via Ain’t It Cool News.

Δ

Δ

That’s nearly 1/3 of my total photographic output since I bought my first digital camera back in 2001.

I was helped a lot by some big trips this year. I went to San Diego, London, Orlando, and San Francisco this year. I went to some great conferences as well. I also was all over the place in the greater Boston area. I also completed Project 365 for the second time.

I realized this year that what I try to do with my photography is document the things and people I love. Below find a gallery of the 12 photos that I think best represent that effort at documentation, followed by explanations for some.

Fittingly, my favorite photograph that I took this year is of the love of my life. Beth didn’t know that I was taking her picture looking at this gorgeous California sunset. Unfortunately for all of you, you can’t see how lovely she looked that day. Fortunately for me, her silhouette completely pops against the amazing colors over the Pacific.

We went to London for our friends’ wedding, and were fortunate to get to sit at the table with the bride and groom directly across from them. Since I’m allergic to flash, I tend to rely on my fastest lens (50mm 1.4) to power me through indoor shots. It leads to fun depth of field moments, like the groom here looking adoringly at his new bride. I’m so glad I focused on her almost as much as he did.

Whenever I’m in the city, I love to catch glimpses of people in their own little worlds. I don’t think this photo is necessarily my best in terms of technique or framing, but I kept coming back to it as a perfect, quiet moment in an otherwise busy city like Boston.

I can guarantee you that two years ago I couldn’t have pulled this shot off. I was drawn to this little scene of people watching fireworks and knew I had to capture the way the light worked.

Speaking of fireworks, I can’t get enough of them. This one’s my best from 2011, taken at Hampton Beach.

We don’t use our garage much, so this spider was able to build its amazingly intricate web. Lucky timing + lighting meant I could capture her perfectly one day sitting in the middle of it.

Δ

It got me thinking about the nonverbal messages that we send in our day to day interactions with students and other teachers. What are the implicit perspectives you’re pushing out to the world?

I started thinking about this because of a couple of really nice sessions that I chose to go to, somebody pointing out ways that I modeled for others in my own presentation, and interacting with my colleagues during downtime.

At the first session I attended on Media Literacy in the Elementary School, Katya Vigil‘s modeling of thoughtful reflection on her own practice really impressed me. At so many of the sessions you go to at a conference, the person presenting their work feels a need to put on an air of authority. Everything is wonderful, and that’s why I’m here in front of you today! In contrast, the presenter actively discussed throughout the presentation what she liked or didn’t like about the units that she planned. She told us explicitly what she felt did not work, improvements that she would make the next time, and research that she still needed to do before deciding on other improvements. I don’t know about you, but I respect that a whole lot more than the person pushing their own perfection. I’m glad that she had a few minutes of commenting and questioning in the end so that I could tell her that I felt that way.

At the other session I attended (more on that in a moment), Suzy Brooks ran a fabulous, fast-paced session where she modeled the value of choice for people. Instead of body-slamming through a ton of topics in the order of her own choosing (like I did in my presentation, of course), she had a list up on the screen and encouraged people to call out the topic they wanted to hear about. It kept audience engagement high through the presentation, people heard what they wanted to hear about, and yet she still somehow hit almost every point that she wanted to. I’ve already assured Suzy through Twitter that I plan on stealing her format at some point.*

At my own sessions, I’m fortunate that I had Jeremy Angoff** there to point out my own modeling for me. With some technical issues popping up, during the presentation, he pointed out to me afterwards that I modeled how to handle that well. I did my best to make light of the situation, and to just keep on moving. If something didn’t display right, I’d do my best to describe what it should be.

Before my second session, a woman politely told me that she would be leaving it early, and assured me that I should not be offended. Jeremy was sitting right behind her, so I asked him if I, a person who runs unconferences in my free time, would be offended in the slightest by somebody leaving my session. In the funniest moment of the whole two days, he replied, “He invented leaving sessions. Wait! I didn’t mean it like that!”

Of course, I did skip a whole bunch of sessions. I took the time to gather my thoughts and have meaningful discussions with my colleagues. I know many people who left sessions multiple times to find something more useful to them. When a bunch of us realized one session had slim pickings for us, we decided to meet up together and run a mini-edcamp in the middle of the conference. We’ve had enough unconference experiences at this point that we just ended up modeling the most basic principles of it just by second nature.

So when you get back to school after reading this, think about those messages that you send out. It may be easier at first to observe others and think about the messages they send. Do they model collaboration or do they send the message that working together with you is a waste of their precious prep time? Do they value student voices, or do they insist on compliance at all times? Do they demonstrate that learning happens constantly by sharing their own learning, or do they represent themselves as the authority at all times? Is learning messy student-driven or perfection and teacher-driven? Look at these things, find the ones modeling the things you value, and try to pick up on ways you too can send those kinds of messages. It takes purposeful effort at first, but the more you practice the modeling, the less you have to think about it. At some point, if you keep acting like the teacher that values collaboration, student voice, and honest sharing, you actually become the teacher that implicitly and naturally demonstrates those values.

*I swear to God that my blog series on remix teaching is coming! When a big idea rattles around in my brain, it can take ages of me wrestling with it to form some sort of coherent thoughts. If you don’t believe me, talk to my wife sometime about how long it was obvious that we would get married before I actually proposed to her. Fortunately, I make up for it by acting rapidly once I know exactly what I’m going to do.

**Jeremy is also totally my hero for coming over during my presentation to troubleshoot a display issue so I didn’t have to bring my presentation to an extended dead stop while trying to figure it out myself.

1. This week I’ll be at MassCUE annual conference on both Wednesday and Thursday. On Thursday I’ll be presenting two sessions. The first session will be me flying solo doing An App a Minute, in which I try to share 50 iPad apps in 50 minutes. Think one man iPad smackdown. The second session will be a joint session with Greg Kulowiec on Do It Yourself PD, a topic on which I think I’m somewhat knowledgeable. If either of those sounds like your bag and you’ll learn something, I’ll be hanging out in Theater B Thursday afternoon.
2. I’m very excited to work with the Coalition of Essential Schools to run a half-day unconference at their annual Fall Forum. We will, of course, be following Edcamp format. It’s not an Edcamp proper, but it’s looking like the closest thing you’ll get in New England in the next few months. The unconference thing is great and all, and it might be nice to see me, but there’s some serious heavy hitters speaking at this thing, most notably Alfie Kohn and Deborah Meier.

Assuming I don’t crash and burn this week, I’ll probably throw in a conversation idea or two for EduCon while I’m at it.

Δ

I have lots of reasons to be excited this year:

• I only felt like I started to hit my stride as a technology specialist in the last quarter or so of last year. I still have tons to learn, but I started to get a handle on the job in the last few months.
• Lots of staffing moves in a reorganized educational technology department in my district, which includes a new Director of Technology Integration, Dennis Villano (and my mentor last year); Laura D’Elia, the new librarian in my school (and co-organizer of Edcamp Boston); and two new Instructional Technology Specialists at Burlington High School: Andy Marcinek, who joined the leave Philly for Burlington team to go be a Tech Specialist at the high school (and organizer of the ntcamp events) ; and Tim Calvin, English teacher extraordinaire.
• I have a green screen now.
• Sixty (60!) iPads

So yeah, we’re going to try and take this educational technology thing to 11 this year in Burlington.

Laura and I have decided the best approach to showing how much awesome stuff happens at Pine Glen this year means running a joint blog. So please do come on over to the Pine Glen Library & Technology Center blog to see the latest stuff we’re trying with kids and teachers this year. I might periodically share some of that stuff on here, but if you want to see more of the day to day nitty-gritty of how we’re trying to work things, come on over. Right now, you can see a video and pictures shot by students documenting a Mystery Skype Call.

Of the tenets of the Fish Philosophy, my personal favorite has to be Make Their Day. If that’s your goal every day, the rest flow naturally.

The past couple of weeks have been tiring. Last week, my district’s amazing library media and instructional technology specialist team put on what I think was a very successful 3 day conference for all of the other teachers in the district. Even in a more structured event, I can’t quite shake that unconference vibe. I assisted in a handful of sessions when I had some free time, and at one point I went off on my own for a bit and yet still ended up assisting some very nice kindergarten teachers with their new iPads. This week, I’m trying to set up my new lab space in between hooking up computers in other classrooms, showing people the ins and outs of Gmail, setting up their new iPads, talking to outside vendors, and talking with members of the PTO about how awesome it would be if they bought some accessories for our new iPads. Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for some new tech to be delivered to the school and am wondering if I’ll ever be ready to see kids in the lab.

But I digress.

I was reminded of the Make Their Day aspect by a couple of people who have done that for me recently. In the first case, I got this email from a guidance counselor elsewhere in my district:

A colleague of mine and I met you yesterday afternoon during the iPad Apps Session. I just wanted to say “Thank You” for all of the assistance that you gave us! I was able to help a few other Guidance Counselors with their technical issues after learning from you! I hope that the Second Graders this year are as excited about school as they were last year!

Thanks again and have a GREAT year!

You better believe that I favorited that email. I felt like a million bucks the rest of the day.

Today I was talking to another teacher in my building and she said the absolute kindest words to me about how I’ve helped her. It made my day so much that it was the impetus for me to write this post.

I’m still adjusting to the new role of being some form of instructional coach, but in a week where I haven’t had any students come to me yet because I’m putting out fires, knowing that I’m making a difference for even one of my teachers is so incredibly meaningful to me.

Making their day doesn’t have to mean saying kind words, of course. Doing something to make people feel special can make somebody’s day. Listening to people share their problems can make a difference. Joking around with somebody can make a person know they’re cared for. A small gesture of a present with the right thought behind it has powerful meaning.

While I haven’t had students in the lab yet, I have had the good fortune to do morning bus duty on the first two days of school. Yes, I got to be the very first staff member most students saw as they came to school as school started. Here’s a few ways I tried to make their day:

• I do my best to say “Good morning” to every child as they come off the bus. For the very first child off a bus, they get a very loud, booming one.
• For the first day of school, I high-fived almost every student as they got off the bus.
• Today the last few students off each bus got personal umbrella escorts from me through the pouring rain to the overhang.

I’m repaid in kind by second and third graders throwing up hands for high fives in the hallway, fourth and fifth graders going for fistbumps, and first graders compulsively hugging me.

So a question to you, dear readers: How did you make their day today?

Perhaps more importantly, how will you make their day tomorrow, and for each of the remaining days of the year?