I first started this blog when I was student teaching in China. What an amazing experience that was. I was young and adventurous and luckily not much has changed. On August 15, 2014 I will be leaving for Doha, Qatar where I will be teaching 4th and 5th grade general music for the next two years.
I've decided to start this blog a little early as my summer has turned into something rather unexpected. Quite frankly the Lord has been up front with me. He has been revealing to me non-stop that I am a mess of a human being who is in desperate need of Him. In the last 4-5 months I have been rather obsessed with myself. It's nice to be the guy in the room who is moving to the other side of the world. You instantly become the most interesting person in the room, and that is satisfying, at least for a moment. However, God in His mercy and grace has been tearing down my defenses and distractions. He is showing me that I cannot be arrogant in Qatar and I will need to rely on Christ far more than I do now. As I have been studying Islam and what life as a Christian in an Islamic country looks like the only thing I can say now is that I need prayer.
This summer has taught me two things. First, that I am a broken and wounded man in desperate need of salvation. Second, that there are wounds deep in my heart and things in my life that haunt me and when I am faced with those things I run. I look for anything and everything to distract me. Yet Christ has been teaching me to deal with these things head on and though at times I am struggling I can see Christ teaching me to dig into the pain of my past and confront it. And by His grace I find peace.
There is one more thing I want to write today. I need your help. I need prayer. I need people who will lift me up in prayer as I prepare to leave for Qatar. I am convinced that prayer is the single most valuable action any person can do for another. To implore the hand of God to move for someone other than myself has been one of the greatest joys I have experienced thus far.
These are the needs of my heart (as far as I know):
1.) This summer I have realized that I have a lot of baggage from my past that I haven't dealt with properly and it is hurting the relationships I have now, both with family and friends. Please pray that I will have the courage to examine this baggage closely and invite Christ in, to mend these wounded parts of my soul.
2.) I am moving to Qatar in 3.5 weeks. And I have no idea what I am walking into. Please pray that I will be able to find a network of friends on which I can rely for the next two years of my life.
3.) I have started my Masters in Music Education. It is a summer program and it is kicking my butt. I have never had this much work to do in my life and I feel like I am about to lose my mind. If you could pray that I could get everything done for this summer session I would be most grateful!
Lastly, I wanted to say thank you. Thank you to my friends in Prescott who have been by my side challenging me and keeping me accountable. You all made me feel so loved, and at the time I didn't want to accept it because I was too proud. But I see now just how much you all cared for me and I am so grateful.
Thank you to my family. You continue to amaze me with your steadfast love. Truly I am blessed beyond measure.
And to my closest friends who have spent time listening to me rant about my crazy ideas and my ridiculous thoughts and all my silly shenanigans. Thank you for your advice. Thank you for listening to me and being there for me when I have needed you most. Clearly I am more loved than I realize.
Will you pray for me?
I can't promise I will be any less intense in my following posts, but I hope to do about once a month from here on out. Stay tuned and let me know what you think.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Teaching with Technology
Many of you know that I am not a Mac person. I find their computers to be over priced and I don't particularly enjoy their operating system. However, I will say that Apple has done an amazing job in the world of smart phone and tablet computing.
While I was in Ohio for my friend Kristin Stellabottes wedding I made a pretty big impulse buy at an Apple store while waiting for my friend Josh to get his mac looked at. While I was there I was looking at The New iPad and decided that I wanted one. As I talked it over with Josh I came to the conclusion that I could use the iPad to replace my school computer and use it in a myriad of ways both in and out of the classroom. Turns out I was right. In fact I was more right than I ever could have imagined. With the combination of apps, gmail, a few programs and some good ideas my iPad is my full on teaching computer and can do things in the classroom that, if used in a broad stroke across many schools could make some aspects of teaching easier.
When I bought the iPad i was given a $50.00 gift card for being an educator. I then used that gift card to buy some nice apps.
Here are the ones I use in the classroom and for general work stuff:
1. Pocket Information Pro (a calendar and schedule)
The beautiful thing about PI Pro is that it syncs all of your calendars, and I mean ALL of them. I was able to sync multiple google calendars (including my schools calendar, and the district fine arts calendar) with my personal day to day schedule.
2. Quickoffice (similar to Microsoft office)
They beautiful thing about Quickoffice is integration with dropbox and google drive. There is no doubt that the cloud has changed everything we know about computing. If you haven't figured this out yet you should look into it. Basically I can type a document anywhere on any computer in the world (as long as it has access to the internet) and I can then access it anywhere or share it with anyone. This works really well with the iPad because I can type a lesson or note at home and access it on my iPad and download it for later. Really Quickoffice isn't revolutionary but it does the job of being a word processor really well. The biggest down side to Quickoffice is that absence of a spell checker. If you know me at all you know I NEED spell check or writing isn't going to be a good time. That leads us to our next app.
3. Pages
Pages is Apples answer to Microsoft Office. Though it has some limitations because of it is an apple product. It actually is a very nice app on the iPad. It has spell check (which is big for me), but more vainly it looks great. It really looks very nice and has all the functionality that you would expect from a desktop word processor. The downside is that there is little to no integration with the cloud. I am a pretty heavy user of the cloud (google drive and dropbox) so it was a little disappointing that it doesn't have this function. However the app allows you to e-mail documents (I recommend e-mailing in .doc, because pages is very unfriendly to PC) In fact I wrote most of this blog in Pages. Finally if you are going to be doing a lot of word processing on your iPad I recommend getting an bluetooth keyboard. There are many out there and I am sure they all work well. I bought this one because it was cheap but not too cheap.
4. Print n Share:
Print n Share was the most difficult app to figure out, but once I understood it, it became one of my most precious apps. Print n Share allows me to print my documents from my iPad without jail-breaking it. It isn't perfect but it gets the job done. It took some serious trial and error, but in the end I got it to print to multiple copiers and printers in my school building.
5. Spotify:
If you don't have Spotify you need to look into it. For me it is a great app because I am a music teacher. What Spotify allows you to do is stream almost any song you can think of to your iPad. Here's where it gets cool. Obviously the speakers on the iPad are small and tethering it to external speakers defeats the purpose of the iPad being a tablet. But with a little thought and a program called XBMCbuntu we can fix that problem. XBMCbuntu is a media player/operating system. In fact it is really small and demands little of your computer. If you install it onto a thumb drive you can boot into it instead of Windows or Mac. Once it is on you can set it up to receive airplay from the iPad. This allows you to play music from your iPad on your computer wirelessly and instantly. Now where ever I am in the room I can turn music on and off turn the volume up and down as I please with out the confines of wires.
One of the biggest things that has changed most all of what I do in the class room comes from Google Apps. If you have a gmail account you have access to Google Apps. One of it greatest assets is Google Drive. A cloud service that works in tandem with their docs app so you can type anything save it and access it anywhere. However it makes more than documents you can also create forms. A form is like an online survey. So I made an online survey that only the teachers in our school can access to record students ill behavior. This will become a great asset to our administration when a student comes to the office. Now all they have to do is open up the spreadsheet associated with the form and there is a list of everything that child has done in all his classes etc. The integration of this onto the iPad has made this in class documentation process stupidly easy. Even our playground aids have it on their iPhones and smart phones so when there is an incident on the playground they can record it and send the child to the office and the administration will know what happened as soon as they enter it. This couldn't be easier.
Here is a template of the form. Feel free to play with it:
Here is the spreadsheet it goes to (you might have to refresh the page):
To make a long and detailed story short I have completely replace my desktop computer with an iPad for my class room and I love it. It does everything a normal computer does with the ease of being light and mobile around the class.
While I was in Ohio for my friend Kristin Stellabottes wedding I made a pretty big impulse buy at an Apple store while waiting for my friend Josh to get his mac looked at. While I was there I was looking at The New iPad and decided that I wanted one. As I talked it over with Josh I came to the conclusion that I could use the iPad to replace my school computer and use it in a myriad of ways both in and out of the classroom. Turns out I was right. In fact I was more right than I ever could have imagined. With the combination of apps, gmail, a few programs and some good ideas my iPad is my full on teaching computer and can do things in the classroom that, if used in a broad stroke across many schools could make some aspects of teaching easier.
When I bought the iPad i was given a $50.00 gift card for being an educator. I then used that gift card to buy some nice apps.
Here are the ones I use in the classroom and for general work stuff:
1. Pocket Information Pro (a calendar and schedule)
The beautiful thing about PI Pro is that it syncs all of your calendars, and I mean ALL of them. I was able to sync multiple google calendars (including my schools calendar, and the district fine arts calendar) with my personal day to day schedule.
2. Quickoffice (similar to Microsoft office)
They beautiful thing about Quickoffice is integration with dropbox and google drive. There is no doubt that the cloud has changed everything we know about computing. If you haven't figured this out yet you should look into it. Basically I can type a document anywhere on any computer in the world (as long as it has access to the internet) and I can then access it anywhere or share it with anyone. This works really well with the iPad because I can type a lesson or note at home and access it on my iPad and download it for later. Really Quickoffice isn't revolutionary but it does the job of being a word processor really well. The biggest down side to Quickoffice is that absence of a spell checker. If you know me at all you know I NEED spell check or writing isn't going to be a good time. That leads us to our next app.
3. Pages
Pages is Apples answer to Microsoft Office. Though it has some limitations because of it is an apple product. It actually is a very nice app on the iPad. It has spell check (which is big for me), but more vainly it looks great. It really looks very nice and has all the functionality that you would expect from a desktop word processor. The downside is that there is little to no integration with the cloud. I am a pretty heavy user of the cloud (google drive and dropbox) so it was a little disappointing that it doesn't have this function. However the app allows you to e-mail documents (I recommend e-mailing in .doc, because pages is very unfriendly to PC) In fact I wrote most of this blog in Pages. Finally if you are going to be doing a lot of word processing on your iPad I recommend getting an bluetooth keyboard. There are many out there and I am sure they all work well. I bought this one because it was cheap but not too cheap.
4. Print n Share:
Print n Share was the most difficult app to figure out, but once I understood it, it became one of my most precious apps. Print n Share allows me to print my documents from my iPad without jail-breaking it. It isn't perfect but it gets the job done. It took some serious trial and error, but in the end I got it to print to multiple copiers and printers in my school building.
5. Spotify:
If you don't have Spotify you need to look into it. For me it is a great app because I am a music teacher. What Spotify allows you to do is stream almost any song you can think of to your iPad. Here's where it gets cool. Obviously the speakers on the iPad are small and tethering it to external speakers defeats the purpose of the iPad being a tablet. But with a little thought and a program called XBMCbuntu we can fix that problem. XBMCbuntu is a media player/operating system. In fact it is really small and demands little of your computer. If you install it onto a thumb drive you can boot into it instead of Windows or Mac. Once it is on you can set it up to receive airplay from the iPad. This allows you to play music from your iPad on your computer wirelessly and instantly. Now where ever I am in the room I can turn music on and off turn the volume up and down as I please with out the confines of wires.
One of the biggest things that has changed most all of what I do in the class room comes from Google Apps. If you have a gmail account you have access to Google Apps. One of it greatest assets is Google Drive. A cloud service that works in tandem with their docs app so you can type anything save it and access it anywhere. However it makes more than documents you can also create forms. A form is like an online survey. So I made an online survey that only the teachers in our school can access to record students ill behavior. This will become a great asset to our administration when a student comes to the office. Now all they have to do is open up the spreadsheet associated with the form and there is a list of everything that child has done in all his classes etc. The integration of this onto the iPad has made this in class documentation process stupidly easy. Even our playground aids have it on their iPhones and smart phones so when there is an incident on the playground they can record it and send the child to the office and the administration will know what happened as soon as they enter it. This couldn't be easier.
Here is a template of the form. Feel free to play with it:
Here is the spreadsheet it goes to (you might have to refresh the page):
To make a long and detailed story short I have completely replace my desktop computer with an iPad for my class room and I love it. It does everything a normal computer does with the ease of being light and mobile around the class.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Two Years
It has been roughly two years since I last wrote on this blog. That is a long time. Frankly I have been bored out of my mind the last 2 weeks. It is the end of summer and I am dying for some sort of structure. Lucly that starts on Monday. Here is a brief update of my life over the last 2 years.
I am still teaching Music K-5 at Abia Judd Elementary School in Prescott Arizona. It is an amazing job. I have 600 kiddo's and I see them once a week for 45 Minutes (this is a change from the last two years, I used to have them twice a week for 30 minutes, but things change).
In the 2010-2011 school year I won first year teacher of the year. That was a very humbling moment to have at the beginning of my career.
This year the church I go to gave me a small group to run. Again very humbling. It has been fun. We started off reading a book called "Jesus Plus Nothing Equals Everything" It was a good book and something that I think challenged both me and the people in my group. More specifically it challenged me to grapple with the "Functional Saviors" that I cling to in my life instead of Jesus. We recently started an in depth study of 1 John. I think this has the ability to be quite a fun little exercise in studying the bible. I'll let you know about that as it goes along.
Lastly I purchased two things this week I am excited about. First I bought a rugged outdoor camera. It's called a gopro hero2 HD Camera and thus far I am loving it. The beauty of this camera lies in the mountability of it. The camera itself is super simple. 2 buttons and small lcd and a lens. It comes with a bunch of different mounts so you can hook it up wherever you want and show what you want people to see. Super fun. The second purchase was a new pipe. This is the first big investment I have made on a pipe. It is a Savinelli and it smokes like a dream. I have never owned a "good" pipe and really this pipe changes everything. I have smoked the same tobacco for about 4-5 years now and I have never tasted it like I taste it in my Savinelli. Anyway here is a video of my first smoke on said pipe.
It's my goal to start updating this once a week with life events and fun thoughts. I hope you like it!
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| July 28, 2012 |
Thursday, August 5, 2010
My Room
This is a panoramic picture of my room. It looks a little strange because it is a panoramic but it's the only way I could get the whole thing in one shot and yes those are Yamaha Pianos.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Update
It has been a long time since my last post and a lot has happened. Let me take you on the journey of the last few months. After I graduated from Indiana Wesleyan University in the middle of December I began my job search. My original plan was to go back to China as soon as possible. However God had different plans. Once he shut the doors on China completely I began looking for other opportunities. I began looking for teaching positions abroad and was offered three. All three positions were missionary positions and involved me raising support and joining a group like Wycliffe Bible Translators. After talking to Wycliffe I found out that I had too much school debt in order to work with them. I took this as God saying "Not right now." With that word from God I began to look for Jobs here in the US.
After looking and looking and looking and not finding ANYTHING I got a tip from an a college buddy about a job in Toledo Ohio conducting a Choir. This being my only lead I decided to apply and pursue this job heavily. Strangely enough the Principal grew up in Gas City Indiana right next door to IWU and had a great respect not only for the college but for the music program at IWU. He really wanted to interview me and so I did. The interview went really well. I seemed to hit it off with both the middle and high school principals as well as the Band director. They told me at the end of the interview that they would contact me sometime next week about a second interview. They never contacted me again. At this point I was pretty down, and sunk pretty low. It was a dark time. Then God showed His ridiculous mercy and grace in one huge move. A family friend from Prescott Arizona called my mom and was talking to her and catching up when she casually mentioned that the Prescott unified School District was looking for not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 music teachers!!! My mom said "Well Caleb is looking for a job teaching music" and everything was set into motion. Over the next 5 days I applied for, interviewed for and was offered a job teaching elementary music K-5. My thought process was "Wait...What?"
To be Continued (When I have more time to write.)
After looking and looking and looking and not finding ANYTHING I got a tip from an a college buddy about a job in Toledo Ohio conducting a Choir. This being my only lead I decided to apply and pursue this job heavily. Strangely enough the Principal grew up in Gas City Indiana right next door to IWU and had a great respect not only for the college but for the music program at IWU. He really wanted to interview me and so I did. The interview went really well. I seemed to hit it off with both the middle and high school principals as well as the Band director. They told me at the end of the interview that they would contact me sometime next week about a second interview. They never contacted me again. At this point I was pretty down, and sunk pretty low. It was a dark time. Then God showed His ridiculous mercy and grace in one huge move. A family friend from Prescott Arizona called my mom and was talking to her and catching up when she casually mentioned that the Prescott unified School District was looking for not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 music teachers!!! My mom said "Well Caleb is looking for a job teaching music" and everything was set into motion. Over the next 5 days I applied for, interviewed for and was offered a job teaching elementary music K-5. My thought process was "Wait...What?"
To be Continued (When I have more time to write.)
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Waiting
As most of you know I made it back from China safely. I also graduated after passing my oral defense and am officially a College Grad!!!
The inevitable question now is: What am I going to do with the rest of my life?
Well let me tell you what the Lord has laid on my heart. For some time now China has been on my heart and after spending the last few months there I am convinced that is where God wants me to be. Though that may not be a forever kind of thing I am going to follow Him there once again this March. I have accepted a job at a university there teaching conversational English. The only problem I have now is getting there. I need a Visa which the university is going to pay for, and a plane ticket which I have to pay for. Currently I do not have a job and I have very little in the bank. I am hoping to start substitute teaching here soon but I can't really get my license for another few weeks (pending bureaucratic paper work). I will be looking for other options but I have some slim pickings here in good ol' C-bus.
So I see myself in China for the next few years then off to grad-school. I would like to go to a seminary and get my MDIV, but that is why I am not going straight into it. I would like to take 2 years to just live, and be out of academia for a while to see if this is where God really wants me to be.
I thank you all so much for your prayers while I was there last, and I ask for your prayers again as I prepare to leave over the next 2 months.
Some things you can be praying for:
1.) Money
2.) The students and staff I will be working with at the university
3.) Me - I have a lot of growing and maturing to do before I leave. I feel that I really REALLY need to strengthen my relationship with the Lord before I head back there.
4.) The community of great friends I left of whom I miss greatly. Pray that we will be able to strengthen each other and push each other closer to Him.
More soon as it unfolds...
The inevitable question now is: What am I going to do with the rest of my life?
Well let me tell you what the Lord has laid on my heart. For some time now China has been on my heart and after spending the last few months there I am convinced that is where God wants me to be. Though that may not be a forever kind of thing I am going to follow Him there once again this March. I have accepted a job at a university there teaching conversational English. The only problem I have now is getting there. I need a Visa which the university is going to pay for, and a plane ticket which I have to pay for. Currently I do not have a job and I have very little in the bank. I am hoping to start substitute teaching here soon but I can't really get my license for another few weeks (pending bureaucratic paper work). I will be looking for other options but I have some slim pickings here in good ol' C-bus.
So I see myself in China for the next few years then off to grad-school. I would like to go to a seminary and get my MDIV, but that is why I am not going straight into it. I would like to take 2 years to just live, and be out of academia for a while to see if this is where God really wants me to be.
I thank you all so much for your prayers while I was there last, and I ask for your prayers again as I prepare to leave over the next 2 months.
Some things you can be praying for:
1.) Money
2.) The students and staff I will be working with at the university
3.) Me - I have a lot of growing and maturing to do before I leave. I feel that I really REALLY need to strengthen my relationship with the Lord before I head back there.
4.) The community of great friends I left of whom I miss greatly. Pray that we will be able to strengthen each other and push each other closer to Him.
More soon as it unfolds...
Monday, December 7, 2009
Beijing
So I am trying to catch everyone up on the last few things I did in China before I left. Over thanksgiving weekend I went to Beijing to spend the weekend with Jared and Josh two of my best friends in the whole world (Figures we are all in China at the same time right?). The weekend consisted of a little sight seeing a little shopping an orphanage visit and some great man time.
This weekend really taught me the beauty in deep friendships. Jared and Josh have been a part of my life through all the high and lows. Jared has known me since I was like 2 years old or so and he has been an integral part in my development throughout my life. Josh has been my best friend since my 15th birthday I think where he gave me a certificate for one year of friendship. Though a very creative gift for being poor it started a friendship that I am exceedingly thankful for.
Well I went to Beijing on thanksgiving day and landed there that night only to find out that Josh had missed his train and wasn't going to be there till later on Friday. Not a huge deal. It gave Jared and I a good day together to do a little shopping, sightseeing, and some good conversation. Then Josh got there and he mad everything horrible...kidding. If you know Josh and I we have a good time being friends on other sides of the world, but when we get together something happens and move into a deeper kind of friendship that involves laughing about the absurd for who knows how long. In fact we just sat there and giggled at each other like little school girls who haven't seen each other all summer. The giggling ensued for a good 5-10 min and resurfaced occasionally throughout the night.
While seeing sights I saw some things like Mao's tomb, the temple of heaven, and the forbidden city. Probably the coolest thing was seeing the orphanage that Jared will be at soon. We went there to see the orphanage perform. Here is a video from that performance It is poor quality but I only had my camera phone so deal with it:
Here are a few pictures from my tour around the forbidden city:
In the end it was a great trip. The beautiful truth of this experience is that good friends and deep friendships are the best possible things humans can have.
Ecclesiastes 9: 7-10:
"Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in death, to which you are going."
This weekend really taught me the beauty in deep friendships. Jared and Josh have been a part of my life through all the high and lows. Jared has known me since I was like 2 years old or so and he has been an integral part in my development throughout my life. Josh has been my best friend since my 15th birthday I think where he gave me a certificate for one year of friendship. Though a very creative gift for being poor it started a friendship that I am exceedingly thankful for.
Well I went to Beijing on thanksgiving day and landed there that night only to find out that Josh had missed his train and wasn't going to be there till later on Friday. Not a huge deal. It gave Jared and I a good day together to do a little shopping, sightseeing, and some good conversation. Then Josh got there and he mad everything horrible...kidding. If you know Josh and I we have a good time being friends on other sides of the world, but when we get together something happens and move into a deeper kind of friendship that involves laughing about the absurd for who knows how long. In fact we just sat there and giggled at each other like little school girls who haven't seen each other all summer. The giggling ensued for a good 5-10 min and resurfaced occasionally throughout the night.
While seeing sights I saw some things like Mao's tomb, the temple of heaven, and the forbidden city. Probably the coolest thing was seeing the orphanage that Jared will be at soon. We went there to see the orphanage perform. Here is a video from that performance It is poor quality but I only had my camera phone so deal with it:
Here are a few pictures from my tour around the forbidden city:
In the end it was a great trip. The beautiful truth of this experience is that good friends and deep friendships are the best possible things humans can have.
Ecclesiastes 9: 7-10:
"Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in death, to which you are going."
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