploaded to BGtechnology, my YouTube channel.

I first learned of Screencast-O-Matic through my Master of Educational Technology degree with Boise State University's EDTECH department. It's a simple and free way to create video tutorials on almost any topic. By using YouTube as my delivery vehicle, any student with an Internet connection can view the videos. Most of the videos I make are three minutes or under. I find that brevity is essential, as it's easy to tune out anything that isn't concise or straightforward.

I'll sometimes play a video at the beginning of class when I'm introducing a new skill, task, or concept, and then have students to refer back to the video on their own as needed. This helps eliminate unnecessary repetition, as students who got it the first time can begin their work, while others who need the information or steps repeated can cue up the video and watch at their own pace. Of course, if there's something they don't understand in the video, I am there in class to answer their questions.

To be clear, I am not assigning videos to students to watch at home, a la the flipped classroom. Rather, these videos aid me when giving direct instruction in the classroom.

I hope to blog regularly this week about both my presentation and some of the session highlights I attend. In particular, I'm excited about hearing Google's Jaime Casap and New Jersey high school principal Eric Sheninger.

Proffed out

After sitting through a full day of professional development where I literally sat in a chair and read pages and pages of evaluator rubrics, it was nice to get out and take the dog for a walk. I decided to bring along my camera, as since reading Seth Godin's Linchpin, I've been feeling the need to "create art and ship," in Godin parlance.

Godin's book is inspiring and affirming. It speaks to our inner artist, and empowers us to stifle the lizard brain, put ourselves out there, and create something unique and important. I suppose it follows that in order to best help my students discover and cultivate their passions, I need to nourish and sustain my own.

I already do this by reading and writing. It's been a while, though, since I've picked up the camera and shot on a consistent basis. Taking pictures is something I love to do, and have for more than 20 years. It was in high school that I learned the basics of photographic composition, and first encountered a darkroom. There were few things I enjoyed more than using the enlargers to create photos from a fresh roll of film. There was something magical about the way the image burned onto the paper, made all the more special by the fact that I controlled the final product.

The photo below was taken at the end of our walk, just after the sun had set behind the horizon. I like the colors of the toys, and the warm glow from the Christmas lights in the background.

"Doggie toy bucket"  f/2, 1/30, ISO 1000, 20mm

Here are a few others:

"Toboggan" f/2, 1/30, ISO 1000, 20mm

"Bridge" f/2.5, 1/30, ISO 640, 20mm

 

"Mr. Fence Post" f/1.7, 1/30, ISO 100, 20mm

Snow day

Today we had a snow day. I got to catch up on some sleep, do some chores around the house, and take our dog for an extended woodland walk through the fresh snow. I was also able to take this picture and post it to the blog, two things (taking photos and writing in this space) I look forward to doing more of.

"Snow laurel" f/1.7, 1/250, ISO 100, 20mm

Surviving Sandy

At this time one year ago, a freak snowstorm caused massive damage to Western Massachusetts, resulting in the loss of power for an entire week. We've been much more fortunate this time around, maintaining electricity (and Internet) during the brunt of Sandy's blow.

Strong winds downed trees and sent debris everywhere, yet the electricity still flowed even as gusts approached 60 mph. Well-deserved props to the folks at National Grid for keeping the juice on during the turbulence.

The jury's still out on if we'll have school tomorrow. A handful of districts have cancelled, while a number of others have signaled it's all systems go. With college recommendation letters, an upcoming workshop at the New England Association of Teachers of English conference this Friday, and pieces to still pick up after being out two days last week to attend the 30th Massachusetts Computer Using Educators conference, I could certainly use another day "off" to make headway.

In addition, on Tuesday (or Wednesday) I'll resume control of my three ninth grade college prep English classes, as my practicum student from a nearby university concluded her placement in my classroom last Friday. She did a wonderful job introducing the students to PVLEGS, the acronym developed by educator Eric Palmer to help students remember the keys to speaking effectively: poise, voice, life, eye contact, gestures, and speed. After reading Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak, the students gave speeches where they made connections between events in their lives and the book. My practicum student was able to explicitly show the students how the PVLEGS skills can really make a difference when it comes to speaking effectively, and the students bought in.

The image at the top of this post was obviously not taken today; it was snapped up at The Flume in Lincoln, NH, over Columbus Day weekend. Rather than post an image of destruction, I prefer to remember this month for the gorgeous foliage and temperate afternoons, not the carnage from Sandy.

My studies through Boise State University's EDTECH program have kept me quite busy as I've made progress on my Master of Educational Technology degree. The coursework requires reflection and journal writing, much of which I've done on a separate blog just for graduate school. I am halfway through one of the two final classes I need to complete before I earn my degree this May. Once my coursework concludes, I look forward to bringing my voice back to the blogosphere. In the meantime, I've still been active on my Twitter account, although I don't read nearly as many tweets from the folks I'm following as I'd like to. For my friends on the East Coast, I hope you stayed safe during Sandy's passing.

Using Creative Commons Images from Flickr

I recently began using the screen capture program Screencast-O-Matic to create video tutorials for my students. Below is one I made about using Creative Commons images from Flickr. Enjoy!

Happy New Year

In a few hours, the clock will strike midnight and we'll bid adieu to 2011.

After a two-month hiatus, I hope to blog with greater frequency in 2012. While life has a way of keeping us busy, there's real value in finding the time to record and reflect on events - both in and out of the classroom.

Catch you on the flip side.

Fireworks image by Flickr user martin.linkov

A good walk

Recently, I went for a walk with one of my 9th grade classes. It was an impromptu, unscripted jaunt, and in total took less than five minutes.

It was the last period of the day and it was gorgeous outside. My students were about to work on major essays. What I would be asking of them would require focus, concentration, and attention to detail.

As soon as the bell rang and they were seated, I made an announcement that we would be going outside for a walk.

Their faces beamed. Smiles and grins filled the room. "Really?" "Outside?"

"Yup."

And outside we went. I had charted the route a few minutes earlier during the end of my prep period, leaving one of the side doors to the school ajar with a rock. I told the students I knew they had a lot to do that period, I knew it had already been a long day, and that I thought a little fresh air might help them focus. They all agreed.

"We should do this every day." "How far are we going?" "Can we go all the way around the school?"

We went about one quarter of the way around the building before turning in a side door and returning to the classroom. Once inside, students pulled up their essays on the computers and netbooks and began making revisions. Once done, they copied their work from Google Docs to Blogger, where they posted their essays for classmates to comment on.

Most of them did a nice job focusing on their work and being productive. I was able to circulate through the room, offering feedback and answering questions during mini writing consultations. It was a positive ending to the day, set in motion by a gut judgement about what the students needed most at that time.

Forest path photo by my sister-in-law, mindwhisperings at Flickr

Vocabulary Video - Ebullient

As I wrote about earlier, one of my goals this year was to create vocabulary videos with my students. The above is an example video I created and shared with my classes. By early next week, my seniors will have made their first videos. The freshmen will follow suit. I'm excited about the possibilities of this new teaching tool.

Keeping my jog on

I just got back from a 3.5 mile jog. One of my personal goals this year is to maintain - and eventually improve - my current level of fitness. Part of being a public high school teacher is coming to terms with the fact that there is always going to be an inordinate number of things to do, and never quite enough time to do them.

This means that when I go to complete a task - be it grading an essay, crafting a lesson plan, writing a letter of recommendation, or researching an idea for a new lesson - I need to be at the top of my game. In order to maximize my time and efficiency, I need to be taking care of myself.

This year, that means adding a banana and yogurt to my regular breakfast of an English muffin or bagel. It means getting seven hours of sleep at least five of the seven days of the week. And it means working out five of those days as well.

I've found it's easy to pay lip service to the idea of working out, eating better, and sleeping more. It's quite another to actually live those ideas. I will say that since my wife and I got a dog this past summer, we've both been more active, and a little less self involved. Having something else to care for besides ourselves has helped expand our sense of what home life is like. It's allowed us a bit more perspective, and given us more opportunities to live in the moment, something our dog Alyza is able to do quite well.

Inside a Honda Accord

That's where I was, driving to my first education-related interview, when I learned of the attacks on the World Trade Center. It was a picturesque September morning. I was listening to NPR, when all of a sudden they switched from local to national coverage to give us minute-by-minute updates of what was happening.

It was a true juxtaposition of images and sound, my eyes taking in the morning sun as it bounced off leaves and was absorbed by the grassy fields that marked my way to a local nature reserve. The sound, the voice of Peter Jennings and other correspondents working to make sense of the chaos unfolding in real time in New York City. It was bizarre and frightening. I remember trying to explain it to the man I was meeting with, the director of a wildlife sanctuary where I was trying to land a gig as a volunteer tour guide.

Fresh from hiking 1,000 miles of the Appalachian Trail after quitting my job as a newspaper reporter, I was looking to gain entrance into the field of education, hoping to parlay my affinity for nature and my abilities as a journalist into something new. Fortunately, the director of the reserve decided to give me a shot. I was paired with a veteran staffer, taken on a tour of the grounds, and given the green light to welcome school groups to the sanctuary.

I used my experience there to land a paying job at a local YWCA, working with kindergarten and early elementary school children. My gig at the "Y" helped me get some substitute teaching work at area middle and high schools. Eventually, I was hired as a full-time building substitute at a middle school, where I spent time as a sub and special-ed paraprofessional.

Later that year I worked as a journalism and creative writing teacher at a summer arts camp, then went on to graduate school, where I studied English education. After earning a degree and passing the state's teacher test, I landed a job teaching English and journalism to high school students in Massachusetts. I'm now in my eighth year working at the secondary level.

In addition to being linked to 9/11, my ascension from volunteer tour guide to full-time classroom teacher also has parallels with the meteoric rise of a certain New England Patriots quarterback. Tom Brady, a 2001 sixth-round draft choice, went from being a bench-riding rookie to Super Bowl MVP. While I don't have any trophies to boast of, I do have an excellence in teaching award, bestowed upon me by one of the members of my high school's 2010 graduating class. While the award is nice recognition for the hard work I've put in, even more meaningful is the personalized message that accompanied the award, written by one of my former students.

Just as I hope that Tom Brady's best days as a quarterback are not behind him, the same goes for myself as an educator. Currently enrolled in a second master's degree program, I hope to continue to learn about ways I can be an effective teacher and make a positive difference in the lives of my students. On this day, 10 years after my journey as an educator began, I am thankful to those who have helped me grow from a young man uncertain about his place in the world to a (slightly older) man who, while still seeking, has landed on a path that's proven to be both personally and professionally rewarding.

The Honda Accord image above, while identical to the car I used to drive, came from here.

Google Docs and student blogs

Tomorrow begins week two of the 2011-2012 school year. One of the tasks students will be expected to complete for Tuesday is the creation of a Gmail account. While the majority of my seniors already had Gmail accounts, the same cannot be said for my freshmen. And, for those students who did use Gmail, very few of them had ever used Google Docs, the free office suit that allows you to create text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, surveys, and pictures, in addition to providing users with online storage for their documents.

One of the greatest benefits of Google Docs is, aside from the cost (free), its ease of use. All one needs to create a document is an Internet browser and an Internet connection. Work is saved automatically to the cloud, which is a huge benefit for students who are working on assignments both in school and at home. Google Docs also allows for easy collaboration, as multiple users may access and edit the same document in real time.

For the past three years, my school has placed emphasis on helping students transition from 8th to 9th grade. Aside from teaching content, all freshmen teachers are asked to explicitly teach organizational and study skills, as how students study is almost as important as what they study. Google Docs, I believe, is a crucial tool that will help students stay organized as they further develop their academic personas.

While Google Docs is a tool that students can use for all of their classes, Blogger is a tool that, at least initially, can be best utilized for English class. Because Blogger is run by Google, once students have a Gmail account, they're ready to create their own blogs. In 2007 I began using blogs as a way for students to share writing and provide each other with feedback. When you're writing for an audience beyond just your teacher, there's a little bit more incentive to see that your words accurately convey your ideas.

As a student, I certainly cared about grades, but I think I cared more about what my friends thought of me and my ideas. As a writer, having a real audience to read your work and provide you with feedback is invaluable. My role as a teacher is to model for students how to constructively respond to their classmates' writing. If I am successful, they will begin to look for the kinds of things that I would look for. And eventually, they'll be able to turn that critical eye on their own work.

Depending on students' previous exposure to the writing workshop model, this can either go smoothly or be quite arduous. Either way, we'll eventually get to a place where we feel comfortable sharing constructive feedback aimed at helping each other see how well our intentions for a piece measure up with reality.  

Google Docs image by Lucia Agut