Meme: Passion Quilt, or What Makes You Passionate About Teaching with Technology

My work buddy Lee Kolbert has tagged me with what's known as The Passion Quilt Meme, a fun little exploration among educators about what makes us passionate about teaching.

This meme was kicked off by Kevin Jarret where he showed the hand-drawn note passed to him by a kindergarten-aged girl as she left a class he taught in his school's computer lab. Kevin, like every good teacher I've ever known, is passionate about what he does for his students. 'Cause if you don't have the urge, the drive, and the passion, well then teaching is just another high-stress, poorly-paying job that you slog your way through to retirement.

So, following along with the rules of this meme, I'm posting a screen shot of a game that was programmed and designed by one of my 14 year-old students during the last year I was teaching web and graphic design at Roosevelt Middle School in West Palm Beach. Here's a look at what Nate was able to create after a very focused and lengthy project that my 8th graders worked on for over a month.



What's the big deal here, and why does seeing something like this interactive game get my juices flowing even 3 years after Nate completed the assignment?

To me, the pride comes from seeing what a bright young student is able to accomplish when given time and tools and a little direction. The school where I worked would easily be classified as "inner city", and Nate, like most of my students, came from a poor family. But that didn't stop Nate from being an incredibly talented visual designer, and didn't keep him from focusing on this project, despite its complexity and a difficulty level that would challenge many high school and college students. Nate (and many of his classmates) was so energized by the possibility of making what was essentially a video game of his very own that he stuck with the project and infused it with his own sense of style. In the end we all (teacher included) learned a lot about interactive programming, design, and the sense of satisfaction that you get when you get a big job done.

And if you can't get passionate about those kinds of classroom experiences you'd might as well get out of teaching right now.

Alrighty then, on to the meme part of this.

Here are the rules:

* Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
* Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
* Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.

And here are my tagg-ees:

Dean Shareski

Kathy Schrock

Brenda Frisk

Gary Stager

Miguel Guhlin

MORE...

You're always SO good at these things. This passion quilt is pretty cool. And the passion builds....

Thanks Lee! We'll be talking about Flash (the program my students used to create their games) on this week's Palm Breeze Cafe. It was a lot of fun to go back and look at some of the work my students did while prepping for the show. Gave me a good opportunity to get excited about this kind of thing all over again.

Kim

Actually, I kicked off the Passion Quilt Meme! Originating entry here:
http://mguhlin.net/archives/2008/02/entry_6578.htm

But it's still fun to think that it's made its way around....

;->

Miguel

Hey Miguel. That's the interesting and fun part of these little memes-- how they make their way around and sometimes loop back on themselves. I noticed your original posting after I'd tagged you, but I thought you might want to see how things were progressing. :-)

That is very cool. I've been following it around the web and I've now seen it on dozens of sites. When I get a moment (are there any of those left, by the way?) I might compile all the place I've tracked this meme. A Google Map might be a fun way to track it too.

surprised to find this still "live"

http://www.rooseveltmiddle.com/portfolio/index.htm