21st Century Learning

Student Designers... Threadless 101

My daughter Grace (pictured above wearing the "optical Illusion" threadless) loves Threadless T-shirts. She always asks for them for Christmas.

I recently got this email and thought I would share.

Hi There,

I wanted to let you know about a new program that is being hosted by Threadless which is a community-centered tee-shirt company based out of Chicago, IL called Threadless 101. 

The idea is this: students are given an assignment to create an original design for a tee-shirt-any and all specifications are up to the teacher! Their designs are critiqued and voted for by their classmates, and the student with the highest score will not only be featured in the Threadless newsletter, but will also receive a Threadless gift certificate. Once the assignment is completed and the winning design has been selected for the class, students can easily upload their design to the Threadless site to be included in our regular design challenge to get their tee actually printed. If their design is selected, they will receive a $3,000 tax-free scholarship and $500 each time their tee-shirt is re-printed.

Threadless 101 has just been successfully completed in 3 pilot programs across the United States.

Please let me know if you would like more information about this program and if you could maybe sneak in a post about it on your blog!

Warmly,

Fiona

Fiona Goldstein

The Family that Geeks Together- Stays Together

It has become apparent to me that I have raised a family with strong geek tendencies and I find it quite endearing. Don't get me wrong, we are all cultured and our interests range from the arts to medicine but deep down we are way techno-geek and nerdy about our passions.

Case in point- my son's recent letter to me.

Mom,

I have created a spreadsheet of To Do’s for me for the new house along with description and tentative due dates. Hopefully this will help expedite the situation and get the work done. Let me know if any of this doesn’t work for you. Love you.

His spreadsheet is below. This is typical of how we communicate within our family about the various projects we are working on. I hope to share some before and almost done project pics on the new house for those of you who are interested in seeing what we are creating together in my family of Geeks.

So what kind of emails do you get from your 22 year old son? Is your family in touch with its inner geek?

Finding Balance

 

In this new year many of us have promised ourselves to try and find more balance in our lives. I personally vowed to spend more time connected with the earth through hiking, walking on the beach, and playing hard with my four 20-something kids. And yet with all of the meaningful work I am engaged in online I often find it difficult to unplug. How does one balance their personal and professional lives, especially while living in a world where often those in the communities to which I belong contribute to a significant part of my personal growth and constitute a great deal of the human interaction I receive each day? How do I draw the line in the sand between have-tos and want-tos when because of the personalness of the connections the lines have become grayed?

TECHNOLOGY CAN HELP
Some folks tell me that if I buy the Life Balance software for iPhone and iPod touch that it will help a multi-tasking mobile professional like me who struggles to keep up with the demands of their busy life. Life Balance(TM) is personal coaching software that helps you to decide what to work on, so that you can put your effort into the goals, projects and tasks that really matter to you.

Scott Elias, Expert Voice in the New Jersey cohort of Powerful Learning Practice is looking closely at this issue of balancing our real and virtual lives. He gives a powerful tip for keeping up with the deluge of email you are receiving.

"First, if the very idea of having an empty inbox sounds absurd to you, check out Merlin Mann's "Inbox Zero" series (complete with a video of a talk he gave at Google). The most useful idea I took away from this series if the idea of scheduling short email "dashes" where you process what you've got and move on."

Scott also shares a tool for helping to managing your "to-do" tasks called Remember the Milk. Scott likes RTM (as those "in the know" call it) because adding tasks is super-simple. "You can add directly from the web interface, you can follow @rtm on Twitter and "Tweet" tasks to yourself from your cell phone, or you can email single tasks or lists of tasks to a special, top-secret RTM email address. Once you've sent your tasks, they show up in your inbox."

Technology is willing and able to help us keep us organized and accountable. More than ever before  we have the knowledge management tools to help us keep up! Such as these--

So we have to ask ourselves is technology the problem when it can provide so many solutions? Or does true balance come from somewhere else?

My superintendent, a wise man indeed, once told me that technology only gives the illusion of saving time because we quickly fill the time we save with new tasks resulting in our professional lives being even busier than before. In many ways I think his perception is true. It as if we have this empty void we are all trying to fill. We are all looking for that sense of purpose in knowing what we are doing will matter in the end. It is the struggle of balancing the tension of change- wanting change, realizing that something different is needed and yet being terrified of losing something valuable in the long run. John Connell once told me that it isn't change we fear, but loss.

ARE WE FOCUSING ON THE WRONG THING?

Stephen Downes says, "The difference between the physical and the virtual is illusory - it is a distinction that has been marketed hard by companies that want to keep selling you paper. But the virtual is the physical - the people online are real, the computers are real, the impact of your words is real, and it all happens in the physical world to people with physical bodies."

Maybe that is why balance is so hard to achieve? Maybe we have been focusing on the wrong thing? Maybe the tension isn't between balancing our real and virtual lives, but more about balance in life in general? What I do online is very much a part of my real life. I am building real connections with people around the world from whom I am learning a great deal. My life is richer and I am a better person because of the relationships I have built online. The work I do is purposeful and meaningful and very much a part of my real life. Maybe the answer to making it all work comes in understanding how to integrate it all and realizing that by letting go (change) I will have loss, but what will follow will make me more effective in reaching my big picture goals. The secret is realizing that virtual is part of our real world now and it can't be thought of as "one more thing" added to our already impossible day, but rather it needs to become a seamless, embedded part of our normal day. Kind of like how families adapt when a new child is born. Somehow we find time to incorporate all the new things that have to be done in caring for a baby into our busy lives. We fumble at first thinking we will never adapt and then before you know it is becomes "business as usual."

I look forward to learning with you this year as together we try and find balance in our lives and turn business as unusual to business as usual.

Time to Reflect

At the close of every year our family uses this time as an opportunity to review, reflect, predict and plan. We each have a journal where we have kept our goals and it is interesting to look back over the years and see where we have been successful and areas that still need work or redefining.

We do not just take a  “What should I change?” perspective when goal setting but we also look at our strengths, as individuals and as a family. We collectively examine how well we have been keeping the family mission statement and look closely at what each of us did in the previous year as individuals that worked. 

Some questions we will ask each other in our family meeting on Jan 1, 2009 ...

• What am I doing well?
• What did I complete or do successfully during 2008?
• What are my highest held values and how can I build on them?
• How am I documenting my successes and excellence?
• What are my three month, one year, & five year goals under the categories of personal, professional, family, spiritual, and financial?
• Long term- what 2008 goals have I achieved?

Everyone of us has something that works in life; something we can build on and develop. I am a big believer in developing strengths. To be highly successful you figure out what you do well and where your passions lie and you develop that area to its fullest. I am convinced that is how one achieves excellence, by playing to one's strengths. In our family, the areas of weakness will get attention too, but while we work on our deficits we understand that our most heroic efforts will often yield mediocrity at best. The exception is when our deficit is in an area of passionate interest, then motivation typically pushes us to produce despite any circumstance that may conspire against us.

We also celebrate together our successes and we hold each other accountable for laziness. Our family meetings throughout the children's lives have been a powerful way to develop their voice, encourage their strengths and to receive from them their wisdom regarding life choices we are contemplating. A good friend told me recently, "Never sell short the importance of raising wise children, as we will need their wisdom as we grow older." Never a truer statement! I can't count the times my children have been able to look at my circumstance and offer a perspective I had not considered that was wise beyond their years.

Have a blessed New Year. Take some time to reflect and plan as a family. You will be richer for it.

Transcending through Connectedness

Have you ever noticed how these powerful Web 2.0 tools really do transcend time and space? It seems as though the friendships forged in virtual space become deeper sooner. Maybe it is the perceived anonymity where we share our hearts and true selves and by pass many of the physical space cues that trip us up in our day to day friendships. I mean because I do not have to be bothered with visual cues such as "Why did she look at me like that when she said that?" Or what someone is wearing or who they are with or the circumstance of location or any number of other distractors- I can just enjoy the disembodied essense of who my online friends are in the most pure sense. The core of their self comes through.

Yesterday one of my new close friends from the PLP work I am doing sent me this. It affected me deeply on many levels. As I watched and listened so much of what was being said resonated with me. I sorted through feelings of mother, daughter, wife, friend and was left in the end with a deep appreciation for strong women who stay connected and transcend all life throws at them.  I immediately sent this to my daughters. I now share it with you. It is my idea of holiday wishes to my dear strong women friends.

Networked Family

Last night my son walks outside- snaps this- and comes in and emails me. He then Skypes and says, "Check your email." Interesting thing- we live in the same house. I get up and go outside and make him come look with me f2f. While we are outside, my daughter, who is walking her dog calls and tells me to go outside and look at the sky. I then call the other kids and tell them to look.

The family that is networked together- stays together.

Australia- ELH Conference in Lorne

I met Bruce through Will and I have to tell you from Day 1 I was impressed. Bruce Dixon is the founder and president of the Anywhere, Anytime Learning Foundation and consults to schools, school districts, education departments, Ministries of Education as well as technology companies such as Microsoft, hp-Compaq, Apple, Bertelsmann and Toshiba on 1-to-1 and technology in education. Bruce has more than 25 years experience working with schools and technology and besides that he and his staff really know how to put on a first rate conference. 

It was a joy to meet  Bernajean Porter and Mary Burns, other keynoters at the conference and very smart women who understand the importance of 21st Century educational reform.

I left John's home and started the trek toward Lorne where the conference would be held taking in the beauty and history of the Great Ocean Road.

 

  

 

We all met for lunch at a place along the way called "At the Heads" and then on to the conference hotel in Lorne called the Mantra Erskine Beach Resort.

One of the most amazing things to us in Australia was the variety of animals and plants. Here at the resort cockatoos from the wild congregated on our porch. They would eat right out of your hand.

The beach was right out our hotel room back door and was so beautiful.

Some of you may remember this famous Indian.

 The conference itself was excellent. I got to meet so many smart people, some of whom I knew online and some I met for the first time.

The secret here is that even though I looked calm and collective my zipper broke on these pants minutes before I went on stage and I had to use the AV guy's duck tape to tape them to me so they wouldn't fall down. Hahahaha!

Another highlight of the conference was the critical conversations around broad themes. I learned so much during these sessions. I wish these were a key part of all f2f conferences.

    

The social events at the conference were just as educational as the sessions. Lots of networking and deep dialog.

Here I am talking to one of the other keynoters, Mary Burns. The gentleman is Mike Valentine who is a leader at Hale School where I presented in Perth. He was amazing and did a wonderful presentation on passion-based learning at the conference.

We ended our time in Lorne by celebrating Bernajean's significant birthday. Can't think of a more perfect place to celebrate a milestone than with Bruce and gang in Australia. Thanks for the memories.

 
The next post will be the last of the Australia posts and will cover my time in Perth!

Good Day Mate

Sheryl's excellent adventure started in Australia! I was invited to keynote the ELH conference in Victoria, Australia.  As I was preparing to go an amazing thing happened that shows the power of the network. I had announced on Twitter I was going and lo and behold the most wonderful direct message came through, "Hi Sheryl are you interested in staying over at our place in Portarlington during your visit http://snurl.com/3hdn0?" John Pearce / mrpbps. John is an amazing author, presenter, and scientist. His wisdom about flora and fauna just blew me away and made my trip so much more valuable on a personal level.

Well if you clicked on the link you can see John's place is just north of heaven. We had such a wonderful time with John and his wife. He took us to the zoo and gave us the grand tour around Melbourne. It turns out his wife was also a bike enthusiast so we got to see the bike shops and David (David and his daughter Maegan went with me as a surprise for her 18th birthday and high school grad gift) even went for a ride. Their home was simply lovely and they were the most gracious of hosts.

The highlight of the evening was attending a blogger's dinner and meeting so many people I had come to respect through their writing. The Melbourne part of my journey started with meeting Jenny Luca f2f. I got off the plane and Jenny picked me up at my hotel and whisked me away to present at her beautiful school. I swear it was like being in Harry Potter. It was a pleasure meeting Jenny as she is an important part of the work I am doing with Will through PLP. Jenny is the Australian host school leader.

Take a look at the pictures and I will describe the next leg of the adventure in the next post.

John Pearce and I meet and tour the zoo.

Maegan, John Pearce, Sheryl and David at the zoo in Melbourne, Australia

 

 

 

.

This guy's rear end was like cotton candy!

Melbourne at night.

Vicki and John Pearce with Lauren O Grady http://ogrady.globalteacher.org.au/

It was fun seeing Sue Tapp again. We met the first time at NECC. http://andanotherthing-sue.blogspot.com/

John telling the story about the one that got away!

Pam Arvanitakis http://pamelarvo.blogspot.com/

Lauren and Jo McLeay http://theopenclassroom.blogspot.com/

The Melbourne Bloggers- Darren Murphy, Sue Tapp, Me, Lauren OGrady, Pam and Jenny Luca

Biking with Vicky near her home.

 

Sitting at John's home surfing the Web.

A Little Defrag

We all need some time not online. Here is how I spend mine. Thank goodness for holidays!

I am sitting on the front of the boat taking pics!
David and Travis are on the jetski, Amber and Jimmy in the tube and Noah and Grace (not pictured) are on the back of the boat.
The island in the background is where we explored and let Kyla the family Boston Terrier run and play. She rode in the tube too.

Noah and Grace

Amber, Jimmy and Kyla being pulled to the island.

Amber and Jimmy

Take note of terrified screams! How fun.

Wedding Plans

In case you haven't heard my oldest daughter, Amber, is getting married. She is so creative. Check out her Wedding Site- homemade of course.

We are deep in the wedding planning stages. June is fast upon us. The event is going to be the kind of wedding I would have had- if my circumstance had been different. So much of who Amber and Jimmy are as a couple and individuals is embedded in everything they are planning.