Sometimes I talk to a guy named Future Self.  When I stuff the winter coats and boots into a tote box one mild weekend in May, I say "That's gonna be Future Self's problem."  I did not do a great job of cleaning my classroom desk drawers in the last days of school, and Future Self will resent me for that, too.  Over and over I make promises to Future Self, and all too often they get broken.
       Future Self totally hates my guts. I don't blame him.

        It's almost the midpoint of summer vacation.  There's a crate in the corner stuffed full of folders and packets that I brought from school to "review" and "sift through" and "seek inspiration."  My laptop and Google Drive are strewn with files -- many of these were hastily named "Untitled" -- that still have not been organized into folders. And perhaps worst of all I had totally planned to re-record some videos this summer because they're much harder to make during the school year.
       Looks like Future Self will hate me again.
       For the next two weeks I have a professional development workshop: an NEH Institute with hundreds of pages of readings, and then a research paper assignment. So that will keep me busy through the first week of August!  Yeah yeah, I could have done some stuff earlier this month, but for the past two weeks I was working a Reading Club summer school for incoming students until 1:30 each day.  Who says that teachers get summers off?!
        Future Self will read this one day in a few months and think "What was he complaining about? The grass was green, he could walk the dog without freezing his fingers, and all those activities were self-inflicted."  Good points, but I don't wanna hear them.

        We need to recharge, do different things, try to actually miss the classroom a little bit.  And balance that with doing some of the practical things that will make the school year easier.  Maybe Future Self will solve that problem in June 2016. (He's gonna hate me for that....)

      I did not start flipping to join a fad, to play with new toys, to be cool, or to get famous. I'm brilliantly failing at the last three and I fear accomplishment of the first item, because I always saw flipping as much more than a fad. But recently I can see this important approach could soon fade away like "multiple intelligences" and "interdisciplinary teaching" and other bright ideas that burned out....

      When my colleague presented this idea to me, and after reading Flip Your Classroom in the summer of 2013, I was impressed that flipping could solve several problems at once:

• effectively differentiating for students' learning pace
• making homework more useful, relevant, and appealing
• connecting and informing my support staff and students' parents
• breaking free from a biased and boring textbook
• ensuring that students understand the basics before diving into specialized exploration (like research, role-playing, debates, etc.) or else they produce glittering projects of nothingness

      However, the #flipclass community, related Facebook pages, and other digital sites look like Las Vegas Strip: strewn with glitzy ads for new apps, devices, consultants, and even more apps.  The corporate-workshop and edtech vultures are circling; many administrators and teachers are easy prey. 

      This week's glitzy ISTE conference seems to be a prime example. There were surely some terrific presentations, but blogger Scott McLeod shares my suspicion about the limited and conservative nature of most edtech development.  Use edtech to make school changes we need. Don't let edtech use SCHOOLS to make the money its companies want.

      I have higher hopes for FlipCon15 in Michigan, which sadly I cannot attend in person.  I care much less about techie tools and video productions. I want to see and hear more about:

• How is flipped instruction helping us to narrow communication and achievement gaps?
• What barriers and fears prevent our colleagues from giving this a try?
• How should flipping look different at elementary -- middle -- high school levels? (How young is too young?)
• What do we do in our classrooms that we couldn't do before?