Probably my favorite snippet of film ever (not just because of the way he says “Crumbly, but good”):

So far this this weekend, here are the things made from the fruit trees and vines in our yard:

- 5 “bottles” of wine that will take 3 years to age and lots of grape juice and wonderful jelly from about 15 pounds of our concord grapes.

- More applesauce and apple butter than we could eat. We should make some cider as well.

- Fig preserves (not a huge amount but enough for a while).

- Pear preserves (about the same as the figs). We’re eating most of the pears right off the tree.

My goal next year is to increase our vegetable yield to match the fruit production.

Thanks to Anna for all of her hard work.

Today was our first half-day back at school with students at Spartanburg Day.

A few thoughts:

- I literally teared up when I saw the 9th graders sitting with the Upper School at our morning pep rally (my students from last year). We had an amazing year and I’ll miss them in my classroom. May the Cosmos shine upon them as they make their way down life’s road.

- That said, I’m so excited to get to know this year’s crop of 8th graders. They seem like a great bunch and I can’t wait to see how the year goes for us.

- I’m debating a pre-test for tomorrow? Thoughts?

- It’s going to be a crazy year with our reduced tech abilities given this is a transition year. Patience. Breath. Patience.

- Can I go the whole year without giving a graded test and instead relying on self and peer assessments?

More soon…

I turn 32 today. I’m halfway to 64 (will you still love me when I’m 64?).

Just some thoughts on this Sunday morning…

- I agree with Leo Laporte, although I’m “over” social media because all of this wonderful (or mundane) content we are creating is locked inside pretty boxes held by companies looking to use as as advertising/tracking/monetizing batteries.

NoScript for Firefox is a wonderful thing.

- School basically starts back tomorrow. My 8th graders will start class on Tuesday and Wednesday. I remember being so anxious and excited when I was going through the school process, so it’s always interesting being on “the other side” of the teacher/student relationship and seeing how much emotional time and energy teachers have already poured into the year before the students get there.

I can’t wait.

And no, there is no divide. That was a device.

- I wish I had more time to invest in projects like Thinking.FM or the array of ideas that flow through my head. Having this place as my hub is a good reminder to focus and keep things simple.

Between fatherhood and teaching (which feels like parenting dozens of kids sometimes), I have little time to decompress, let alone podcast.

I really want to do more podcasting, though.

- Advertising is a terrible business model.

- I’m using Ubuntu and projects like Firefox/Thunderbird much more these days. It feels great to be back on Ubuntu, which I’ve been using off and on since late 2005. I cannot believe it’s almost been five years since that first install. My how bits fly.

- Lou Pinella retired from the Cubs starting today. This after we traded Derek Lee on Monday. Stunning week for us Cubbies. However, like all things… change can be good. In this season of “school year” change, I’m hoping this leads to good things for us on the field. I especially hope Ryne Sandberg gets the coaching role.

- 32 is an odd age to be.

I still vacillate greatly on the issue of eBooks.

My concern has less (and less) to do with the experience of reading. I greatly enjoy reading on my Kindle DX or iPad or iPhone or my netbook or most anything.

I’m much more concerned about the long-term ramifications of DRM and content-lock-down (or editing) by corporations looking to monetize the reading experience even further.

Great post on the LibraryThing blog hashing out the same concerns…

Ebooks get better, print not. | Off-topic | LibraryThing: “But I question how publishers and authors will respond when piracy assumes music-industry levels, and then worse. One solution would be a return to the physical. Another would be the imposition of ever harsher DRM. But the most likely result is that the book industry can’t solve the problem, and we will gradually lose the ‘middle’ of the author community–the majority of authors who who aren’t Steven King (who could live on non-book revenue), but aren’t doing it just for the fun either.”

I feel that we’re at a major fork in the road. Of course eBooks will continue to gain popularity and adoption in this decade and will shortly outpace “real” books as the preferred mode of reading by the public (and in American schools).

However, I hope we don’t trade in rights for ease.

So this year, I’m getting the magnetic/cermaic surface Eno Board in my classroom…

I’m no Miss Bailey, but I wonder how well this will work for my 8th Grade Physical Science group…especially since we study magnetism

I’ve honestly never been a huge fan of the “smart board” movement (unlike smart phones). I miss my chalkboards at Hammond every day.

However, I hope to use the board for more than just a projector screen. Since we do a good deal of chemical balancing, compound drawings, force vectors, etc I’m sure I’ll put it to good use.

Plus, when I saw the bit on electrical circuits in the demo, that made my day. We spend a good amount of time on circuit diagrams and programming breadboards. Of course it is better to actually have to install capacitors and insulators, but this should be a good aid in approaching such material.

Should be fun to find out!

Read the whole thing, it’s worth the 4 minutes…

The Smart Set: The Metaphysics of Cutting Grass – August 5, 2010: “Perhaps I yearn too much to hear my echo in the world. Yes, occasionally, I do hear from a former student, several years out, that something I said or did has assumed some meaning in their lives. And certainly I understand that students are with me only for 50 minutes three times a week, and that the results of instruction oftentimes reveal their value only in the fullness of time. Still, I find it troubling when, over the course of a semester, I see no palpable impact; I begin to doubt myself, feel vaguely fraudulent. Thus the satisfaction I find in cutting grass: When I’ve finished, I can see, clearly see, a genuine accomplishment, a consequence of my contact, a change in the physical, ‘out there,’ external reality wrought by my expended effort.”

Selfishly, I’ll say exactly.

Balanced and insightful views from a source I deeply trust:

A Review of Verizon and Google’s Net Neutrality Proposal | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Oddly enough, I’m back on a couple of Google apps like Calendar because Anna wanted to re-establish our calendar sharing there (and my iCal import wasn’t working well enough for her).

Marriage > Principles, I reckon.

Plus the new GMail interface is pretty and my students all use my Google Voice number and it works so well and Google Reader is so much better than anything else and I can edit Google Docs on my iPad… ah, stupid entrapment.

I love Apple and I agree with Steve Jobs when he says his devices (like the iPad) are revolutionary.

However, this thing could be really revolutionary in schools for a number of reasons. Of course it’s just a tool, but it’s a tool that solves a couple of problems that we’ve been hashing over in our little bubble of education for a while.

Introducing The NEW Sharpie LIQUID PENCIL | Sharpie Markers Official Blog

The end of pencil sharpeners??

I for one welcome our new liquid graphite tools.

Socrates famously rejected the supposed importance of the written word(1) in the Phaedrus.

I wonder what he would have had to say about blogs and twitter?

David Weinberger has a post on a book which I’ve just put on my Wish List, The Coming of the Book. Looks fascinating from the quotes he’s published:

Joho the Blog » [2b2k] Books: The early years: “I’m reading The Coming of the Book, by Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin (1958), who explain arrival of printed books with an impressive attention to fact-based detail. Amazing scholarship.”

Maybe Socrates was right, after all.

In any case, one of the main reasons I’m not using a textbook this year is because of the “institutionalization” of science-as-a-method that results from a rigidly composed amalgamation of information (2).

Instead, I want my students to realize that science is not institutionalized or something done by professionals with post-docs. Instead, it’s sometimes messy and often times can be done in our garages or backyards or bedrooms.

I only have a few months of proper class-time with these 13 and 14 year olds(3). I don’t want to spend precious moments of 43 minute class times having them memorize bold words in the name of standards.

As Socrates observed in the Phaedrus:

“And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows.”

Regardless, I still love my books (even the digital ones).

–

1 via Plato, of course

2 especially since I teach the wide ranging topic of physical science… basic chemistry and physics wrapped in one course like yin-yang.

3 Yet another reason I love the availability factor of email, Facebook, Twitter, blogs etc as I’ve actually done more quality “teaching” via text messages and FB wall posts compared to class lectures!