Author Archives: benschersten

The Five Stages of Report Cards

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Ii’s report card time again. That time of year when teachers hide away in their houses, pouring over grades and anecdotal notes in an attempt to communicate to parents the progress their children are making. In a way that can’t be misunderstood.

Over the years I’ve noticed that report card time comes in five stages:

Stage 1: Denial
Wait, what?! Report cards go home next week. No, that can’t be true. The term can’t possibly end on Friday. That means I only have one more weekend to work on them. No. No. No.

Stage 2: Anger
I hate report cards. If there was one thing I could get rid if in my job, it would be report cards. They’re the worst.

Stage 3: Bargaining
I should work on report cards. OR! I could clean the bathroom, because that would definitely be a more enjoyable experience. And if I’m not going to work on report cards, I should at least do something productive. Then it’s okay to not work on them (It’s funny how my house gets really clean right before report cards are due each term). OR, instead of working on report cards I could write a blog post about how I don’t want to work on report cards. Yea, I think I’ll do that.

Stage 4: Depression
Sigh. I probably should work on report cards soon. Or I could just sit here. I really don’t want to work on report cards. (Suddenly 2 hours have gone by.)

Stage 5: Acceptance
Ok, here we go. Friday will come, whether I want it to or not. I might as well get to work.

Three times a year I go through all five stages. I spend too much time in stages 3 and 4.

Okay, time to get back to report cards.

photo credit: kevin dooley via photopin cc

Students, Parents, and the Economics of Free iPad Apps

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I love using free iPad apps in my classroom. Who doesn’t? But with free apps comes ads – ads that neither my students nor I have any control over. Being a digital citizen means knowing how to deal with it, but how do you explain it to 8-year-olds? And their parents?

I found this worked well. Below is the email I sent out to parents explaining what I did with my 3rd graders:

The class had a chat today about Digital Citizenship and where iPad apps come from.

I started explaining that apps are programmed by real people. Making apps is their job, and they need to get paid. And they do, usually through one of three ways.

  1. Some apps cost money. Those apps work really well and don’t have any ads (commercials). The money we pay to purchase the app goes to the developers. These include the Explain Everything and Drawing Pad apps we use in the classroom.
  2. Some apps are free but have limited features. Angry Birds is a great example of this. You can get the free version, but it only has a few levels. The idea is if you like the game you’ll purchase the full, paid, version. The developer gets money when we buy the full version.
  3. Other apps are free but come with advertisements. Rather than us paying for the app, another company pays the developer for screen space, forcing us to see their ads. I compared it to TV. Sometimes TV is free (network broadcast), but advertising pays for it. It’s the same with some free apps.

We use all three kinds of apps, though we spent most of our time talking about the last kind. I explained the ads are like commercials in that we don’t have to watch them. When commercials come on when we’re watching TV we can mute them, or talk to someone, or even leave the room. We are in control.

The same is true with app ads. We can ignore them. The catch is, as end users, we don’t get to control what the ads are. So far we’ve seen ads for games, juice, and… local singles.

ad1   ad2   ad3

Fortunately, that last one is only text, no images. Also fortunately, developers know that users rate and comment on apps, and if an app designed for kids has ads that are truly inappropriate, they will hear about it in the comments of the app store (and developers can’t delete those comments).

I reiterated that we can ignore the ads and that if kids ever come across something they have questions about or feel uncomfortable about that they should find an adult.

Exciting and innovative things happen when we use technology to expand the walls of the school and where learning can occur. We can also bump into things we weren’t looking for. We have good internet filters in Arlington, though no filter is 100% perfect for all grades all the time. So, part of being a good Digital Citizen means having an internal filter, understanding how it all works, and knowing how to behave in a safe way. And knowing that if you find something that doesn’t sit right that students are in a building full of caring adults who are more than willing to help.

Parent response was very positive, ranging from “Thanks, glad you’re on top of this!” to “It is good to know that you are worrying about these things and that our 3rd graders are not being exposed to bad stuff in the schools.”

Teaching is messy. And when you add the iPad, or any other hyper-connected tool, it can get really messy. The key is it get out ahead of it, and be honest (with kids and parents). As educators we are doing new and innovative things every day. Things aren’t always going to go as planned. Just make sure to roll with it, and make sure everyone knows what’s going on.

photo credit: AMagill, Personal Income via photopin cc

When is the iPad the Right Tool?

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tools_manTales from a third grade, 1:1 iPad pilot.

The iPad is a tool. A versatile one, for sure, but it’s just a tool. It’s not a magic bullet. And it’s not a teacher. But when when is it the right tool?

When looking at where to incorporate iPads into my class I’ve found myself asking three questions:

  1. Can the iPad make something easier?
  2. Can the iPad make something more engaging/fun?
  3. Can the iPad make something that was prohibitively difficult now doable?

Can the iPad make something easier?

Movies. They can be a great way for students to creatively show what they have learned. But the process used to be cumbersome, often prohibitively so, looking something look like this:

  1. Shoot lots of video with a digital camera (some of the clips were good; others were trash; they all ended up on the camera).
  2. Find the cable to get all the clips (good and trash) off the camera.
  3. Move the clips to a place on the network where the students can get to them (hopefully there’s enough space; those movie files get pretty big).
  4. Give the students time to go through the clips to find the good ones.
  5. Use some sort of video editing program to put it all together.
  6. Zip it into a single movie file.

This could be a forbidding process on the best of days. iMovie ($4.99) makes the process simple. It allows for users to shoot video, select quality clips, and edit/export the final product all from the same device. This is a game-changer in the world of student videos.

In college I took a media literacy course where we experimented with in-camera editing, a rudimentary way of splicing your movie together within the video camera itself (back when cameras shot on real video tapes). At best, it was an iffy process. iMovie on the iPad brings an ease to the movie-making process that has never been there before.

ipad_paperCan the iPad make something more engaging/fun?

With third grade comes the charge of getting my students to memorize their multiplication facts. Many are not intrinsically thrilled about this and try as I may we are still looking at plain-old memorization. It wasn’t fun when I had to do it (though I am very glad I did), and in an age of instant gratification it certainly isn’t any more fun now. But the iPad allows us to easily gamify the process. Apps like Speed Math (free) and Ace Multiply (free; my kids really like this one) make the process fun. Often when my students finish early in math they’ll ask, “Can I play Ace Multiply?” Yes, they ask if they can practice their math facts; this has never happened before. “Of course you can!”

Can the iPad make something that was prohibitively difficult now doable?

I’m always on the lookout for new and better ways for my students to demonstrate their learning. Explain Everything ($2.99) has opened some new doors for this. In short, the app allows students to create and modify visual diagrams while recording their voice over the diagrams. The app then exports a movie file.

I suppose I could have done this in the past. I could have sat down for a one-on-one with each student and had them explain what they had learned, talking as they drew pictures. It would have taken an enormous amount of time, and certainly would not have been a good use of time for the other 23 students in the class. With the help of Dropbox (free), my students can show and tell me what they know and I can view it when it doesn’t eat into the precious hours of the student day.

The iPad is a tool, and like all tools if you select the wrong one for the job you won’t be happy. The iPad is no different. Sometimes it’s the right tool; sometimes it isn’t. When it’s the right tool, it can change a classroom.

photo credit: Meanest Indian via photopin cc

Digital Research is Different, and That’s Okay

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Tales from a 1:1 iPad pilot.

After an afternoon of researching on the iPads, a veteran educator in the room commented to me that she worried the kids weren’t interacting with physical books. Getting ready for a digital product, and taking digital notes, wasn’t the same as if they had to plan out something like a physical poster.

booksI wanted to defend the iPads, but I couldn’t help but acknowledge some truth in what she was saying. Though it wasn’t that they weren’t interacting with the content, it was just a different interaction. iPads are “mistake tolerant” (Beth Holland mentioned this a lot at the EdTechTeacher iPad Summit), so interacting with them is different.

Designing content for a paper product meant lots of planning and a single shot at the finished product. If it doesn’t go the way you want it to, that might necessitate starting over (or living with a product you weren’t 100% happy with). The mistake tolerance of the iPad (and other digital media) makes for a different interaction. You can jump in haphazardly and make changes as you go.

Are these two approaches different? Absolutely! Is one better than the other? I don’t know. iPads are a different kind of tool, and thus allow for different approaches. If we are going to leverage the full power of them with students we need to recognize that. With mistake tolerant devices our planning phases look very different. I’m not advocating for abolishing planning, but with a different tool the approach needs to be different too.

photo credit: Mr. T in DC via photopin cc

 

Managing iPads in the Classroom

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I was fortunate enough to get to run a 1:1 iPad pilot in my self-contained third grade classroom this year. This is the first in a series of posts sharing what I have done and learned in hopes that other educators implementing 1:1 programs won’t have to reinvent the wheel. Feel free to take and/or modify any resources here.

When I begin the year, I don’t have classroom rules. It’s a practice I picked up with my Responsive Classroom training. The students come up with Hopes and Dreams for the year and over the course of the first few days we build rules that will support those hopes and dreams, and help us achieve them.

When the iPads arrived, I took a similar approach. The class talked about the fact that they were tools for learning and that they were fragile. The front is a sheet of glass. It will break. And if you drop a sheet of glass onto a hard tile floor, the glass is going to loose that battle every time. We also agreed that carrying the iPads with two hands was a good idea.

Te next few lessons were about navigating the iPad. I took the iPad Orientation Checklist that Dan Callahan at Pine Glen Elemenary (Burlington, MA) used, and modified it a little. Thanks Dan. This is my version. We explored a few core apps that I figured we’d get a lot of mileage out of. When I saw behavior/handling I didn’t feel comfortable with, I would stop the class and we’d talk about it for a couple minutes.

It was a few days into the process before we formally started talking rules.

I started with Suzy Brooks’ ipad rules (thanks Suzy). I told the class this was a set of rules from another third grade class in Massachusetts. I wanted to look at those rules, see if we wanted to keep or modify them, and see if there were any we wanted to add.

The conversation was surprising mature. The kids really seemed to understand the importance of having fair rules to keep the iPads safe. We settled on these rules.

  • Two hands on the iPad at all times.
  • Make sure the iPad is fully on a table at all times. (No corners hanging off the edge of a desk/table)
  • Do not delete anyone else’s work or apps. (We have some shared cloud-based accounts)
  • If you aren’t sure, ask someone.
  • Only visit apps or websites with permission.
  • Only one person pilots the iPad at a time.
  • Only adults plug and unplug the iPads.
  • Let an adult know when your battery gets below 25% so the iPad can be recharged.
  • No mirroring without permission. (We have a ceiling mounted Apple TV in the room)
  • No iPad passwords.
  • iPads are school tools, not toys.

A few months in the kids are doing well. They follow the rules pretty well (they are 8-years-old after all). I trust the students enough to use the iPads when I’m out and guest teacher is in. The iPad is a school tool, and it comes out every day. It’s become an essential part of what we do. (I don’t use it in every lesson – they’re one of many tools we use in the classroom, but we do use them every day).

When Students Say, “I Just Know”

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For as long as I can remember, my dad has been a math teacher: elementary school, middle school, high school, and for the past 22 years as an independent consultant. As such I have fond memories of sitting in Pizza Hut booths as a kid being posed math questions as we waited for our dinner. As I solved them I was guaranteed to have the follow-up question, “how do you know?” I came to expect it.

At the time, the questions bugged me. “I just do” I would often respond. If I got the question right, why did it matter? Years later as I went through my teacher prep program and began teaching I realized the value of the question and now subject my students to the same question.

flow1Coming back from the holidays on a long bus ride I found myself killing time on my iPad with Flow (an iOS app). It’s a game (albeit one based on spacial puzzles) I’ve played before and I’ve developed strategies. The idea is to connect the dots, without having any of your lines cross. At times I let my students use the app in school and it’s always interesting to see who takes off with it and who struggles (that is to say, who has a strong spacial sense and who struggles in that area).

As I played I got to thinking, if someone asked me about one of the puzzles, “how do you know?” or “can you explain your thinking?” how would I respond?

So I went with the Explain Everything tactic. If I could layer speech (a verbal explanation) over what I was doing in the game, in real time, could I explain what I was doing? That seemed reasonable.

flow2My initial strategy of filing in the outside squares was easy to explain, but then I just found myself seeing the board three or four moves ahead of where I was. Half of the flows would be complete, and I would instantly see the rest. The metacognition we ask our students to do wasn’t working because I wasn’t actually thinking. My eyes saw the board as a whole and my fingers quickly traced around the iPad screen. I was sitting back watching my brain bypass rational thought. It just knew.

flow3So if I, an educator with strong spacial skills, can’t explain my spacial thinking is it fair to require all my students be able to explain all their thinking all the time? (Yea, that question made me a little uncomfortable too, which may or may not be a bad thing.)

Ok, I’m not saying we should stop asking kids to explain their thinking. And I’m not going to stop asking my kids to explain theirs. It’s a good question and one we should be asking. But everybody’s brain is different. We’re all wired in different ways. We all remember Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. Is it possible that “I just know” really is what’s going on in a kid’s brain? Just because we have to think about it (and can be metacognative because we actually are thinking) is it inconceivable that the brain of a student might be wired so differently that they just see what comes next? That they truly don’t have to think about it? That they really just know?

I think it is possible. And I think it happens enough that we need to be aware of it. There are a lot of elementary teachers out there who are especially strong in the linguistic intelligence. If we’re going to help all our students be successful, we need to be open to the idea that we will have students who are stronger in some intelligences than we are, even in elementary school. It’s a wiring thing.

So, the next time a student tells you they just know, take a moment. Maybe they do. Maybe their brain is wired very differently than yours. Maybe it’s the truth: maybe they do just know.

Your Students Secretly Hate Vacations

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Roatan, 2009 (c) Ben Schersten

As educators there is a piece of us that looks forward to vacations. Sure, we love what we do, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it, but spending the day in a room full of elementary-aged children can be both physically and mentally exhausting. A few days off to recharge our batteries is essential, so a part of us looks forward to vacations.

Unfortunately, many of our students secretly hate them. And worse than vacation is the dreaded “holiday vacation.” It’s the worst.

So, as we approach vacation and our students’ poor decision-making spikes, remember that it may not be building excitement – it may be mounting fear.

  1. The holidays bring with them new kinds of stress. As adults we do our best to insulate children from that stress, but we’re not perfect. Kids are good at reading us. They know. Many families struggle to make ends meet as they bring the holidays to their children or try to make that first big heating bill. Kids may not know why their parents are stressed, but kids certainly know that their parents are.
  2. Holidays and vacations help to draw clear lines between the haves and the have nots. Who got what gift? Who when where on vacation? Whose parents worked and who had time off? There’s nothing like a major holiday and a week off to remind the have nots that they are have nots.
  3. Holidays and vacations are very unpredictable for some students. Home with parents? The usual daycare? A different daycare? At work with parents? School is a stable place: it starts and ends at the same time every day and kids know what they are going to do and when. As adults we look forward to the unscheduled nature of vacation; our students may not. For some, that predictable routine is what gets them through the day.

So, as you watch your students approach vacation and you find yourself feeling more like a behavior manager and less like a teacher, take a moment to think about why. Are your students excited, or terrified?

And that last-day special activity where you break from routine, is that for you or for them?

The Power of Student-led Parent-teacher Conferences

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It’s The December Stretch at school, which for me means Parent Conferences. Five years ago I retooled my conferences and started requiring my students (5th and 3rd grade) to both attend and lead them. At our Back to School night, I took a moment to warn parents that this year’s conferences will be a little different.

Before making the shift I wrestled with the question of why do we have parent conferences, and if I bring kids will I ruin something? I came away thinking that we have parent conferences for a few reasons:

  • We want to have face-to-face contact with the parents of our students.

    Individual student brainstorming.

  • We want to give parents information about what their children are doing in school.
  • We want to work with parents so we can support each other to ensure the success of students.
  • We want a place to share possible concerns and strategize solutions to ensure student success.

Yea, I think having kids at the table for this will be just fine. Maybe even better.

Preparing for the Student-led Parent Conference

About a month before the conferences are scheduled the students start preparing:

  1. We brainstorm a list of all the things we’ve accomplished so far in school.
  2. Students begin to select some things they think are important enough that they might want to share them with their parents.

    What can we bring to the conference?

  3. We look at what materials (such as work samples) the students might bring to the conference to help them show their parents what they are doing at school.
  4. I ask the students to select the 10-12 most important things they want to share with their parents, and what they will tell their parents about them. I require that they select at least one from each of the 5 core subject areas (reading, writing, math, science, social studies).
  5. Students set a goal to share with their parents about something they want to improve on this year. They also have to come up with an idea of how their parents and I can support them in that goal.
  6. We take some time to practice. Students pair up and give their presentation to a classmate. The goal is to have a presentation that lasts 10-11 minutes. Parents will ask questions which will make it a little longer.

The morning of the conference, I have a quick check-in with everyone presenting that day to make sure they’re all set.

The Student-led Parent Conference

What we’re going to talk about.

The conference takes place around a table. Not a kidney or macaroni shaped table I can hide behind, but a round one. This is important; we all equal parties.

The student explains that he/she will share what they are doing and that I will not be participating until they are done sharing. The student then takes off. The parents ask clarifying questions as they go; the students field these questions. I make notes about anything I think the student may not have explained well so I can clear up any parent misconceptions when I join the conversation. The last thing the student shares is their goal.

When I join, I ask the student how they felt presenting in this format. The responses vary. I also ask (if their parents didn’t) what their favorite and least favorite subjects are, and why. In addition to forcing some more higher order thinking skills, this can be very useful information for me as I try to tailor my teaching to each year’s group.

With student and parents at the same table, some interesting conversations can happen. It’s great to tell everyone what going well, and talk about strengths. And if there are concerns, having students at the table is key for a couple reasons. First, everyone is on exactly the same page; we all get to be part of the same conversation. Second, if I want change the student has to be the one to make that choice; talking to parents isn’t enough.

For the last five minutes or so of the conference the student is asked to leave. I always openly joke that, “now we’re going to talk about you behind your back.” It’s clear from before we start that there will be time for me to chat with parents without students present.

But is 5 minutes enough? Yes, it is. It’s December; if I have something that takes more than a few minutes to talk about I should have already contacted the parents about it. Seldom does anything new come up here; more often we just reconnect on the things we taked about when the student was a part of the conversation.

The whole conference usually takes 25-30 minutes.

Final Thoughts

The parent response has been overwhelmingly positive. Parents think it’s great that their kids are preparing and giving an oral presentation. They see the value in the amount of responsibility I give students in selecting what they present. And they like the few minutes at the end without students, just in case they have something they want to discuss with me, sans kid. And since it’s built into the format, they don’t have to ask for that time.

Does it take time during the day to get ready? Absolutely. It usually ends up taking about 6 40-minute academic blocks. I steal time from across the academic areas. The students get a great experience presenting in front of a small audience. They get authentic experiences using higher order thinking skills as they organize the presentation, evaluate what they want to present, make the presentation, and answer questions on the fly. It’s always a joy to watch the conferences unfold.

Sure, it takes time to prepare the students, but it’s definitely worth it.

Why I Don’t Have a Marble Jar

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Like many novice teachers I started my first year with a marble jar. The idea was that when my students did something well, they would get a marble. Once the jar was filled, the class would get a reward. It was what I was taught in my pre-service program, it was the culture of the school I was in (as well as countless other schools), and it served as that thing I could hold over my students head. “You want a marble, don’t you?”

A few years into my teaching career (I was teaching kindergarten at the time) I was at a Responsive Classroom week-long summer training and the subject of marble jars came up. This was the first time that I had ever heard anyone outright challenge the marble jar idea and accuse it if begin a bad thing. I was skeptical at first. How could this be a bad thing? How could rewarding group behavior be a bad thing? The class is working together to achieve something…right?

Over the course of the training, I came to understand that my perception of what was going on was not correct. The marble jar wasn’t about group cohesion, was a bribe; it was the carrot of the carrot and stick. “If you behave, I’ll give you a reward.” I became the all-seeing eye and the ultimate judge of good behavior. My students were following the rules to earn marbles (to please me), not because it was the right thing to do. The rules were important to the class not because they helped us learn (if that’s not the purpose of your classroom rules, you should revisit why you have them), but because they were a method of earning marbles.

That fall I started kindergarten with no marble jar. Honestly, I was a little scared: how would I get the students to listen? Without that bribe, would they be motivated to do the right thing? After a few days of holding my breath and crossing my fingers I realized it was going to be okay. My class would still function just fine. My students would still learn. And since then I have learned that starting kindergarten without a marble jar is the easiest grade to start without one: since the kids are new to school, they don’t  come in feeling like they’re missing something.

Since my kindergarten days I’ve spent some time in fifth grade and third grade. There continues to be no marble jar, only now the class asks about it during the first couple days of school. The conversation goes something like this:

“Do we have a marble jar [or something similar] this year?”

“No, we don’t.”

“Why not.”

“I don’t believe in them. I’m not going to bribe you to do the things you should be doing.”

“But how will we earn stuff like extra recess or movies or pajama day?” [because this is really what that jar is about for them]

“You won’t be able to.”

“What!?”

This is followed by a week where the students go through The 5 Stages of Loss and Grief. It’s always interesting: there are some students totally unfazed by the lack of marble jar, and others are really concerned about it.

Denial: “Wait, really, we won’t have a marble jar? Not at all?”

Anger: “But we have to have a marble jar!”

Bargaining: “If we’re really good today, can we start a marble jar?”

Depression: “So we’re really not going to have a marble jar, are we?”

Acceptance: They stop coming to me to discuss the marble jar.

Eventually it settles down. We fall into our routines. November blankets us in clouds and chilly weather. When that rare nice day rolls around I tell the class I’ve noticed them working really hard and that we should line up to go out an enjoy the weather. Inevitably someone approaches me to bring up the lack of marble jar. “How can we get extra recess if we don’t have a marble jar?” I remind them, “I don’t need a marble jar to tell me when we need to take a break, head outside, and play Four Square.” That’s when they begin to have faith in my lack of a marble jar.

And think of all the important social skills we can practice on the Four Square court! I don’t tell them that last part; I don’t want to ruin it for them.

As educators we want our students to be intrinsically motivated. We want our students to do the right thing, even when we’re not watching. We want our students to truly love being at school. Carrots, sticks, and marble jars won’t get us that.

And don’t get me started on that Elf of the Shelf. That’s extortion at it’s worst!

—–

Note: Between drafting this last weekend and posting it now we had a class meeting about behavioral expectations (the annual Post-Thanksgiving Pre-December-Holidays Reminder Conversation) and the students brought up the lack of marble jar, suggesting they might stay on task better if it were attached to a pajama day. Apparently we’ve digressed to the Bargaining stage. No, there will be no marble jar.

photo credit: ĐāżŦ {mostly absent} via photopin cc

 

2012 iPad Summit Reflections

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Wow. Two days of iPads at the iPad Summit (put on by EdTechTeacher). That was awesome. And kind of exhausting (but in a good way). I’m excited to get back in the classroom with my 3rd graders and start keep doing some really neat stuff with them. Only more of it now.

So, going back over my notes… Some resonating ideas:

  • With all things tech, first ask “Why?” This was kind of a theme.
  • Our economy is based on people spending money they don’t have on things that are bad for our planet. (Tony Wagner) This is kind of frightening. 
  • Teachers who made the greatest difference to kids were teachers who were outliers in their teaching environments. (Tony Wagner) This makes me sad.
  • “If you cannot engage your students you have no future in being a teacher.” (Tony Wagner). Yes!
  • The app/device is a tool to think with. Yes (see my last post).
  • If you can’t identify a problem the iPad will solve, you probably shouldn’t be using iPads. (Greg Kulowiec) Yep (see bullet 1).
  • Check out Henri, on Youtube and Twitter. He’s a french cat, but so much more. 
  • If we get lost in the “how” we need to stop and ask “why” (Greg Kulowiec)
  • iPads are “mistake tolerant”. This came up a lot.
  • Beth Holland loves arrows. And I love this graphic. The Camera Roll is king.
     
  • Remember to ask: Why am I creating this stuff? Why am I curating (keeping) this stuff? Why do I need to create and curate this stuff? (Beth Holland)
  • SAMR Model for technology Integration: Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition. This came up in a few presentations. It looks a lot like my graduate thesis, but with a cool acronym. Why didn’t I come up with a cool acronym?
  • Let kids play with apps before you try to teach with apps.
  • Learning is creation, not consumption. Knowledge is not something a learner absorbs, but something a learner creates. (Patrick Larkin)
  • “It is no longer enough to do powerful work if no one sees it.” (Chris Lehmann) And Chris wasn’t even at the conference!
  • Explain Everything. I need to spend some more time with this app. Also, I got to see the features on the next update: yes please.
  • The iPad simplifies the technology. This came up a lot too. The iPad does so much, it prevents having to move files from one device/format to another.

There was way more than that, but I want to keep it brief.

And finally, if anyone out there reading this is involved in the building or maintaining of conference centers, please put shelves over the urinals. Please.