In my last update I said, "My baking goals for the next NLP post are to find a strategy to keep the cake pops on the sticks between baking and decorating, find a way to store them upright after decorating, and begin to look into manageable decorating ideas." I changed my mind. Instead, I attempted my first assessment, making round cake pops. After thinking it over, it made sense to do this step first as the method of making the cake pops can alter how well they stay on the stick. I was also stressing about these cake pops all week! What if they don't work? What if the alternate methods don't work either? It was too much pressure. I had to just get started. 1. Getting It All Together I first gathered all of the ingredients, the recipe, and the tools and appliances I would need to complete my task. This included my new favorite piece of technology, the Amazon Echo. The Echo, or Alexa as she likes to be called, is a really great assistant in the kitchen. While it probably wasn't designed for this role, it is how I use it the most (TPACK!). Being voice-activated means I don't have to constantly be washing my hands to set a timer, change the song I am listening to, or add items to my shopping list as I use them up. During this baking adventure, Alexa kept me smiling with some up-beat tunes and corny jokes. I needed to hear one before I even got started to break my cake pop tension! "How do you make an octopus laugh? You give it ten-tickles." 2. Mixing It Up Given my last cake pop fiasco, I followed the steps in the recipe from the Babycakes manual to the letter. This recipe called for creaming the sugar and butter together. I think this is a key difference between using a cake mix, which calls for oil, and making the batter from scratch. Cake pops made from a mix are too oily when it comes to covering the pops in the candy coating. 3. "Put it in the Bag, Put it in the Bag, Bump Bump" A lot of the sources I referenced said to use a Pancake Pen when filling the cavities of the cake pop maker. I didn't feel like spending $10 and waiting for it to arrive, so I improvised. I thought I could apply some TPACK and use a clean ketchup bottle instead. I never got to find out if it would work or not because the batter was too thick to fit through my funnel, and I knew just pouring the batter into the bottle opening would not end well. Luckily, I remembered that I had a batter tip for pastry bags. This was one of those I-thought-it-would-be-great-but-it-was-a-bust purchases. It was too hard to squeeze and took too long to fill a cupcake, let alone a dozen. However, it was just right for cake pops! P.S. If you don't get the reference in the title, go here. 4. Lumpy Coneheads and Less Lumpy Coneheads I needed another laugh after I finished filling the cake pop maker. Right after asking Alexa to set a timer for four and half minutes, I asked her to tell me a joke. "What do you call an American Revolutionist who draws cartoons? A Yankee-Doodler." You have to admit that one was pretty clever. When the time was up, I opened the lid to find lumpy conehead balls of cake. I thought maybe they just didn't bake long enough, so I baked the second batch for five minutes. Round two produced less lumpy coneheads, but coneheads nonetheless. I determined this must mean the cake pops needed more time and more batter. 5. Third Times the Charm I slightly over-filled each cavity in the third batch before asking Alexa to put five minutes on the clock. When I opened the lid they were all connected into what looked like a giant alien pancake. I thought, "Oh no! They are going to break when I try to pull them apart." Au contraire, those beautiful round balls of cake lifted right out! I did it, perfection! I was beaming! Unfortunately, I also nearly gave my husband a heart attack when I unexpectedly yelled, "They're ROUND!" 6. All That Glitters Is Not Gold My cake pop maker redeemed itself. I even decided to make it a more prominent home in the baking cabinet, as I clearly got the hang of things and would surely be making cake pops all the time. My cake pop maker is a tease. Below is what happened during the fourth batch. Ok, I might have put a little more batter in than last time, but I swear it didn't seem like that much more. I guess there is also a chance I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been. In my excitement over the third batch, I took to the internet to leave a comment on Love From the Oven's post about using the Babycake's cake pop maker. When I turned around from the screen and saw what is pictured below, my mouth dropped. All I could do was ask Alexa for another joke. "What do you call a camel with no hump? Hump-Free." *Sigh* Well, it was good while it lasted. Despite the last attempt, I consider this endeavor to be a success. My goal was to make round cake pops, which I did. I never said they all had to be round! I also met my own personal challenge and went outside of my comfort zone to comment on Love From the Oven's blog. More importantly, I am continuing to learn from my mistakes. Last time I learned the importance of using the right batter. This time I learned a valuable, and messy, lesson in filling the cake pop maker correctly. Goals for Next Update: For the next update I am going back to the goals I set last time: find a strategy to keep the cake pops on the sticks, figure out how to store them upright after decorating, and look into manageable decorating techniques.
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This week I attended a four day Responsive Classroom workshop. Each day of the conference had a different focus, but the importance of academic choice resonated across all four days. Bottom line: Children perform better when they have some say in how or what they learn. This relates to RSA Animate's video featuring Dan Pink's keynote address, The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others where he claims autonomy, mastery, and purpose are the best motivators (more than money!) for tasks requiring conceptual and creative thinking. While Dan Pink's words were settling in my brain, I read Stephani Sutherland's article When We Read, We Recognize Words As Pictures and Hear Them Spoken Aloud. This got me thinking about how people process information. For example, I often say inside my brain must look like Photoshop's interface. When I am trying to construct knowledge from new sources I think in terms of graphic design. Information becomes pictures and like a hand with a mouse, my brain moves the images around until I have a representation of the content. This image gets saved to my "cloud" so I can easily "download" it whenever needed.
The process described above was taking place in my head as I read The New Literacies of Online Reading Comprehension: New Opportunities and Challenges for Students with Learning Difficulties by Castek, Zawilinski, McVerry, O'Byrne, and Leu (2011), and Online Collaborative Inquiry: Classroom Blogging Ventures and Multiple Literacies by Judy M. Arzt, Ph.D. (2012). After completing the readings, I had an image in my head (and some doodles on napkins) which I was about to begin translating back to text when I decided to exercise my autonomy! For this week, I am forgoing writing my response to the readings in order to show you my thoughts via an infographic made using Piktochart (free!). This is a glimpse into how my mind processes information and what keeps me motivated as a student.
How can I use this in my classroom?
When I envision my ideal classroom, I see every one of my first graders blogging away on iPads. This is not my reality. While I would love to have my students blog, I don't know how feasible it will be. As of right now, my classroom will have one iPad mini thanks to the generosity of family, friends, former students, and total strangers who donated to my Donor's Choose project. I have big plans for that little iPad, but not a lot of time to get them all done. I would like to attempt a class blog and feature a different student blogger each week. However, until I have more resources and a better handle on my daily schedule, blogging will remain a goal for the future.
So what does this have to do with technology, let alone education? Well, the “Cooking with TPACK” assignment is a metaphor for teaching with TPACK (Technological, Pedagogical, and Content Knowledge). As I say in the video, it is the “take what you got, and give it your best shot” approach. Very often teachers are not provided with enough/the right technology and therefore they have to make do with what they have. This often involves repurposing something in order to make it appropriate for the lesson you are trying to teach. In this activity, cooking tools were the technology, fruit was the content, and my knowledge of fruit salad and how it is made was the pedagogy. Just like in the classroom, I did not have a say in the technology or content I had to work with. However, using my pedagogical knowledge in relation to these two domains allowed me to successfully complete the task at hand. Teachers use TPACK to make informed decisions regarding how and when to integrate technology every day. Similarly, while making fruit salad I made decisions regarding how and when to use a vegetable peeler, bowl, and plate.
Just as I repurposed the peeler in this activity, I have also repurposed technology in my classroom. For example, last year I used FaceTime to give directions to a student with autism even though he was in the same room as me. He could not decipher voices from environmental sounds and therefore missed directions frequently; conversely, he was attuned to anything on a screen no matter what was going on in the background. I used my knowledge of the technology available, my student’s needs, and my teaching skills to find an unconventional use for FaceTime as an instructional tool.
I learned a lot about making do with what you have in this e̶p̶i̶s̶o̶d̶e̶ assignment. Whether it be a new curriculum you aren't familiar with (bananas), insufficient technology (vegetable peeler), the situation created by the interaction of these two things (slippery and messy hands), or pressure from administration to perform at a certain standard (no reshoots!), teachers must be able to adapt their approach by adding a dash of this, or a smidgeon of that, in order to produce a consumable lesson despite limitations. After this experience, Cooking with TPACK is my new "go-to" recipe for student success.
P.S. I have had this song stuck in my head ever since I was assigned fruit salad.
So it seems I may have figured out where I went wrong with my initial run of cake pop making. You can’t use a boxed cake mix! Who knew? Well, apparently a lot of people judging from the number of answers I found by searching “Babycakes cake pop maker problems” and “Why aren’t my cake pops round?” on Google. However, this also tells me a lot of people made the same mistake I did. It is comforting to know I was not the only one who encountered this problem. This is one of the perks of using a Personal Learning Network to acquire a new skill. You find connections with people all over the world through shared experiences and inquiries.
I started building my personal learning network by creating a “Cake Pops” board on Pinterest, I discovered there are a variety of ways one can make a cake pop. In addition to the cake pop maker, there are molds, special pans, and an entirely different method that uses crumbled pre-baked cake and frosting. I also discovered the many “Pinterest Fails” experienced by others, which I have to admit made me feel much better. My initial endeavors didn’t look that bad compared to some of those! I find Pinterest to be the best method of collecting and curating my sources. In addition to searching Pinterest, I also use the “Pin It” button to add resources from Google searches to my board. I really like being able to change a pin’s description to be more suited for my personal use after reviewing the content. I can also delete pins which aren’t as useful as they first promised. In addition to Pinterest, I joined the Google+ community Cake Pops & Cupcakes & Co., but this has not been as useful as I thought it would be since a lot of the posts are focused on cupcakes and/or not in English. So far I have found the Tips and Recipes page on the official Babycakes site, and a post on using the cake pop maker on Love From The Oven to be the most helpful in understanding the error of my cake pop ways.
So, why doesn’t a cake mix work? Here’s the gist: cake pop batter needs to be thicker and less oily than regular cake batter. I did read several suggestions on how to adapt a cake mix, but everyone seems to have their own ideas on the best way to go about it. Instead, I am going to try the Vanilla Cake Pops recipes from the Babycakes manual. I found a tutorial on Munchkin Time for this recipe which features step-by-step photos. I think this will be very helpful as I am a visual learner. The downside of this is the finished cake pops look almost too good to be true. They are perfection on a stick! I may have to check out a few more “Pinterest Fails” to build up my confidence before I begin baking.
Baking round cake pops is the first step of my personal assessment plan. I will not be able to move forward in this project if I cannot master the baking portion. After all, it is kind of hard to make a cake pop without the actual cake. Nevertheless, I have a back-up plan! If this doesn’t work, I will explore one of the other cake pop making methods described above so that I may progress to the next step - keeping the cake pops on the stick.
My baking goals for the next NLP post are to find a strategy to keep the cake pops on the sticks between baking and decorating, find a way to store them upright after decorating, and begin to look into manageable decorating ideas. My networking goal is to comment on at least one of the blog posts I found helpful during the first step of this project. I have frequently used Pinterest and blogs to learn skills and get ideas for projects, but I just read the information as if it was written in a book. I have not connected with the people I am learning with and from. After reading Personal Learning Networks for Educators: 10 Tips by Dr. Mark Wagner, and writing my own blog, I see the value in utilizing the interactive nature of the internet to build connections within my personal learning network.
After learning about TPACK (Mishra & Koehler's extension of Shulman's Pedagogical Content Knowledge) I couldn’t come to terms with just sitting down and writing a blog about it. Using a text-based method of communication didn’t seem appropriate to me since TPACK is all about using Technological, Pedagogical, And Content Knowledge to effectively teach with technology. I wanted my explanation to be interactive; I wanted it to be an actual model of TPACK. I believe in learning by doing, so I made an interactive visual summary of the TPACK framework using ThingLink, an interactive media platform which I had never used before (Psst! It is free for teachers), and the rights free image provided at http://tpack.org. Making this interactive model required me to find the appropriate tool and learn how to use it (Technological Knowledge), decide how the material should be presented (Pedagogical Knowledge), and learn the information myself (Content Knowledge).
Now it is your turn to experience TPACK through instructional technology. When you mouse over the image below colored circles will appear in each of the areas of the TPACK framework. Hovering your mouse over a circle will show you my summary of each component. Clicking on the circles will play a video I feel represents each section. I hope you find this to be an engaging and educational TPACK experience.
Reproduced by permission of the publisher, © 2012 by tpack.org
In the YouTube video below, John Seely Brown discusses the power and importance of play in education. By play, he means playing with a concept. This practice forces students to develop problem-solving skills and gain a better understanding of the content by allowing them to make, and learn from, mistakes. This idea reminds me of a sign I saw at the Connecticut Science Center which read, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” This quote from Thomas Edison beautifully sums up Brown’s idea. We have to let kids work through a cognitive process in order for them to develop a more complex relationship with their learning.
How do we go about teaching students to work through a learning process in an age of instantaneous information? Navigating the C’s of Change by McVerry, Zawilinski, and O’Byrne provides an excellent model for integrating “Internet Reciprocal Teaching” into content areas in order to teach critical thinking, comprehension, communication, collaboration, and creativity. “The 5 C’s,” as the author’s call them, are the key skills individuals need to approach an idea, play with it, and come to their own realizations. The reason I like this approach is three-fold: 1. it is highly structured, 2. it engages students but also challenges them through the use of open-ended questions, and 3. it teaches real-life skills alongside content knowledge. While educators are sometimes hesitant to change their teaching practices, following a model such as this one would make the task less daunting.
In order for both parties to successfully navigate the “C’s of Change” in an increasingly digitized education, students need to learn to play with concepts, and teachers need to allow time for this while demonstrating the process themselves. For teachers who want to help students be correct as quickly as possible, this will be a struggle. Lecture style instructors will have to let go of their locus of control. Educators who are not “techies” will need to adapt to internet-based learning. Teachers need to embrace change in their classrooms and implement new ways of teaching/learning in order for educators and educatees to sail the choppy waters of educational change together. Growing up my mom, sister, and I would spent countless afternoons in the kitchen baking together. The way it made the house smell, licking the batter from the beaters, and the smiles we shared created a warm place in my heart for baking. As an adult, I started making fancier cakes and cupcakes than I did as a child after several years of watching baking competitions on Food Network (scroll down to see some of my work). Turns out it is something I really love to do! In fact, at one point I considered making it a full-time career! My mom even bought me a book on starting your own cupcake business. However, after realizing all of the legal entities and cost it would involve I decided to keep it a hobby. Family and friends frequently ask me to make them cupcakes, cakes, and cake pops for special events. Cupcakes and cakes I say yes to, but cake pops and I do not get along. I didn't always feel this way about cake pops. I was excited when I got a cake pop maker; I thought it would be (no pun intended) a piece of cake. I was wrong, very wrong. I followed the directions, I did everything I was supposed to do, but my cake pops looked like they could be the official dessert of the New England Patriots - deflated. One side was cooked, one side was a wrinkled mess, they stuck to the maker, and that was only the beginning. Trying to get them on the sticks, forget it. Decorating them? My kitchen was covered in more frosting than the cake pops. After all of this I gave up, and my cake pop maker has sat in my baking cabinet untouched for years...until now. I have decided to give cake pops another chance and learn how to make them the right way thanks to the network learning project I have been assigned. For this assignment I have to learn something new using the internet as my teacher. So how will I go about this? I am going to start with Pinterest and make a "Cake Pops" board where I can "pin" helpful websites. If you are not familiar with Pinterest, it is a visual collection of internet bookmarks you can search through and save or "pin" for later use. I enjoy using Pinterest because I am a visual learner and scan, process, and remember information much better in picture form. For the same reasons, I even use it as a research tool for English language learners, visual learners, and students with limited reading ability in the classroom! I will also use Google to search for answers to more specific questions like, "Why aren't my cake pops round?" Since I like to watch cooking shows and learn well from them, I will use Youtube as a source for demonstrations on the proper way to make cake pops. My personal learning objectives are to learn:
Will this cupcake baker be defeated by cake pops once again, or will I rise up (hopefully better than my first batch of cake pops did) against my confectionery challenger? Tune in next time to find out! Check out some of my cakes and cupcakes!
As a pre-service teacher I studied several educational philosophies. There are three which have stuck with me throughout my teaching career: constructivism (John Piaget), progressivism (John Dewey), and humanism (Abraham Maslow & Carl Rodgers). That is not to say my views haven’t changed, or even been challenged over the years, but at the end of the day the methods of instructions and assessment I employ, the goals I set for my students, and the climate of my classroom remain true to these three theories. Following the ideals and best practices of constructivism, progressivism, and humanism helped me find my voice as a teacher. Over the years I have been introduced to newer schools of thought from Richard Lavoie, Dr. Ross Greene, and Responsive Classroom, which complimented these theories and enhanced the growth and development of my instructional practices, student interactions, and relationships with parents. Based on these theories, my educational philosophy holds that:
Classrooms should be student-centered to promote
divergent thinking, problem solving, and skill application.
Constructivism is based on the idea of people constructing knowledge of their world through their own experiences. Related to this, progressive education emphasizes the idea of personal relevance to, and investment in, one’s education. I help my students do this by challenging them to make personal connections with the content and define their new knowledge through schema. I also value the importance of learning by doing, another key feature of a progressivist education, and incorporating student choice, a facet of humanistic education. An example of this comes from my Algebra I classroom. After completing a unit on ratios and proportions my students made scaled models of objects they brought in from home as their assessment. One student created an over-sized 3D stuffed elephant based on a stuffed animal of her own, another made a large scale paper sculpture of McDonald’s French fries, while another who was not as adept at 3D design made large-scale drawings of everyday objects such as scissors and a Wii remote. Although the outcomes were different, each student demonstrated an ability to take measurements, create a ratio, use the ratio to make a proportion, and scale the size of their objects. I feel this type of hands-on application is more relevant to everyday life, promotes problem-solving, and requires a deeper level of understand than simply “solving for x.”
Teachers are not only educators; they are motivators.
Richard Lavoie's work on motivation changed the way I interacted with my students. In his book, The Motivation Breakthrough: 6 Secrets to Turning On the Tuned-Out Child (2007), Lavoie presents “The 6 P’s of Motivation” which are praise, power, projects, prestige, prizes, and people. He proselytizes that everyone is motivated by at least one of these things and teachers must know each child’s motivation in order to reach them effectively. This view relates to the humanistic idea of intertwining the interests of the student with their intellect. During my tenure at an out-placement special education school I had to teach health class for half a year, every year. Since we had the same students in our schools from 9th – 12th grade they were tired of learning the same lessons on healthy diets and the dangers of drugs and alcohol. They were unmotivated learners and therefore "tuned-out" children. I challenged them to teach each other by creating public services announcements on health topics affecting modern teenagers. They chose the topic and the form of media they wanted. The results were dynamic. One group produced a video on sleep deprivation, another performed a skit on high fructose corn syrup, and another made a poster and gave a mini-lecture on signs of depression. They learned about relevant topics, research, and presentation, but more importantly they were motivated by the incorporation of their interests into the assignment. My favorite example of personalized motivation happened this past year. My father is a retired FDNY fire chief. My students used Skype to ask him questions during fire safety week. While all of my students enjoyed the conversation, one was completely taken with my dad. He talked about “Chief” all year long. When this student was struggling to learn to count to forty I promised a FaceTime call with Mr. and Mrs. Chief upon completion of the task. That was enough to get him focused and practicing every day, and in a few weeks he counted to forty. We called my parents again and he was in his glory!
“Kids will do well if they can.”
Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS), formerly known as Collaborative Problem Solving, comes from the work of Dr. Ross Greene. Greene’s theory relates to the theory of humanism as his approach is person-centered and requires the teacher to be genuine, empathetic, and a facilitator of knowledge. His mantra, “Kids will do well if they can,” is short and to the point, but has impacted my teaching profoundly. Greene believes all children want to do well, and if a student could do well, they would. He challenges teachers to look at maladaptive student behaviors as a result of lagging skills in response to the demands of the environment. When I started looking at behavior this way it allowed me to provide meaningful skill-based interventions vs. unproductive consequences for my students.
Teachers and families must work together to create positive learning environments.
The Responsive Classroom approach to education brings together humanism, constructivism, and progressivism. The guiding principles of a responsive classroom are valuing the social, emotional, and academic curriculum equally, placing emphasis on how children learn as much as what they learn, using social interactions to promote cognitive growth, placing equal importance on knowing the students and their families as knowing content, and valuing the relationships amongst colleagues. In a responsive classroom, students take part in creating the rules, have academic choice, and participate in guided discovery. Teachers use positive teacher language and tone, facilitate interactive modeling, use collaborative problem solving techniques, and enforce logical consequences while maintaining students’ dignity. These student and teacher practices are reflective of the ideas of active learning and constructing one’s knowledge from constructivism, progressivism’s value on classroom democracy and student investment, and the importance of student choice and emotional well-being from humanism. I believe these ideas lead to the creation of a positive learning environment. I say learning environment because I am not limiting this to the classroom; I feel the home is an equally important learning environment. When teachers create Responsive Classrooms and make learning a family affair through collaboration and open and positive communication with parents, both home and school life improves.
Differing Schools of Thought:
While my educational philosophy approaches education from a student-centered method designed to promote divergent thinking and active learning, there are schools of thought which oppose my view. B.F. Skinner’s theory of behaviorism states behavior is shaped by consequences in the environment, and consequences are motivation for repeating the action. This theory was the basis for the Lovaas Method, which was the earliest form of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) conducted by O. Ivar Lovaas, Ph.D. In these methods, teachers or therapists use approaches such as direct instruction, discrete trial training, and pivotal response training to elicit a pre-determined response from a student. The major difference between my philosophy of education and the ideas of Lovass and Skinner is their lack of construction of knowledge through schema, active learning, and inquiry. While I feel the schools of thought behind my philosophy better enhance thinking, learning, and teaching for the general population due to the exploratory and responsive interactions between learners and teachers, I feel Lovaas and Skinner’s theories are crucial methods for students with autism, intellectual disabilities, and more severe emotional disabilities such as oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder. I have witnessed and even employed these methods in such extreme cases.
Looking Forward…
Education is ever-evolving. I feel it is progressing more quickly now than ever due to the expansion and inclusion of technology. It is hard to predict what education or educational philosophies will look like twenty-five, ten, or even five years from now. Who knows what devices and services will be developed in that time. Based on my beliefs in student choice, interest, motivation, and construction of knowledge through schema and active learning, I would like to see K-12 education take a more global view. I envision world-wide educational communities based on common topic of interest starting at the elementary level. Obviously elementary students couldn’t physically travel to another country to learn, but they could have an online video-based classroom. Imagine elementary students learning math in Japan, painting in France, or language arts in London all in one day! Language differences would be a clear problem; however, we already have translation technology which I only imagine will improve in the next twenty-five years. While expanding elementary global relationships has many benefits, it would also open up young children to potential negative influences and anti-American views from opposing countries. Children are impressionable and I fear the deep impact this could have on home-based terrorism. Nonetheless, another important component of my philosophy is the role of the teacher as a facilitator. I would expect a global-based learning environment to be carefully planned and facilitated by an adult with the social and emotional well-being of the children in mind at all times.
This post has been moved to a separate page as my educational philosophy has since changed. You can access the older version of my philosophy here.
Welcome to E.K.B. Instructional Technology! I am Erin and come September I will be teaching first grade for the first time! This will also be my first time teaching in a regular education classroom since student teaching in 2006. For the past 8 years I have been a special education teacher. In that time I have taught at an out-placement high school, an urban middle school, and 2 suburban elementary schools. This past year I created a technology and hands-on learning program for children with severe disabilities. It was amazing to see how, when used properly, iPads can enhance a student's learning, ability to participate, and communication skills. I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Digital Media from Marist College in 2005. Immediately upon graduation I enrolled in a Master of Science in Teaching program at St. Thomas Aquinas College. I graduated with dual certification in elementary and special education in two states. This past year I became a Google Certified Educator and completed a 20 hour online Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) training. I am excited to formally continue my education and learn new ways to bring technology into my classroom through UNH's 6th Year Certificate in Instructional Technologies & Digital Media Literacy program. Outside of being a teacher, I love to dance, bake cupcakes, use Photoshop, take & teach Zumba classes, go for bike rides, peruse/try Pinterest ideas, talk with my mom for hours on end, watch superhero movies with my husband, and dress up my guinea pig Stewie in silly hats (check out the "About" page to see what I mean for that last one). |
Erin Berthold
1st grade teacher, former special education teacher, Zumba Fitness instructor, graphic designer, cupcake baker, wife, and pet mama working towards a 6th Year Certificate in Instructional Technologies and Digital Categories
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