Photographic Dictionaries

I love being able to throw out an idea at my middle school students and watching them run with it.  I broke students into pairs (in a massive class of four, that means two groups) and had them create their own photographic dictionary.  I tried this last year and was met with frustration and near mutiny.

This year's batch went much more smoothly.  I decreased the expectations.  I don't consider this "dumbing it down," but realizing I asked too much of them last year.  I also gave them over a week to complete it.  The end result was enthusiasm for work well done.

Students only needed one word/picture per letter. Synonyms and antonyms were no longer required but a definition and sentence were.

I loved the creativity they showed with their sites! Feel free to hop on there and give them some positive feedback.

• Evan and Mason
• Cole and Max

Should Everything Be Done Digitally?

I stood at the front door, holding it open, welcoming students to a brand new school day.  I noticed one or two middle schoolers carrying cardboard trifold displays.  Then a poster.  Then another trifold.  It's obviously Project Day somewhere in the school.  And my techie brain immediately thought, "There are so many ways that can be done digitally!" I immediately rattled off four or five apps or sites that would present the same information but could promote digital learning, with zero cost, and could be posted online for the world to see.

As one familiar student walked in, "What class is that for?"
The student struggled to carry the trifold in, "Science," and kept huffing it into school.

Argh. I know the science teachers and wonder why they didn't ask me for ideas.

Another familiar student came in with a poster rolled up.  "What is that? What was the project?"
"It's for science. We had to pick a country."
"Countries in science.  This is interesting."

I have no idea what the learning objectives were. I have no idea of the cross-curricular goals of science and geography, but I started to soften toward the physical aspect of the project.

I admittedly will lean toward the tech solution in school every time. It's my job.  It's who I am.  There is value in students doing things digitally.  As a school, we need to push the digital tools to help them learn and work and function in tomorrow's world (and today's too).

But, as I stood there and greeted students, my mind began to wander in the background.  Isn't there also value in using scissors and glue, crayons and markers?  Isn't there value in taking a physical space and making it into something creative, neat, and informative?

I got the name of the teacher, and she is no tech sloucher.  In fact, she is a grandmother who is learning the tech as she goes and eagerly accepts tech input.

And I started to realize that there is value in diversity.  If our teachers only play the "tech" card, they miss out on reaching the kids who learn best with messy fingers.  If our teachers only play the "research and write a report" card, they miss out on reaching the kids who learn best by making a creative masterpiece.  If they only play the "make a poster" card, they miss out on reaching the kids who learn best by taking multiple choice tests... I mean, through writing.

And that leaves me with the question, "Should everything be done digitally?"

What do you think?

Megan, Production Entrepreneur

I am celebrating my 20th year of teaching by profiling former students who are doing great things in their field. As I've watched them grow into adults, I have been impressed with an aspect of their lives and want to share them with you. I fully recognize that I was merely a small part in their growth and development, but I can't help to be proud. By highlighting these former students I hope to encourage other teachers that what we do is a noble and worthy cause. We have the ability to boost others to greatness we have never considered. 

When I first met Megan, she was a goofy third grader. I was a new teacher at a mid-sized Christian school.  Her mom was our lunch lady, and we got together outside of school regularly with another teacher and her husband. What I remember most about Megan was her love of the Three Stooges.  If asked back in the mid- to late-90s what I thought Megan would do with her life, I would have to peg her as the Fourth Stooge.

As it turns out, Megan must have grown out of that goofy stage, but she’s at least making a  living doing something in film. 

Megan is self-employed as a freelancer in the television industry.  For the most part, she’s working cameras, and she loves it!  I am actually jealous, reading through her list of things she’s done.  Megan has worked on shows for TLC, Discovery Channel, Lifetime, and the Food Network. She has filmed homicide teams solve murders, oil rigs test out new technology, and dancers and choreographers compete for championships.  

She loves being in the middle of the action, getting to live a small part of someone else’s world, and seeing things she would never get to experience otherwise.

All talk of Three Stooges aside, the trajectory of Megan’s career began in high school, when she launched Moo Studios.  She used this small company to create video promos for local businesses, and even created a video for our school (which she claims would be embarrassing to watch now).  After graduating from college, she rebranded as Bug Studios and has flown with it from there.  One of her early projects was an animation for Conan O’Brien!

Megan gives credit to God for opening doors to get her into these positions.  As she works hard to perfect her craft, God continues to place things in her path to increase her career.  She quotes, “God does not do great things exclusively through great people, but through people willing to trust Him in greater ways” (unknown)

As Megan films and works in the TV industry, she wants to continue to travel, including filming internationally.  She has a list of places she would love to visit and work at and hopes these jobs become increasingly dangerous.

When asked how I helped (or hindered her on her journey), Megan answered, “I remember your sixth grade English class was the first time I really understood how to write stories. Writing my first 5-6 paragraph essay was an incredibly intimidating undertaking at the time. You helped us break it down and see it’s structure which demystified the seemingly laborious process of writing. I have since written a 100+ page script that is currently in development to be a feature-length film. But seriously, diagramming sentences made me want to gouge my eyes out and throw them at the chalkboard.”  I feel the need -- RIGHT NOW -- to apologize to any student I forced to diagram a sentence.  I can blame the curriculum, but I should have known better. Please forgive me.  

However, I am encouraged to see that by breaking the writing process down into smaller chunks, I could help a student fall in love with writing and even become published!

Megan loves physical comedy, an artform she claims is lost in today’s entertainment industry.  One of her life dreams is to bring things around full circle and create animation for Pixar or DreamWorks which would be in the Three Stooges genre of physical comedy.

I have somewhat lost touch with Megan over the years.  While I follow her on social media, I had only a vague idea of what she’s been doing.  I have thoroughly enjoyed catching up with her and hearing about the incredible work she has been doing.

And to think… I once taught someone who can be found on IMDB.

Keep up the good work, Megan!

Jessica, Special Education Teacher

I am celebrating my 20th year of teaching by profiling former students who are doing great things in their field. As I've watched them grow into adults, I have been impressed with an aspect of their lives and want to share them with you. I fully recognize that I was merely a small part in their growth and development, but I can't help to be proud. By highlighting these former students I hope to encourage other teachers that what we do is a noble and worthy cause. We have the ability to boost others to greatness we have never considered.

I remember Jessica as an incoming fifth grader to our school, the oldest of five kids.  When I had Jess in sixth grade, I could not imagine how her mom handled five kids -- all in elementary school.  

Eventually, my wife (5th grade teacher) and I (6th grade teacher) had all five of those siblings in our classes and even led a few in the junior high youth group we started at our church.  Over time, Jess, KK, and the whole family became our friends more than our students or school parents.

Back in the day, we would take kids out to eat or to our homes for lunch.  Jessica remembers those times and marvels at how we put up with what could be called “childish behavior.” But the paper pickles, poking on the arm, and burnt brownies were part of a respectful banter that continues to this day. In JUMP (our jr hi group) my wife was Jess’s (and later KK’s) small group leader, which continued the relationship.  In high school, Jess volunteered to help my wife in her class for two years, leading Celeste to mentor her further.

Today, we somehow found ourselves with free babysitting and lawn care (when I’m physically unable to do it myself) from the Ungerecht Family. Jess now lives in Indianapolis but makes it a point to come visit us for food and catching up when she is in town.  We even had the joy of visiting Jess a couple years ago so she could show us around town.  

When I had Jess ages ago, I’m not sure I could have looked to 2013 and seen this happen, but I’m glad it has.  I wish I could say that my wife and I have poured ourselves into more of our students...but that would make an astronomical food bill. :)

Jess is in her third year of teaching at a charter high school in Indianapolis, where she focuses on special education and English. She works with numerous academic situations, from students with moderate cognitive disabilities reading at a 3rd grade level all the way to students working on an AP Lit level.  On top of this, she is a special education case manager for 25 students.  What I love is following her on Instagram and Twitter, seeing her interact with her students.  There is always one young man, in particular, who seems to always be in her pics with a big grin on his face.

As a teacher, I admittedly relate best with the top third of the class.  I struggle with communicating with and helping the students who struggle with the information.  I always marvel at those who can naturally enjoy working alongside those with special needs. This is something Jessica has been working toward since her freshman year in high school.  Now that she is in her third year of teaching she is seeing some fruit of her labor.  By collaborating with other passionate colleagues and watching her core student base grow and mature, she is thoroughly happy with what she is doing.

Jess is taking this perspective of a real teacher/student relationship into her classroom, and this benefits her students. She sees that her students are real people that she can build into so they can be inspired for greatness as well.

This past summer, Jess was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, which now is taking a lot of her non-school focus.  However, she’s already determined she will beat it and is beginning treatments.

In the future, Jess would love to return to Jamaica, where she once on a missions trip in high school and once on a teaching trip while in college.  Special ed students there are ignored and left to fend for themselves in school, and she would love to start a school especially for them.

It’s exciting to see Jess growing and pouring her life into her students.  It’s fun to hear her stories of school antics.  And I can’t wait to see what will happen next.

The first is from graduation with some of her now former students. The second is from one of her trips to Jamaica. My personal favorite is the third picture, from our trip to Indy to visit her. The last two are from her sixth grade year, and I'm realizing how good Weight Watchers was to me.

You can follow Jess on Twitter, but she told me her account is set to private. She has to be highly selective of who she allows to follow her due to her school’s social media regulations.  Still, if you are a special ed teacher, thyroid cancer survivor, or lover of Jamaica or Bad Robot, she’ll probably let you in.

Persuasive Presentations

In my middle school Tools for Tech class, my students created a persuasive presentation. I had a few goals for this project.

1. Try to persuade not just give information.
2. Review the first unit of Common Sense Media. 
3. Try something other than PowerPoint or Keynote, something new.
4. Use creative commons pictures, keeping creators' rights in mind.
5. Speak using notes, not reading off the screen.

I've embedded the students' presentations below.  Enjoy!

I could not embed the fourth presentation for some reason, so I have the link here.

Did I achieve my goals? Yes, but I still want to tweak it for next semester.

1. I want to focus more on the Common Sense Media topics.  For some reason, I allowed them to talk about something that is meaningful to them.  I guess I was hoping a social issue (like world hunger or human trafficking) would come up.  
2. Since everyone picked Prezi, I think I may put that on the banned list.  I'm not banning for the sake of banning.  I'm trying to open them up to new things, push them out of their comfort zone.  

How do you teach persuasive presentations?

Cloud Photo Sharing?

I need some help.  I am the Facebook Administrator for my school, and I'm constantly bugging people for pictures of events.  Of course, I'm not the only person who would like to have photos.  The webmaster wants pictures for our school site, our athletic director wants pictures for the athletics site, the yearbook queen wants... well,  you know.

What I want is a cloud-based photo storage site that will allow multiple users to upload and download pictures for whatever use we need.  That will keep me from bugging volunteer moms for pictures or constantly asking people to share with me.

I originally thought of Picasa.  We would just need to rig up a gmail address and only share the login info with the people who need it. However, it looks like Picasa is going away soon to be gobbled up by Google+.  Now, I don't think Google+ is a bad thing.  I dabble in it occasionally myself. However, I'm not looking for a place where we can share photos with the world, just within our small community of photo-takers and photo-users in our school.

So, some questions you may be able to help me with...
1.  Can I upload pics to Google+ and NOT share them with the world?
2.  Can I create files or albums within Google+ so I can easily find what I want?
3.  Is there a site out there better than Google+?

Thanks!

KK, Photography and Philanthropy

I am celebrating my 20th year of teaching by profiling former students who are doing great things in their field. As I've watched them grow into adults, I have been impressed with an aspect of their lives and want to share them with you. I fully recognize that I was merely a small part in their growth and development, but I can't help to be proud. By highlighting these former students I hope to encourage other teachers that what we do is a noble and worthy cause. We have the ability to boost others to greatness we have never considered. 

Kristin owns her own photography business here in the Cincinnati area. She focuses mostly on senior and wedding photography, but also does incredible portraits.  In fact, we love KK's work so much, she is our family photographer, taking some awesome pictures of our daughter.  While building her own business, she also works part time for another photographer in the area as a studio manager.  What impresses me most about KK is not her awesome photography skills, but the wonderful volunteer work she has done with those skills.

A few years ago, she partnered with her church to photograph underprivileged single moms and their kids free of charge, desiring to give these families a gift that many of us see as a normal part of life. In addition to this, KK has been taking pictures to help her church, LIFT (a gathering of young adults in Cincinnati designed to spur them into action), and various missions trips she's been on.  Always breaking new ground, Kristin has started attending and planning Pursuit 31 Conferences, dedicated to helping women have successful businesses in the creative arts while cultivating a relationship with God, and now works with Delight, a sister organization of Pursuit dedicated to helping young ladies pursue excellence in creative fields. She is even planning a trip to Ecuador next year to work at an orphanage.

In case you haven't realized it already, Kristin has a heart for people and especially those who are less fortunate than her. This love has been cultivated through a few avenues.  She mentioned a missions trip to Brazil after graduating from high school that opened her eyes to the needs of others but also the need for a bigger and bolder life mission.  Kristin also noted that youth leaders had poured into her life and she wanted to be able to do that through leading small groups at Pursuit and Delight. 

In the future, KK would love to be able to broaden that mission by creating photo documentaries highlighting people on the front lines of helping the less fortunate -- whether it be orphans, human trafficking, battered women, or the starving. I can't wait to see what's to come!

I'm finding that many of my former students have trouble remembering much of elementary school, which bursts my bubble a bit.  However, I am finding it interesting what students DO remember about me. I feel the need to just quote Kristin outright on this one. "I have no idea if you remember this, but there was one time you yelled at my class. Like super angry yelled. I don't remember why – we did something (or a lot of little somethings, more likely – ha!) – and you were upset. But what I remember about it is that you came back and apologized to us as a class. That's the first time I think I'd ever seen a teacher do that... own up to making a mistake and just say 'I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that.' It's stuck with me." I'm glad I did something to make mistake right and that it made an impact in someone's life.

I'm very excited that my family gets to stay in contact with Kristin.  She is one of my daughter's favorite babysitters, her photographer, and was our dogsitter before we had to put our dog down recently.  She still comes to visit on occasion and I love catching up.  The best days are ahead for KK and I'm looking forward to where she goes from here. 

Feel free to follow KK on Twitter or Instagram.

I've asked students to share picture of us back in the day and something more current. You'll see some goodies here, including International day, Salute to Sixth Grade, a picture of when we visited KK's sister in Indianapolis, and some promo shots for her business.  Enjoy!

Oh, and I thought I would add a great shot from my daughter's most recent photo shoot.