Category Archives: Daily-Ink

Where do you find my Daily-ink?

I write this daily-ink on a blog at Daily-Ink.DavidTruss.com but I’m pretty sure that’s not were people go to find it. When a new post gets published, it also goes to:

  • My ‘Pairadimes’ Facebook Page
  • LinkedIn, and
  • Twitter

I then share it to my Facebook Story and page.

These social media sites are where my daily posts get seen… but are they read? If you’ve read this far, can you please let me know where you found this post?

2di.me/Daily-Ink-Survey

Thanks!

Are we Social Distancing or Physical Distancing?

Disclaimer: Continue Social Distancing as recommended by health professionals! I’m not talking about changing practice, only changing perspective! We all need to do our part to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

A couple days ago, I wrote about how Connecting Online is Easier Than Ever:

The social distancing due to Covid-19 has been challenging, and getting outside once a day for a walk has made me feel a little boxed in. But we live in a time when it is easier than ever to connect with people online.

Since then I’ve come across the term ‘Physical Distancing’ a lot more. This is really the issue. Reducing or actually eliminating our physical proximity to others long enough that the virus doesn’t spread. However, we can still be social in the digital world. Video helps. It’s nice to see the people we connect with. 

More than ever, I think this is a time to be social and to not let the idea of being isolated get you down. As we head into a long period of physically distancing ourselves, I think we should find ways to connect with people socially. Be intentional and thoughtful, whether connecting for fun, for learning, or for work… but no matter what your intention, make sure that you make the time to be more social and to connect in ways that meet your needs to spend time with others.

________________

A great tool to connect to others with is Twitter. If you want to get started

Twitter EDU is your FREE One-Stop-All-You-Need-To-Know-Guide to Twitter.

“The hardest part of Twitter is that it does not have a friendly entry point. Until you develop a network, it actually takes a bit of work to make it meaningful and rewarding.”

This book makes learning and engaging with Twitter easy. Twitter EDU: Your One-Stop-All-You-Need-To-Know-Guide to Twitter by [Truss, David]

Thank-You-Message-for-Lisa-B-Post

Positive Messages Make a Difference

My niece, Lisa Bouliane, wrote the following post on Facebook. She is a nurse in a large hospital in Vancouver, BC. I asked her to open the post up (beyond just sharing with friends) ,and if I could also share it here. It speaks for itself:

Lisa Bouliane – March 23 at 9:14 PM

I was biking home from work at VGH tonight and passed this message on the sidewalk. Thank you. I continued biking past down the road, before realizing I was tearing up at the message. I knew I had to circle back and take a picture to share.

I work in a critical care area of the hospital where the workplace has been a whirlwind of emotions and preparations. We are madly implementing safety measures for both patients and staff, for the impending increase of covid positive patients that will be admitted over the next couple of weeks. Working at the hospital is a highly emotional place as it is and now tensions are even higher, with a general feeling of the calm before the storm.

After another long and stressful 12 hour day, to come outside and see a message of appreciation touched my heart. This simple message on the sidewalk eased a sense of stress and anxiety I hadn’t realized I had been taking home with me. It immediately relaxed me and reminded me that we are all being impacted in numerous ways by this virus. It reminded me to be thankful to my amazing hard working colleagues, as we all go through this journey together. It reminded me to be thankful that I am young and healthy, and able to continue going to work to help others. It reminded me to be thankful for the people and support that I have in my life during these difficult times. I’ve had friends and family deliver food to me as the grocery store was emptied out while I was at work all week. I’ve had a bottle of wine left for me at home as a token of appreciation. I’ve had a friend loan me puzzles for something to do on my days off. I’ve had numerous messages from friends in health care and my sports team, and old friends and family members reach out online saying thank you for all I am doing. These gestures, both big and small, mean a lot to health care workers right now. We are stressed, and working in the unknown right now. The acknowledgement that we are working hard to keep you, ourselves, and our loved ones safe and healthy is warmly received.

I’d like to thank this mystery message writer for taking time out of their day to leave a mark of positivity on the world. Such a simple gesture, a simple message, touched my heart more than I’m sure you intended to.

Now everyone take a deep breath. We are all in this together. Please take care of yourselves and be thankful for the small things in life, like a simple chalk message on your way home. Be kind to others, wash your hands, and stay home!!

Thank-You-Message-for-Lisa-B-Post

Zoom conversation with Kelly

Connecting online is easier than ever

Over the past couple days, I’ve had the honour of connecting online with a number of people. It started yesterday morning with a Zoom conversation with Kelly Christopherson for almost 1.5 hrs. I connected with him again this morning to record a podcast. Last night, my wife and I connected with 2 other couples on FaceTime. We had a trip planned this summer including a cruise ship visiting Spain and Italy, as well as holiday time in Portugal. Those plans are done, but the conversation was still wonderful.

Yesterday I had a TEAMS meeting run by our school district for Principals, then a colleague and I connected to have a conversation afterwards, first on Messenger, then again on TEAMS. I’ve been Twitter and TEAMS Direct Messaging another colleague today and hope to do a podcast with him, maybe tomorrow. Tonight I had a 4-way Text conversation, that moved on to What’s App, with my three sisters and one of them said, “Why didn’t we do this years ago?”

I’m not a fan of music trivia. I recognize every song, but can’t name it, or it’s band/artist. That said, I popped into Dean Sharaeski’s #namethattune music trivia Live Periscope for a short visit. What a fun thing to do, and to get people connected!

The social distancing due to Covid-19 has been challenging, and getting outside once a day for a walk has made me feel a little boxed in. But we live in a time when it is easier than ever to connect with people online.

Who will you reach out to next?

Down the rabbit hole

The afternoon I went down a very dark rabbit hole. First I read a tweet from an influential twitter profile that grossly miss-communicated some data comparing the flu to COVID-19, making it look like this coronavirus was only a threat to those over the age of 60. This tweet went to her 2.2 million followers. Then I went to another public figure’s tweet that was very controversial and did something I almost never do, I went to the tweet and read the conversation/reply thread that followed. Wow. I remember now why I don’t usually do this.

It was dark. It showed the bipolar divide that I spoke about in my post, Ideas on a Spectrum. It was nasty, it was mean, it was ignorant, it was a complete waste of my time. It achieved nothing. Not for me, not for anyone that commented. The lines were drawn and both sides could only preach to their side.

I’m glad that this isn’t my typical experience on Twitter. I’m sorry for those that spend a lot of time in this sad, angry space on both Twitter and Facebook. I’ll happily go back to my world of educators geeking out, sharing, and learning on Twitter… and I’ll stay there for a while. A word of advice as we spend more time at home, more connected than usual to news and our social streams: Keep away from the rabbit holes and check your sources for news and for click-bait headlines.

A while back I wrote about a new tragedy of the commons. In this post I said,

Indeed we have a new, social-emotional, tragedy of the commons. Despite our understanding that perpetuating the onslaught of negative news is, ‘contrary to [our] long-term best interests’, we still do it. And social media isn’t making things any better. We used to be able to blame the media monopolies and moguls, but now we are the news-makers: We publish freely, and quickly and without thought as to how we are part of the problem.

We don’t need to feed this negative loop, and we don’t need to feed on it either.

A dose of humour

I’ve been sharing a few funny posts on Twitter recently. I don’t mean to make light of a serious situation, and I’m sharing messages from experts too…


But I don’t see a need to preach here, and I’d rather people pay attention to experts, not just misguided leaders, but actual experts.

Yes, the Coronavirus pandemic is serious. Yes it likely will get more serious before it gets better. But we can’t spend our time in constant stress, in a continual state of heightened concern. We also need time to laugh and have fun.

Here are a few laughs I’ve shared recently:


In the coming days, remember to find time for (harmless) humour and fun!

Change of plans

Starting today I was going to write a 7-day series on 7 Virtues, like I did on the 7 Sins. I totally don’t feel like doing that right now. Also, I thought I was going to give myself a social media break… but I kinda want to stay connected now, so I’m not doing that either. What I am doing is leaving my phone behind on family walks… but I’m not going dark now when Social Distancing for Coronavirus is making feel disconnected enough.

So what now? I’m going to experiment with getting connected with people online and doing some video chats and podcasts. I might put out some quick videos. I’m going to share my #SDFitnessChallenge progress.

What I’m not going to do is lock myself into 7 days of writing on specific topics. And while I’ll put my phone away for parts of the day, I’m not locking myself away from digital connections. This is a time to experiment, do some new things, stay connected… and learn.

The time for regular routines will be back soon enough, for now I’ll keep things open, and try something new on a regular basis. Tonight, it will be handstand push-ups, inspired by Kelly Christopherson (@kellywchris).

If you’ve been letting ‘Social Distancing’ isolate you, it’s time for a change of plans… reach out to someone, reach out to me… connect, learn something new, get fitter… enjoy the time you never thought you would have. Be great.

30 Day Social Distancing Fitness Challenge #SDFitnessChallenge

Ok, here we go! I’m proposing that we all do our own 30 Day Social Distancing Fitness Challenge #SDfitnesschallenge

Social Distancing has taken away our gyms, but not our desire to be healthy and to make positive goals for ourselves. This was inspired by my buddy Ross Macdonald, whose goal is a 5 minute plank within 30 days. He started yesterday with 20 seconds. Thanks for the inspiration Ross! He was inspired by #PlankTheCurve – a literal interpretation of Canada’s Chief Medical Officer’s quote that we don’t just need to flatten the curve (of COVID-19 infections), we need to plank it!

(#PlankTheCurve Source)

Since I’ve been building my plank up for over a year, 5 minutes is already something I can do. I did one for a time lapse video yesterday before dinner.

So, rather than plank, my goal will be something I originally hoped to accomplish by last June but failed to do: My goal is to do an unsupported 30 second handstand. The actual goal was a full minute, but if I’m going to try to do this in just 30 days, I’ll be happy with 30 seconds.

What about you? What is a #SDFitnessChallenge that you would like to make for yourself?

  1. Make it challenging and also attainable.
  2. Share it publicly. Be it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or even a comment on this blog.
  3. Add a hashtag: #SDFitnessChallenge

Whose in with Ross and I?

Nothing normal about the new normal

I’ve been camping out at my oldest daughter’s place in Victoria while my wife and other daughter are home. I’ve loved the daily walks we have gone on, and we’ve been watching Prime Video together in the evenings, enjoying ‘Hunters’ – a fictional series about a group of Nazi hunters in the late 70’s. These two activities add up to about 3 hours of my day… The rest of it has been a blur. Recovering from a broken knee and a shoulder injury has left me feeling very limited about what I can do for exercise besides go for long walks, with a cane, which just makes me feel old.

I’ve taken some more time to write than I normally do. I’ve spent way too much time following the news and stats of the Coronavirus, and I’ve more than doubled my social media time on my phone. I’ve also been thinking a lot about work and have had a number of emails and calls related to “continuity of educational opportunities” that will continue, even with our schools closed to students. Like most people, I have more questions than answers.

What this all adds up to is a very unusual schedule, where I have no idea what normal feels like? Today I slept in. I usually write this before 6am, and right now it’s after 1pm. The only thing on my agenda after this is a walk on my own, listening to my audio book, and a walk with my daughter around sunset. I don’t have the motivation to do more, and yet I’m already getting restless and know that I have to give myself some projects to work on. I’ve got a neglected newsletter and podcast that I might bring back. I might do some writing beyond this daily-ink. I might nap.

No matter how I look at things right now, there is nothing normal about what my day will look like until March break ends. Even then I don’t think I will have any kind of normalcy to my life… but the ‘normal’ of the past few days has to change soon because I’ve never really done ‘nothing much’ well as a major pastime. The new normal after the March break is still filled with unknowns and will include a drastically different schedule than before this global pandemic changed all of our lives.

What have you been doing to spend time well during this social distancing experience?

daily-ink-weekend-ideas

Just shifting online or shifting the learning?

Across the globe schools are closing due to Covid-19 and the learning is being moved online. I recently shared in my Daily-Ink post, ‘Novel ideas can spread from a novel virus‘:

Discussion about the possibility of remote learning invites questions about blended learning where some of the work, both asynchronous and synchronous, is done remotely. It also invites conversations and questions about what we should be spending our time on when we do get together?

…this virus is impacting the world the way it is might impact how we think about operating our schools and businesses in the future. What excites me isn’t the idea that more work might be done remotely, but rather the ideas behind what we do when we connect face-to-face, and how we use that time? Will we focus more on collaboration, team building, social skills, construction and creation of projects, and more personalized support? How will we engage students in learning when they might not be coming to school every day?

With the shift of learning at school moving digital, the only thing that seems to be shared on my Twitter feed as much as Coronavirus updates are online resources. There are tons of free resources that you can use/share and teach with. But the idea that all we need to do is put work we are usually doing in a class online can lead to disengaged and overworked students.

“In a world where information is abundant and easy to access, the real advantage is knowing where to focus.” ~ James Clear

Here are a few things to think about as course content is moved online, and lessons are taught from a distance:

What can you do synchronously? There are amazing tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom that allow you to meet with students. How will this time be used? Will you lecture or allow students to meet in groups? Will it be a Powerpoint presentation or a discussion? If you are giving a presentation that can be pre-recorded or viewed online asynchronously, then are you utilizing your synchronous time effectively?

What can you edit out? Taking everything you do face-to-face and trying to put it online will be overwhelming, especially for students that already struggle in class. What are the essential things students need to learn? What skills and competencies do they need and how can you create a positive learning environment to learn these skills?

What assignments can you create that engage the learner with questions that do not have a single correct answer? How can you make the assignments open ended? For instance, these video writing prompts invite students to personalize their writing, and can provide a variety of writing samples that can show you their writing competencies… while not being cookie-cutter assignments that box students in. The videos are easy to embed and share, and the answers can promote great discussions when you meet synchronously.

To summarize, ask yourself a few questions when you are shifting from regularly meeting students to providing an online/digital program:

  1. What should you do to most effectively utilize synchronous time, when you have it scheduled?
  2. What can you take out of your course so that you are reducing the expectations of students working from home, with less support than they get at school?
  3. How can you make assignments engaging, interactive, and interesting?
  4. What kind of things will you assess and how can you ensure that assessment is something that authentically assesses the students skills and competencies?

How can you shift the learning experience beyond just shifting everything online?

Also shared on Pair-A-Dimes for Your Thoughts.