My Digital Fast

Yesterday I went on a "Digital Fast." I completely disconnect myself from my computer. 24 Hours: no email, no Twitter, no Facebook., no Google Reader, no blogging.

The force behind this choice was some important decisions I need to make for my family. I took the day off from teaching and determined that I needed to eliminate distractions in an effort to increase my mental clarity.

It was a good day. I found that I was much more attentive to the needs of my family (we just welcomed a new baby, John Peter, to our home on April 16th), was much less introverted, engaged in conversations with others without feeling as if they were interrupting, enjoyed the outdoors more than usual, and felt that I was in control of my time instead of being controlled by the "urgency" of instant communication. I can't say that I was struck by the lightening bolt of inspiration and made all the tough decisions that I'm wrestling with, but overall, it was a positive experience.

This morning when I check my email, Twitter, Facebook, etc, I found that the world continued without my input. I didn't miss any important communications. No one was waiting for my approval for some life altering decision. Life went on.

I love the connections and information that have been made available to me through the internet. I appreciate the feedback that I receive from my Twitter PLN, the messages from friends and family on my Facebook wall, and the awesome ideas that I find hiding in Google Reader. If I am not careful, however, these tools have the ability to consume my life. Instead of looking at the various technologies that I use as tools to accomplish some greater goal, I can easily view them as an end in themselves. Participating in my virtual community is not as important as interacting with my students, my fellow teachers, and my friends and family. Taking a day off reminded me of this.

Several notable bloggers have come to similar conclusions. Here are two posts that I've recently read on the importance of "unplugging."

• Seth Godin: Incoming! (on "real" vs. "fake" work)
• Work Awesome: Reading Blogs Like books (an argument for getting rid of your RSS reader in favor of in-depth, focused reading. I don't agree with the post, but it's an interesting idea and hits at the root of information overload)

I am considering making my "Digital Fast" a regular occurrence (monthly?). If nothing else it reminds me to remain balanced and focus on the important things and teaches my children the importance of discipline.

Grocery Stores and Classrooms

I live in the town of Brighton, Michigan. It's not a big town but it's not small either. It's a nice place to live. We have three grocery stores: Kroger, Meijer, and VG's. I have shopped at all three with Meijer receiving most of my business due to their size and location. As of today, that's changed.

My wife, daughter (19 months), son (8 days) and I made our weekly pilgrimage to the grocery store and chose VG's because of where we happened to be in town. We walked in and my daughter was immediately excited about the car shopping carts (which are free to use, unlike Meijer). She got in and we walked through the doors and found the complimentary popcorn and coffee. Dad's good for 20 minutes and daughter is now really happy riding in the car munching on popcorn. Baby is fast asleep. Mom is happy because none of the kids are screaming.

We made our selections throughout the store proceeded to the checkout line. The clerk cheerfully greeted us and immediately offered my daughter a sucker. We declined (didn't want to pull it out of her hair later) and the clerk promptly substituted stickers which my daughter immediately began sticking all over herself (much easier to remove than the sucker). VG's still has baggers (amazing, no?) who bagged our order, loaded it up into the cart and brought it out and loaded it into our car despite the pouring rain.

There are three grocery stores in my town. Each sells essentially the same items for essentially the same price. Location is somewhat of a factor however two of the stores are right next to each other. What can the store do to distinguish themselves from their competitors? Answer: make the experience of grocery shopping as enjoyable as possible.

The added value (carts, coffee, popcorn, loading groceries) that VG's provides is incentive for customers to return. VG's makes the experience of shopping so much more enjoyable than their competitors. The extra value that VG's provides costs them next to nothing yet their return on this investment must be great. On the way home I told me wife that we're shopping at VG's from now on.

I'm an educator and everything that filters through my brain eventually gets connected to education. Todays experience is no exception.

All schools are essentially the same. They each have classrooms, textbooks, desks, students, teachers, grades, etc. What causes one school to be better than another? It is the added value that is provided by the teachers, coaches, and administrators that cause students and families to have an extraordinary experience. It's the phone call home with good news instead of bad news. It's the teacher who shows up to sporting events and performances. It's the administrator who knows each students name.

What do you do to add value to what is already expected in your classroom?

Leaders As Community Managers

I listened to Chris Anderson (editor-in-chief of Wired, The Long Tale, Free) interviewed on the Catalyst leadership podcast today while on a walk with my 19 month old daughter and, was struck by a new idea the he fleshed out near the end of the interview.

"Today's form of leadership is community management. I do a lot less things for people. Instead I'm helping them do things for themselves."

Anderson went on to say that "If you can create a community, they'll find you." This perfectly intersects with the thesis of my post about Seth Godin's new book Linchpin which I posted earlier this week. Leaders are no longer valuable because they can set up systems, they are valuable because they connect with people and create an environment (i.e. community) that causes them to achieve their best.

The connection to education is obvious. As a teacher, I lead my students. Setting up systems (seating charts, grading scales, homework policies) is less important than my ability to craft a community or environment which is conducive to learning. Are my students encouraged to take academic risks, to try new things, and to learn on their own or do they just show up, do their work, walk out the door and forget everything they just did?

As I reflect on the classroom environment that I've created this year I'm fairly happy. I haven't spent a lot of conscious effort in creating this environment, it's just happened based on my personality. Next year I need to adopt a more proactive approach in crafting the environment of my the classroom from the first day of school forward. Here are four things that I would like to emphasize:

1. Building community as a class by celebrating successes, encouraging each other, and lending a hand when needed.
2. Assigning students to small lab/learning groups of 3-4 for an entire semester to hold one another accountable and help and encourage each other.
3. Spending class time to regularly remind students of the big picture: skills are more important than facts and habits that you start now will be with you tomorrow.
4. Model life-long-learning by sharing with my students the things that I am learning on a regular basis.

That's all I've got for now. I'm sure my list will grow over the summer as I reflect on this past year and prepare for the upcoming year.

As a leader, I'm a community builder.

Leaders Reproduce

Andy Stanley is the pastor of North Point Community Church outside of Atlanta Georgia. He is a gifted communicator and leader. I highly recommend his book Next Generation Leader. It's a short and succinct look at what it takes to be a leader.

Andy was interviewed on the Catalyst podcast which I listened to in my car while I was stuck in Detroit rush hour traffic this afternoon. The interview was an interesting glimpse in to the daily life of a very influential leader (his church has 22,000 members and 300 staff) however I was impressed by one comment that Andy made:

"My greatest job as a leader is seeing the leaders around me succeed."

In a move that very few pastors would take, Andy removed himself from the pulpit over the summer and mentored and coached ten younger guys who led the multi-campus congregation during the summer months.

"If I don't leave a dozen trained communicators in my wake when I move on then I haven't been successful."

As a teacher, if I don't help train up a dozen or more innovative, creative, and influential men and women, then I haven't been successful. This goes well beyond content knowledge and diverges into the realm of what my students "catch" rather than what they are "taught." What attitudes, disciplines, and qualities do I exemplify on a daily basis that my students might possibly emulate?

Teachers are leaders. Leaders reproduce.

An Educational Artist

I recently listened to a podcast [iTunes Link] that featured popular author and blogger Seth Godin who spoke about his most recent book Linchpin. I haven't read the book (but it's on my list!), and can't give you a full summary, but in the interview Godin made an astounding point about art.

Art, according to Godin, "changes people. It connects with them in a way that they want you to connect with them and causes positive change." When we think of art we think of a painting, a musical performance, or a play. We don't think of art as a teacher connecting with a student, or a family by causing positive change in their lives. We don't, but we should.

The thesis of Linchpin (according to what I heard in the interview) is that people who are indispensable within an organization do not control systems, they connect with people. Anyone can grade papers, create seating charts, or write lessons plans, but only you can connect with and interact with your students, faculty, and school community in a way that builds them up, encourages them, and pushes them to do great things.

I am an educational artist.

How do you write a "Google-Proof" Question?

A while back I wrote a post about "Google-Proofing" questions. The quick summary of the post was this: why ask a question to which an answer can quickly be found with an internet search? Certainly we all need a core of knowledge upon which to build. I certainly have no intention of banning the memorization of multiplication tables! My point is that as learning progresses, the questions that we as teachers should be asking involve higher order thinking skills. Bloom's Taxonomy has been a valuable tool for helping write such questions.

I'd like to get your advice on writing "Google-Proof" questions:

• What strategies do you employ to write challenging questions which force students to think critically and deeply about a topic?
• What resources have you found that are helpful in writing challenging questions?
• What verbs have you found particularly useful in your question writing?

If you have a question that has worked particularly well for you, please share it! Even if it's related to a different content area that I, or other readers, teach, we can learn from the setup and construction of the question and apply the principles to our disciplines.

I look forward to reading your ideas and suggestions!

New Tool: Wiffiti

Silvia Tolisano (@langwitches) posted wrote a blog post a while back about a tool called Wiffiti which aggregates specified terms from Twitter, Flickr, and SMS. According to their website, Wiffiti is "used extensively in digital signage networks ranging from huge jumbotrons in Times Square to thousands of screens in bars, cafes, schools, entertainment centers and churches."

One day I walked past a store in the mall which had a big flat-screen TV displaying a feed of customer feedback from the web. At the time I wondered how they did that and thought it would be a cool thing to incorporate into PD session or conference. Yes, you could simply use Twitter or TweetDeck, but Wiffiti provides a more of a polished display for Tweets in addition to incorporating non-Twitter based mentions. Now that I think back on the display that I saw, it may have been powered by Wiffiti.

Here's a short video clip of Wiffiti in use at a David Archuletta concert in June of 2009 courtesy of YouTuber Stepploca.

In addition to scanning Twitter, Wiffiti also offers the option of including SMS (text) messages sent to a custom number for incorporation onto the Wiffiti screen. A possible classroom application would be allowing students to text questions for display on the screen in real-time (A potentially dangerous but fun idea!).

Here is an example "Wiffiti screen" of the Twitter Hashtag #gct (Google Certified Teachers).

This post is primarily just a test run of Wiffiti, but I'd be interested in suggestions for possible classroom applications or other similar web aggregators.