One more thing... One more really big thing!

I offered my opinions on last week's Apple Education announcement on the Macreach podcast. Although I felt the things announced were okay, I saw a lot of holes that needed to be filled. The big thing that I missed was something that was not explicitly stated during the announcement. It was hinted at, but not a lot of detail was given. 

That thing was the change in how content can be provided to and through iTunesU. The change in this process is the earth shaking thing to me. When iTunes U was first opened up to K-12 only state agencies could sign up. If a district or school wanted to publish through iTunesU they had to go through the state LEA. Now with only 13 or so states participating that left a lot of educators with no chance to publish on iTunesU. 

That all changed last week though with the announcements and this is the filler for many of the holes I saw. Now any district can set up their own iTunesU site to publish content and courses. It can serve as an LMS for districts. 

I am very excited about this as we have been struggling to get content onto iTunesU for 3 years. This will make it much simpler to do, and give us more for serving content to and from our schools.

Here are links to the pertinent information. Get your district and school going on iTunesU.

The All New iTunesU

http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/

iTunesU Support

http://www.apple.com/support/itunes-u/

Young Filmmakers

It was really fun watching these guys and gals work on their films today.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Looking over the soup

Glad I was able to get above the inversion for awhile today.

Loving the frosted looks of the mountains.

Thank a Teacher

"Did you have a teacher that inspired, challenged or supported you to look at the world differently? One you can thank for the path of life that you've taken? Give us 5 minutes of your time...create a short thank-you video on 10.11.11 and post it on YouTube with the tag thankateacher. Oh, and pass this along to everyone you know!" Here's mine

9/22/11- Meeting Demand

I have mentioned this before, but Thursdays are our days for team meetings, training meetings, and other meetings. On the plus side it is so good to get together with the team each week and to talk about what is going on. On the minus side, we are all so fried by Thursday that we don't have the energy that I would like to see us have at our meetings. I don't have a solution, but I still enjoy Thursdays immensely. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a meeting to get to. :)

 

Sept. 21, 2011 - The faster I go the further my behind gets.

Well this daily posting thing is going swell, isn't it. The title pretty much spells it out. But I am determined to get this done as often as possible. 

This has been a great week. All week I have had teachers seek me out for things beyond "it doesn't work." A lot of "how can I do this?..." This morning at Willow Canyon, I had so many questions so quickly I didn't even have time to put my glasses on. Mind you I can't see much of anything on a computer screen or anything up close without my glasses. So it was kind of the blind leading those who need help for about an hour. 

Speaking of glasses. I bought some new reading specs. My prescription lenses are progressive lenses and they kind of worked. They were hard to get used to, and all they really did is make my neck progressively more painful as I wore them. So I gave them up and went back to reading glasses. So now I just have to do the grandpa thing all of the time. 

I was working with a class and a set of iPods yesterday, and I told the kids not to let the glasses bother them. The first time I pulled them down to I could make out kids faces one of them blurted out, "wow, you are old, aren't you?" I nodded, sighed and kept on going. The biggest problem is that I know it's my mind that is going next.

 

9/12/11-Of long times and shortcomings

First, a huge thank you to all of you who have responded with your thoughts and prayers for David Miller, my cousin who is missing. As a small update, his car was found about 20 miles from his home on Saturday, but still no sign of David. We still have hope that he will be found safe. 

On Saturday, my daughter and my brother and one of his son-in-laws drove down to Cedar City to help search in that area. We were driving through some pretty rough terrain and it seemed as if he were in there, how would we ever be able to search everywhere. It seemed like it would take a very long time. 

This set me on another course of thinking with regards to that which we do. My primary job function for the past 12 years has been training teachers. There has been a forrest of teachers out there for me to work with and it seems at times that too has been pretty rough terrain. I remember thinking early on that this is going to take a long time. I think I have now defined a long time as forever, or as long as I choose to do this, or others chose to allow me to do it.

By that I mean by that is there will always be something new to learn, or at least there better be. We always seem to talk as if at some point we'll be finished helping teachers to learn what they need to become 21st Century Educator  or whatever it is we want them to be. Too often I think we keep that long term view of what we would like to see them be in 3 yrs., 5 yrs. etc.

This is kind of me in a nutshell, but what I am realizing as a shortcoming for me is that I have to accept all of the wins with teachers as they come. There are small victories everyday and they need to be celebrated as much as saying, "Wow that teacher gets it!" That seems to imply that we are done, and I really don't think we will ever be. I used to think that was a bad thing, but I now realize that as long as it is like that I will continue to have a job I love and work with great people who do great things with kids everyday. 

So I am resolving to do just that, enjoy those daily wins with teachers, because that is a win with 30 kids as well and that is what is most important after all. At least I think it is.