BTSA Busted

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After a frustratingly long standoff with the BTSA Induction program, I have finally gotten my clear credential. This would have happened long ago had I not been as stubborn as most of my friends are (ahem Benjie and Nemesis).

Actually, I’ve wanted to write about the difficulties with BTSA for some time – either here or at the Homeroom – but have been reluctant. It’s hard to properly describe some of the silly hoops LAUSD makes us jump through (and I’m not referring to the state mandated need for BTSA … that I understand). I don’t feel like I’d get the frustration of most teachers across without sounding like a whiny, privileged teacher by readers that don’t know any better. I continue to mull this over.

Oh, I used the new Randy Newman and Sparks albums to cover my employee and social security numbers. Those CDs along with the Conor Oberst and a sneak peak of the new Walkmen records have made the last two weeks a rather healthy diversion from PLC debating.

Hello World: BSRAYDEKWTDWT

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At the Comic-Con this year, had the pleasure of randomly stumbling across the Igloo Tornado booth. Last year, I bought the awesome Tom Neely book, The Blot, and have enjoyed some great mailing list fodder as a result.

This year, I was excited to discover that Jason Shiga was perched at the booth. Shiga’s Bookhunter is easily one of the funniest, most entertaining books I’ve read. A detective action thriller, Bookhunter follows a determined agent on the lookout for library related chicanery.

Based on this book alone, I pretty much bought the other Shiga titles on the table. Including this:

It wasn’t until looking through the book, later, that I realized that this is easily a contender in my newly created genre: Books So Ridiculously Awesome You Don’t Even Know What To Do With Them (BSRAYDEKWTDWT). Really, look at this book. It looks awesome and you won’t know how to read it (the book will in fact chastise you if you program it incorrectly).


See, the book is divided into two smaller sections. As a result, the book is a programmable comic story run by a “paper engine.” The directions are intuitive and fun. The result is a surprisingly difficult set of puzzle adventures.

I went back the next day to buy as many copies of Hello World as I could afford for friends. Unfortunately, that only meant two more. Self published, printed, and bound, Hello World can’t be the easiest book to produce on a large scale. However, considering the amount of complex thought that has gone into revving up this engine, I’d hope more people will get to see this at some point.

Well done, Shiga.

Find A Pattern Towards Da Future

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IF U FIND A PATTERN TOWARDS DA FUTURE, DEN U WOOD FIND UR PREDICTION 2 WATS GOIN 2 HAPPEN IN LIFE…………… E.T

This may be the only other Twitter update that blows me away.

Class Twitter experiment is finally getting rolling. I’ll talk about the initial challenges, current use of the site, and post-BC plans for incorporating Twitter in due time.

(And if you’re on Twitter and basically followed all of the people “garcia_period1” is following, it would give you some context about the two above tweets. Otherwise you’ll have to wait for the game wrap up to come in August.)

Apparently Elite

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Stay tuned for a couple of Comic-Con related tidbits.

Yes. It was ridiculous.

Yes. We spent most of our time in lines and crammed between aisles.

Yes. I will be going again next year.

Fact: shortly after taking the above picture, a Con attendee walked by dressed as Rorschach.

And then we saw two Silent Bobs.

One was talking.

On a cell phone.

Hey! Over Here … in the Real World!

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C’mon people. I’m in South Los Angeles here. Our school’s Internet moves at just less than a creep. I can’t get a working ethernet cord, log on to social networking sites, youtube, etc. You’ve heard me whine about it before. Obviously most of my students aren’t accessing the Internet at home. Our isle of misfit computers at school is their only (semi-)reliable resource for developing media literacy skills. I don’t say this to bash the equipment at our school, but to criticize the disparity between my students’ opportunities to engage online and students in more affluent neighborhoods.

I continue to hear about amazing things happening in Second Life, about online study groups, and vodcasted lectures. But we’re still stuck in our first, perpetually offline life, like it’s still 1999 and Napster is alive and destroying our dial up connections.

At a recent school focus group meeting, several teachers discussed frustration with technology access on campus. The skills students need to succeed in college and beyond are expanding. Sooner or later someone is going to expect my students to be able to quickly and effortlessly post to a blog, add to a wiki, or collaborate via some sort of social networking protocol. And once again, my school will have failed to prepare them for such a task.

And About those Cameras
Somewhat related to this, I recently wrote about a video experiment I am conducting in my first period class. [If you’re too lazy to read the link, I’m having students in my first period class videotape the lesson everyday. Of course, I say it much more elegantly at the link, so just go over there ya putz!] What I’d like to add is that, by handing the cameras to the students, power and agency is shifted within the classroom. Suddenly, I’m not the one scoping out misbehavior; we are complicit in maintaining order within the classroom. As a result, the camera empowers instead of demeans – unlike the recently installed security cameras that students frequently bemoan.

On Friday, Professor Greg Niemeyer spoke with my students. Part of his talk described the differences between surveillance, co-veillance, and sousveillance. I have a feeling that this is something we will be revisiting on Monday.

So …

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If you’re new around here, it’s probably due to my Your Name Here review, as linked by the great Rachel Zozanian Helen Dewitt

I’m giving y’all fair warning: most chatter in these here parts is about secondary education and what’s happening around my school.

In any case, my class is busy investigating the Black Cloud and reporting sightings over here. Maybe you are interested in unraveling the mystery too.