G's Sydney Adventure

"We are the 20%"

2012-01-20T21:42:00.000-08:00

"We are the 20%"

If you were in Eugene last Saturday, you saw these words as the last statement of our presentation on innovation in the classroom. It was at the end of a trip that started with this quote:

Even very recently, the elders could say [to the youths]: “You know, I have been young and you have never been old.” But today’s young people can reply: “You have never been young in the world I am young in, and you never can be”….This break between generations is wholly new: it is planetary and universal.
– Margaret Mead

In between those two quotes were an attempt to inspire teachers to innovate themselves and their classrooms. It would be difficult to recapture the energy of that room (at least as I saw it) but based on the many, many conversations I have had since, our message resonated with many folks. A brief recap:

My morning preparation for the conference at the Glenwood. So good.

The presentation started with a tiny bit of my personal journey, and then I outlined several specific free tools that have great potential to innovate the classroom. These included: Google Art Project, Google Earth, Googledocs, Google Translate, and the use of video in the classroom. Additionally I introduced Google's 20% concept as a model for student-driven project-based learning experiences that give kids opportunities to experience deep learning through the act of CREATION. It was a special feeling to share so many of these tools which I know have great power to transform learning and teaching to such an incredible community of educators. Plus, I knew enough of them that I had lots of material to work with, and got several pretty solid laughs out of the audience. Always a good sign!

Dave Matthys followed right away with an inspirational and clearly articulated picture of how he took this 20% concept and turned it into action with his band students. Thoughtful, thorough, innovative creativity was evident throughout the impressive student projects he shared. He also laid the groundwork for how this actually functions in an environment where schedules and obligations can often thwart innovative thinking. The audience was presented a vision of innovation that can coexist with the expectations of a "traditional" music class. It also opened the door to more outside the box thinking relating to education, and giving kids and teachers permission to try something new.

Bob Ponto takes us on an "Expotition"

Bob Ponto burst right through that door, and knocked it out of the park with a very heartfelt and unique narrative about his own musical experiences, the creative process, and suggested (humbly) that these opportunities for creativity were long overdue. Weaving his story through a Winnie the Pooh "expotition" he took us on an unlikely journey of the creative process that bent our perceptions of time, collaboration, and possibility. I can't adequately capture it here, but watching Bob tell the story of collaborating with Imogen Heap (with a granulized version of an old recording of his daughter playing ukelele) while his daughter, quietly in her own part of the house (unknown to him) was also collaborating with Imogen (Imogen was half-way across the globe, mind you) at nearly the same time with her viola, and then Imogen recombining their efforts together in a crowd-sourced work of her own was absolutely inspiring to me. His final message that "We are the 20%" was not only a sly reference to the recent occupy movement, but it was a heartfelt call for introspection.

Sparking interest is not just a "nice to have" in education. The more I teach, the more I feel that sometimes igniting a child's curiosity may be the most important thing we can do. Once they get hold of something and find their own voice within it, then we are truly educators. To educe = to draw out.

"Where there is interest, there is learning."
-Sugata Mitra

Talking philosophy, music, and teaching. Sweet.

I would like to personally thank Dave and Bob, and all the educators who came to our session. It was standing room only, and many folks stayed after and hung out until the evening talking philosophy, inspiration, and the paths that we are all on. I feel so blessed to be a part of it, and know that my time preparing for this experience, and collaborating with such special educators has left me a far richer person. I would continue to encourage all of us to be willing to put ourselves out there, and be open to re-envisioning what we are capable of. Let's keep talking.

2011-12-08T11:21:00.001-08:00

December.

A whirlwind of school and no-school in November have ushered in the freezing temperatures, as well as our 20% projects. The middle school students have utilized the Brightworks arc and Google's 20% time concept to create projects of their own interests and design. A link to some of the projects can be found on our classroom site here, check them out!:
https://sites.google.com/a/beaverton.k12.or.us/rhk8technology-arts/teacher-blog

A critical piece of this project was reinforced by one of my mentors, Paul Monheimer, over dinner recently. He reminded me of the need to connect individually with each student, talk through the projects with care and thought, before "turning them loose" to make the project happen. It really resonated with me. Isn't this connection and relationship really the essence of teaching anyway? I believe it is, and my hope is to utilize technology and the arts to support and enhance that connection.

One of the exciting pieces of this project will be mentoring sessions from professionals who do just this sort of self-directed project management in the "real world". We will be working with designers within Nike to extend this project into some real-world settings. One of our mentors works in Nike's "Innovation Kitchen," and spoke with students briefly today about the importance of making mistakes, and learning from them.

Are these projects a glimpse of the future for education? Are the abilities to design, develop, execute, experiment, express, and evaluate projects the logical next step to prepare kids for the ever-changing landscape of their future? Is this sort of creativity and autonomy compatible with systems of education that were conceptualized during the industrial revolution and seem designed more for compliance than innovation?

Students are taking charge of their learning. Students are creating innovative projects that push them intellectually and creatively. And some of the projects fall apart, and the kids pick up the pieces and move forward. 19 kids came into the lab today to work on their projects during their lunch. This motivation is detailed in Daniel Pink's book "Drive" as coming from the opportunity for MASTERY, AUTONOMY, and PURPOSE. We may be on to something...

Lake Oswego 20% Time Update

2011-10-22T20:35:00.000-07:00

Please take a moment to visit the Lake Oswego 20% time blogs found here:
http://lohsband.blogspot.com/

As you may remember, Google's 20% time concept is the inspiration behind this project. Dave Matthys, the director at LO is facilitating this unique educational atmosphere. These students are astounding all of us with their original and inspiring ideas and work. Please check out the individual blogs on the right side of the blog homepage and make some comments. They have been getting feedback from all over the world! Way to go LO!

Google Summit 2011

2011-10-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

What a day!
The Google Summit in Springfield was a fabulous day of professional development and networking.
I got to meet many new friends, and had a blast delivering the keynote address. I will post the address soon.

Eric, G, and Kelly. The Beaverton Crew at the Google Summit!

https://sites.google.com/site/2011orgsummit/

I also had a very special conversation with Bob Ponto, amazing band director at University of Oregon. In addition to being an inspirational thinker, he is an extremely forward thinking educator. He will be a part of the Innovation presentation at the Oregon Music Education Conference with Dave Matthys and myself.

This day reinforced how important it is for teachers to collaborate and connect about their craft. There was so much learning in so many ways. I am really amazed at Corin Richards and her team for putting on such a great conference!

Enjoying some chinese food and reflection as I travel back north.

Confluence

2011-09-19T17:44:00.000-07:00

The school year has begun! There are many irons in the fire, and exciting things are happening all around.

20%
The 20% concept is now officially part of our Technology Arts Curriculum at Raleigh Hills. If you don't remember the 20% idea, you can check it out in this earlier blog post here. Students have begun to brainstorm their independently designed projects, and as one would expect, they are coming up with some very original and complex projects. A resource for students (and teachers) who struggle a bit to get their minds moving is wdyl, a cool way to search several different Google search tools at the same time. The Lake Oswego 20% project is also beginning to pick up steam. To give you more of an idea of how that project looks, I made a little instructional video here.

Brightworks Arc
To provide structure for the 20%projects, I am using the Brightworks Arc. This model is used as a map by students at the Brightworks School in San Francisco. I really like the simplicity and direct nature of the idea. Students go through an initial EXPLORATION of topics they are interested in, provide a DECLARATION of what they want to learn, ask for resources, and create their own experience.
In the end is the EXPRESSION phase, where students present their learning via portfolio, performance, or some other method.

Google
Google Adventures continue, I will be the Keynote Speaker at the Oregon Google Summit on October 14th. Looks to be a really exciting day of learning through Google Apps for Education, and it is free, so come and check it out!

Sketchup
I have started all my middle school students with Google Sketchup. If you have never seen it, I highly recommend that you check it out. It is a free, intuitive, and very powerful 3-D rendering program. Students will use sketchup to recreate forensic environments as part of a cross-curricular science project at our school. It is really cool!!

The first weeks of school are flying by...I find myself turning 4th and 5th graders loose on projects reserved only a year ago for middle school. And they are taking them on with speed and skill. Amazing what children can learn when you get out of the way!

Seattle. Google. Search. Yoda.

2011-08-25T00:56:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday I had the great fortune of attending a really cool search class from one of Google's search fellows, whose first name is Tasha. She was really passionate about helping kids think critically before, during, and after searching for things online. I plan to use many of her examples very directly with kids this year. One super cool thing that I couldn't believe I didn't know about was the Google Art Project. http://www.googleartproject.com/
So cool. I strolled virtually through the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and reminisced about a trip Amanda and I took to NY many years ago. Not only did we get to experience the MET, that was also the trip when John Savage and I saw YODA at the Brooklyn Museum. Yes, the real YODA. The last night we were in NY, Amanda and I went to see Woody Allen's band at the Carlysle Hotel but I couldn't get in because I was wearing shorts. So we wandered around Madison Avenue at 8PM trying to find a pants store. (Sounds suspiciously like a Woody Allen Movie.) We finally found some. Anyway, all this random detail to bring home John Medina's point that "Vision trumps all the other senses" when it comes to remembering things. A link to some points raised in his recent book here. This virtual tour of the MET on google art project brought back a flood of memories and details of that trip, and reinforces the power of visual imagery to help us learn and remember. I can't wait to see what happens when my students get to tour some of the most famous art museums in the world.

20% project - Matthys style.

2011-08-16T17:20:00.000-07:00

I Met today with the amazing Dave Matthys. Dave is not just a close friend and mentor of mine, but he is a legendary band teacher of 30+ years. Dave was intrigued about some of the things I learned in Sydney, specifically Google's 20% time concept. We have a plan in place to utilize this idea with his band classes next year at Lake Oswego. It will involve restructuring 20% of the class time to support musical projects designed and documented by students. This may not sound all that innovative, but for a traditional band class, this is a revolutionary idea. The initial conversations with the students are very promising, and as you can imagine, having some say in what they learn is a new and exciting prospect for them. Wait until you see what they are coming up with, this is going to be sooo cool!!! I am very excited to help with this, and also really appreciate Dave's willingness and open mind. I know his students will be enriched and inspired by this experience. We also got Dave going with Googledocs today, and he started his first Blog! That's right, folks, Dave Matthys is in the Blogosphere! More to come...

Innovation

2011-08-14T18:48:00.000-07:00

Had a wonderful chat with my good friend John Savage today. He had an absolutely phenomenal solo concert on Friday night. He is a unique and formidable musician, creating new and vibrant music, and is an inspiring person. He is taking the global traditions and techniques of performing and composing, and creating an entirely new architecture of musical creation. We shared many feelings about the need for innovation in education, and how it reflects a larger picture that encompasses music and many other things. There can be tremendous resistance to new methods or philosophies that challenge tradition, and it is hoped that we can work through this resistance for the betterment of all. I recently came across a very eloquent quote that speaks to this. In one of his lectures, Ken Robinson quotes a speech by Abraham Lincoln, written Dec. 1, 1862, one month before signing the Emancipation Proclamation:

"The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

Christmas in July!

2011-08-03T23:01:00.000-07:00

Models? no, just part of the team!

The boxes are arriving for our grant! Our team of 4th/5th teachers and I met last week to talk philosophy, re-arrange rooms, and unpack boxes full of new technology.

What was very evident immediately was that we were going to need to re-think the spaces in the classroom. We removed the single student desks and replaced them with tables to allow for more flow and collaboration/station possibilities. The process was very interesting, as William McDonough mentions in his book Cradle to Cradle: "Design is intent." At the end of last school year, I told students about our grant, and asked them to redesign the classroom. They had some pretty stunning ideas. I laid out all of their drawings and concepts, and we perused them as we began discussing the room.

We also watched a bit of Sugata Mitra: http://blog.ted.com/2010/09/07/the-child-driven-education-sugata-mitra-on-ted-com/ I have referenced Mitra before in this blog, and I have to thank the amazing Tara in NZ for telling me about him in the first place!

We were also excited to find out that we will be meeting with several teachers in our district who implemented a similar grant a couple years ago. We can't wait to see how they are integrating technology into different aspects of the curriculum.

It is not often that teachers get the support to really re-imagine their craft. I am blown away by the energy and enthusiasm of my team. They are emailing me daily with new things that they have discovered, and I can feel the momentum growing. This is going to be sweet.

Can we Systemize Innovation?

2011-07-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

Google's Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt thinks so. Interesting Forbes interview with him here: http://t.co/nEAogJF

I have been thinking about this a lot recently with regards to education. Can public education truly systemically innovate? In recent conversations with future administrators from Lewis and Clark and teachers in GAFE classes, I have been reminded of the great challenges that public education faces as it tries to evolve and innovate. What can we take from this article and apply to our learning world? Or is Google just too unique to be used as a model?

As I prepare materials for our first GRANT meeting tomorrow, how does this concept of systemic innovation fit in? I have a lot more thinking to do today!

A brief reprieve, sort of

2011-07-13T21:58:00.000-07:00

In about a week I will have my first official meeting with my team of teachers involved in the grant we landed for Raleigh Hills. I am so excited to start this process, and know that my summer will get busier and busier until we hit the ground running in September. It is not very often that one gets to be a part of the creation of something like this. I am very excited to get the team together and create the architecture of the grant implementation together. The one thing that we know is SO important to teaching AND learning AND life is collaboration. We know this, and yet, year after year, we can't seem to re-design education to accomodate this truth. One of the great aspects of this grant is money and release time to support collaboration among teachers. Collaboration is also one of the coolest aspects of the whole Google apps world.

Self Organizing Educational Systems?

2011-06-13T13:51:00.003-07:00

Some fascinating ideas from Sugata Mitra. His experiments are thought provoking and very influential for many educators. I especially like his observations about children using computers in groups and self-organizing systems.

Not a bad couple of days.

2011-06-08T22:04:00.000-07:00

There is so much that I would like to share with you, and it has come to fruition in the last couple of days. However, I should back up to mid April, right after I got back from Sydney.

When I returned to Oregon I immediately reached out to my district to offer any help that I could in the Google deployment scheduled for this coming Fall. Fortunately, we have a forward thinking IT dept. with good people, so I was pretty happy with where they were at. They offered to have me teach a beginning apps for teachers class(camp) this Summer, which has actually grown into two classes, which will be fun.

A really special woman who works in IT then placed a large stack of papers in front of me. It was a grant application for an ED TECH grant from the State of Oregon. They had just received it, and it was due in less than 3 weeks. She offered to help me write it and format it, but she needed me to create the vision. I had never written a grant of this scale before, but I went for it, and my GTA experience was in my head at all times. We worked together on the grant for a couple weeks full on. I envisioned a dynamic, student centered classroom that made school fun and meaningful, and a class that I would want my children to be a part of. We wrote it, and I am really proud of the vision we put out there.

So fast forward a little bit, I get the opportunity to train teachers at Campbell Hall, a school in Hollywood, and I am all over it. CUE, the organization that helped put on the GTA, also does trainings of this sort. Putting together the training materials was extremely educational, and I got the chance to collaborate with some great folks.

So fast forward a bit more, and I am sitting in the airport in PDX yesterday waiting to fly down to Hollywood. I get a call from my principal. We landed the grant! $240K to totally reinvent the 4th and 5th grade classrooms in my school. Technology everywhere, and more important, money and time for training. We get to completely re-imagine what the classroom is. The opportunity to put what I learned at GTA into direct action in the classroom. The opportunity to reinvent ourselves as teachers. I am still in a spin. It is just incredible.

So I go down to hollywood, and the adventure continues. I meet up with a friend I haven't seen in years, the amazing Michael Partlow, and he takes me on a cruise of Mulholland drive, he has connections to the Jimmy Kimmel show, we hang in the green room at the show, watch people on the walk of fame from the rooftop of the El Capitan Theater, see the sights, I have the best hollywood experience I could have hoped for. Not a bad Tuesday.

Mulholland Drive

Respect. Kermit the Frog's Star.

Which brings us to today I am in another spin, as my training with the Campbell Hall folks was AWESOME. We were just in the flow for so much of the day, and I felt like it was an incredible, inspirational experience. I got the chance to work with the performing arts faculty, which was sweet. I couldn't feel more satisfied with the work we did together!

I just wanted to thank you all for your support of me in this adventure. It is hard to imagine that in less than two months since Sydney, and there has been this incredible series of events. Not only has this been a time of great growth for me personally and professionally, it has also led directly to a grant that gives us the rare opportunity to completely revolutionize the classroom for students and teachers, and my own children. It is actually still hard for me to get my head around it all!

All of this was sparked by the GTA. It has been so powerful for me, and I just wanted to share these thoughts with you, and thank you!

More to come....

Take care!

-G

Putting yourself out there

2011-06-08T21:53:00.000-07:00

Recently a couple folks I admire have really put themselves out there and done some amazing things. Sometimes fear, or a strange sense of humility, or whatever, keeps us from putting ourself out there for great things. One of those people is Alvin Schultz, a former student and fantastic percussionist whose name many of you will recognize. Alvin recently put himself out there in a BIG way. It is probably easiest if you visit his fan page. Let's just say that Alvin is living a dream. I am SUPER excited for him. Check it out:

https://www.facebook.com/AlvinSchultzMCS2

Who knows where this adventure will take him? YOU ROCK ALVIN!!

Three things I learned in Sydney

2011-05-29T22:17:00.001-07:00

Now that I have been back in the states for about a month, I feel it may be time to share a couple things that really rocked me on my Sydney journey. In a later post, I will share some of the opportunities that have opened up for me since I have returned. In one way my Sydney journey is over, in a couple others, it has opened up a whole new path for me. More on that later.

Here are 3 things I came away with:

1. The expectation for professional development

I think our expectations for PD in education are often pretty low. We started one session in the morning with a presenter referencing that age old PD line, "If you come away with just one thing you can use in your classroom..." And they indicated that this was not the way this one was going to go. And they delivered. Imagine really cool ideas, innovations, radical ways to try to level the playing field for kids who are often left behind...all coming at you in waves. The information was coming so fast that we could barely track it all. There was a whole secondary conference of backchannel tweets between all the participants. Someone archived all the tweets from the first day and it was something like 160 pages of tweets. Each parcel of information could have been a conference on its own. It was incredible. And then someone else would present, and it was the same sort of pace but from a different point of view. I reflected on all of my PD as a teacher over my career. It made me feel like education is moving in a sort of slow-motion way when compared to the world at large. Obviously we were a self selected group at the GTA, but philosophically, I feel like we can push PD for education to at least strive to be more dynamic and relevant. That's one thing I hope to bring back.

2. The guts of the presentations.

I can't capture everything here, but the innovative use of technology and forward-thinking of the teaching faculty were in and of themselves inspiring. Utilizing tools like sketchup, google earth, and all the googledocs suite in a collaborative environment have the potential to totally upend our traditional notions of what a classroom looks like, how the power structure is designed, how teachers think of themselves less as "guardians of the past" and so on. Here are a couple fun examples of innovative ways folks are teaching literature, math and geography:

Gogle Earth to teach math and geography:

http://www.realworldmath.org/Real_World_Math/RealWorldMath.org.html

Google Earth to teach literature:

http://www.googlelittrips.org/

Tesselations and geometry relationships:

http://mathforum.org/sketchup/videos.html

As we deploy the googledocs suite district-wide next year, I am extremely excited for the potential for us to make our classes more fun, rigorous, and relevant. What a great opportunity for teachers to evolve their craft as well!

3. Google itself

Google supports its employees in a number of ways, and one really cool idea that you have probably heard of is 20% time. This is referenced in a different way in Daniel Pink's book Drive. Basically, Google expects their employees to spend 20% of their WORK time on projects of their own design. And as you may expect, folks have done revolutionary things with that time. Sometimes it benefits google directly, often it does not. But the autonomy and creative satisfaction this brings the workers must contribute to Google's reputation as being a great place to work. I talked with teachers that have used this in their classroom. One high school literature teacher gives students every Friday to work on a project of their interest. The kids design it themselves. And he shared some of what has come out. Totally innovative, meaningful, rigorous curriculum all guided by the interests of the learner. What a concept! I have been chatting with a local legendary teacher who is interested in doing this with his classroom next year. I am stoked to see how it goes! Walking around the campus, watching people work and collaborate in innovative spaces, never more than 150 feet from food, it was an inspiring environment that I think many classrooms would do well to try to emulate.

I am hoping sometime soon, maybe right after break, to have a BYOL(aptop) gathering for folks who might want to get a crash course in some of what I learned. If you are interested, drop me a line. I am excited to tell you more about some things that have opened up since I have returned, but that will have to wait for another post!

Turning the page.

2011-04-22T16:50:00.000-07:00

This will be my last dispatch from Sydney. I have put together a farewell video postcard, I hope you enjoy it! Depending on what happens next, this blog may continue as I formulate and implement my "Action Plan" from the GTA. Stay tuned!

Heavy rain is falling this morning in Sydney. Reminds me of home. We will grab umbrellas before heading to our last stop - the Sydney Opera House tour. Not a bad way to spend my last couple hours in this remarkable place. See you all soon...

Cheers!

-G

Music: Thomas Dutronc - "Comme un Manouche Sans Guitare"

Wagamame, Balmain and last night in Sydney

2011-04-21T23:20:00.000-07:00

Thursday after the academy (which was awesome in a very different way than the previous day) I crossed the bridge over darling harbor and spent some time in the aquarium. It was nice to let the events of the Academy settle down in my brain and watch some sharks. I especially liked the baby sharks in the shark nursery. Afterward, I walked around Sydney gathering my thoughts and just enjoying the sights. I think it is really important to take in local culture wherever you go. I happened upon a local coffee shop called Starbucks to get a flat white, (coffee with milk) upload some pictures, and update my classroom homepage. As I mentioned in the video on my last blog post, the Google experience has been really special, and visiting Sydney with friends has been really fun.

Thursday evening was Jason's last night in Sydney before heading back to Boston. He has been working on several stories for Public Radio, and I look forward to hearing his work. We dined at a delicious asian noodle restaurant called Wagamama.

This morning Remy and I took a leisurely ferry ride to Balmain, which is a lovely neighborhood just west of Darling Harbor. We wanted to go to a special bakery, but since it is Anzac day and Good Friday here, it was closed. They did, however, have full size chocolate Mr. Potato Heads in the window. Remy and I sprinted to non existent ferry platforms twice, which sounds crazy, but it would make sense if you were here.

This will be my last night in Sydney, and we will likely take a nighttime Ferry ride for one last look at this beautiful city. For the record, I did many things that my students recommended, including: Taronga Zoo, Museum visit, Botanical Gardens, and the Aquarium. Tomorrow morning we are going on a tour of the Sydney Opera House, which I am very excited about. After a little lunch, I will head on to the airport. Although this has been a thrilling experience, I miss my family very much, and am excited to come home!

-G

Awesome.

2011-04-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

It would be impossible for me to encapsulate all that has happened these past days. Not only have I been totally blown away by the sessions led by awesome educators, my mind is swirling about the potential of what I have seen. In addition, I have had the rare opportunity to go "behind the scenes" at Google, which was eye opening, and inspirational.

It will take me weeks to unwind what has happened, and years to fully implement many things I learned. I am super excited! Imagine the fastest paced lectures, presentations, and activities about things you are really interested in. Then imagine them coming to you one after the other. Then they keep coming. One minute we are seeing how Google Earth can be used to recreate the journey of a hero in a famous story, the next we are using google reader and google books to pull up front page news from 150 years ago. Then some students use google sketchup to create scaled 3d drawings of their school buildings which then become part of Google Earth. Then we move on to learning about ancient civilizations by recreating them....in an interactive online virtual world. How about a printer that can print in 3 dimensions using resin? It goes on and on and on.

It will take a while to put some sort of practical framework to access some of the amazing things I have learned, but I plan to get going on it as fast as I can. This experience has been without a doubt the most inspirational and educational experience of my professional life. I am sooooo glad I put myself out there and so thankful to those of you who have helped to make this a reality. Cheers!

The Harbor, History, and Wild Animals

2011-04-19T04:46:00.000-07:00

Monday we cruised around the harbor in a ferry. We had some stunning views of the Sydney Opera House and the Harbor Bridge on a gorgeous sunny day. Sydney has a very efficient ferry system that runs constantly from the Circular Quay. We rode the ferry for quite a while and even wrapped around into Darling Harbor where I could see the Google Campus. Afterwards we happened upon a museum focused on organized crime and the history of law enforcement in Sydney. It was an eye opening exhibit.

(Me at the judges bench in the crime and police museum)

As we walked through the city afterwards we spotted our old friends the giant bats flying through the financial district. Sydney is a cosmopolitan city of 4.5 million people with a 3 story apple store and giant bats that fly through the streets at night!

In the evening we dined with another friend of Remy and Joanna's whose name is Jason who is staying with us. He is a well known correspondent for NPR and the BBC. He is working on several interesting stories about the Australian economy. Australia, unlike the US, is experiencing an economic boom, and he is covering various aspects of this. As an example, the coal industry is huge right now, largely fueled by China's demand for resources. Only about 3% of Australia's lands are arable, meaning they can be farmed. Some of these lands are also prime coal extraction areas for a variety of reasons (proximity to rail and harbors as an example). Naturally, there are opposing viewpoints about utilizing this arable land for coal extraction. We have had some very interesting intellectual discussions, and I am hoping to get some good tips for podcasting from a professional broadcaster for our Sound Unit. More to come on that.

Tuesday Morning we headed out to the Taronga zoo. We missed the ferry that went directly, so decided to take another and hike in. It was a beautiful side trip through some very interesting neighborhoods right on the harbor. We came across several small secluded coves filled with green water.

The Taronga zoo was quite impressive. In addition to having several very unique animals found only in and around Australia, it also afforded us incredible views of the harbor and city skyline. The highlights of the zoo for me were: the nocturnal animals exhibit, the wallaby and kangaroo walk through exhibit, seeing the most poisonous land snake in the world (the fierce snake), and watching my friend Remy get attacked by an enormous pelican. No joke! They were walking the pelicans back from a showing, and one decided to clamp onto his upper arm. He escaped with a minor scrape. He said it felt like sandpaper. The handlers shrugged it off with a "Sorry mate," and we moved on. Interesting how different cultures handle things, isn't it?

I am gearing up for my first Google Academy training tomorrow. My cohort leader is from New Zealand, and I am super excited to start the training. The last few days have totally flown by, and even though my training hasn't even begun yet, it feels like I will be home before I know it.

On another note, I watched the progress of many of you who signed up for the Khan academy. Way to go!! It is really cool to be able to see you guys developing and reviewing math skills, hopefully filling in some of those "gaps" that Salman Khan spoke of. If you haven't yet, please click on "add a coach" at the BOTTOM of the Khan Academy screen. My ID is RHk8tech.

I will update the blog again tomorrow after my first day of the academy. Probably no pictures from it, as Google does not allow any photography inside of the campus. Hope you are all well.

Cheers!
-GDB

A lazy day in Sydney

2011-04-18T03:18:00.000-07:00

Our first day in Sydney started with us trying to shake off jet lag by finding some breakfast. We settled on this great place inside a sort of arcade in the financial district. Our apartment has a stunning view of the harbor bridge, and is central to most everything we want to get to.

For a starter we had hot cross buns. I never even knew what they were, and I spent a lot of my youth singing about them! They were sort of like a raisin/cinnamon biscuit. Lovely.

After breakfast, we took our time walking around the city, and happened upon a part of the city called "The Rocks". With cobble streets, narrow pathways, and old buildings, it was very reminiscent of an old European town. We had a leisurely stroll through markets and shops, and ate very fried food.

(Brenner's Chocolates)
As we made our way to the botanical gardens, we decided to stop by Brenner's chocolates, where they offer over 40 types of hot chocolate! They had vats of chocolate and fake pipes going all over the place ala Willy Wonka. As we headed to the Botanical Gardens we spoke of the future of music, and the impact of technology on education. Nothing like a little light conversation as we stroll!

The Botanical gardens were really something. In addition to various trees, bushes, flowers and birds, we happened upon whole groups of giant bats. Not little rubbery bats like we have in Portland, but like big, hairy, looks-like-a-flying-medium-sized-dog bats. And they were screaming. It was pretty unsettling. Then we noticed the spiders. Large ones. Everywhere. They had huge webs set up in almost every bush and tree. As we strolled through the gardens the sun set behind the skyscrapers of Sydney. The moon came out of the clouds and we walked down to where the gardens met the harbor. As we walked toward the opera house along the water's edge the bats emerged from their perches and flew like a flock birds over us and around the edge of the harbor. We weren't able to get great pictures, but somehow hundreds of giant bats flying all over the place right on the edge of a city of 4.5 million people didn't seem weird.
(bats in a tree)
We then wandered around the Sydney Opera House. This is probably obvious to others, but I had no clue how BIG the place is. It is a monstrous building. We will take a tour sometime this week, I am super excited!

The Journey Begins....

2011-04-17T17:34:00.000-07:00

On the flight to LA I met a great new friend. Her name is Shirley, and we talked about life, and education, and children, and parents. She does work for a non profit organization called Worldvision. This organization works to help children around the world. One of the interesting projects her organization is involved in is the idea of lending small amounts of money to help folks get out of poverty around the world. This idea, called micro-loaning, is an increasingly common economic tool. Many folks conduct all of their financial transactions using a cell phone,as they may be in remote areas without easy access to financial institutions. Pretty cool.

In the LA airport I had a very short layover, and I saw a couple cool things. They had a giant tan-gram puzzle on a touch screen.

They also had vending machines from Best Buy that dispenses personal electronics. Now you can buy headphones, a flip video camera, even an ipod. One unexpected surprise was that I did NOT see one Laker jersey the whole time. That is a good thing.

COUNTDOWN!

2011-04-14T14:16:00.001-07:00

Time is winding down. I am spending time preparing for my journey just as one would expect: I am sitting at Les Schwab's waiting to get our studded snow tires removed. I have yet to pack a thing. Fortunately my wardrobe is mostly earth tones, so I don't have to spend too much time trying to coordinate. Also, just FYI for all you fashion folks out there, I received a genuine compliment from one of my students the other day. The student said, "Mr. Bundy, you are the best dressed teacher in the school." TAKE THAT all you haters! But alas, I digress.

The student projects have been varied and wonderful. I have learned much about Australia and Sydney through their eyes. True to form, many found some rather strange history, including the tale of a tiger shark that was captured that had ingested a human arm. The arm was later identified and connected to a crime. Fascinating, and gross.

Another strange teacher coincidence last week. I ran into Paul Monheimer, my 7th grade English and Social Studies teacher. It was lovely to see him, he looks exactly the same, so teaching may be good for your health after all.

Although I fly out tomorrow, it has not hit me that it is really happening. It may hit me when I am on the plane.....more to come!

Getting Psyched!

2011-03-23T21:21:00.001-07:00

I leave for Sydney in about 2 weeks, and it is really starting to sink in. My middle school students have been involved in a project where they are using different technologies to help me "plan my trip." This includes: researching the passport application process, comparison shopping for flights online, using GOOGLE earth and GOOGLE maps to measure distances from the academy to various hotels, and researching unique things for me to do while I am in Sydney. Strangely, a large number of them have chosen activities that involve sharks, poisonous spiders, or crocodiles! I am not sure what that means, but I will definitely consider their suggestions!

I have heard from a few folks who have been there, but if any of you have some experiences in Sydney, feel free to post them.
As excited as I am for the adventure, I am also really stoked about the educational potential of the trip. The world is changing rapidly, and with it, our concept of what education is and can be must also evolve.
To paraphrase sir Ken Robinson, I think it is the development of our creative abilities that may give us a chance. Technology is going to be an increasing part of our point of delivery instruction, and if we are creative about it, and sensitive to it's abilities to draw out our potential (instead of our ability to robotically consume someone else's creative work) then we may be onto something. One thing I came across recently is someone doing that. His name is Salman Khan, and I am eager to put much of his ideas into practice. To see what he is doing, check this out.
http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html
Oh, and by the way, if you've never seen the TED academy, get ready, it is incredible!

A visit from the past.

2011-03-04T13:53:00.001-08:00

I had wonderful surprise visit this week from the AMAZING Nancy Matthews! That's right lumberjacks of Cedar Mill! Nancy was our Librarian. She came by to wish me luck on my trip. It was such a treat to visit with her, and I was reminded of how powerful our connections as teachers are! She wished me well on my journey, and was so excited for my adventure!

The trip is about a month away, and the pieces are set. I will have a few days in Sydney when I am not at the academy, so feel free to post some ideas of things to do while I am there. I had some students do this today, and they came up with some ridiculously cool stuff to see!

Missing the Revelation...

2011-02-28T20:29:00.000-08:00

Well, there is one bittersweet aspect of my trip. The infamous musical assemblage known as Groove Revelation will be playing while I am in Sydney. This is a really special band that I have been blessed to be a part of since its inception in about 1997. I am at Dave's house right now and this is a really special band that plays all original music. These guys are KILLER. If you are able, on Sunday April 17th, plan to come out and be moved by John Savage, Dave Fleschner, Tyler Smith, Ken Ollis, and special guests at the Blue Monk (SE Belmont) as part of the NINKASI Jazz series. I will dearly miss them, and this gig (we play about once a year), but will be thinking of them from Oz.

Passport check...

2011-02-24T19:33:00.000-08:00

The last time I used my passport was when Amanda and I toured Europe with the Oregon Ambassadors of music. That was a whirlwind, fantastic trip, where I met many special friends.
As I sent off my passport for renewal, I couldn't believe that was in 2003. That seems impossibly far back in time. Shortly after we returned from that trip, I was on my way to a gig with the Hot Club when a pickup truck going 45 ran a red light and bashed into my car. The guys who carried me out of the car on a backboard told me I was lucky to be alive. Although it was not a pleasant experience, I can certainly trace many really amazing things that have happened since, that may not have happened otherwise.

As Tolkien writes:
“Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

Two of the amazing people who are in the world now (who were not here the last time I used my passport) are the star actors in my Google Academy application video. A part of the application process was to create an original one minute video about some aspect of education. I chose the word EDUCE. It is not only the root word of education, it is sort of at the heart of my philosophy about teaching and learning. The idea is that incredible potential lies inside of the hearts and minds of all of us, and the teacher's task is to "Draw it out." Too often we think of education as merely a training ground. Training is an important aspect of anything, but it is not an endpoint. Training could be the accumulated teachings of generations, and is thus incredibly useful. However, training must be balanced with Educe-ing, so that the original potential of the student can reveal itself.

Hope you like it:
http://www.youtube.com/user/zaggfly#p/a/u/1/BkpP9mwbfBI

What goes around comes around...

2011-02-20T10:40:00.000-08:00

When I was in middle school, in addition to wearing shorts with bow ties, I was introduced to a lot of technology by my friend Remy. I had an Atari 2600 in elementary school, and was a relentless video gamer way back in the day. Especially Combat and Asteroids. Man, you could play asteroids FOREVER on the Atari!
Anyway, I would bike over to Remy's house and he taught me about computers. He had an Atari 1040 ST, one of the best PC's ever built. We would fire up his modem (probably 400 baud) and go to bulletin board sites. Basically, we were surfing the internet when it was all text-based. I remember we got hold of this bootleg game that was all in Russian. Must have been 85 or 86. Well, it was tetris, and it was amazing.
Anyway, here we are 25 years later. I am heading to this gig in Sydney in April, so I text Remy, who now lives the high life in San Francisco. I ask him what he is doing the week of April 17th. He texts back that he is going to Australia! Turns out that he had already planned to be there. A friend of his is going to be doing some filming for the BBC in Sydney at the same time. So, Remy and I will get a couple days to take in Sydney together while I am there. I am so excited to get to spend some time with my great friend, and more than a little appreciative of the strange coincidence that has brought us back together on this adventure!

The news.....

2011-02-18T19:23:00.000-08:00

Beaverton School District Educator to Become

‘Google Certified’ at Google Teacher Academy

Walnut Creek, CA, February 14, 2011 — Google has selected G Douglas Bundy

as an attendee at the next Google Teacher Academy, to be held in Sydney,

Australia on 20 April 2011. Doug teaches Technology Arts at Raleigh Hills K-8

School in Beaverton, Oregon.

The Google Teacher Academy is a free professional development experience

designed to help K-12 educational leaders get the most from innovative

technologies. Each Academy is an intensive event where participants get handson

experience with Google's products and technologies, learn about innovative

instructional strategies, and receive resources to share with colleagues. Upon

completion, Academy participants become Google Certified Teachers who share

what they learn with other K-12 educators in their local regions and beyond.

Only 50 educators are selected worldwide to participate in this unique

opportunity.

Doug is thrilled to be among those selected, stating: "I am looking forward to

the opportunity to learn and collaborate with the other educators at the

Academy, and super excited to get to work with Google! Technology and

education are becoming ever more entwined, and I am hoping to bring back

practical and exciting ideas and training for the benefit of our students and

community."

Google Certified Teachers are exceptional K-12 educators with a passion for

using innovative tools to improve teaching and learning, as well as creative

leaders and ambassadors for change. They are recognized experts and widely

admired for their commitment to high expectations for students, life-long

learning and collaboration.

The Google Certified Teacher program was launched in 2006 with the first

Academy held at Google headquarters in Mountain View. The program has since

held several academies across the US, expanding the ranks of Google Certified

Teachers. This is the first Google Teacher Academy focused exclusively on

educational leaders. The Google Teacher Academy is produced by Google, in

collaboration with CUE and WestEd, both educational non-profit organizations.