Lessons from a Plastic Eggplant: The Importance of Open Access in Education

^{"When you decline to create or curate a culture in your spaces, you're responsible for what spawns in the vacuum." -Leigh Alexander, 2014} 

So this quote, used in a pretty powerful taped lecture by Dr. Alec Couros*, is actually from an article on a Gamer website. At first, when I tracked down the original source, it made me chuckle. A world-famous educator referencing a quote as profound and meaningful... from a "video game culture writer" (as Alexander calls himself). But I think this clash-turned-synthesis of two very different worlds illustrates at a very basic level exactly what "open learning" is. It is using the vast world of knowledge available to us to connect and build our own knowledge... and then, ideally, eventually contributing our own ideas in return. 

* Here's a link to Dr. Couros' blog... I couldn't get the lecture itself to hyperlink.

As I am writing this, I am holed up in the basement, pretending not to exist. I snuck down here to do homework during my little one's nap and my mother is now graciously watching her tear the house apart, I'm sure. I have to hide because Lucy will want my attention.  All of it.  She doesn't care whether I get a good grade or obtain some greater insight into my journey to being an art teacher. Lucy just wants me to be a willing 'dinner guest' in her tiny playhouse, where she will hand me plastic fruit and I will dramatically 'eat' it and exclaim :Yum! Thank you!" Sometimes, she hands me a tiny purple eggplant (which is, oddly, the same size as the plastic strawberry - where is your sense of scale, toy people!?) and just before I take it, she changes her mind and yells "Mine!!"  I am now forbidden to 'eat' it.  And this is hysterical to her... it becomes a game where I plead for the eggplant (I don't even like eggplant!) and she runs out of the tiny house, clutching her plastic prize and shrieking "NOooo!! MINE!!!" 

Now, is my toddler greedy? Perhaps. But what toddler isn't a little egocentric?  Lucy is convinced we are all here to care for and entertain her. She is the center of the universe.  And there's no use arguing against this notion until she is ready to accept it.  

She hasn't developed what I learned in my Educational Psychology class is called "theory of mind".  Essentially, theory of mind is the ability to understand that others may have different feelings, beliefs, knowledge, intentions, or perspectives different from your own. It typically evolves between early infancy through about age 5, when a child truly grasps that others think differently. And, as we grow and learn and observe... we must devise methods to question the validity of other's thinking, especially in an academic sense: What is their motive? What might their bias be? Who might disagree with this point of view? What do I think about it?  I guess, in this rapidly changing world of open learning and infinite resources to draw from, as educators it is our job to facilitate and direct this curiosity... both for our students and for ourselves - and colleagues, for that matter! 

After all in David Wiley's TED TALK he points out "If there is no sharing, there is no education."  We cannot be toddlers, possessive of our work or our insights - greedily running down the hallway screaming "Mine! Mine! Mine!" Instead, our teacher battle cry should be "Ours! Ours! Ours!".  There's a colloquialism that refers to certain truths being "common knowledge" - i.e. the sky is blue, George Washington was the first president of the US... But why can't everything - or at least more things - be "Common Knowledge?" Or at least the goal of education could be to work towards that lofty ambition.  Take Wikipedia, for example. It is the epitome of "participatory culture".  In fact, there's even a wiki for participatory culture, in which it states:

Social and participatory media allow for—and, indeed, call for—a shift in how we approach teaching and learning in the classroom. The increased availability of the Internet in classrooms allows for greater access to information. For example, it is no longer necessary for relevant knowledge to be contained in some combination of the teacher and textbooks; today, knowledge can be more de-centralized and made available for all learners to access. The teacher, then, can help facilitate efficient and effective means of accessing, interpreting, and making use of that knowledge.

The very premise of Wikipedia is both awesome and terrifying.  If anyone can edit it, then how is a discerning reader supposed to trust the information it presents?  I remember being cautioned against relying on Wikipedia as a reliable source for research papers in school. But the more I read, the less skeptical I am... In fact, I found a really good article that explains the process of creating and maintaining a wiki: How Wikis Work

If you don't like what is out there as consumable internet literature as it pertains to your given subject matter, is complaining about it going to fix anything? Who knows... You could comment after a distressing - or even incorrect - article.There is an enabling anonymity online.  One that emboldens us to put thoughts out there that we may otherwise keep to ourselves out of politeness. But often others have enough control to delete your competing viewpoint. And does expressing unhappiness with content really change anything? Or are you just another faceless dissenter?  

Perhaps our jobs as educators is to fill the "vacuum within our spaces"...  to provide meaningful content that furthers others' understanding of the subject matter we wish to teach - or, if that seems too daunting, to at least attempt to flush out errors or unproven statements of fact and correct them - or, at the very, very least, learn where the most reliable sources are and how to direct your students to them!  After all, we have more technology at our finger tips than any generation before us. Think about it...

According to FlightGlobal (“Serious About Aviation”), the Apollo Guidance Computer, or AGC, had just 64KB of memory and only 0.043 MHz of processing power. That was enormous at the time, of course, but compare those specs with those of modern netbooks—the pint-sized laptops that are considered underpowered by today’s computing standards.

The typical netbook has over 100 GB of capacity – more than a million times that of the computer on which NASA staked an historic mission and the lives of three astronauts. And a netbook’s 1.6GHz processor is several thousand times faster than that of 1969’s AGC.* 

So, we have these amazing machines.  What we choose to do with them is up to us.  Take this screenshot from that lecture I referenced at the beginning of this blog: 

Using this device "capable of accessing the entirely of information known to man" to do something other than look at cat pictures...can we really replace the original model of teaching? A model "In which a single, presumably omniscient teacher explicitly tells or shows presumably unknowing learners something they presumably know nothing about"* and textbooks - which can become outdated by the time they are finally written, edited, published, and disseminated - are the sources of knowledge? Of course we can! I love the idea of Open Education Resources!  Check out this video!

For my Content Literacy class this week I am supposed to take a textbook from my subject area and critique it.  Literally, the only example available in my college library is a second grade "Art Connections" book written in 1998.  Granted, using textbooks for art education is not exactly common practice - it's more of a learn by doing sort of activity.  But, as I move down the list of things I'm supposed to critique, I can't help but think "Good Lord, if this book were what I had to rely on to help educate my students, we'd all be totally screwed!"  Thank goodness I will be teaching in an era where there are blogs by creative art teachers to spark ideas, or how-to videos on YouTube for a project I may not totally know how to do but want my students to experience it, or awesome resources for art history and museum collections where we can view masterpieces instead of cat videos!

If we use this new world of technology responsibly, it will be an asset in this evolving definition of education. Learn and give... Share and cultivate... Fill the vacuum and expand your own "theory of mind"... Do not cling to your proverbial eggplant and run screaming "Mine! Mine! Mine!"  There's a whole, unlimited grocery store out there - with enough for everyone! Go, use this wonderful technology, and make a salad or something else delicious!  Just choose wisely, not everything available is healthy.  And sometimes it's mislabeled or past its expiration date. Make good choices and you'll make a difference in everyone's life that you invite to eat at your table.  

Happy shopping, everyone!

Eye Opener - My Introduction to Actual Teaching

Hello again,

So this week was...interesting. I feel the need to reflect on it, outside of assignment guidelines and probably without much extra content.  This is more of a confessional.  Two things happened - actually more related to my Educational Psychology class than the Technologies class that I started this blog for.  Still, this whole crazy life and career "reset" is rather intertwined within itself, so why not share? 

First, for my Ed Psyche class I'm writing a group project paper on a bullying case study. Even though it's a theoretical scenario, my heart hurts for this fictional high school student, Joshua, who is the victim of a false rumor that he is gay. The harassment has escalated from hallway name calling to jeers at his curtain call for the school play to his car being sabotaged in his own driveway.  He and his parents (and the school administration) fear for his safety. Joshua goes from being an honors student very involved in extracurricular to withdrawing emotionally, getting poor grades, and becoming involved in his former passions. 

Here's a link to the Stop Bullying website

Having to write about the situation and what I/we would do as teachers in the school is difficult. All 3 of us working on the project have had experience with being bullied or targets of false rumors... and all of us went to similar high schools to the case study (semi-rural/suburban, not really diverse, and relatively small). And, while no one thought they'd ever been a bully...unfortunately, we all remember times when we witnessed someone else being targeted by a bully and should have spoken up but didn't. It occurred to me as we responded to each question What could Joshua have done differently? The administration? What would you as a teacher have done? What do you think will happen next? That last question kind of scares me - if recent trends are considered, Joshua might hurt himself or someone else.  Or he'll drop out.  Or give up on life in general.  That's so scary!!  It's intimidating to think that an involved teacher might be the one thing that stands between this poor kid and the worst case scenario.  Am I ready for that kind of pressure?



Speaking of feeling unprepared...I have been enrolled in education courses of any kind for a whopping 4 weeks now.  My undergrad degree is in Fine Art and I have no previous teaching experience in a school setting.  I taught karate to children for many years, have been a camp counselor/arts and crafts instructor, and given piano lessons.  But as far as standing up in front of a (small) sea of expectant young scholars on a regular basis, not so much. Well, at least that was how I naively expected teaching to be... full of attentive young minds as excited to learn as I am to teach.  I mean, I was a total nerd (an eclectic, karate devotee, artsy and musical free spirit... with really good grades in all my AP and Honors courses.  I like to learn! Heck, I never took a single study hall - and did Chemistry and Health through correspondence classes so I could squeeze more art classes in to my school day! AKA total nerd.)  I guess I knew deep down that I was more an exception than a rule as far as students go... but I always assumed those who struggled just didn't like school.  They may not have been particularly attentive but at least everyone in my small, semi-rural, pathetically un-diverse school district was respectful.   

Then I did my first 7 hours of field experience as a tutor in an inner-city Akron school.  Eye opener is an understatement. I was assigned to follow 2 sophomore girls through their classes and help whenever necessary.  Before I officially started there was an orientation day where I met my students... we'll call them Nikki and Stella.  I was kind of dreading the whole experience after I found out the tutoring program my class was pairing with for Ed Psyche field experience is basically supposed to be intensive prep of the OGT test. Meaning I'm supposed to help these kids in math and English, mostly.  English no problem.  Math... weeellll... I mean, nerd that I was I took advanced courses in high school, but I don't remember a damn thing.  Believe it or not Mr Warmbrodt - I have yet to use sine or cosine in real life.  Ever.  Nor have I had to find a coefficient.  Nor do I even remember what a coefficient is. 

But at orientation, both girls said they struggled more in English than anything. Nikki insisted they never did anything in her class... that everyone just goofed off.  And Stella said she had the resident "mean teacher" and wasn't getting anything out of it either. So Friday morning, first class of the day I sat down with Nikki. There were about 20 kids in there. You would have thought there were 113.  It was SO LOUD! And chaotic.  Everyone was up, talking, had their phones out, throwing stuff.  It was the teacher's first day, and the long-term sub that had been there was there to help "ease transition."  The sub was a quirky old guy with Einstein hair and a 70's burnout personality.  The new teacher was a young man, full of ideas.  He was also the FIFTH teacher to head that class in a year and a half, Nikki told me. He was desperately trying to take control of the classroom while Mr. CheechandChong sat back looking amused.  

Mr. Freshface used a commanding voice, set clear instructions and expectations... did everything any good teacher would do.  But the kids, with the exception of a very frustrated and eye-rolling Nikki and a few others, paid him no attention. One actually told him to "Shut the f*** up" when Mr. Freshface told him to get off the table, take his headphones off and get to work. The assignment he was trying to do was simple.  He asked them to write a paragraph defining what success meant to them personally and how they thought this class - and school in general - could help them achieve it. He had other things on the agenda too, but it was clear they wouldn't even get this done.  Nikki finished her paragraph with little help - basically saying she wants to be a nurse and obviously one needs a good education to do that. A few others finished eventually.  But the rowdiest contingent - a table full of football players, including an 19 year old sophomore - wasn't doing anything but swearing and goofing off as obnoxiously as possible.  

Mr. Freshface tried several different approaches to engage them.  But it was like herding cats.  He finally got one of the more attentive students to read his paragraph aloud.  As this poor kid is stumbling through a poorly written paragraph, the adult-aged 10th grader pulls out a jump rope, got up, and starts jumping. Seriously.  And the day only got worse from there.  There was the lock down during second period while a drug dog swept the school.  There was the kid who pushed me in the hallway and said "Move, bitch!" And every class was (almost) as rowdy as the first! Eventually I ended up in Stella's English class. This teacher ruled with an iron fist.  Everyone hated her.  But she also was the only educator all day that seemed to have any sort of a grip on the chaos that was the student body! Yet Stella and her friends were convinced she was evil...

This all kind of freaks me out. I mean, I know kids aren't all willing scholars... but I guess I never pictured a completely out of control class room.  Is it the teacher's fault - especially those like Mr. Freshface who come into a situation of academic anarchy mid year?  How do you turn this situation around? What do you do about students like Nikki who genuinely want to learn but can't because of the flurry of nonsense around them?  Any thoughts? 

Sharing - That's Where the Joy Is

"What's the point of making something if you don't share it?  That's where the joy is!" 

In her video (below), Amy Burvall quotes her mother - an avid baker who enjoys sharing her creations with others. I too am an avid baker. I get it.  I mean, you don't bake 2 dozen football-themed cupcakes and not take them to a Superbowl party.  You could sit at home and eat them all until cream cheese comes out of your nose... but where's the joy in that?  The connection between baking and sharing is obvious.  Teaching and sharing? Well yes - obviously you are sharing your knowledge with your students. And there is joy in seeing your students' "Aha!" moments.  That's why a lot of people say teaching is worth it - and it gets them through the harder times. And then there's your colleagues, face-to-face, sharing successful ideas and swapping war stories. But when you share online with the anonymous hoards, is it rewarding? Is it really your "duty" as an educator to do so? Is it self-indulgent to say "Hey everyone! Listen/watch my great idea!! I'm a freaking genius!!" or "Look at the insightful connection I just made!" Besides complimentary or encouraging comments (if you're lucky enough to get any) is there a way to enjoy the "Aha!"s?  Or is the joy a more altruistic one of putting your ideas out for the world to see and hope they inspire a hapless stranger?

Jean Snyder's blog post,  On the Moral Obligations of Sharing , made an interesting point and I like the simple "equation": 

"Through this process, I have discovered what Lyn Hilt (@L_Hilt) has referred to as "Effort In = Reward Out." Along the way, I have benefited in real ways from the ideas, practices and insights shared by the amazing and thoughtful educators who are part of my PLN. Engaging with the work of others has nudged me to take risks, pushed me to think more deeply, and opened up new ideas for empowering students in their learning." 

OK, so taking risks... thinking deeply... staying open to ideas... those are all good things. And if this new world I'm entering of technological sharing and PLNs fosters these good things, I guess that's the point.  And Effort In = Reward Out makes a lot of sense.  Although sometimes, it seems the effort far outweighs the reward.  This is discouraging for teachers.

Among other interesting things, Dean Shareski's often cited video Sharing: The Moral Imperative talks about the task of educators filtering out the "best information" out there for the purpose of educating our students as opposed to exerting so much energy of starting from scratch and developing it ourselves. But someone had to do it... someone had to be the original, the person who actually was willing to delve into their own imaginations. This makes me think of Pintrest. For a creative person like me, it's addictive.  And for those who want to pretend to be creative - it's even better!

For my daughter's first birthday I went a little crazy.  And I blame Pintrest. I spent many late nights following step by step directions, or interpeting others' photos to duplicate their ideas - there were some I adapted or improved upon for my situation.  And I was super proud of the finished experience... my 6 year old cousin excitedly told me it was the "best party ever" and she felt like she was really in Oz.  

One of the games we 

played was "Melt the Witch".  

We threw water balloons at 

watercolor paintings I did 

of the witch.

   I made Lucy's "Dorothy" outfit from 

scratch (with a jumper pattern) 

My "Glenda" dress was a 

repurposed/hacked up/painted

Goodwill bridesmaid dress

 

I won't even tell you how many hours 

I spent stapling freaking construction 

paper rings together for this 

crowning achievement...

Remember how I said I liked to bake? I seriously made 

7 different themed cupcakes (one for each main character).

Then - and this was one of my original ideas - 

I used some dissected and reassembled lathed spindles 

to create an Emerald City with a felt Yellow Brick Road 

But afterwards, as I took time to reflect and scrape cupcake frosting off the back patio, I was thinking about how all the adults kept complimenting my "creativity." But truly - was there anything creative about this experience? Yes, I took the time to collect other's ideas and personalize them... but there was very little I came up with on my own. Why bother?  It was all already out there in cyberspace - ripe for the picking.  But in a way - especially as an artist - this sort of scares me. 

What will happen to creativity as a whole...? I mean, I know throughout history, artists have built upon the shoulders of their predecessors - either making direct copies as a means of studying technique or making specific stylistic deviations from the past to portray a cultural or personal statement (i.e. Impressionism as a reaction to more staged classical styles and Salon staples). But still, in this era of readily available inspiration at the click of a mouse, it's really tempting to just replicate what you see and reap the rewards and compliments.  And at that point, can you really call it art? 

As an art teacher, how do you foster independent creativity? If everyone is drawing the same still-life it's not necessarily an exercise in creativity as much as teaching the practical skills of drawing from life for developing shading and perspective. I suppose, with older students, more open ended, conceptual assignments - i.e. create a 2-D piece that illustrates "tricking the eye" or (one of my favorites from college) create a 3-D 'container' whose outsides belie the inner contents.  (I made a 3-tiered mock wedding cake that when you lifted each successive layer off it revealed a succession of dioramas depicting the breakdown of a marriage - hmmm... personal foreshadowing there, perhaps?) 

I formed and "frosted" cardboard round
boxes then dipped silk flowers in a Crock-pot
full of vanilla frosting scented wax to 
decorate it. I kid you not, that pretend
 cake smelled like real cake for 3 years!! 

 And each layer came off to tell the story.  

The top layer is a happy marriage - there are 2 little birds 

in a nest within a white picket fence, sweet sentimental text. 

The middle has a shirt collar with lipstick on it... 

a beer can... the one bird is perched precariously on the fence 

and the text ribbon has some accusatory phrases. 

And a man's wedding ring.  The last one has broken china 

and total chaos, a bird is missing, there are

2 rings nestled sadly in the eye of the storm

So, since I'm pretty sure I want to teach middle school - possibly high school art - I'll try to embrace age and ability appropriate open-ended assignments. But where do I come up with those.  Is it my duty to be original?  Or do I peruse the internet... consult my PLN... let others do the work for me and then I participate by handling logistics and making sure we have the necessary supplies and clear instructions?  Or is it an amalgamation of the two? That's what I'm going to go with.  Look for inspiration, not replication.  Tailor good ideas to my students' needs and interests.  

 "We all want credit for our contributions and the moment we focus on protecting our work we are in some ways the antithesis of a teacher." Shareski says.  

My cousin and fellow Pintrest-addict, Lexxi, (ironically, a kindergarten teacher) went nuts over my party. She was my documentarian/photographer. "Are you gonna put this on Pintrest!?" she asked me at least a dozen times - usually whenever we came upon a new element along my "Yellow Brick Road" trek with the kids through the woods. I considered this while cleaning up... Why bother? I thought. I got most of my ideas off there anyways... so how would I be contributing anything new? 

While throwing a kids party is different than teaching in a classroom (although Lexxi insisted it was more similar than I thought...), looking back now I see how perhaps sharing my party stuff could benefit someone else. I did come up with creative solutions to problems on my own, like the cupcake display... And there were things I had wished the posting contributors of the ideas I used had included... like reminding the reader to put the watercolor paintings on wood backing, not thick posterboard that disintegrates with the enthusiastic pummeling of water balloons!  So yes - in a small way I could contribute.  I could build on existing information.  

I liked Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano's  3 Reasons Why You Should Share and 3 Things You Can Do to Start Sharing:

So here is my list: 3 Things Why You (as an Educator)  Should Share

1. The shift of a culture of consumers to producers is built on sharing and disseminating.
Our world, and in particular the world of our students, is build on the culture of sharing. Ex. Sharing your status on facebook, adding a book review on Amazon, leaving a comment on a product you purchased online, photos on Instagram and videos on Snapchat and YouTube. Educators need to acknowledge the shift outside of the classroom and take advantage of the shift for learning with our students.

2. Painting the picture of teaching and learning in your school
Too many other people (non-educators, policy makers, politicians, media, etc.) are painting a grim picture of the teaching profession, teaching in general, schools and student learning. It is time to become our own storytellers. Sharing student successes and teachers’ professional and continuous learning MUST overshadow and outnumber the negative press and reputation that has been building up.

3. The future of learning is social and build on and around Professional Learning Networks.
Networking is built on a concept of sharing. Networking is defined by the Merriam_Webster dictionary as “the exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions”. In order for an exchange to take place, someone has to step up to SHARE. Without sharing there is no network. Someone has to give and someone has to take, without giving the machinery of how a network works will not function. In our Information Age, where information is being generated at exponential speed, we need to rely on a network to filter quality and relevant information for us. It is our responsibility to be the filter and curator for others as well.

So from 3 reasons WHY you should share… on to 3 Things you can do to start sharing…

3 Things What You (as an Educator) Can Do to Start Sharing

1. Stop resisting change
We need educators, in particular administrators, to stop resisting change, take a deeper look at the world around them and LEAD by modeling!  Sharing is and needs to be a method, a strategy and a technique to improve teaching and learning practices, benefiting an entire school  learning community.

2. Create a workflow to document teaching and learning
Great things are happening in your classroom and in your schools. Learn to embed documenting best practices, student learning and action research in a digital form to be able to easily disseminate via a blog, twitter, photo or video sharing site.

3. Start small.

Add a comment on a blog you read, share a resource, a link, a book or an article you have learned from on Twitter. Let students take over in documenting learning in their classroom. Use your cell phone to take photos of learning in action, write a descriptive comment under the photo and share on a blog, Instagram, a classroom site, blog,  Twitter or Facebook account. 

So OK - I may be resistant to technology and social media... but I can't argue with the obvious benefits of being more than a "lurker" online. You never know if you're holding information someone else could benefit from - who am I to decide what other people find interesting?  It's important to edit, to not supply so much information that the critical pieces get lost.  I mean, I have 257 pictures of Lucy's birthday party. I could have subjected you to every last one... but I didn't.  I picked the best ones, the ones that highlighted the points I was trying to make.  And as far as the formality of blogs and other sharing venues/public media - as long as they are legible and cohesive, what's the harm in letting a little colloquial swearing in or overzealous use of ... punctuation?  It's important to appear credible but sometimes super formal academic writing can be dry and hard to decipher... and, honestly, boring!  Engage your readers/viewers!  It's easier to read something that flows conversationally than a mess of statistics or jargon.  

Let's contribute! Let the world read my babbling and do what it will with it! Maybe someday there will be a mother struggling with how to create the perfect cupcake display for her kid's birthday party and she's just too damn tired to come up with something original. Hey - I can help with that...  And that - as a baker, (future) teacher, mommy, and artist - is the joy of sharing.

Kicking and Screaming... My Intrigued (But Reluctant) Entry Into Social Media

Hello Internet...

My name is Sara Vandygriff. I am an artist. I am hoping to be an art teacher. I am a free spirit and my fingers are much more comfortable clutching a paintbrush than pounding at a keyboard.  Oh, and I am a recently surprised-to-be-single mother (surprised...as in "Surprise, future ex-wife of mine and mother of my toddler! I'm leaving you... for your also-married-with-children friend! Don't try to change my mind, I already moved my stuff out! Ta-ta!" - paraphrasing my soon-to-be ex husband). I am just now pulling my head out of my very depressed turtle shell and taking inventory of my life and myself.  Here's what I came up with.  In rapid succession, I've lost my husband (and, obviously, my friend too), most of my family income, my townhouse... I had to take Lucy and move in with my parents. I moved away from my friends (the ones who didn't steal my husband), my town of 10 years, coworkers I adored, and the freedom to eat ice cream for lunch while still in my pajamas without getting the stink-eye from my mother. I gave my whole life up (well, what was left of it) and moved in with my parents because I realized I finally had a chance to do something He never "let" me do... pursue a career that meant something.  

My second year of undergrad studies as a Fine Art major, I met Him on a blind date.  We hit it off.  We got an apartment.  He seemed so supportive of my dreams. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go the art history route, or art teacher, or art therapist... so I knew I'd have to go to grad school. I eventually graduated and hurried to get a temporary part time job to tide me over with insurance til we decided where we would end up - a friend got me a bank teller job.  We got married. I brought up grad school... shot down.  "You've got a good job at the bank with good hours. Just suck it up."  So I picked up more hours and let the resentment build.  Then we had a long, difficult pregnancy and a beautiful baby girl. Lucy got older and I brought up school again... he pointed out how ridiculously expensive babies are ... so tough luck, dream's dead. "In fact, look into getting a full-time position," he said. Nearly 10 years in, I had just started working up the nerve to bring it up again when he dropped a bomb on everything and left.  With my married friend. And her kids. Gone.  

So that's my recent life in a painful nutshell.  While I wait impatiently for karma to make a (hopefully grand) appearance, I decided something good should come out of this kick in the teeth... and it's going to be working my tail off to get a career I am passionate about: where I help people, I create things, I am challenged. I don't want to be a bank teller anymore.  I want to be an art teacher. I want Lucy to see me excited about what I do, not trudging to a meaningless job that pays the bills. So, years from now, as she's helping Mommy divvy up glue sticks and tear up newspaper for paper mache we will talk about the fun projects Mommy is doing with her students, heck - we might try a few out at home.  

Anyways, on to the pertinent part of this...after all, we're here to talk about education and technology (and eventually, art).  My relationship with technology is only slightly better than my relationship with my ex. It has been a long standing joke in my family that I have been cursed by the technology gods. When it comes to computers and phones... just call me Murphy...If it can go wrong, it will. My phone is the one that updates and erases every photo I've ever taken. I can have a homework assignment done a week early, yet 6 minutes before class I'm still fighting with one printer or another to spit out my essay! (Because, in my undergrad days, we submitted actual paper!) Let me describe a typical December crisis for you.  I love photos and I enjoy designing photo albums. Digitally, believe it or not. I am also queen of the photo gift.  Are you the grandparent of my child? Fantastic!  Christmas solved... then something inevitably goes wrong technologically. I can't tell you how many Christmas IOUs I've written because of technical difficulties. 

As for social media. I use Facebook. That's about it.  (I've used both Instagram and Snapchat but sparingly and not for a while.  At the beginning of the year I started online dating via Match.com.  That's a whole new level of fodder for a far different venue than this!)  But Facebook is my go-to way of keeping in touch.  I especially like it now because I get to keep up with my in-law family, which I'm very close with... but at the moment, for obvious reasons, things are strained.  I barely ever post anything myself.  And if I do, 90% of the time its pictures of my kid.  I observe rather than contribute. 

The same cannot be said for teenagers. I watch my teenage cousins, thumbs a-flyin' constantly over their phones and obsessively taking selfies. It worries me... it seems like an addiction.  I worry what the technological landscape will look like when Lucy is old enough to enter it (which, at today's pace, seems like maybe a year or two... Toddler Twitter may be a thing before we know it.) I found a really insightful article by Clay Cranford entitled Understanding Why Social Media is So Important to Teens 

 

"Social media has created a feeling of connectedness never experienced before in human history. Your children do not know a world without the Internet or social media, and they can’t imagine being in a world without it. In a study conducted by Cisco, they found that more than half of the young people surveyed considered the Internet an “integral part of their lives,” as important as food, water and even air. Social media was something “that they could not live without.” (Cisco, 2014)

Seriously?  As important as air? It seems laughable as a mature adult.  I've never been one to measure my self worth or my public image by other people's "likes" or comments.  I'll admit it, I've secretly rolled my eyes  at those not-so-mature adults who give so much credence to the basically anonymous hoards of internet opinion-givers.  Until I became one of those people... because of a recent social media war gave me some perspective. 

Right around Christmas, after a particularly painful argument in which my ex couldn't understand why I wouldn't let him have Lucy both Christmas Eve (when his family celebrates, always) and Christmas morning.... so our daughter could be there with his girlfriend's children and they could have a "family Christmas" of their own.   Apparently I'm "spiteful" because I wasn't supportive of the new family he's so quick to create while I'm still sifting through boxes in my parents' basement to find my baking supplies to make cookies for the half of my family I still have left.

So the weekend before Christmas the "new family" must have had a Christmas celebration of their own. And he POSTS IT ON FACEBOOK - a whole album entitled "Life is Good".  The man literally has NEVER made a single post... not when we got married, not when his daughter was born... not a virtual peep. Yet there he was - 22 pictures deep of him wrestling with all 3 kids, smiling with his arm around Her, Them baking cookies (he never baked with me)...  I was livid.  Distraught and livid.  I resisted the urge to comment but I found myself wishing there was a "disgusted with this post" button. I started obsessively checking Facebook for a week - to check people's reactions to it. I was pleased that literally only 11 people even responded - most of them her friends.  No comments either - just 11 "likes". Conspicuously absent were his family, her family (neither of which approve at all of their behavior) - they didn't respond at all.  And there was a sick vindication in that for me.

Around New Years, I posted a rather lengthy 'resolution' that basically outlined my plans to stop dwelling on the pain of the past and move forward.  I never said a negative word about Them - although I did make some references to "greener grasses that will undoubtedly shrivel over time meanwhile I'm turning what's left of my metaphorical 'yard' into a garden for my daughter and I." And it blew up.  I got something like 80 "likes" (that's like way more than half of my friends list) - my family, his family... heck, even her dad! The comments were numerous and super supportive.  I felt like I had won.  But won what?  I was investing WAY too much mental health and emotional vindication in the 'thumbs ups' given by people who minutes earlier were sharing cat memes.  

This whole experience came flooding back when I read Katie Benmar's blog post,  My Favorite Teachers Use Social Media: A Student Perspective. A real, live teenager.  In it she says:

"When you're in middle and high school, a lot depends on your status in social media. Where you fit into the large, seemingly mysterious network of school cliques is directly related to how many followers or friends you have online and how many "likes" you get on your social-media accounts. Getting a large amount of likes on a photo posted on Instagram or Facebook secures your status. It makes you feel important, popular, and well liked. Once students have a certain number of followers or likes, it's easier for them to feel they have control or power socially. Someone who's "popular" on social media can be incredibly intimidating. What they say goes."

Did getting more online support give me some sort of a social upper hand?  Did it "secure my status?" I don't know.... but I sure felt better about myself! The divorce lawyers won't care whose side the internet took but I sure did. So, congratulations to me, I'm a 31 year old single mom and I'm thinking along the lines of a 15 year old girl.  But in the grand scheme of things, there is merit in this - in understanding just how important this wide (and frankly terrifying) social media world is to the students I will have someday soon. This was a volatile and emotionally tumultuous relationship - but let's be honest, those words describe a large portion of the hormonally charged friendships and relationships in middle and high school. And for today's teen, your private life becoming public (either by your own volition or others) is pretty much inevitable. 

So if adolescence is basically intertwined with social media, I suppose teachers might as well tap in to this resource and bring a little education into the midst of all the drama.  Why not reach out to them on a venue they're going to be glued to anyways?  Andrew Watts'  A Teenagers View on Social Media was invaluable as a guide to 'kids these days' and there newfangled social media.  Seriously, I had no idea several of these networks even existed.  While I doubt I will become proficient in all of them - and I'm sure more will undoubtedly gain popularity in rapid succession.  In the mean time, while I am learning how to be a teacher I may as well learn to be friends with my computer and (outdated) smartphone.  I think this Instructional Technologies class - which I am writing this for - will be beneficial to me.  I'm going to need to relate to my students on whatever level I can. Judging by the length of this, my very first blog post ever (and if you've stuck with me to this point, kudos to you, intrepid reader) I think I may become a rather prolific blogger. I may try to keep things a little more professional - and on topic - from now on...but I guess this medium really let me unleash a little pent up frustration. Plus, I needed a backstory for my social media exploits story, and a little intro to who and where I am in life at the moment. (Trust me, I had to go back and erase several paragraphs of less important - but more cathartic - ranting.)  I really enjoyed Steve Wheeler's Seven Reasons Teachers Should Blog and my blogging experience thus far is kind of summarized perfectly within his blog:

 "Blogging can crystalise your thinking. In the act of writing, said Daniel Chandler, we are written. As we write, we invest a part of ourselves into the medium. The provisionality of the medium makes blogging conducive to drafting and redrafting. The act of composing and recomposing ideas can enable abstract thoughts to become more concrete. Your ideas are now on the screen in front of you; they can be stored, retrieved and reconstructed as your ideas become clearer. You don't have to publish if you want to keep those thoughts private. Save them and come back to them later. The blog can act as a kind of mirror to show you what you are thinking. Sometimes we don't really know what we are thinking until we actually write it down in a physical format."

Link Topic 

So I'm going to blog.  I'll experiment with other things to.  By the time I'm a real, live art teacher I'll be able to do all sorts of things. Maybe I'll learn cool ways to connect my students with famous artists' biographies - or even with current, working artists.  Maybe I can make and post "how-to" videos of the projects we'll be doing to refer to throughout the process.  I have no idea what I'm capable of.  I've literally never done anything but post to Facebook - and it took me 4 days to figure out how to erase my relationship status because I didn't even want to glorify the situation with an "it's complicated."  So I'm going to use what the internet has to offer and look at it as career development. I'll grow my PLN. What is a PLN you ask? Well, I just learned that myself...

So, if you have suggestions for blogs, articles, whatever other mysteries the internet holds, that may help me on this quest to restart my life and become an art teacher, I'd love it if you shared them with me!  Thanks for sticking with me to the end... which is more than I can say for my ex!  (Hah - comedic drum-and-cymbal combo). Seriously, though, I appreciate it and look forward to blogging more!