Grieving 2.0
I may be half the teacher my father was, but I am twice the geek. My dad was loud, confident and his voice and presence could fill a room (and at times, seep into the halls). I am more reserved, shy and am most comfortable troubleshooting your computer. He was likely to be found coaching basketball, where I am more likely to help you set up a classroom web page. At any rate I am proud that I followed my dad in to the education field.
My dad passed away this morning, and I thought I would share with you some of the technology that has helped my family and me through a difficult spot in our lives. I am a teacher first so let me share some of the ways I have used technology in the last weeks and months. It is my hope that you will see some use for this in your classrooms this fall.
I will start off with facebook. My dad just barely got started on facebook before his treatments and exhaustion began to take over. Trust me, he would have loved it. Having taught in Germany he had students that wound up scattered all over the globe. These same students were classmates to my sisters and I and we all three have reconnected with many of them through facebook. As his cancer progressed we would post status updates and notes which we knew would be read with interest by literally hundreds of former students and colleagues, as well as out family, friends and neighbors that we had 'friended' on facebook. Check out the social networking site at www.facebook.com You might find it enjoyable to connect with professional colleagues in this way.
Pandora streamed his favorite show tunes and country music to him when he was stuck in his hospital bed. I didn't even build him an account, I just used mine and set up a new station. I bought a $12 pair of speakers and he had a commercial free, personalized radio station with only his very favorite songs to listen to while he lay there. Pandora has recently changed their structure, they aren't totally free any longer. You can still stream 40 hours of music for free a month and pay .99 after that to finish the month. It is still a great service and bargain. Build a station of your own at www.pandora.com and expose your children to music that they may not usually hear, such as patriotic, classical and big band.
As my dad's illness progressed we set up an online memorial for him. I chose www.wallwisher.com because the people 'writing' on the wall didn't need an account, it was visually appealing, and simple to use. We published the link to the wall on facebook and through email and enjoyed hearing from the many old students, neighbors and colleagues as they posted up funny memories and goodbyes. Up until the last two or three days we would read the funny ones to him and he seemed to acknowledge and enjoy them. I grew a little frustrated with this service, as for a while it seemed to work in any web browser with the exception of IE and a few of his very good friends were unable to post up at first. To be fair, the owner of the site did a lot of trouble shooting and communicating with me for which I was thankful. I intend to use wallwisher in a professional capacity in the future, but as I teach people about it I will throw out the possibility that their wall may become corrupt at one point and to keep that in mind. Hey, it's a free site, and one of my dad's euphamisms was 'there is no such thing as a free lunch' so it was fittingly appropriate. Check out my dad's wall at http://www.wallwisher.com/wall/JimRenner or build your own for homework assignments and the like.
Our old high school hosts an "All Class Reunion" every three years and several of his former students created YouTube videos with greetings and well wishes. We played every single one of them for him and he seemed to recognize some of the faces and his eyes lit up, rolled and furrowed depending on which former student it was on the screen. A lot of people think of YouTube as a collection of useless video clips, and make no mistake about it, there are some goofy things in there. But there is no other site that is free, user friendly and widely known for sharing short videos. Consider using YouTube to either teach with or to show off some of your student work with.
If you aren't quite to the point where you are wanting to share videos of your students, you might start with images. I have found Picasa Web Albums to be user friendly and enjoyable to use. I posted pictures of my dad that I scanned that were old and also recent ones as he made his final stand. One web album that is special to me is when he decided he wanted to go for a walk around the neighborhood and to the creek near his back yard. It was the second to last time he was ever outdoors before he passed, but it was a special moment. We took pictures all along the way and were able to share the web album via links from each of our facebook pages and our family blog. Imagine how much the parents of your children would enjoy seeing day to day class activities, as well as special events like field trips. Be sure you have photo release forms before doing so, but consider publishing more of your students' activities this year via Picasa Web Albums.
Speaking of Picasa, I found the Picasa program, which is a free download from
Finally etherpad is located at http://etherpad.com and is a handy little online word processor. You do not need an account to use it, and you can invite multiple editors to help you draft what you are writing. My sister and I sat on two different couches and crafted his eulogy, and when we had a good draft of it done we invited our sister in England to collaborate as well. Then a colleague of my dad's, who was also my 8th grade english teacher said something to the effect of 'What can I do to help?" I sent him a link and he proof read and edited what the three of us had written. There were no attachments flying back and forth and at one point several of us were writing at a time.
Did I mention this has been a miserable summer? Right before my dad really took a turn for the worse, my young son spent over a week in the hospital. We used our family blog to keep people apprised of his various surgeries and at one point even had a cheap webcam focused on him, used UStream http://www.ustream.tv/ for a free webcast channel and his concerned grandparents and other out of town relatives could monitor him as he recovered. Is there anything you would want to webcast in your classroom this year? Consider your special events such as school plays and chorus concerts if you have parents serving their country overseas. There are several sites which will help you accomplish this goal, but I have found UStream to be the most easy to use and I enjoyed the ability to embed the feed into my blog.
My dad was a teacher until the very end. I could fill volumes with the things he has shown me and taught me. He would find a silver lining in all of this if I could use this miserable experience to teach others something new. He would find pleasure in knowing that the same tools that kept our family connected could be used to build community in a classroom or school building. Thank you for reading and thanks, Dad, for everything!
No comments:
Post a Comment