What She Looks Like

I worked too much in the Fall. I was working more than 35 hrs a week at a new job with a big commute. I was also teaching at the university at night with all the marking and course prep and a big co-teaching collaborative footprint.

My family gave a lot to make it all work out.

I know when I work like that the kids need to see reason. Often they get the money angle, I'll be honest, so I decided on a sad night when my g'nigh came to an already sleeping face.. again... we would go away. The kids and I would spend some of the money on a little vacation. We went to Victoria.

For this trip we travel from our house for a couple hours. Bye-bye Daddy. Lunch with my parents in Ladner nearby and then the kids get to see their uncle in Victoria. A nice getaway, for sure, a simple trip.

We took the ferry and there Miss Fancy made a friend. Her friend's name was Lillian and I have a little story about it.

We met up right away at sailing. Lillian and Miss Fancy playing with Boy-o in the kids' playspace. We quickly went outside. Not. A. Playspace. Fan. I had a nice chat with Lillian's Mom. They were en route to see Lillian's grandparents for Christmas, for them from Australia. They had come via Beijing where they met up with Lillian's uncle and aunt and her 4 year old cousin. They had also said bye-bye to Daddy.

The children played and played. We mothers talked. I snapped photos with my blackberry, Lillian's mom with her iphone. As we neared the shore we exchanged emails, we'd be in touch. "Thanks for everything!" "Merry Christmas". So on and so on.

By this time the kids had taken to the floor to draw. My daughter's bag of supplies being shared, papers askew. Our new friends were setting off quickly and we were running late. They would walk off and their time was more flexible. I needed to muster to the car deck. C'mon! What is the delay?.. N. was slow. She was drawing over which she does often dawdle.

"Mom I am drawing." ..
"What are you drawing?"..
Silence. What is she drawing? I am wondering.
"I HAVE to finish this."
In my mind, what is she drawing (still not peeking) is she drawing something for Lillian?
Lillian is wandering away.
"I have to finish this."
"Finish what"
"I am drawing Lillian. I want to remember what she looks like."

...Agog.

Isn't that interesting? (I mean is that interesting?) We have these devices, their ubiquity to record and there my girl 7 years old knew and to here it means little (or nothing). She wants her picture. She replaces that -- I know her -- what I have with what she might select from her mind. Her idea under the work of her own hand is what makes the memory. It is what she will trust. Somehow I really loved that.

It was a good trip and that was the best story.

Social ME-ME-ME-dia, or, Prepare a Face

I have to talk to you about our cell phone plan. It is really bad. I need a new plan but it seems like every option requires me to submit more and more self to a subscription of surveillance.

I have no physical tattoos and I am not really into the digital ones either. Sure I blog and I've even begun my tweety bird phase. My intuition and the iPhone are hand in glove. But, still, I am sick of it. Sick to death of the options I have to submit more data about myself into the abyss.

I started on the Internet in 1986 and I cling to the classic I suppose. In my canon there remains a certain sanctity to dial-up. Network seemed nothing but a step into the Matrix. Cloud computing well yee-ha.

I look to my kids and wonder about the diffuse and selective identities of the children to come. The distance from their own privacy through avatars and handles. It is different no matter what the p-man says. I think we'll pray they need some great corduroy coat or velvet hat someday to scream me, me, me. It will harken us back to a gentler time when people talked to each other instead of to their cars.

New Digital Learning and Teaching

A few weeks ago I attended a brilliant presentation by Dr. Jason Ohler. Dr Ohler presented to us on the topic of new digital narratives and schooling in general. It was fantastic both professionally and personally.

The content was wide ranging but the core information was built around the place of storytelling in learning and the general delights of using technology to bring the stories home. Well, now don't we all know about that.

You can read all about the movement to banish the book reports and all other manner of reports in favor of the narrative at Dr. Ohler's site. But I will highlight the one video we have been watching over and over at our house that makes the best case for it. Hannah and the Fox is a 6 minute presentation by a 4th grader that she wrote and performed. These new artifacts of digital learning are not about the ability to demonstrate you can indent in Powerpoint, nope, you have to be able to write, compose, illustrate and expand information.

I think of this stuff and really feel I should be enjoying our transition to the school years a lot more.



How to animate a rolling ball is pretty awesome too. And, it's my means of celebrating Pi Day.

Asynchronicity

At times in my job I get steeped in the rabble babble of new media. Worse yet new media and youth. Woefully unqualified for this my mind will get spinning, metaphor upon simile upon paradox. All to make imaginable, dare I say do-able, some response from our school system to what all this is. I hope we might offer something a smidge better than cobbling together.

Telling myself the more things change [textme, pod, iPhone, whatever] the more they stay the same.

But, seriously, a woman just walked down my street in a microfibre jumpsuit carrying two plastic bags on a stick à la :


Modernity, go figure.