Author: rmcmahon

Why are We So Tired?

This took me a while to wrap my head around, but after the May 15th Pro-D day I was hearing that many of my colleagues have been feeling like they are exhausted, more so that usual. I’ve been thinking the same thing and writing it off, as many have, as we have been switching to different instructional practices, stress and anxiety due to Covid-19, self-isolating, lonely, out of routine and worrying about friends and family.

Turns out there are other things that are contributing to our feelings of exhaustion and surprisingly they are related to exactly what we have been using to keep from feeling so far apart. While Zoom has been overwhelmingly popular during this time of social distancing, our school district’s use of Teams is certainly applicable to this articles. These articles explore the effects that virtual meetings, conferences and group chats have on our well-being.

Photo by Getty Images Plus.

Christina Cauterucci begins her article with the positives that I’m sure that well all felt in the beginning of being able to access technologies that were supposed to bring us together. I know that it did me good to see the faces of friends, family and colleagues through social media apps. She builds to something that I wonder if many of us are feeling now. As these meetings became more commonplace and regularly began replacing the face-to-face contact that we would expect, we realize how much they don’t actually replace speaking to the person in real life. What she terms “video chat fatigue” sets in and all the things that education professionals have been learning about social-emotional learning, such as the importance of eye-contact and active listening skills, are impossible to mimic through a web cam and in chat rooms. This has an effect on our mental state, especially considering how empathetic we are to our students and want to communicate our encouragement and understanding to them.

From Getty Images

An article in Forbes by Yola Robert considers further reasons of the effects of virtual meetings and the exhaustion they lead to. Along with the communication disconnect that we usually rely on for positive human interactions, she also raises the stresses that technical glitches and vanity bring to being on-line. All of her points contribute to another issue that I’m hearing far too often from colleagues and that is the matter of work/life balance. As we are finding ourselves increasingly in a virtual world, the idea of it being on 24/7 is having its own impact on us. Our care and compassion for others compels us to answer that email at 9pm, check our class Team after our own children are asleep and strive to provide individual feedback as soon as we can.

All of these considerations are important to keep in mind as we continue to move through this phase of remote learning. They may even become more important as June brings some combination of virtual and in-class learning for teachers. There is also the potential that some sort of change from the regular school expectations of attendance may follow us into September and beyond. Being able to discuss these things and our own challenges facing the situation, ever changing as it may be, should bring an awareness of another layer of difficulties that may otherwise be ignored. I would encourage colleagues and students to work to strike a work/life balance and take steps to combat Covid-Fatigue. Our District’s Continuity of Learning site offers webinars for our staff to support mental and digital wellness and I strongly recommend checking them out. This vein of thinking would suggest that I pursue resources that would support teen-aged students and their families in their wellness during this time. Perhaps sharing suggestions in the comments would help further the conversation.

Thank you, take care and be safe!

rmcmahon 1 Comment

Letting Emotion Get in the Way of Judgement

Well, it happened this weekend. In this period of heightened stress and anxiousness, I almost fell into the same vitriolic emotions that I’ve been guarding against. Upon hearing that outdoor areas were being opened as long as social distancing was observed, pictures started flooding in from concerned citizens about those that were not taking social distancing seriously. The CBC published stories worried about people ignoring the rules and threatening to close outdoor areas again or start levying fines.

And I felt it… a visceral, emotional response toward those that would willfully ignore the rules set out by Dr. Bonnie Henry and public health guidelines. Anger toward those that would put others in harm’s way so that they could get their outdoor time in at our beaches and parks. The idea that in an instant of gorgeous weekend weather, our efforts to flatten the curve would be erased. I began thinking about how I could express this feeling, communicate the frustration that I had with those people. Tell them how selfish they were being and, for the greater good, must continue to observe the rules to that we can beat this virus without risking anyone else’s health.

Upon witnessing this rant percolating in me and before I could embarrass myself, my kindhearted wife, ever the educator, asked a question that teacher-librarians really shouldn’t be reminding of, “how many pictures have you seen and are they different in any way?”

Humbled, I took pause to go back and look at the pictures that had moments ago raised my ire, like these images of Kits Beach:

The perspective of photos that showed a crowd were always at ground level. It did not take long for responses of others on social media to get heated and out of hand. I am certainly glad I listened to my wife, as this came through Twitter not long after our conversation:

The series of photos from the Twitter thread by Space2Place gave further examples of how perspective of crowding changes when seen from above.

Which prompted me to do a bit of further research into forced perspective and the issues of lens compression. As interesting as that was, this CTV article was more directly to the point. That same photo of Kits Beach, the one that made it appear so crowded, had an entirely different view from the air.

From CTV News: https://bc.ctvnews.ca/just-how-crowded-are-the-beaches-pictures-highlight-how-perspectives-can-mislead-1.4935162

 

Needless to say, my initial anger subsided and was replaced by embarrassment. I fell victim by the same hooks that are used to get people to react, either to click, comment or otherwise engage with information seeking to prey on an emotional response, without taking pause and examining the situation from a wider perspective (yes, punny, I know).

That is not to say that there were no infractions of social distancing this past weekend, I’m sure there were, just as I’m now sure that it may not have been to the extent that I initially assumed. This exercise served as a good reminder to take effort and evaluate situations and information before reacting. As many times as I’ve given this advice to people in the past, I certainly benefited from it yesterday.

rmcmahon 2 Comments

For the Aspiring Chefs

Being that we are a few weeks into the Covid-19 school closures, I have been fortunate enough to be able to work mostly from home. This also means sharing space with my two school-aged children. Given that we don’t have a dedicated home office set up, getting life and work confused happens often. Getting parenting and work time overlapping is inevitable.

In an effort to curb responsibilities around the homestead falling too heavily on any one set of shoulders, I have been encouraging my children to make contributions for the space we are all using. All the regular tasks of running a household seem to be exacerbated due to the shear amount of time we are spending around the house. Splitting and sharing the responsibilities ensure that no one person is stuck doing all the tasks and they can be split up to add variety.

Meal planning and preparation can be a time consuming process and there is nothing worse than a bunch of people, stuck in the same space together for days on end, nerves raw and who are hangry. That said, it is important for the adults to remember that we didn’t all start being great cooks.

This is something that the myriad of recipe websites out there forget. I have run across many that are intimidating for people who have years of experience in the kitchen, let alone someone just starting or sees kitchen contributions as punishment as opposed to contributing to feeding family. The following are a few recipe sites that are aimed directly at teens or are presented in a non-intimidating fashion, making them approachable for those who don’t have a vast culinary repertoire yet.

BBC Good Food offers some great recipe suggestions, but they have a sub-site dedicated to helping the teen-aged chef. This section of the site is well laid out and easy to navigate, with pictures and multiple variations of a dish. The recipes are clear as well, blocked off illustrating ingredients lists and directions clearly so you do not have to scroll or flip through multiple pages to move through the steps. The recipes are written as though they are directed at an adult helping a teen in the kitchen, so if you are a teen reading this yourself, you will have to overlook the assumption that you need help.

VegWeb is a site filled with vegetarian recipes, pointers and vegan eating. Recipes are presented in a colourful way, with ingredients and instructions clearly blocked off for easy reference. Teen-recipes is almost a counterpoint, as the recipes provided ask you to choose the type of meat you are cooking with before giving the ingredients and instructions. Once there, though, clear blocks separate ingredients and instructions. With both these sites, instructions are few, worded clearly and don’t use those fancy cooking terms that I usually get hung up on.

The recipes section at DIY Projects for Teens is a great launching point, to find good recipes and many other projects aimed at the industrious teenager. Because the recipes are taken from all over the internet, it can also be a way for you to find your new favourite cooking site.

As I mentioned, there are many recipe sites out there, each one with its own, unique angle applied to the world of cooking and food. These four sites should help you start simple and expand as your experience and skills in the kitchen and with food grow. Don’t forget to respond in the comments with your own favourite sites or what you have found useful in improving your culinary craftiness.

Enjoy and good eating!

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Online Resources for Books

So you want to read something, anything new and different and interesting, but you don’t think you can because the libraries are closed and you can’t access them. Well I have news for you. There are many services and outlets, including your library, that offer electronic options for reading and research.

I would first point you to your neighbourhood library. You can sign up for a library card online at both the Coqutilam Public Library and Port Moody Library to access their vast ebook and audio book collection. With a library card, you can also access many other online services that the libraries offer as well, such as Lynda.com for instructional videos.

Speaking of libraries, you can still access your school library’s catalogue by logging in with your district username and password. While we don’t have the selection of ebook offers the public libraries do, we have plenty of databases and magazines that you can browse through.

Tumble Books Library and TeenBookCloud are browser based reading repositories, meaning you can browse, select and then read your choice within your internet browser. While the links here are direct links and no login or account is required, this trial may end with the Covid-19 isolation is lifted. Both or some variation of them are offered through the public libraries as well, so there will always be the option for access.

Follett (the same folks that provide our library management system) have opened up their ebook collection during the pandemic. Press GO (with Follett eLearning, McHenry, IL selected), then click on Login in top right corner. It is free, but requires a username: guest and password: follett. They boast a large selection of ebooks, interactive and audio resources, educational and otherwise.

If words on a page aren’t your thing, then the grandparent of audio books is offering a trial account that will require a log in. Audible‘s audio book collection is huge, but with the trial you will have to finish listening to the book before your trial is up. If you find that audio books are your thing, a reminder that LibriVox has a huge, volunteer read collection of public domain materials to download and listen to.

There, that is plenty of resources that will keep you read through the crisis and maybe beyond. I know that audio books have become increasingly popular are people are listening to books on walks, their way to work and while around the house.

I hope the selection and variation is broad enough that it helps you find material that will work for you and your situation.

A very special thank you to Ms. Bourbonnais from Aspenwood Elementary for compiling the original list!

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How are You Getting On?

Alright, I will admit it, I’m feeling it, personally and professionally. The third week of staying at home and I’m feeling the lack of human contact, outside of my immediate family, of course, with them there maybe too much social contact.

This post is turning it over to you, gentle reader. What tools and strategies have you managed to employ to stay socially connected? I’m asking for responses beyond the general Skype, Zoom, Facetime, Teams sorts of tools. There are bunch of them out there that are able to bring people together in all sorts of virtual environments.

Any of the following are not professional endorsements by any means and some come with privacy or sign-up policies. Please take them as they are, mere suggestions or threads to begin a search for the way of connecting with the outside world that works for you and your situation, safely.

I’ll go first. I have begun using Discord as a way to connect with friends. We are really loving how it is always “on” and can see who is online and available for a chat. I the current situation where people are often hanging about the house, this feature is handy. There is the option of voice only or audio/visual direct calls, group calls and you can always leave text messages for people to read later. The phone app is handy too, for those that are out of reach of a computer or with limited access. Much used by the online gamer community, there are a ton of established groups out there that are fairly easy to find, or you can keep your contacts strictly among people you know.

There are also apps available for free on phones, operating systems and on-line game services like Steam that offer a selection of simple, free games to be run, hosted and played over an internet connection. Ranging from two player games like backgammon and crib, to multiplayer games, such as Risk. Multiplayer games can be entered with people from around the world and most, if not all, have features that allow for text communication within the game or even voice and video. Again, such options need to be approached very cautiously due to privacy concerns.

Numerous methods for playing an hosting more complicated game and gaming systems are also out there. A growing number of virtual table top (VTT) apps are becoming available, many for reduced prices. The game that, to me, reinvented board games, Settlers of Catan, is playable for free on Steam. Many other VTTs are offered there as well. Again, not an endorsement for Steam, but it is one of the longest running on-line game providers out there.

Beyond board games are VTTs such as Fantasy Grounds, Roll20 and FoundryVTT, which have been developed to host and run role-playing games, such as Dungeons and Dragons and Starfinder. Such games are more complicated and happen over multiple sessions, so it just may be the ticket to ensure a regular meeting between friends and establish that social contact.

Now, your turn. Please leave ideas or finds on how to remain social and sane during this period of isolation. It would also be great if people put forward any items of interest or questions they had about maintain some level of social contact. As with all of the resources that I’ve put out there, there are always more, but I do not want to overwhelm or present so many that readers have no idea as to where to start. The comments section would be a fantastic place to help me and others regarding this topic.

rmcmahon 2 Comments

Grammar, No Need to Approach with Caution

To become a better writer, it takes a lot of practice and guidance. After all, how will you know that you are making mistakes if you have no idea what those mistakes are? In a regular classroom setting, you have a teacher there to watch, help and guide you through the writing process with feedback.

For the basics, the Khan Academy is a great place to start. Their site will come up a lot in my posts, but that mostly because they have been around and doing remote learning for years now. They have really become a catch-all for instructional methods to help students of all levels in an enormous range of subject areas. In the grammar series, they go over the basic parts of speech and develop into punctuation, then move into syntax. The videos and practice will help in review and beginning to understand new concepts.

Paragraph Punch is an interactive, online tool to help writers develop their paragraphs. The site takes the user through the writing process, from the introduction, pre-writing, editing and publishing phases. In understanding and practicing this process, you are sure to get better at it. Even at the beginnings, understanding the functionality and importance of strong paragraphs are the first stages to multi-paragraph writing in the form of essays through to full-length books.

I will mention NoRedInk at this time, if only because they are offering an expanded free section in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Users must sign up though, so be aware of the information that you may be asked for. As with many pay-to-play educational sites, what they offer is far deeper and individualized than free sites. While it is free, it may be worth a look to see if it is the right fit for you.

You city’s public library offers a wealth of digitally accessible language tools as well. While aimed at a broader portion of the population than our schools can, the Coquitlam Library offers resources to aid preparing for the International English Language Testing System evaluations at the academic and general level. Tense Buster is a grammar program with instructions, practice and pronunciation help.

If you are a lover of language and the way that is constructed (yes, they are out there), may I introduce Grammarphobia, a site investigating and cerebrating grammar, etymology and English language usage. They have certainly been honing their craft as their blog posts go back to 2006, where they investigate the origins of the word “cop.” Really interesting actually. Now that I’ve read it, maybe I will have to see what else they can offer as to the origins of the language.

Enjoy!

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Can’t Be Without Music

As with the post on artistic resources, a musician does not have access to the plethora of instruments, recording tools or practice space that a school’s music department can provide. To manage music instruction and opportunities for learning during the time schools are closed (and maybe beyond), below are listed a few sites that might help the home-bound musician or developing composer.

A virtual piano

Virtual Musical Instruments is exactly what the title suggests. The site offers a virtual guitar, piano, drums, pan flute, bongos and guitar tuner. You can chose and instrument and “play” notes and chords by using your keyboard or touch screen. While not recording room quality, it is enough to demonstrate and hear the differences between notes, chords and progressions. It looks to be a quick and virtual way to hear what “sounds good” and what notes would work together. It may even be enough to start your next great song.

In more a gamified approach, Chrome Music Lab offers a variety of hands on experiments to teach the concepts of everything from pitch to rhythm. Coupled with their Songmaker site, Google is offering methods of composing music on nothing but a browser.

For those operating on a more theory-etical level, Musictheory.net provides free lessons, exercises and tools to learn about and practice music theory. There would appear to be a great variety and depth that this site would appeal to a range of musician, from the dabbler to the dedicated.

Chord calculator from musictheory.net

The Khan Academy provides their services for the area of music as well as near every other subject. They provide all sorts of information for students to get their fix on the basics of playing, orchestral instruments and elements, and even a series of videos about famous pieces of music and their composers, including why they are important and connections to be made.

 

 

 

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Artists Gotta Art

Art is as limitless as the artist’s imagination. The trouble that we are having right now is that even the most imaginative do not necessarily have access to an art studio at home. While simple supplies and household items can all be used in some capacity to create fantastic artistic works, there are a multitude of digital options as well.

By having a common group of resources to utilize for at-home learning opportunities, teachers can be better able to facilitate opportunities as they can ensure that all of their students have access to the same supplies. Now, I’m no artist by any stretch, so I am very open to further suggestions and comments about what I list here.

Pixilart examples

Pixilart is a free, on-line tool that provides a digital canvas to draw on. It is amazing to me to see what people are capable of doing with digital lines and colouring. The capacity of this venue seem enormous and you can use the tools without signing up or registering, though your capacity to explore and save will be limited. Characters, landscapes and abstract scenes all seem to be achievable.

For those needing something a bit more robust in the way of an online resource, Sketchpad is another free to use online app. With the ability to add layers and fine detail, this would be more for those serious and willing to invest some time in creating and learning how to access all of the apps capabilities. But, if an artist has got to art, then this is a tool that will give you all of the options you will need to see your vision come to life.

My creation on Silk

Silk is some sort of crazy timelapse art concept. A blend of real time randomization, you can create a beautiful image in no time. Even the most unartistic, such as yours truly, can feel that they are creating a lasting abstract picture that will be enjoyed by all viewers.

If you are looking for more options and to have a bit more control of your creations, downloading a tool may be the solution. Paint.net and GIMP are two such downloads that have been forever, attesting to their popularity and usefulness. With either of these installed, artists can create an image from scratch, import a picture or graphic to manipulate or any number of other things that their creativity will allow. Unlike the online options, users will have more control over their files, be able to access and use whatever is on their computer, and be able to save multiple copies at multiple stages of creation. There is also the expanded capabilities that can only be offered through an installed application. Both offer extensive guides and how-tos, as well as active communities to ask questions of and seek advice from.

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Writing Wresources

I have to say that finding and compiling the links for English Language Arts is one of the most challenging yet. On one hand, there are plentiful resources out there to aid in the writing, editing and publishing of one’s own work. There are also a ton of things that can help with the development of language and understanding literature. The challenge is that they all seem to carve out their own microcosm on the web, finely honing in on one aspect of the subject. There are so many that I will have to cover other topics in further posts.

What I have tried to do below is present links about writing that are general enough to appeal to multiple aspects of this subject area and provide access to further resources that may better guide teachers and students onto discover things that might better suit their individual needs.

readwritethink is a site that is sponsored by the National Council of English Teachers and the International Literacy Association. While its main focus is to provide teachers with resources that will better aid them in presenting particular concepts, students may find use in information that they present as well, including celebrations of literacy and further links provided that will help them find information on topics that may be of more of a personal interest.

There are plenty of sites that will help get the creative juices flowing. The Story Starter is a simply designed randomizer to aid in giving the opening sentence of a story. Another favourite generator is Fantasy Name Generator, which leads to multiple generators and writing aids, including character descriptions and plot leads. Six Word Memoirs and Six Word Stories are similar, aimed at getting to the point and capturing the essence of ideas, moods and activities in only six words. It is amazing to me how much emotion can be captured in so few words.

For budding authors or those interested in looking deeper into the writing process, Writers’ Digest is a great place to start. There is everything that would be of help to aspiring authors, from worksheets that would help develop characters, plot and story, to how to get published. Sites like Mythcreants and A Writer of History provide genrefied guidance as to elements that make for successful writing in sci-fi/fantasy and historical fiction, respectively. There are many such sites, for all sorts of genres. Finding one that appeals to your tastes and writing style should not be an issue.

Writers association also have many of their own sites. While not really aimed at the educational market, they are interesting to fans of those genres as they often have their own recommendations, author profiles, reviews and upcoming releases. Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and the Horror Writers Association are two that I visit regularly. The American Library Association has a young adult division that is also very helpful for readers of YA.

There are also sites to help the avid reader. BookRiot and Goodreads are go-to sites to get book information. There is also Novelist Plus for finding books that will interest you, but you must login to our library catalogue.

Hopefully this will give you a starting place to pursue your writing interests. I know they keep me busy. If you have any suggestions or links to add, please comment below, but don’t forget there will be multiple posts in this series.

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