Poll: What would you do with the spider?

I stood in my son's bedroom, holding a worn, colorful spider. If you're a certain age, you will certainly remember "Beanie Babies," the soft, cuddly beanbag toys that were all the rage a decade ago. Oh, yes, my sons also collected Pokemon cards and Hot Wheels, but those were easier to dispose of... I guess...because my sons didn't sleep with those every night.

But with my son off at college, I found myself cleaning out his bedroom and deciding what to box up for moving, what to throw away, and what to send to Goodwill. And there I was, holding that Beanie Baby spider...his favorite. Sure, he really liked the lizard and the dog as well. But the spider was the one I would find tucked under his chin at night as he slept, all those years ago. Here it was, in his closet, along with 20 more Beanie Babies in a box on the top shelf. He had saved them. But he probably had not looked at them in years. But now it was up to me to decide their fate.

Condos do not have much room for storage; every square foot counts. So there were some difficult decisions to be made.

"Downsizing" is something a lot of people do when they get older and/or when their children move out. Although downsizing can be cathartic, it's not easy giving up space and possessions and...sometimes memories. Below are two polls - share your thoughts on what you would give up, and then, if you want, use the blog comments to discuss your choices!

Confessions of an empty-nest parent

Now that my youngest has graduated from high school and will soon be off to college, I think it's time to come clean. First, a disclaimer: My boys are GREAT kids. In high school they both earned outstanding grades and were very successful in numerous sports and activities. They generally treated other people well; if not always with outright kindness, then at least with courtesy. They never got into any trouble, and stayed away from drugs and alcohol. So. Good kids.

However.

I clearly remember when they were very young, and I - as a high school teacher - witnessed what some parents of high schoolers did. I remember shaking my head and vowing, "When my kids are in high school I will never..."

Now that my kids have both graduated, I can say that the actions of those other parents make much more sense to me now, and I am here today to eat crow. I am not going to offer any rationalization or justifications for my actions, but rest assured that before my kids were in high school I could not have imagined any reasons why these parenting decisions would have been acceptable under any circumstances. And yet...

"My list of 12 things I said I would never do when my kids were in high school, but I did anyway."

1. Ignored son being tardy. To my own class. More than one day in a row.
2. Asked track coach if that workout was really the best she could come up with.
3. Made three different dinner entrees to satisfy the different dietary preferences of four family members.
4. Allowed son to sleep until 3:30 in the afternoon during the summer.
5. Went home during my lunchtime to fetch forgotten homework, track jersey, flash drive, etc.
6. Got in the habit of allowing son and girlfriend to be home alone while wife and I went out for the evening.
7. Asked math teacher to explain how that semester grade was fair.
8. Went to bed at 1:30 a.m. with son still out...somewhere. Did not mention it to him the next day.
9. Paid for car, car insurance, and gas. For years.
10. Figured that if the teacher assigned worksheets for homework that she took directly off the internet, then she must know that the answer keys are pretty easy for kids to find.
11. Cleaned bathroom because it was easier to do it myself than nag.
12. Allowed son to quit a sport in the middle of a season.

There you go. I'm not proud.

Rehabilitated old buildings - links entry

I think one of the coolest things about urban renewal is the rehabilitation of historic architecture. Certainly there are times when, after 100 years or so, a building is just a complete loss and must be torn down. But I think it's great when an old building can be rehabbed into something modern and useful, but still preserve the charm of the original structure. Today I'm going to share some links regarding two of my favorite rehabbed buildings in my neighborhood:

The library at the University of Washington Tacoma was built in 1908 as a transformer house for a power company. It served as a fuel company, and a warehouse, and then was boarded up for decades, before being rehabilitated in 2008 as the college library.

• Here's the building in 1937 when it was a fuel company
• This was the building in the 1970's
• Here is the current exterior of the building
• Inside, they left some of the old machinery in the rafters
• Lots of old brick was preserved inside and out
• Industrial-looking fixtures help preserve the building's origins
• One of my favorite additions is this reading room with lots of windows
• Another exterior of the reading room here
• Inside the reading room - a magnificent Chihuly sculpture!
• Here's a shot of the sculpture at sunset

The Alber's Brothers' Milling Company built their Tacoma mill in 1904. The building served a variety of industrial uses, and then in 2004 was rehabbed in a manner that left much of the original brick building intact, but added modern additions alongside.

• Here is a link to some history of the building
• These two pictures are both fairly modern, but show what the building more or less has looked like since 1904
• The building can be seen in the top center of this 1929 photo
• Also in the top center of this 1975 photo
• Here's the building today, showing the modern addition on the water side
• And from another angle you can see the modern additions, with the original brick building nestled within them
• And this is another good angle
• Inside the building, it has been partitioned into rental spaces for apartments, offices, retail, and an exercise studio.

Space-saving idea

Moving into a much smaller space has necessitated finding clever storage solutions. Today I came up an idea: to hang some of our hiking gear on the walls, interspersed with photos of mountains and pictures from our hiking trips. The gear blends in well with the photos, and by hanging the gear on the walls, it saves space in the closets. I'm not finished with this wall yet, but you get the idea.

Do you have a Feed Eater? I have two.

Both sons now finished with high school, but they are home for the summer before heading off to college in the fall. This was my freezer on Thursday, and the same freezer this morning:

Well, they are taking me out for Father's Day tonight, so I guess I won't starve.

EDTECH 597 - Generational differences

I'm going to switch hats here and post about my blogging class - if you missed my first entry, this is actually a "learning blog" where I am learning about blogging tools and techniques, by creating and maintaining a blog of my own.

So, the topic this week is generational differences as related to educational technology. There are three articles referenced below that deal with this subject. Prensky essentially argues that teachers are "digital immigrants" to the world of their students, who are "digital natives," which creates disconnect in schooling. But Prensky has been roundly criticized by McKenzie and others, who argue that Prensky is guilty of sloppiness and over-simplification. Indeed, McKenzie's best line is, "Real fifteen year old humans are quite different from each other, a fact that Prensky did not take the time to study or notice. Some love things digital. Some are more interested in a horse or a dog or a walk along the shore" (McKenzie).

But while McKenzie certainly takes Prensky to task, I feel that it's Reeves who really brings something new to the argument. Reeves finds that middle-class and wealthy "Millennials" own and use a lot of technology. But that high usage does not translate into the ability to gather information with the technology and process it in a literate, discerning, and critical fashion. That, I think, is where educators need to focus their efforts.


References:

McKenzie, J. (2007). Digital nativism: Digital delusions and digital deprivation. From Now On, 17(2). Retrieved from http://fno.org/nov07/nativism.html

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants – Part II: Do they really think differently? On the Horizon, 9(6). Retrieved fromhttp://www.marcprensky.com/wri...0Part1.pdf

Reeves, T.C. (2008). Do generational differences matter in instructional design? Online discussion presentation to Instructional Technology Forum from January 22-25, 2008 at http://it.coe.uga.edu/itforum/...mJan08.pdf

Hole or hotel?

So, in keeping with one of my main blog themes, "urban renewal," I thought I'd share one of the controversies broiling in my neighborhood right now. The picture below shows a big hole in the ground between two buildings. This waterfront location used to be purely industrial - and not pretty. I won't go into its sordid history. But the city has worked hard to create a nice public walkway, a marina, and luxury high-density residential buildings.

This big hole in the ground remains, though. It seems that after a years-long court battle, a developer finally has the go-ahead to build a Marriott Residence Inn here.

But a lot of people are against it, because A) the hotel management has said they will not be hiring union hotel workers, and B) some people think this location needs a hotel that's "classier" than a Residence Inn (see picture below).

So as the controversy goes on...there's still a hole.