introspection

Posted on by Dominic Salvucci Musings

Creative Writing

This post was originally posted in my Substack.

I need to get back into writing creatively. I write a lot for work and for my professional development, however I have pretty much stopped writing creatively…for fun…to keep my mind sharp…keep my creativity flowing…and as a form of therapy. 

Wattpad allows me to write on the fly on my phone, so it is more typing on the fly. I sometimes carry and small notepad to jot ideas, and story parts, and poems, and miscellaneous thoughts down. Easier to do when wearing old man cargo pants.

I need to get back to this. To do so, I need to MAKE THE TIME. Let’s see what happens.

Posted on by Dominic Salvucci Cool Stuff, Podcast, Random Musings

Saturday Mornings

This post was first published on my Substack.

“Saturday Mornings” a time for productivity. I used to wake up on Saturday mornings rather late, since I was usually up late on Friday nights. As that changed, I would get up early on Saturday and participate in an educational “#satchat” on Twitter, mostly lurking and answering only on occasion.

Then, I restarted my Saturday morning podcasts back up for my classroom. I switched to being a creator over being just a consumer. That counts, even if few people consume what I produce.

Now that I have added the title of Vice President of PAECT to my responsibilities, my Saturdays have become even more productive. The President of PAECT, Eric Verno has a weekly meeting where we collaborate on PAECT business. Saturday mornings work best for our schedules, so on top of my weekly podcast, I have added a weekly meeting, and from there I wrap up some tasks we discuss. My thought is that everything is fresh in my mind and I already have my computer open, so just keep going. That then frees up the rest of the day for relaxation and fun.

Posted on by Dominic Salvucci class work, Cool Stuff, Random Musings, Student Stuff

Gen Alpha: What a Different Perspective

In my US History class we were discussing rationing and the black markets of World War Two. I asked the class what they envisioned black markets looked like or where they too place and what black marketeers looked like. Man, was I surprised.

I know Gen Z and Gen Alpha perceive the world differently than me and my fellow Gen Xers and Millennials, but a student’s comments totally blindsided me.

The student responded to my queries by saying when they thought of the balck market they thought of the Internet and a hacker as a black marketeer.

This is a far cry from my first thoughts of the black market being an alleyway, vacant building, or the trunk on a late 1970’s Pontiac. A black marketeer to me is a shady character in a trench coat or maybe a Robert DeNiro type from Goodfellas.

The difference between the two views was canyon-like, I realize the Internet and “Dark Web” have a plethora of ways to buy contraband, however the generational divide with my students was such that they did not envision my concept of a black market or black marketeer.

It makes me wonder how many others concepts we differ on.

Posted on by Dominic Salvucci Cool Stuff, Random Musings, Student Stuff

SketchNoting

I am participating in a PAECT Book Study, the book is Thrive Through the Five, by Dr. Jill M. Siler. At the end of each chapter, she includes a Sketchnote of ideas to summarize the chapter content. I attended a series of webinars through PAECT on Sketchnoting with Sylvia Duckworth, and have shown the concept to my classes. I need to revisit this skill over the summer and utilize it in my classes for my more visual learners. I am not adept enough of an artist to Sketchnote while taking notes, I would focus too much on the art and lose the content. I am better at revisiting the content after I take notes in a traditional format and converting them into images.

I will add this to my Summer To-Do List.

Leave a comment Posted on by Dominic Salvucci Lessons and Teacher Things, My Coursework

Better Blogging with Students 2018: Week 1

This post originally was a reply to the post you can find here in a course I am taking: Better Blogging with Students 2018.  This is our first week and we were asked to reply to a post about ourselves, our goals, how we would like to integrate our blog into our classrooms, and other such topics.  Below is my reply.

I have been blogging for a number of years, but my attempts are streaky at best- I write about educational technology, best practices, or tools and projects my classes are using or creating, then I drop off. Some posts are written as a model of what the current student project should look like. At worst I post sporadically, once every month or semester. As for my students’ blogs, they blog a couple of times a nine weeks at best, with replying to to other blogs only as an assignment. They are mainly one way avenues, not the vibrant exchange of ideas I hope to create.

My overall goal is to model consistently good blogging practices that I can show and discuss with my classes. This goal is to have a platform for them to use as a model. If I cannot meet my expectations, it is not fair to require them to meet the same expectations. The short term plan is to start small, just post regularly, even if it is just a review of what happened in class that week, maybe even just a cross post from a review pencast or podcast, but just get into the habit of producing a post on a regular basis by creating a set time for the exercise.

My audience is varied, I write mainly for other educators, showing off my students’ work and new tools I have begun to use with my students. Parents can also view the blog to get more of a feel for my class.

My Honors students have their own public blogs, where they post assignments from class, they are linked under my class blog. Students publish many writing assignments, mainly opinion pieces to Edublogs instead of writing to paper and recycling them in a week.

I am entertaining the idea of having a guest blogger on the main class blog as an enrichment assignment. Students can volunteer to write a bout a topic of their choice that fits into the course curriculum, History, and have an open forum to express opinions, interview people of that era, or some other task we agree upon.

The end result is to create a higher quality blog, class and student, where conversations occur naturally, not forced by class assignments. They would need to be integrated into class time so they become part of the class culture and not just an added task.

This has been an ongoing project and goal for awhile. I make small steps forward, I am hoping to make a bit more progress this time and not backslide when done.