1,466.3 miles later…

Two days after school let out for the year, Becky, Henry, and I set out west to visit Henry’s aunts Jolene and Shelley in Denver. While we were there, we reconnected with old friends, made some new ones, and took in a concert at Red Rocks.

Before leaving, I made a few thoughtful1 decisions about my use of technology during the trip. One was that I wasn’t going to be afraid to use it. Another was that I wasn’t going to let it get in the way. A third was that if I was going to use it, I was going to do it right.

The first thing I did was choose a hashtag for the trip: #GoCo2012. Goerends in Colorado 2012. Hashtags have taken on many uses, but I created one to organize what I shared. Combining the hashtag with ifttt.com was the smartest thing I did. I set up a task so that whenever I tweeted using that hashtag, the tweet was sent to my Google Calendar and entered as an event. So now, I have a record of our trip that looks like this:

This is the agenda view, where I can see a list of all the time I tweeted using that hashtag. Any time I tweeted, shared a picture on Instagram, or checked in on Foursquare, I used the hashtag.

 Here’s the calendar view. This one will be fun to look back at down the road.

Along with that, I made the decision that any smartphone pictures I took would be shared via Instagram as opposed to just uploading them to Twitter, and that I’d upload DSLR pictures to Flickr once per day. I also decided going into the trip that I wasn’t going to make any sort of compilation video. Any videos I took would conform to Flickr’s video policy.2 Setting those limits for myself beforehand helped with my expectations of my technology use. I quickly got good at sharing an Instagram picture while at the same time tweeting it and checking in on Foursquare. Using Instagram to check in on Foursquare also had one other benefit: I didn’t feel the urge to check in as soon as we arrived. Because I knew I’d be taking a picture when I checked in, I knew we could get settled first. I also didn’t have the urge to stop during the day, pull out my laptop, and start working on my Flickr pictures.

Say what you will about Instagram’s filters, I happen to like the effect they add to photos. Some day I may kick myself for “ruining” the pictures, but let’s not pretend the camera on my phone is anything to write home about. It’s not. For me, the Instagram pictures were about capturing a moment and quickly sharing it. It was about the emotion. The same could be said for what I try to do with my camera, but I just wasn’t concerned with the “quality”3 of my Instagram pictures.

Amazingly — seriously, I’m actually amazed by this — the day we got home from our trip I found this site Prinstagram, which — yup — let’s you print your Instagram pictures. I quickly fell in love with the Tiny Books option: 24 pictures in a tiny, magnetic book. Here’s the amazing part: I took exactly 24 Instagram pictures on our trip! The Tiny Books come 3 per order, so we’ll have one for ourselves, one for Henry to look through, and one to send to Jolene and Shelley. Score!

Last, but possibly most interesting, is that while I tweeted nearly 40 times during the trip, I shared only two Instagram images, two links to my Flickr set, and one link to a video on Flickr to Facebook. I’m still — still! — not sure how I feel about Facebook. Twitter’s stream seems to have so much more fluidity to it that I don’t mind using it as a middle-man for archiving our trip. I can’t imagine sharing 24 pictures, each as a separate update, over the course of 5 days to my Facebook timeline.

Jolene and Shelley FaceTime with Henry at least once a month. We have family email addresses set up so we can stay in touch that way, along with all the pictures we share. While we were in Denver, we hung out with some of Jo and Shelley’s friends that we see once every few years, but who felt like they’ve “been able to see Henry grow up” and “can’t believe he’s so big now.” For most of them it was the first time they’d seen him in person. We also stopped off at Kelly and Michelle’s school’s field day to say hello as we were heading home. Those are two educators and friends we met first online, then in person at ISTE in Denver, and now we meet up whenever we have the chance.

I can genuinely say that I feel our family’s use of digital technology on our 1,466.3 mile trip to-Denver-and-back not only didn’t get in the way, but it added to our enjoyment.

Here’s the whole trip, Storified for your enjoyment.

 

  1. meaning I put a lot of thought into them. Is that the right word? [↩]
  2. 500 MB in size, 90 seconds in length, essentially a “long photo.” [↩]
  3. yes, I’m putting it in quotes [↩]

Introducing Workflow Walkthroughs

I’m starting a series about my computer workflow. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while and I’m finally going to make time to do it.

Here’s a video introducing the project. I’ll add links to each of the posts as they’re created.

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Behind the story: Frumpy and Frumpie

One night, after reading Henry a few books, I asked if he was ready to go to sleep.

“No,” he said. “I want Frumpy and Frumpie.”

“I’m not sure what that is, bud,” I said.

“Frumpy and Frumpie, daddy,” he replied.

“Okey doke,” I said, and proceeded to tell him a story about Frumpy and his brother Frumpie.

Even though I write often — especially lately — about storytelling, I’m not much of a make-it-up-on-the-spot kind of storyteller. Henry first asked for a Frumpy and Frumpie story about a month ago. I probably tell three or four per week. I limit him to only one per night. They’ve progressively gotten better.

At first, it was just two brothers messing around. Then, they became twin brothers. Then I realized they have different, distinct personalities. Now, Frumpy and Frumpie is my way to reflect on Henry’s day with him. Frumpy is the Henry who is a good listener, the one who is friendly and has good manners. Frumpy tries at least one bite of his dinner and picks up his toys when he’s done playing with them. Frumpie, on the other hand, says, “No!” to his mommy and daddy. He fights with his brother. He throws his dinner on the floor and kicks the cat.

Frumpy and Frumpie usually come up against some sort of decision and — obviously, to you and me — Frumpy makes the smart play, while Frumpie boots it.

It’s a fun way to practice my storytelling while snuggling up with my son.

(If you’re wondering — and I know I was — I found out later that Henry had seen a TV show about Humpty Dumpty earlier that first day. I’ll give you a minute to let that connect.)

Is your school telling its story?

I’ve been reflecting on storytelling lately, which really all comes from a session led by Bob Dillon at #edcampKC last year. Bob helped us think about the stories being told about our schools and classrooms. Who’s telling those stories? Are we telling them?

That’s why I made the video for our Art teacher.

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It’s why I made this video about the research project our students are doing: Mornings at the Museum

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I’ve also noticed, on Twitter, that Major League Baseball tells the stories happening in the league well. Check out some of these tweets:

When I look at these tweets, I see all 140 characters put to use. The tweets are interesting, they have voice and personality. Nearly every tweet @MLB sends out has a link to media.

These are things we can do in our classrooms and in our buildings.

Teachers: get an iPod touch (or use your cell phone camera) and have your students take pictures of the day. Take some pictures yourself. Record a quick video. I know teachers who use media on a weekly basis. Becky has her students record updates for parents.

Jon has been sharing links to his son’s kindergarten teacher’s blog lately.

Administrators: Same idea. Be like @MLB. Showcase your school! Tell your story. While you’re out an about in classrooms, send some tweets of what you see. Link your Twitter to your school’s Facebook page. Set up a blog with email subscriptions that gets sent to both Twitter and Facebook.

Whatever you do, make sure you’re telling the stories that are happening in your schools. Your communities deserve it.

I know there are teachers and administrators doing just what I’m talking about. If you know of some, spread the word. Please share links in the comments.

Telling the untold stories in our building

A couple of weeks ago I started thinking about how there are untold stories in our building. I’ve taught down the hall from the Industrial Tech/Engineering room for three years now and, outside of a few projects I see them testing out in the hallways, I really don’t know what goes on in there. Same thing for Art. My students rave about it. And World Languages. Family and Consumer Sciences. There are great things happening in the building and stories that need to be told. I also figured that if I’m not sure of the stories of these rooms and classes, parents probably aren’t either.

So, I decided to do something about it. I started with our Art teacher. He and I met a few times and talked about the story of the Art room. We wanted to make that story accessible to incoming students1 and parents.

I’ve embedded the finished project below. I showed the staff today. When I was done, they clapped. I could tell it was genuine, and for me, it was unexpected. And very much appreciated.

This video was a decent amount of work2 I also, as I told the staff, made a promise I really hope I can keep: I’d like to do a video like this for each of our Selectives3 . The goal is to have a video for each class by the end of next school year. Not every teacher, but every class — 6th grade Language Arts (4 teachers), 8th grade Science (2 teachers), etc. I’m appreciative of any feedback you have.

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  1. as a middle school, we get students from three elementary schools [↩]
  2. the interview itself took four different tries to get right, and even in the version I used for the video you can hear the band practicing in the background…at 7:15 in the morning. [↩]
  3. Band, Industrial Tech, World Languages, etc. [↩]