My Last Day of Summer Vacation

I stayed up late last night. I listened to the crickets and frogs chirping. I savored what was my “last night”. Tomorrow, it is back to school. Two days ago, I started to feel the dread, the fear, the stomach grinding nausea. I hold on to today. Hold it tight to my chest as if to capture it and squeeze out each and every last drop. I dread (almost everything) about being a teacher. It is 180 days of pure, unadulterated fear. Sure there are high points – lunch with Denny Sponsler, the ceramics teacher, and awakening hidden talent in my students – but the lows, are so low. They leave me stunned and reeling with fear. One Hundred Eighty Days, I count them off one by one.

I worked hard this summer to polish my online curriculum. I wanted it to be accessible to more students and to offer additional challenges for the phenoms. I wanted it to be perfect to make the demands of graduate school more easily met. I still have several units to write. I can (and will) finish before school starts. I write curriculum with ease. Parents and school staff come to me for advice about what camera they should buy. I don’t know; what I do know is how to sequence information. That is what a teacher does: Sequence information in a logical progression. I am no expert in photography or graphic design. I do have an encyclopedia knowledge about the subject areas I teach but I rarely practice them and never as an artistic outlet. I quilt. I sew beautiful clothes. I express my ideas in three dimensions. I am not limited to the two dimensional world of photography and graphics.

Denny and I, we are the Art Department at South (even though I am in the Career & Technical Education department…) We used to be three. Denny, Mark Wald and me. Mark was the most wonderful man and exceptional artist. He lost his battle with cancer several years ago. Denny and I drifted rudderless and stunned. We spent an entire school year eating lunch quietly in my back room, often tears escaping our eyes and squeezing each others hands, smiling sad smiles through our shared pain. We would get through this pain, we assured ourselves, and we did. We were blessed with the addition of the most talented up-and-coming Art teacher in the district, Seexeng Lee. The last two years have been glorious and happy years. Our Art department once again began to win scholastic art awards and our rooms were abuzz with students engaged in the practices of mind that are required of young artists in first bloom. Seexeng, is a master of two dimensions. He teaches an authentic curriculum that speaks to students of inclusion and world culture. A curriculum that develops one’s ability to transfer what is in the mind’s eye onto a two-dimensional surface. Now he is gone. Our loss was Edison High School’s gain. Our principal forced his hand in a power-move. The reasoning behind the actions of our administration, I believe is a conspiracy, but, I will see tomorrow if I am right (or if I was wrong…but I won’t be). Who is to be the new Art teacher? I will see tomorrow in the staff meeting how school politics played a part in this new spanner in my works.

I do not do well with change. I don’t adapt quickly – unless it is a crisis – then I am the one in control. Tomorrow, the change will flow over me, leaving me numb, breathless, dysfunctional. My summer schedule, filled with late mornings, leisurely breakfasts and quiet, alone time will give way to waking up an hour before my husband and a drive into the city. That drive, from the verdant green of the Minnesota River Valley into the heart of the south side of Minneapolis is the only bearable thing about the day. One Hundred Eighty Days…of bells and meetings and parent emails and students – so many students – and noise – lots of unexpected, startling noise.

One Hundred Eighty Days worrying about my students who have such diverse background- recent immigrants, disabled students and students who come and go – students who are falling through the cracks – and the most vulnerable of all – my Native American students. I am  a teacher who sees the invisible – and it is emotionally exhausting as I approach and attempt to befriend those fragile souls. Then move outwards to the social workers, their other teachers, their parents as I advocate for them. I use all my resources to help them succeed by setting up casual tutoring sessions; help them communicate and repair relationships with core subject teachers; help them by bringing them lunch, snacks and school supplies; buying them “Secret Santa-grams” and Valentine’s day treats. I really, truly love these struggling kids. They may look like young adults, but they are anything but that. They are fragile little kids with bodies flooded with hormones causing confusion and irrational actions.

This year, I am a bit more optimistic about school than I have been before – I ask you to suspend your disbelief and imagine that. This year is about finding time in the day – actually carving out time in the day. If give 100% to my students in school and then I can get the balance of the day for myself. Many people like to say, “I gave 110% of my attention (or whatever)”. But this is not possible. You can’t give more that 100%. 100% is all there is. That’s what it means – ALL. So don’t think that I am being selfish, or foolish to say I plan to give 100% to my job – when I am there. That is what I am going to do. The union has a name for it “Work To Rule”. Most teachers work much longer than the 7-1/2 hour duty day. We take student work home for grading. We write curriculum – or at least plan lesson plans on our “free time” – that means “not at school”. Most of us spend the summer increasing our knowledge, digesting what worked and what didn’t over the last school year and make plans to improve ourselves and our curriculum.

“Working to Rule” sounds so silly to me, having joined the teaching profession after being a salaried employee for 5 years at various printing companies. Being a salaried worker means “You do the work you have to do – time is not a factor.” So at the end of a month, when all the invoices were due, the customer service department was full of representatives (like me) clicking away at our computers and calculators, looking up paper costs and press time, figuring bulk discounts and finishing charges – late into the night. All happy and eating pizza that we all chipped in to buy. We stayed until we were done – then we were back at work the next morning with a smile on our face. I was so surprised by the teaching profession when I encountered “work to rule” union speak. What?! Teachers get paid for our 7-1/2 hour duty day x 180 student contact days + staff development and parent/teacher conferences. The teacher union says that you can get your work done during your duty day. No work home. All grading and lesson planning done during your 55 minute prep. Fifty-five minutes? Seriously? What a joke. You do the work you have to do – time is not a factor. I stand by this. So I plan to work hard during my duty day, knowing that I have other responsibilities outside of my school day. Of course I will continue to work after school if it needs to be done – especially around grading times! But, I must find a way to segment my life. Mrs. Wolfe, the anxiety-ridden teacher versus Susan Wolfe, the eager digital Archivist in training.

I sat down with my husband earlier this week to discuss what my “Susan in School” might look like. We found the following opportunities:

• I can swap staring at Judge Judy and Law and Order for MARA every day while I cook dinner and wait for my husband to get home – that gives me a solid 12 hours during the week days (subtracting 30-45 minutes of food prep a day).
• The evening can be spent on coursework (or my guilty pleasure World of Warcraft) for an additional 20 hours per week.
• I can gather an additional 16-24 hours on the weekend too.

So I have time, lots of time. The best thing about an online graduate school is that it gives me what I need to recharge – time alone – in my own thoughts. I say time alone even though, I know you are there. I see you online in my Blackboard IM. We can chat, but I am still alone, recharging my social batteries. The stress of having to read the “irrational” facial and body language of neurotypicals all day long leaves me exhausted. Online – is much simpler for me. Words are words are words. And emoticons are emoticons are emoticons. Plus, MARA will build me up by adding a scaffolding, method and theory to my organizational skills. Learning new things is thrilling to me. And a cohort is wonderful, especially for me, because people can be a bit confused by me at first – think  I come on too strong – or too standoffish. I am neither. I am warm and loving. I care deeply and I work hard. I am fun and playful. I will be a good cohort member and a dependable team player.

So there is my balance. Balance. That is what I read about in Dr. Michael Stephen’s blog “Tame the Web” today. You should read it if you haven’t had the pleasure of doing so yet. I will have balance this year I think (I hope. I hope. I hope). The balance will come with the juggling of the anxiety of my duties as a teacher and the joy of my responsibilities as a student. That will be my juggling act. I will manage to keep the balls in the air as I chant softly, “Three years and out…three years and out…three years and out…”

Mrs. Wolfe and Sparky - Our yearbook picture

What I did “last summer”…

What i did last summer

View more presentations from LadyDorrit

A slide show created a couple years ago to show my students. It is about my adventures in Morrowind.

Online and Immersed! Go Team!

I’m immersed in Online Education

I am an experienced online-educator. I created and maintained two classes on Nicenet – an internet classroom system developed as a student project at Macalester College in Saint Paul, MN by Nathan Dintenfass and Ben Archibald in 1998. I have since migrated to the Minneapolis Public Schools Moodle.

Many things contribute to the success of an online student. The first thing is the ability to read, and to understand the content. The second most important skill is time management. If a student is unable to resist the lure of the “bright and shiny” interwebz, they are unlikely to be successful. I address these two important skills in the following ways: I write all my course material at a 4th grade level. That sounds pretty pathetic – but the concepts in class are more important than the reading level. So I explain complex concepts using simple language along with lots of illustrations and podcasts to convey the information. To address time management skills, I resort to the old fashioned teaching tool “eyes in the back of my head” AKA Apple Remote Desktop. Using this monitoring system, I can see what students are working on on their own desktops, then send friendly reminders to “get back on task”. If I don’t get the results I want, I am able to lock their computer, requesting a conference at my desk.

As an online student myself, I believe I could use someone to look over my shoulder to see what I am doing too! Although I do not find myself surfing aimlessly on the web, I do have a 27″ monitor, which unfortunately allows me to do this…

I do enjoy learning. I love exploring. I love researching. I love writing. Too much exploring and researching are what I will need to be careful about as I begin my journey with my fellow MARA students. I have such a desire for “correctness”. I tend to over-think, over research, over plan, over-write (see? I am quite aware that I write a lot…) When I need to get something done quickly, I tend to be able to focus and get the job done…but when I have time – then all bets are off. I will spend hours perfecting a blog entry. This one is a good example. I started this post 3 hours ago. I admit that during those 3 hours, I made dinner and watched Brian Cox’s The Wonders of the Universe and sat with my grandchildren as they fell asleep. Now, I have just tucked my husband into bed (because I am a night owl) and begun typing again.

To summarize: in order for me to be a successful online student, I need to follow the advice my therapist gave me when I admitted that I could be a little obsessive when it comes to writing online. He said, “You have to prioritize. Some things are important, others not so much. Choose your battles.” Sage advice. I am still working on it!

Strengths = Technical, Writing and Researching skills. As an Aspergian, I tend to see how things fit together in different ways than neurotypical people. Barbara Lester writes in her blog ASD Specialist:

People with ASDs are also skilled at being able to see how things fit and work together – that is they have strong visual spatial and design skills… Adults on the autism spectrum may demonstrate this skill by being good at engineering or at computer programming and by having an excellent sense of direction. ASD strengths also include being great at details, and facts and figures.

This pull quote describes my strengths pretty well. I find comfort in extended periods of singular focus. These things will help me be a good online student.

A special thank you is in order for the link to San Diego Community College District, I will send my students there at the beginning of the school year to test their readiness for online learning as well!

In Regards to Working in Teams

As a high school teacher, I too have required my classes to work in teams – especially in Graphic Design (and my now “on hold for MARA Video Production” class.) I have always relied on self-selected groups, but if some students are shy, I have brought them together creating some powerful teams.

After listening to Dr. Haycock speak out against self-selected student groupings, I can see his point. Groups of friends are the laziest groups. Groups formed by students in close proximity – who previously were not friends perform remarkable work. The best groups are those formed when I select students who should work together. A point well taken from the video. I shall implement that in my classes – it will probably cause me to switch up student seating as well!

In my experience working with my fellow graphics teachers from across the district- especially  – I am seen as a leader. I am not the most senior member of the group, but I have helped each of the others obtain their vocational license. I was in the “right place at the right time” when I was hired. The state of Minnesota was re-writing the vocational licenses immediately after I received mine. I joined the statewide committee to create the standards and assessments for certification of teachers for the new vocation license for Visual Communications and Information Technology. I fought to have the state separate the two areas, but they were firm, and playing by the team rules, I let it go.

I am not sure that I am a great leader. I am just the “go to” person in my area in the district. I can learn things quickly and implement them, then provide feedback faster than any other teacher. The fact that I am well spoken helps with the perception that I lead well. I can guarantee that I am not “all that and a bag of chips.” I like order and rules. I like to know what the expectations are – and I can follow them – true to form. I like to know exactly what my responsibilities are. These are all qualities of a good leader according to Haycock. These are my strengths…but behold my weaknesses…

Weaknesses = Social Cognitive deficits and Executive dysfunction. Who-da-wha-da-who-da? Please let me explain. This relates to being Aspergian as well. Autism Spectrum Disorders are pervasive developmental disorders that are caused by structural differences in the brain. Pervasive means that it doesn’t get better – but most of us don’t want to be “normal” we like ourselves just fine the way we are. So what is really going on when I interact with the world is much more intellectually-based than a neurotypical (normal) individual. Neurotypical people instinctively understand body language, facial expressions and even have actual subtle emotions.

Problems relating to social cognition means that I am just learning how to act appropriately in situations where I am unsure of the “social rules” – heck – I have trouble sometimes even when I DO know what is expected of me. But I am working on this. And being precise when writing online helps. Even if I do tend to drone on and on about topics that interest me. Which brings me to Executive Function. That is the part of your brain that stops you from being impulsive. I have trouble with that. There are lots of things that relate to executive function that I do quite well – very well in fact. The two I am not so good with is controlling impulsive behavior (this relates to writing excessively long posts) and rigid adherence to routine. I am a creature of habit. I miss a lot of appointments, because, if I don’t do it every day, then I am apt to forget. So, I deal with that using my Google calendar, and a special technique called “telling my husband to remind me” /smile.

So, to summarize. I have more than a decade worth of different team experience. Working as a project manager in the printing industry, as a teacher, serving on the executive board of MN SkillsUSA and on the Immersive Education Initiative K12 group. I am a good leader, but I am an even better group member.

A special thanks for both of the Teaming Presentations – I will be putting the ideas to work in my classroom this year. I love the Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing steps – very catchy I might add!

…and so I begin my MARA journey

I started teaching at South High School in 1999. I love my job and hate it at the same time. I love sequencing information. I love writing my own curriculum and course material. I am well-liked by students at school and I work well with vulnerable student populations. I hate it because I am impulsive and speak my mind – often inappropriately.

I had finished my student teaching and graduated from the University of MN, Twin Cities with an Art Education degree plus a K-12 Art Teacher license in 1989. There was a long gap between graduating with a degree and becoming a teacher because of a life changing event. The last 6 weeks of my student teaching, I was so sick – like 104° temperature sick all day. It was such a struggle. I was unprepared and very unmotivated. So, the first Monday after finishing my student teaching, I dragged myself downstairs and announced that I was going to see the clinic at the University to see “if I was dying.”

Well, turns out I was. I had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I was told, it is very curable – 98% survivability. I was still scared – but I followed my doctor’s directions. I went through 6 months of chemotherapy followed by 3 months of radiation and was pronounced “cured”. I started teaching as a substitute teacher. By spring, I was ready to leave teaching for good. I hated it – I was not even an adequate substitute teacher. I quit my job and fell back on my trade: Tailoring.

Then, I lost my voice. And I couldn’t swallow. And I knew something was wrong, but like a lot of people, I tried to pretend there was nothing to worry about. But I knew there was a tumor in my neck. I felt it at night as I fell asleep. I could *see* it when I looked in the mirror. Eventually, the inability to read books out loud to my children made me act. We were four chapters into Watership Down. I put the book down gently on my lap and told them that I couldn’t read anymore – it was too hard to speak.

I went to see the doctor again – and of course – the cancer had come back. A tumor grew in my neck through my esophagus, paralyzing a vocal chord. The outlook was grim. Hodgkin’s Disease that recurs has a 30% survival rate. My doctors suggested a Bone Marrow Transplant would improve my odds of survival to 50%. Since the cancer was not in my marrow, I could be my own donor.

Three months of chemotherapy to prepare me for the procedure shrinking my body from 120 to 95 pounds. They scheduled my transplant date for my birthday – I begged them to put it off for one day – they accommodated my request. I was only 30 years old. I was a single parent (divorced) with 3 children, ages 6, 10 and 11. It was hard to say goodbye to each of them – I knew that I might not survive the procedure.

Well, you know how this ends – I survived – or else I wouldn’t be here.

After my brush with death, I moved into the printing industry, because my immune system was not up to being a teacher. I kept renewing my teaching license and eventually was accepted into the candidate pool for Minneapolis Public Schools. I was hired as an Art Teacher for a position that required a vocational license – so I quickly qualified myself for the position, using my experience in the printing industry.

Why MARA? Good question! I have a great answer, I am sure anyone who is drawn to the field of archival record management must have an interesting story. I cannot wait to hear those stories.

My story starts with my Asperger’s Diagnosis. I have been blogging about how Asperger’s is me at The Aspergian. After learning about Asperger’s and how it explains all my discomfort with social situations I realized teaching was not the best profession for me. I am a great teacher – I just suffer from oppressive anxiety. Asperger’s made sense as to why I was a great on-line teacher – even though I sit in the room with the students that take my classes! I had found a coping strategy years before my diagnosis. There are many other successful adults with undiagnosed Asperger’s – but knowing makes it easier for to be a better fellow human.

MARA stemmed from my diagnosis with Asperger’s and discussions with my therapist. I talked about what I did best, and what I enjoy the most. I wrote about this in my forum post.

My Asperger’s diagnosis compelled me to think of what my ideal job would look like. It would be related to Best Practices in Immersive Education. It would involve repetitive tasks involving raw data and data analysis. It would require creative organizational skills to construct relational database schema for archiving digital-born student data/records/activity created in a virtual classroom setting (as opposed to a CMS). Oh – and I could sit alone, in a dark quiet room!

I researched lots of ideas relating to data and teaching. I even interviewed at a few schools, only to reject them as not what I was looking for. I found San Jose State University in the spring of 2010. I waited anxiously until I could apply in the fall. Then waited the year until I could begin.

Here I am! So happy! So happy to meet you all!

-Susan

Metaverse Program at St. Paul Community College

This is a 2 minute 8 second video explaining and demonstrating the Metaverse program in my classroom.

A Metaverse is a virtual classroom – similar to D2L and Elluminate. The similarity is the chance to interact with students virtually. The current software Open Wonderland (OWL) was developed by Sun Microsystems. The project was jettisoned when Oracle bought Sun. The project developers continued to develop the software as an open source toolkit for developing 3-D virtual worlds for use in education and business.

I was thrilled to present my Wonderland MiRTLE (Mixed Reality Teaching and Learning Environment) at the International Immersive Education Summit – the Media Grid – in Boston in May of 2011. I was so pleased to meet and work with the OWL  developers of the software. Upon returning to my home school, the first thing I did was: Tear Down the Walls! It was a dramatic change. I took my classroom MiRTLE from the “traditional classroom seating arrangement” that is depicted in the video linked above, and transformed it into a beautiful outdoor scene.

Screenshot from Default World - Almost Empty (v1.0) at OpenWonderland.org/Downloads/Modules

I have worked in collaboration with St. Paul Community College’s Computer Graphics and Visualization Program for several years. Warren Shaeffer is the Program chair and Martin Hoerth is my technical assistant – I could not have done any of this without these two talented individuals. Warren is a consultant for Virtual Learning Labs, a company in St. Paul, MN. This is where I want to be after obtaining my MARA degree – working with these giants in Virtual Education and Training.

As Minneapolis Public Schools adds nodes to the Metaverse in additional high schools, and as we upgrade our server from OWL to RealXtend – another open source virtual world software. I loved the graphics of this software – the graphics are so lovely. Pasi Mattila from the Oulu, School of the Future in Finland demonstrated this platform for me. While OWL is looks “real-ish” – RealXtend takes on a more sci-fi fantasy look. The functionality as a interactive and collaborative teaching tool is still present – and more robust because it uses C++ as opposed to java scripting. This makes it a bit unwieldy for a non-programmer to go in and change the code. But my interest lies in archiving the experiences and activities of students inside of the VR learning environment.

Under the Water – Developed by LudoCraft – RealXtend Screenshot from http://www.ludocraft.com/realxtend.html

The ability of a virtual classroom to provide a meeting place, for sharing and communicating is remarkable. As a World of Warcraft player since launch, I know that what one does in a virtual world is as real as reality. Gamers may have experienced some of this “reality of the unreal” (an idea coined by Slavoj Zizek – a Slovenian philosopher) when they have jumped their character off the edge of a tall building, or cliff, and their stomach react in the same way as if one was riding a roller coaster.

I am looking forward to working with the students at St. Paul College this year to design (they will code) learning activities that supplement my units. An example would be a walk in camera facing a scene with some sort of motion – perhaps birds flying, or deers leaping across a field. Students could make adjustments to the shutter and aperture, checking on the exposure meter, and then “capture” the scene. This would project the “photo” for them to examine. They could experiment with the camera in three dimensions, in a safe, and fun, learning environment.