Tracy Rosen tagged me in a piece entitled “By Any Means Human”, which asks teachers to consider the human element they bring to the classroom.  As anyone who has been to university taught for any period of time knows, content knowledge alone does not a good teacher make.

For my part, my students have always told me that my sense of humor not only helps make sometimes dry material more accessible, but helps them connect a little more to me (and to each other) personally.  In fact, I got a very nice thank-you card at the end of this past school year from a senior I had in my first quarter Shakespeare’s Comedy class.  In it, she informed me that my sense of humor not only helped her to understand the works we studied*, but also helped the class of to bond considerably.  There’s something about laughter that brings people together; I guess it’s the participation in a shared experience that does it.  As I’ve said before, I’m all for engendering that sense of community in my classes, through whatever means I have at my disposal, technological or not.

This isn’t to say that the jokes I make are GOOD, per se - in fact, I pride myself on the ability to craft a cringe-worthy pun out of almost any situation (although the one I made about Titania and Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream had the entire class LOLing for a good while!).  Maybe it’s more that I can (and frequently do) laugh at myself, which the students may find rare in a teacher.  I take my job and my responsibilities very seriously, but myself much less so.

Instead of tagging individuals, I’ll leave the tag open to anyone who reads this - what special human element do YOU bring to your classroom?

* In a nine-week course, we study three of the greats (OK, two of the greats and Measure for Measure).

So why might I jump ship?

Identi.ca is the new microblogging kid on the block, and at first glance, it not only seems similar to Twitter, Pownce, Plurk, etc., it actually seems like it has less to offer.  No replies buttons or tabs, no search bar, just a steady stream of messages and the ability to ’subscribe’ to one another.

What entices me about Identi.ca is the fact that it’s open source.  While Twitter has been having trouble staying on its feet lately (it has been better of late, to be fair), I wonder how long it would take for Identi.ca users with some technical knowledge to diagnose and attack the underlying problems.  Seems like a good thing to have “more hands on deck.”  There’s more to be said about it, but Mike Bogle covered it in pretty good detail in his post and follow-up comment here.  With add-ons and other contributions from the Identi.ca community, I’m seeing the potential for Identi.ca to play Firefox to Twitter’s IE - highly customizable and community-based.

I also like Identi.ca’s commitment to the OpenMicroBlogging protocol.  Essentially, conversations could take place across services, so there’d be no need for a Twitter account, Plurk account, etc.  One protocol to rule them all, so to speak.  There is already a plethora of services for cross-posting to multiple services, but nothing to aggregate responses and facilitate discussion.

To me, the discussions and exchanges of ideas that take place on Twitter are by far its most important factor, and why I won’t be deleting my Twitter account anytime soon.  Identi.ca may evolve into something great, and I’ll definitely stick with it, unlike a lot of other microblogging services.  Without the people who make up my network, however, it won’t be of nearly as much value as Twitter, broken down and everything.  Ultimately, it’s the people, not the tools, that give the network its value.

In the meantime, I encourage folks to try out Identi.ca and see if it suits you.  I’m @damian613 on both Identi.ca and Twitter; feel free to subscribe, follow, or just read.

I’ve announced it through Twitter and Facebook, but not yet blogwise: I have been hired as a maternity leave school psychologist for next year.  I’ll be working at my current school as a psychologist from September through early February, at which point I’ll transition back into my teaching role for the remainder of the year (we’re on the 4×4 block schedule, so it won’t be as traumatic for the kids as it sounds).

In all honesty, a maternity leave position is not how I thought I’d be starting my career in school psychology, especially a position that isn’t even an entire year long.  I’m grateful for the opportunity to get some paid experience, though, and wondering if it’s not a blessing in disguise.  It’s a low-risk way of entering the field - I’m at the same school at which I’ve taught for eight years, I know the people and the culture, and I’m pretty well-versed in “how things work” around here.

I had my sights set on a full-time tenure-track position from the outset (not necessarily an unreasonable goal in K-12 education), but the more I think about it, the more I think this may be the right position at the right time for me.

–Damian,

who occasionally needs to be reminded he must learn to crawl before he can walk.

What was the “worst job” you ever had that ironically helped prepare you to one day become an educator?

I’ve been extremely fortunate in that I’ve never had any terrible jobs, but for the sake of the meme, I’ll say dorm security at The College of New Jersey during my undergrad years:

• Shifts lasting til 2am enabled me to work long into the night, like I had to during my first few years of teaching
• It was my first taste of working as an authority figure (to use the term loosely), which helped when I was 23 and faced with a class of 18-year-olds
• Conflict resolution (and avoidance!) skills came into play, especially when dealing with drunk freshmen. Similar scenarios have played out in my presence at school (presumably, minus the alcohol), and I learned to always keep the coolest head of the group.

Thanks for tagging me, Christian. I hereby tag some folks whose blogs I most sincerely wish I had more time on which to comment:

1. Jose Vilson
2. Ken Rodoff
3. Kyle Lichtenwald
4. Diane Cordell
5. Jeff Wasserman

Hope to get back to this sooner rather than later.

Consumerist was one of the first blogs I started reading, and I’ve since developed a strong interest in consumer advocacy. What I’ve always admired about Consumerist is that they not only expose the failings of corporate and retail America, but they also recognize those companies who get it right. This is a story all about how my life got flip turned upside down a company who got it right.

I ordered a CanoScan LiDE 25 scanner from Dell.com last weekend; it shipped on 4/28 and arrived two days later. For two nights, I tried to get this thing to work with my computer, but no dice. I downloaded the latest drivers, updated all the software, shut off my antivirus, made sure the scanner was “unlocked”; no joy. When I finally called Canon Tech Support late that Thursday night, the representative (whose name I didn’t get; sorry!) was patient, knowledgeable, and when it looked like this wasn’t going to be resolvable, gave me all the information I needed to return the scanner to Canon. He told me that if I faxed his office my original proof-of-purchase and the RMA, they’d get me out a refurbished model ASAP.

I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of receiving a refurb, but I wasn’t up to fighting City Hall on this issue, so we went ahead. I faxed the information to Canon on Friday afternoon, 5/2, and sure enough, my new (to me) scanner was waiting for me this (Monday) morning! Additionally, the model they sent me was a few models up from the one I originally purchased, and after a few initial test scans, seems to be in perfect working condition (we’ll see how it handles the photos I want to digitize this weekend). The process for returning the defective unit is pretty easy, too.

At any rate, thanks, Canon, for a positive customer service experience. Unlike many of your competitors, you guys have gotten it right.

File-hosting site Drop.io just added a “fax this” option - you can send any DOC or PDF file you store there directly to a fax machine (sorry, no ODF support yet). It’s similar to the service that FaxZero provides, but Drop.io’s restrictions are much more lax: 20 page per fax limit w/no stated daily limit on faxes sent, as opposed to FaxZero’s 3 page fax max, twice per day (with an ad on the cover page, too). There is a process by which you can receive incoming faxes to your Drop.io account, too, but the process is a little more involved (but still free).

Whenever I have to email important documents (e.g., my resume), I always prefer to send a PDF (no real justification; it just feels right). CutePDF offers a free utility that installs itself as a printer option. Just hit “print” from your document, spreadsheet, web page, etc., and select “CutePDF” from the dropdown printer menu. Your document will “print” to a PDF file that you can now send to Drop.io to be faxed (of course, if you were using OpenOffice you could just hit “Print to PDF” and not even need CutePDF in the first place).

My recent purchase of a scanner (finally, I know), along with these free utilities, has significantly reduced, if not eliminated, the odds of me having to send another costly fax from my local Staples’ dodgy fax machine ever again. It’s the small victories in life that make it worth living.

Next time, we’ll explore jailbreaking your iPhone to use as a corded rotary landline.

What I Was Doing Ten Years Ago

I was two months shy of my 21st birthday and finishing up my Junior Professional Experience in a 7th grade English classroom. I’m told my cooperating teacher remarked to a friend of mine, “He’ll be a good… high school English teacher” (haha, joke’s on her!). Also, I was getting paperwork in order to student teach at - wait for it - Allentown High School, where I got to student teach under my former 11th grade teacher and one of my main influences in becoming a teacher (this wasn’t my high school; I just followed her there!).

Five Things on my To-Do List for Today

Not much, I’m afraid, as it’s after 10pm, but here are 5 things I did today:

1. Scored some reading quizzes on Twelfth Night
2. Attended my final Statistics class - significant because it’s my last class of my last course of my graduate degree!
3. Put together more application packets for school psychologist positions for next school year
4. Set up a new wiki for my Multicultural Studies students to pool their research on contemporary Native Americans (it’s empty now, but check back in a week or two!)
5. Agreed to do a guest speaker spot in a graduate ed-tech class being taught by a colleague in July. Details are sketchy as yet, but wikis, Twitter, Skype, and RSS were all part of the discussion. I’m really looking forward to this!

Snacks I Enjoy

• Chunky peanut butter and honey on whole wheat
• Extra sharp cheddar cheese (no such thing as too sharp!)
• Dark chocolate (no such thing as too bitter!)
• Raw vegetables
• Grilled chicken and baby spinach salad
• Salt & vinegar potato chips

Things I Would Do if I Were a Billionaire

• Become a full-time doctoral student
• Pay off my house
• Throw $1 million into a 529 account for each of my kids’ college funds, but only $120K at a time, so as to avoid the gift tax (wait… better make it $5 million apiece).
• Donate much and often
• Travel. Everywhere.

Three of My Bad Habits

Mine are really similar to Doug’s:

1. Nail biting
2. Unchecked sarcasm
3. Habitual swearing (but only on personal time, prospective employers who may have Googled me!)

Five Places I’ve Lived

1. Manchester Twp., New Jersey - Born and raised
2. 31 General Guisan-Strasse, Basel, Switzerland - Lived here for a year (June 1983 - June 1984) and attended International School of Basel while my dad temporarily worked at the global headquarters of Ciba (then Ciba-Geigy)
3. Claude Gibb Hall, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK - Did a semester abroad here from Sept - Dec 1997 - fell in love with the city and started supporting Newcastle United (for my sins)
4. Woodbridge Drive, Doylestown, Pennsylvania - Our first foray into homeownership! We lived here from May 2004 - Aug 2006
5. Bedminster Twp., Pennsylvania - Where I currently reside with my wife Stephanie and our two kids, Dylan & Kiera

Five Jobs I’ve Had

1. Bag boy/cart wrangler/cashier, Shop Rite - my first job, junior year of high school!
2. Dorm security, The College of New Jersey - it guaranteed me on-campus housing and put gas in my car
3. Television service representative - one summer, I was hired to go room-to-room in a hospital and charge patients $5/day for the privilege of watching 5 channels and the same 4 movies on an endless loop. I still have lingering guilt over the moral implications of that job, and it’s been over 10 years. At least I got a lot of reading done that summer.
4. Long-term substitute teacher - I really enjoyed the 3 months or so I spent subbing for a middle school phys. ed. teacher. The physical educators with whom I worked were absolutely fantastic, model professionals, and a lot of fun to work with. I still think about them from time to time.
5. High school English teacher - since September 2000!

I’ll beg off from tagging anyone, and do as Doug did - if you want to take part, consider yourself tagged.

Let’s backtrack. We already know that behavior generally serves one of four major functions, and that we have to find an alternate way to meet the function. Simple enough, right? The function is to help me deal with frustration or anger, the behavior we want to get rid of is swearing, and now we just have to figure out how to make it worth my while to knock it off.

But wait! What if we could alter environmental conditions such that I wouldn’t be as likely to curse as much - wouldn’t that be helpful? I’ve found that my fuse is a lot shorter when I’m sleep-deprived, so one of my first steps toward cleaning up my language was actually trying to get more sleep. I didn’t collect hard data on this, but I did notice that on where days I slipped up, I usually had only gotten about 4 or 5 hours of sleep the previous night. Anecdotally speaking, days that followed 6 or more hours of sleep were far less likely to see me curse. Also, I tended to swear more when I drove (my wife and I drive to work together, so this was relatively easy to address - she agreed to take the wheel some days when I just felt particularly worn down from work). This is called controlling the setting event (long-term lead-up to the behavior, like how much sleep I got) and antecedent (letting me ride shotgun).

The flipside to the antecedent, of course, is the consequence. Although the word has negative connotations, it really just means what occurs as a result of the behavior. We already addressed my most consistent consquence: I felt a little better about whatever was bugging me after swearing. Fair enough, but the other consequences were that my son was repeating me and my wife was severely agitated. The cons outweigh the pros here, and things needed to change.

Let’s review!

Setting event _____ leads to antecedent _____ leads to target behavior _____ leads to consequence _____.

If you can successfully fill in these blanks, you’ll have the tools to manage any undesired behavior - yours or somebody else’s. @JackieB, @audhilly, and anyone else who’s trying to break themselves (or a student) of a bad habit, this is one fill-in-the-blank worksheet that might be worth your while. Next time, we’ll add the final two components: time and reinforcement.

Remember a few months ago I developed a wiki for one of the departments at my school? I updated the “Article of the Month” section over the weekend and sent the department an email yesterday to let them know (as well as call for contributors - total number (beside me) in the last 4 months: 0).

One of the teachers sent a nice email to tell me that the wiki was a very worthwhile project, but that she doesn’t even have time to look at it, let alone contribute information to it. Look, I know everyone’s got their own stuff going on, especially in the home stretch of the school year, but damn. At first it didn’t bother me, but like a grain of sand in my sock, it grew slightly more irritating the more I thought about it.

My first thought (vented in a Tweet earlier today): I teach a full courseload, continually develop new projects for my students, parent a 3-year-old and a newborn, do a grad school internship, attend graduate classes, and I found time to WRITE the damn thing - you can’t even look at it?

My second thought: You don’t have time to visit a website, but you have time to write me an email telling me you don’t have time to visit a website?

Is this what it’s like being a technology coordinator?