I didn’t post this week. It’s been a strange one. Lots of heavy stuff in the personal life and at the exact same time there’s been so much good stuff going on in other areas of my life. Funny how that works. For my own mental health let’s go look at the good stuff.

The Good Stuff 1 - OpenPD Video

Daren was nice enough to include me in a video about his OpenPD project. It really is amazing and if you’re looking for the fast track to changing the way you teach and think about teaching this is a great place to be.

The Good Stuff 2 - NCCE Presentation

Okay, my presentation wasn’t really part of the good stuff. I felt like that one was about a C+. There was a podium, and a mic, which means I had to stand still which I’m not good at. But, for my presentation a group of students showed up. It turns out I had talked to them earlier in the conference. They showed up based on topic alone. They were there and they were vocal. They wanted to do an interview at the end of the presentation. Their participation and presence was, by far, the highlight of Seattle.

At the end of the presentation one of my staffers talked to the guy that runs my school and asked “why did have to go all the way to Seattle to hear Moses say that”. Short answer: if I thought my staff wanted to hear anything from the administration, anything at all, I’d be happy to present it. Otherwise I’m not doing it without the chickenwire in front of the stage ala the Blues Brothers.

The Good Stuff 3 - Schmap Photo

I got an email awhile back that a startup wanted to use one of my flickr cc photos for their tour map of Monterey, CA. They had a vetting process and said they were considering the photo for use. The other day they sent me an email letting me know that the photo had been selected. Cool.

The Good Stuff 4 - NASA Presentation

Not that NASA, this one. I got to keynote a presentation to about 50 assistant principals. In sharp contrast to NCCE this presentation was A+.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoy public speaking when it goes well. Afterwords I spoke with several of the APs about speaking at their schools (I got a little of this at Seattle too) but I also got an offer to turn this into a money making public speaking gig from the president of NASA. Maybe I’ll turn a buck off this thing yet.

The truth is that this was only part of the Good Stuff though. This presentation happened at the Northwest Career and Technical Academy. We got to tour the school, and like with all good school tours I tend to drift off and end up talking to kids. The students there were as amazing as their campus. Check out room 403 and you’ll get an idea of what the school was all about:

The Good Stuff 5 - Andrew Sloat and the Flat Classroom

Today I got an email from Andrew Sloat. Earlier this year I shared his 22nd Amendment video with my students and asked that they make their own. He was stoked about what my kids did and wanted to use their examples in some of his presentations. This is the second time this school year that my students and I have been contacted by content creators about what we’re doing in our class.

The Good Stuff 6 - Many Voices for Darfur or The Flat Classroom Continued

I was able to play my small part in the amazing Many Voices for Darfur project. My students put together some of the most sincere and deep posts. In fact one of my students is the very first post and another student put together this video:

Getting students to do things like that is why I got into the business.

And that’s it for the good stuff. Back to the other stuff.

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