I’ve been using a Dell Mini 10v netbook for a few months now and I am now on the 3rd version of Ubuntu for it. I started with 8.04 which was version it shipped from the factory with. I had some issues with this version, as it didn’t seem to be smooth and some things didn’t work properly. I actually disabled the trackpad, as it was virtually useless. I assumed that this was a feature of the Mini 10v, not of the OS. I’ve since been using a USB mini external mouse on it.
Back in the summer, I figured out how to download, and install a new version, 9.04 Netbook Remix. This was very easy and straightforward to do, ever for someone who had never done this before. That OS was much better. The interface was clean and slick, and it was setup to work on one click rather than 2, as it had an iPod Touch like setup with different applications grouped on different pages. It also seemed to work much better with newer applications. Adobe Air and Tweetdeck installed like a charm, where I had to fight with the 8.04 version and never got it quite right.
Now comes 9.10. I saw that the upgrade was available, but didn’t think that it was worth the effort to bother with. Then I saw @dougpete blog about it and his post got me thinking maybe I should look at it. Rather than do a clean, fresh install like I did with 9.04, I thought I’d take a chance on the Updater that runs within Ubuntu. I clicked the button, and waited.
It was seamless. I download, installed and rebooted with only a few clicks, and the new OS popped up. All my files, apps and settings were intact. Cool. The new version of the desktop is pretty cool and the interface seems snappier, quicker to load. It works very well.
I still was using the external mouse, so was surprised to notice that after a few days of using it, when I checked the settings that the trackpad had been re-enabled, without my noticing. It’s unusual because part of the reason that I disabled it was that it would cause cursor jumps and edits while typing. The new setup includes a feature that disables the trackpad while typing is occurring. This is a nice feature! It pretty much eliminates the jumping and annoying issues that the pad used to have. Nice.
More and more, I’m seeing the advantage of an OS that ‘just works’. With this version of Ubuntu, at least I have that and I don’t have to pay for it.
I had the distinct pleasure over the last 2 days of participating in a conference that was put on by the Ontario Teachers Federation (OTF/FEO) which featured guest Will Richardson. I had been asked several months back by the conference organizers to be a ‘helper’ on the first day, and on the second day to facilitate a workshop on using Photoshop Elements 7.
The event started for on Thursday night when the team assembled at the hotel and had an organizational meeting about how the event was going to run. As is typical of my professional life now, many of these folks had become key online contacts in education in spite of never having met face to face. The ease of conversation and ‘meeting’ these people was wonderful.
The Friday session was led by Will Richardson. He led the 100 or so educators through a great introduction to many of the web tools that have become part of our lives. Twitter, Delicious, Diigo, RSS, Google Reader all were explored and discovered by the group. It’s safe to say that some were left shell shocked at the sheer volume of information. But it was a great day, and I think all present took lots away from it.
On Saturday, myself and my colleague @techguy1717 facilitated 2 workshops on Photoshop Elements 7. With a program of the power of PSE7, it was a struggle to decide what to demo and what not to. At about 10 PM on Friday we finalized our plan of attack, and went at it. I really enjoyed the 2 workshops, and I learned a number of things about the software as we worked through an introduction to some of the basic tools like cropping and colour and light adjustment. We also had a chance to work with some of the neat PSE7 tools like making panoramas and slide shows with a few clicks.
For me the 2 days solidified my enthusiasm for creating and interacting with an online PLN. It was through my PLN that I was able to go to the conference in the first place, and it was an amazing experience to connect face to face with educators that I felt I already knew.
We all went away energized and ready to go back to our respective boards and continue to plod away at making changes that will benefit our students, and ourselves, in the long run.
A debt of thanks to the organizers (inside and outside of OTF) for making it happen. Nice work folks!
What follows is a post that I wrote for my the first course towards my M.Ed. at UOIT. The course is online, and we’re posting in blogs using WebCT. I thought that I’d cross post on here, and see if it will spark any conversation outside the classroom as well. We were asked to blog our personal definitions of teaching, learning and knowledge in preparation for the rest of the program
Being asked to provide personal definitions of teaching, learning and knowledge can perhaps be likened to trying to define work and energy in physics. If you’re not familiar, the simple definitions are that energy is the ability to do work, and work is the change from one form of energy to another. Like Frank sang “You can’t have one without the other.” It’s a circular kind of reasoning in a way in which each concept is dependent on the other, and it is very difficult to define them as completely separate.
Teaching, learning and knowledge can be viewed in much the same way I believe. If there is teaching then there is learning (we hope, but more on this in a moment) and if there is learning, then what are they learning? It’s got to be some form of knowledge. If could also be a skill, which has somehow become a distinct entity in education as well, as if skills and knowledge are two different things. If you have a skill, do you not ‘know’ how to do something? What’s the difference? Is knowledge internalized as a bit of information and a skill is something that can manifest itself in some real, tangible way in the physical world, rather than the mental one? For the purposes of this discussion, I feel that knowledge can be simply defined as the internalization of a piece of information. This information could be a defined fact or some skill that can be demonstrated. In my mind I’m already coming up with examples that some might define as knowledge that I would have trouble with, so there’s perhaps a discussion point there as well. I’m referring to the intangible things that humans often state as knowledge such as “I know that UFO’s are alien spacecraft that visit the Earth.” (to pick a suitably strange example) when the reality is that they cannot know for certain if this is true or not. They may think it, but it doesn’t make it knowledge. In my mind, a definition of knowledge must be narrowed in its description to those things which can be, at least in so much as is possible, verified or demonstrated.
With knowledge defined so precisely (!), where does that leave teaching and learning? Again, can you have one without the other? In a classroom setting, there are classic examples of students having been taught something, but not having learned it. Is this even possible? With apologies to the tree in the forest, if a teacher teaches and the learner doesn’t learn, was anything taught?
The more I thought about this, the more I became convinced that to attempt to separate the two is impossible. They are two parts of the same process. When a learner acquires some new bit of knowledge, either through transmission, or facilitation, or support or guidance, then there was teaching also going on. Then I realized that some learning could be done without the presence of a teacher. And by teacher it didn’t have to be a physical connection, as in a classroom, but some sort of transmission. I can learn from a ‘teacher’ who died centuries ago by reading their books. So in that way, teaching and learning is still part of the same process. However, I now think that some learning can and does happen without explicit teaching, as in the experiential learning done by a child when they touch an icicle for the first time, and learn its temperature. In most cases however, learning and teaching are connected and intimate. It can be the exchange or transmission of a bit of knowledge, or it could be the facilitation and guidance of the teacher such that the learner can be supported in the acquisition of such pieces. So then, if knowledge is the internalization of a bit of information, then learning can be defined as the process that leads to that internalization.
Where does that leave teaching? As shown above, there are many different forms that teaching can take, but if we stick to the definitions of learning and knowledge that are outlined here, then teaching can be broadly defined as a process by which a learner is supported in the process of internalization of knowledge. This support could be in concert with the learner, such as in a classroom setting, or remote in space and/or time, such as the relationship between author and reader.
So have I nailed it? Is this the definitive answer? Of course not, but as I’ve constructed this short post, my mind has been mulling over and finding holes in my own thinking as go. I’ve started to write down statements and then was able to find exceptions to the statement even as I saw it appear on the screen. There’s a lot more thinking to do, and this is only the beginning. I think that as educators, it is a valuable process to undertake and continually refine.
Now that the Arctic 2009 trip is behind me and I’ve had a week or so at home to process and consider the experience, there’s a few things that have occurred to me that I think I’d like to share.
The experience for me had several levels. On one level, there was simply the experience of being a learner. Having never traveled to the Arctic before, there was a lot for me to learn. I’ve read and watch photos and videos of the ecosystems and landscapes, but I’m not sure it prepared me for the reality of it all. One word the kept coming up in my mind was simply ‘big’. Everything was big. Ocean, cliffs, fiords, sky. All big. As a science teacher, I was fairly well versed in the academic view of the north, but the reality and boldness of it took me a little bit by surprise. I can see how people get attracted and get ‘pulled’ to the region.
Another level of learning and interest was watching the logistics of the journey unfold. As someone who had taken students on canoe trips, I know how difficult logistics can be. Students On Ice is a machine when it comes to dealing with the difficulties of an expedition like this, which are magnitudes higher than anything I had ever dealt with. It was quite a thing to watch develop, and I learned just how good they are at doing it, since for the most part, it was never obvious what the staff were dealing with, but I know that the behind the scenes experience was far different sometimes. Kudos to all of the SOI team!
The greatest impact for me was as an educator and watching the students develop as a group and as individuals. As someone who has worked and taught environmental education for a number of years, it truly was a joy to behold the process that the SOI experience led them through. The days were absolutely packed with activities and experiences that were all focused on the goals and outcomes of the journey, which is to awake and ignite the fires that are in all of the students. It didn’t matter what the passions were, although environment is obviously a common theme, each student was given opportunities and encouragement to develop skills, knowledge and abilities that they may have had before, or may not have known that they had.
It was sheer joy for me as a teacher to watch and help students as they talked, discussed, wrote, blogged, painted, sketched, played or simply watched the world around them. It firmed up my belief in experiential education, getting students outside and the purpose of education as a whole. It energized me to take these ideas forward and attempt changes in my own practice and to develop ways of supporting others.
Post trip, it’s been fun as the students have continued the conversations and have posted photos and videos on their shared Facebook group. I’ve posted my journal entries, and about 200 photos on Flickr for all to see. I’ve read most of the student journal entries on the Students On Ice site, as well as blog posts that my roommate Mike was making from the ship.
We know that we live in a super-connected world and it was good for a time to be in a ‘quiet’ zone and offline. It’s also great to watch the conversations and sharing continue between the students and the staff, as we all move forward and support each other in whatever activities we pursue now that we’ve returned from the Arctic. It’s fun to watch that too!
August 11th
It’s been a few days since I wrote anything down. We’ve been touring around the south east coast of Baffin Island. We’ve had some cool things happen. We’ve stopped and done tours in a few different locations. We did a zodiac tour around a bird colony at Hanzsch Island which is home to 120 000 thick billed murres as well a few thousand black legged kittiwakes. It was quite a sight to see all this bird life and hear the sound they all make.
We did an interpretive type walk in one great little fiord area, and I went with the botanist who is on board the ship and learned a ton about arctic plants. The area had a river coming down to the bay that still had ice on the side of the banks, that the student had fun learning about and playing on.
Yesterday we stopped at another inlet off the Hudson Strait, and had group activities. I assisted a group that was discussing how to craft a message and presentation in order to get your voice heard. We had a great discussion about how to prepare for presentations when we get back. These students are going to have a lot of things to do, as many people will want to talk to them, and hear about their trip and experiences.
Kimmurut is a small village on the south east coast of Baffin. We stopped there for a few hours to visit the community yesterday afternoon. It was an amazing experience. There was fresh seal for all to try, and we got tours around the community, and then had a gathering at the high school gym. There we were treated to some traditional throat singing and drumming as well as a demonstration of some of the Inuit games. It was a great community and a good time was had by all. Everyone was especially impressed with the hordes of little kid everywhere. Playing in the street, climbing all over the boats and asking question after question of all of us who had come ashore.
This morning we had our last shore excursion before we disembark tomorrow in Iqaluit. We spent some time discussing in small groups the things that everyone had talked about yesterday in Youth Action groups. We also went for a short hike around the area. We ended up at a survey marker that was marked by a cairn of stones. The marker had been put there in the 1940’s by the Geological Survey of Canada. We were hoping to go for a longer hike, but as the first zodiac landed, they spotted 2 polar bears on a hill not too far from where we were. The spotters were sent out and in a short time they got back the news that there were 8 bears in the area. 3 sleeping and 5 wandering around. Needless to say, we wandered in the opposite direction! I don’t think I mentioned this before, but on every shore excursion that we did, there were a group of staff that were armed with rifles and they scoped out the area, and then stood sentry on various points to ensure that the group was never surprised by any unexpected 4 legged, white haired, visitors. It was always pretty surreal to see them up on the hills of the valleys that we were hiking in.
Now we have to pack. We have a full day of stuff to finish today, and then tomorrow we leave the ship behind and after a day in Iqaluit, we end up back in Ottawa. I suspect I won’t write anything until I’m back there, maybe even till I’m back home.
August 8th
Today we awoke as we were cruising out of the fiord where we had spent the night in a quiet, non-rocking state. We were headed out for a place called Monumental Island, which we never got to. In the AM we started some workshops, and got about 20 minutes in when the day suddenly changed. Geoff called out from the bridge on the intercom that they had just sighted a bowhead whale in front of the ship, and that there we also a walrus visible in distance. The rooms emptied and all went to the various decks armed with cameras and binoculars. We were sailing slowly through a pack of broken up sea ice. It was pretty thick in places, but it turned out that this was perfect habitat.
The expedition leaders decided that it was a good time for a zodiac cruise, as they were worried that later in the day the swell might be too much to make any attempt at landing at Monumental Island. I was in the first group to get to go in the zodiacs and we piled in and headed out. We were able to cruise in through the shifting ice floes and get to withing about 100 yards of a group of walrus on an ice floe. We spent about 15 minutes there taking photos and soaking it all in. It was really great.
After we left the walrus, we cruised around the edges of the ice. Each zodiac went a different direction to see what we could find. After about 10 minutes of cruising around, the call came over the radio to rendezvous at a specific point. Pulling up to the area, we could see what everyone else was looking at. A young male polar bear was standing on the ice, eating the remains of a seal carcase. It was unbelievable. What a sight. The bear was relatively unconcerned as we just floated there and took pictures and videos and basked in the knowledge that we were sharing time with a top arctic predator in its natural and intact habitat. It was awe inspiring. Watching the bear in its element really drove home the point that the ice is an essential component of the polar bears world. Without the ice, all the other things become much more difficult.
As we left the bear alone and cruised back to the ship, I was literally dumbfounded. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt the way I did at that moment. In talking to students and other staff, it was clear that they felt the same. We all shared the same mental state, but we were not able to put it into words. It was fun to talk about how we couldn’t really put it into anything that would do it justice.
After lunch and a great presentation about the International Polar Year, we continued cruising slowly along the coast and through the sea ice floes. It was bright and sunny and all eyes were on deck and on the water. It was like living in a Discovery Channel show for the next few hours as wave after wave of arctic fauna came by. We passed over 100 walrus in about 15 different groups, we saw another polar bear, another bowhead whale and a couple of seals to round out the menagerie. What a day.
I took tons of photos and videos, but again, I’m certain that they will not do justice to the reality of the day.
August 7th
Today was Ice Day! We spent the morning cruising in sea ice and finding our way to a quiet harbour. The ship cruised through this amazing area of sea ice and all students were on deck watching for seals and polar bears as we approached the shoreline. We anchored in a harbour that was formerly a DEW line site, you could see an old building and a road that ran up the hillside to a spot that we didn’t see. It was a beacon of some sort.
We all got in the zodiacs in 2 groups and went out in the ice for a 1 hour tour. We got to see a lot of really cool ice formations and icebergs. We cruised and took photos of things as we went. I saw one seal pop its head up out of the water and then disappear as quick as it came. We found a fairly large flow of ice, and the zodiacs pulled up on the edge and we all got out on the ice. We spent about 20 minutes taking pictures and videos and basking in the sun as we bobbed up and down in the swell on a huge chunk of ice. The kids were very stoked about it, and it brought back memories of doing the same things on smaller ice chunks in New Brunswick we I was growing up. A lot of fun.
In the PM I helped Mike from The Manitoba Museum with an astronomy presentation that was a lot of fun too.
In the PM the ship came out of the sea ice into more open water, and the swell increased substantially. This brought back a large bought of seasickness for many people. Thankfully, I seem to be ok this time. Hopefully I’ll stay that way and not succumb to the motion!
August 5
We had a bit of an earlier start today, at 7 AM, but not as early as yesterday. We had planned to sail to the end of Cumberland Sound to look for beluga whales and walruses that were supposed to be there, but the wind had whipped up a swell at the end of the sound, and it was deemed too nasty to be able to get out of the ship and into the zodiacs. So we tuned around and headed back out the sound towards Kingnait Fiord, where we had planned to spend the PM. As we approached the mouth of the fiord we were on the lookout for whale and we weren’t disappointed! We were treated to about a dozen bowhead whales who were feeding, including one mother and calf. The bowheads are easy to spot by watching for the huge spouts of water that come when the surface and take breaths. Very often they’d also show their flukes when they dove deep in search of food. The students were all lined up around the decks of the ships and would point and yell every time they saw sometime. We were also visited by a large group of harp seals that bobbed around and stayed pretty close to the ship. We spent a good amount of time watching the show before we headed deeper into the fiord.
During the morning workshops series I attended the one with Ian Tamblyn who talked about songwriting and ran us through an exercise on how to get started with writing.
The PM shore landing was a new spot for SOI, that they’ve not been at before, so it was a true expedition experience. Turns out that this spot was a very historical place, as it was a location of one of the field stations that was set up during the first International Polar Year in 1872 by German scientists. This station was run for 13 months during that year, and was charged, as were all the other stations, with taking various measurements and readings of things like tides, magnetic field, weather and stars. It was a herculean effort to gather data on the polar regions worldwide to start to really learn about how the poles and the earth actually work as a system. In a way it was the birth of modern earth science. It was amazing to stand there and ponder what it would have been like to live there so long ago and do the work in the conditions that existed there.
And the location. Wow. Another amazing place here on Baffin. This place was different than Auyuittuq was. It was lusher and greener, with more moss and low shrubs and arctic tree species. It was quite warm and we quickly heated up with a short hike. We hiked as a group about 2km up from the landing area to a spot where the river that came down the valley was pinched in the rocks at a spectacular waterfall. Again, pictures will not do this place justice, but it was magical. Everyone spent some time just sitting or wandering around, or taking photos or writing. The group consensus seemed to be that it was simply overwhelming. Not easy to put into words, or express it in any meaningful way. Just a simply amazing place.
A good day for sure, the students are all energized and truly enjoyed what we did today. Now that we’ve totally abandoned the itinerary for the trip and are making it up as we go along, the students seem to not care so much about planning. They are quite happy to be with each other, on the ship, doing the activities and waiting to see what’s going to happen next. I guess when everything that we’ve done so far has turned out to be wonderful, you have that luxury.
Tomorrow the plan is to go and visit the ice that has caused us to abandon our original plans. See the sea ice.
August 4th
Auyittuq National Park
Wow. Just wow. I’ve seen footage of this park before on TV and in magazines, but like anything, it doesn’t do it justice. Simply this might be the most dramatic and spectacular landscape that I’ve ever seen. I can’t think of any place else that I’ve visited that compares. It’s a huge U-shaped glacial valley that has a sequence of hanging glaciers on both sides as you proceed up the valley, hiking alongside the glacial fed and silty filled river. The brown, chocolate milk colour stirred and churned in the rapids and calm and bubbling in the flat lower section before it empties into the fiord.
The photos I took are a pale representation of the reality. There were a few times when I’d just break into a goofy grin as I stood and took it all in and had those moments where I couldn’t figure out why I was there, or what twist of the universe had happened to place me there at that moment.
The main purpose of todays hike in Auyittuq was to get to the innukshuk that delineates the Arctic Circle. Our path was a 15 km trail that led up the valley alongside the river. We were split into group with 4 adults and 9 students to make the trek. It was an amazing walk. Very different that what I expected, although upon considering it, I’m not sure what I expected. Walking along the valley floor, we were constantly gazing up at the side valleys, each one with a glacier at it’s tip and a creek tumbling down over 1000 feet to the valley floor. Every ½ hour or so, we had to cross on of these creeks. This usually was done with a team effort and humour. Some of the creeks had water that was knee deep and rushing quite fast. Needless to say, the day was spent in wet boots, as there was no way to keep the water out of them. And as you can expect, glacier fed water is cold! Tasty too!
After about a 5 hour trek we arrived at our destination, an innukshuk marker that shows where the Arctic Circle intersected the valley. It was amazing. There we stood, 50 of us, having just walked to the Arctic Circle. Silliness of course ensued. Most of the group took and impromptu dip in the freezing Pang river. I did not! We then spent about an hour at the spot, taking it in, discussing climate change and our hopes for the future of the place, and in silent contemplation.
The trek down was done in a little over 4 hours. Needless to say everyone was totally wiped by the time we arrived at the beach to get into the zodiacs for the 5 minute ride back out to the ship. But the energy of the students was amazing. They were whipped, but they were smiling and happy. The day had been a joy to be a part of, the students were like that all day, tired and cold and in pain sometimes, but never a word of complaint was heard, they all worked as a team when needed and supported each other ever step of the way. And there were a lot of steps.
30 km round trip in an 11 hour day. I’m pretty sure I’ll be in pain tomorrow and in need of some therapy, but it was an unreal sort of day. The kind of day that you hope you can be a part of.
August 2nd
Sea Day! We spent the day at sea, as we were not able to get in to the opening to Cumberland Sound the way that we had hoped to, so we had to sail further north to the north tip of the opening to the sound in order to find a gap in the ice. Looking at the ice charts tonight, it appears that the ice is socked in solid up the coast, so that we are likely going to be changing the itinerary and not going to be able to go to Clyde River.
There were a lot of presentations today with lots of kids doing all kinds of things, music, art, & writing. There were also presentations on arctic sovereignty that was very amazing.
The amazing sunset that ended the day was the highlight for me. The way the sun morphed as it got closer to the horizon was sensational. The bottom of the sun, started to bend and squeeze as it got low, then it seemed to start to split into pieces as the refraction got more and more pronounced. I kept snapping pictures as this all progressed. The sun moved faster along the horizon than it did down, so the result was that it seemed to dip behind hills in succession as it moved towards the east. As luck would have it, there was a gap in the hills that the sun finally seemed to settle into, and the horizon was right at the level of the sea. As it got closer, I started to watch the top parts of the sun separate like the bottom part had done, As it did this, I started to realize that I might be about to see something that I’ve read about and seen pictures about and wanted to see my whole life. So I kept my eye glued to the camera viewfinder and waited. As soon as it seemed to being, I started snapping pictures, in the hope that what I thought was happening actually was. The top bit of the sun split off, started to disappear, and right at the end, took on a distinct green colour. Then the yellow squeezed out, and the remaining pieces were only green. The Green Flash. Something that most people have never seen, and many people think doesn’t exist. I’ve seen pics of the flash in astronomy magazines, and now I have some of my own. I have about 5 pictures of varying quality that show without question the green colour hanging over the line of red setting sun.
Amazing. I was so stoked, and excited, that I could hardly sit still. This was something that I can’t express how cool it is.
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