Help me save my son's life

My son Kiran has cystic fibrosis, a life-long, degenerative disease. There is no cure, and no effective treatment for 90% of patients. Kiran is in that 90%. As a father, I have two choices: 1. wallow in this pain, or 2. do something about it.

I choose to do something about it.

My wife, Carolyn, and I have partnered with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to lead the efforts to cure cystic fibrosis. We won't rest until this happens.

Here is where we need your help:

1. Donate to our fundraising campaign. We walk on June 4th in New York City to raise funds for treatment, government advocacy, and patient support. Join us in the walk or just virtually support our team.

2. Share this story with your network. You can use the social icons on this page or on the top my Team Kiran page.

I cannot overemphasize how important the smallest gifts are and how important re-sharing this story is. Cystic Fibrosis is a relatively rare disease, so does not get a lot of government attention. We need everyday citizens like you to come to the aid of kids and adults like Kiran.

And just in case you needed any more encouragement, here's the kid you are working for:

How one Tweet saved 12 years of my work

I keep a copy of every bookmark on a site called del.icio.us. I also shared all of my educational links with a network of people. Many people have thanked me for those links over the years. However, in the last year, after being passed around to buyers a few times, del.icio.us seems to be falling apart. They no longer provide a way to export your links, and I did not have a recent backup (my poor planning). I had 3736 bookmarks in jeopardy and no way to get them out.

I searched the web and found nothing. I then searched Twitter and stumbled onto this post by D.A. Gutierrez:

So @Delicious is dead & they disabled export. If your data is trapped, I can help. No charge&no strings attached. #FreeTheData

— D.A. Gutierrez (@dagutierrez) February 25, 2017

I reached out to him via Twitter and he offered two options: 1. he would move everything for me. or 2. he'd give me a link to some code (written by Krzysztof Szafranek) and detailed instructions on how to run it myself.

I took option 2 and his instructions were spot on and worked perfectly. I even ran it for a friend and sent him all of his 17,000+ bookmarks for safe keeping.

D.A. also provided me with a half-dozen choices for new bookmarking software. I went for Pinboard. You can follow my educational links here:
https://pinboard.in/u:arvind/t:21apples/ (there is an RSS feed available, too). I paid $11 a year for the privilege, and will now back up my links 1x/month. They make many export options available.

These bookmarks (most public, some private) are a way for me to organize my resources and access them from any computer. Were it not for D.A., my work since 2005 would have been lost into the Internet ether.

I'm grateful today. Thank you, D.A.

note: I came out of blog hiding to write this in case it helped a single other del.icio.us user.

Why I am on pause and fast forward

This is the longest writing pause I have been on since I started the blog in 2005.

About 16 months ago, we had twin sons and all free mental and physical space went to them. If you read carefully, you will notice a spurt of blogs posts in the early days. They slept a lot back then, so I blogged.

Now I spend all waking hours away from school with them, and it has been the best learning of my life. I am watching the elegant and complex learning process every day by observing them. One son is covered in cuts and bruises as he learns to navigate the physical world safely. I am enamored by his refusal to stop trying. My other son is more careful, and I watch him imitate reading by turning pages, and using the same intonations as I do while he "reads."

Learning as a parent, learning as a teacher, learning as a student...at each turn in my life, I keep learning at the front, and it always pays more dearly than I could have imagined.

A teachers' guide to crushing the summer

Summer has landed. Let's get into what high-performing teachers do to crush the summer.

Follow their lead: 

image by Graham Cook via Creative Commons

1. Rest
2. Refresh
3. Rejuvenate
4. Plan for next year
5. Rest up again before school starts

The biggest mistake teachers (myself included) make is to move planning to the top of the list. 

"...we’re designed to pulse. Our most basic survival need is to spend and renew energy. We’re hardwired to make waves— to be alert during the day and to sleep at night, but also to work at high intensity for limited periods of time and then rest and refuel." - Tony Schwartz in The Way We're Working Isn't Working (a favorite read of mine). 

Rest, and rest well, so that you can do the best planning of your life. That only comes when you are both mentally and physically restored. Take advantage of the wave of performance. After sustained rest comes the ability to reach a high level of excellence. 

Imagine a marathon runner deciding to wrap up a great race with another marathon! Don't be that person. 

Homework: leave a comment and tell us your favorite way to rest and rejuvenate in the summer. Do not get confused. This is critical work that great teachers do. 

Stay tuned for a summer series on how to use the summer to up your teaching game. This is going to be a fun summer.

Tech tip: Use freemium SumoMe to build traffic to your site

I started using the freemium (free for most stuff, paid for the high-end stuff) product SumoMe on this website a few weeks ago. I have already noticed increased traffic, increased social shares, and people signing up for my new e-mail newsletter that I am working on.

Examples: the share bar on the right and bottom of this page, the popup newsletter signup box. All powered by SumoMe, and I am only using the free tools.

It takes about 1 minute to install, so I have to say, quite the time-valuable website tool. You can give it a try here: http://sumome.com/

My takeaway: if I can connect with more teachers interested in improving their craft, I am on board!

If you have any questions about the tool, let me know, and I'll do my best to advise.