Literacies [view: normal]

My wrist watch is not digital

When talking about the differences between our generation (my generation) and our school youngsters’, I frequently point at my watch (when I remembered to pick it up on my way out of the house). I explain that my watch is not digital. It does one thing, and it well. Digital watches did not exist when I was growing up, and that is an important difference.

You see...

Science has traditionally been done by scientists in their labs, trying to prove or disprove some hypothosis. Their experiments work or they do not work. They learn something important or the do not. We learned, when the result were significant and they were reported. What if Science opened up so that we could see and learn from successes and failures — good falures. (Image¹)

Preparing the ...

Well, my vacation is over. I leave for the airport in a few hours on United Airlines (gear under my arm) for Lexington, Kentucky, by way of Chicago.

It’s been glorious to be at home, enjoying salad lunches and evening walks with Brenda, working into a routine, starting a new book (somebody shoot me), and upgrading Citation Machine — bringing both APA and MLA schemes into compliance with the lates...

It’s one of those ideas that has occurred to me during those moments when a perfect example presents itself, but then loses itself in the stack of other ideas of similar birth and death. But here, at the beginning of the school year (at least in the Northern Hemisphere), it seems like a good time to suggest Blog Worthy Topics. I’m thinking specifically of learner blogs, classrooms where both tea...

I do not mean this title in the way that many might mean it right now. I’m talking about cloud computing, and referring to yesterday’s New York Times Bits post, Now Even the Government Has an App Store. Obama’s CIO, Vivek Kundra announced yesterday on the Whitehouse Blog (The Blog), in an entry titled, “Streaming at 1:00: In the Cloud,” that

..we have launched Apps.gov to help continue the Presi...

Flickr Photo by Sandy Kemsley

It’s what some teacher in Japan wrote back after I sent her instructions for Joining Class Blogmeister, “Doumo arigatou gozaimashita.” One of the fiction series I’ve been reading lately is set, partly, in Japan, so I recognized the phrase a Japanese (before logic did it for me). So then I copied the phrase and pasted it into the address box of my browser, hit ente...

I do not usually pass things on that come to me via e-mail labeled, “Your readers might be interested in…” But this would certainly be worth it of you won…

Apply to become a TED Fellow @ TED2010!

Ever dreamed of attending a TED Conference…of being around some of the world’s greatest minds and discussing the best technology, art, architecture, music, film, science, literature, etc? Are you innovat...

Women now represent 49.83% of the American workforce, expected to exceed 50% by October or November

I flagged this one to pass on several days ago, but have been so focused with another writing project and working on a Citation Machine upgrade (APA 6th edition), that I’ve not been thinking about much else. But I do want to at least make mention of this, partly because I am old enough to have kn...

I crave routine. For the past week and a half, I have started my morning with a bowl of Cream of Wheat (It’s better than grits) followed by a mile walk to the local Starbucks, a bag (above) over my shoulder. Unpacked, I have my mobile office — Acer Netbook with Ubuntu waiting for login, a wireless mouse, and a mug of Cafè Americano. I’m writing a new book about network professional developmen...

Click the images to enlarge

Brenda pointed these out to me yesterday evening. They are in a wooded area of our backyard, at the base of a Maple tree. It’s been raining and yesterday was the most humid day I’ve seen this summer (75% — not at all high for most NC summers).

They are mushrooms of some variety, but I have never seen something like this before.

So you know what it is?

Screen shot of The Preservation of Favoured Traces. It illustrates the evolution of ideas across the six editions of On the Origin of Species.

This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen for a long time. Data visualization is one of the most interesting applications of computing that I know of today, using a variety of tools to take huge amounts of data to enable that data to communicate itsel...

Before I start bellyaching, you should take a look at PicPocketBOOKS. They have some interesting features.

“Now kids can enjoy their favorite books from your iPhone! Forget the playstations, game consoles and DVDs, our mobile picture books will entertain and educate your child in the car, plane, train and more.” — PicPocketBOOKS

There is an Elliot Templeton line from The Razor’s Edge that I ha...

Flickr Photo by Judy Baxter

We all know how much our students love technology. They spend so much time on their mobile phones reading and typing, conversing, Googling, playing, working, and living — it’s a given that our students live in their pockets.

So, if we want to continue to be relevant to our students lives and their future, and the textbook industry wants to be a part of this reinventi...

Flickr Photo by Noah Darnell Here

Browsing through some blogs the other day, I ran across this one (What are we Doing?) from Mike Meechin, a Florida social studies teacher. Meechin tells of a high school junior in his class, who asked a question, “about the pilgrims (U.S. History early 17th century) using the automobile.”

Now, as a former social studies teacher, I am disappointed that Meechin’s...

“Engage!” from like-titled blog post on SS Glim

An article in EduTopia’s August 26 newsletter reminded me of a conversation I had the other evening with Doug Peterson, in Windsor. The article is How to Keep Kids Engaged in Class, and it describes ten tips to increase class participation. Examples include:

• Start Class with a mind warm-up,
• Use movement to get kids focused,
• Run a tight ship when...

I’ll be working with directors and superintendents this afternoon, from the Greater Essex County School Board, here in Windsor, Ontario. The theme of the entire conference is Vision to Practice, with a little dreaming, believing, and achieving thrown in. One of the agenda’d questions I’ll be asked is, “What is the difference between 20th century learning and 21st century learning?”

It’s one of t...

From the video, United Breaks Guitars

From the video, United Breaks Guitars
I’m pretty sure that it was in Pittsburgh last week, that a young man came up just after my address, to tell me the story of “United Breaks Guitars.” It was my first exposure to the story, as I’ve not been paying enough attention to my RSS reader lately.

It appears that after landing in Chicago for a connect to Nebraska,...

Flickr Photo by MacKensie Cornelius

Ann Flynn, of the NSBA, asked me about K-12 Nutrition Staff who are using Web 2.0 tools to communicate with students or parents. Are your schools Twittering menus, soliciting comments on the quality of their meals through blogging, offering social bookmark links or RSS feeds for nutrition related sites, adding resources to the school’s Facebook network, or so...

Personas sifts through references and through a natural language process, characterizes netizens with your name.

I pulled it out of a Twitter message that linked to Personas, a project of the MIT Media Lab.

Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab. It uses sophistica...

The caption under this Storybook Rabbit (Amber) Flickr photo was, “Never sit on the left side of the room when you have a right-handed teacher. This was like sitting behind a column at a baseball game. Except much less exciting.” I would add that the teacher is thinking, “I have the data and I know that this is the scribble my students need to be looking at right now.”

Th...

Flickr Photo by Lauren Brown

This one caught my eye because I’ve done a good deal of work in Alberta lately — but also because of part of the title, Who can Unlearnall the Facts That I’ve Learned?. It’s an article from VUE Weekly, an independent newspaper from Edmonton. From my experience, standardized testing does seem to be a central part of education in the Province. But I’v...

I’m not sure why this Jared Zimmerman Flickr Photo seemed ideal for this post — but here it is.

On Sunday (Aug 9) I wrote about a recent THE Journal article about the decline of computer science classes in U.S. schools. It was based on a survey conducted by the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA). The post enjoyed a number of thoughtful responses.

I was especially ta...

I do not know where this idea came from, that was banging around in my head when I woke at 3:30 this morning.  I think that it was partly a subconscious reflection of a very interesting Daniel Hecht mystery (Bones of the Barbary Coast) that I finished last night.  It may also partly be subconscious efforts to find a way to chisel away 15 minutes of my 1 hour presentation to fit the schedule of tod...

With the K12 Online Conference keynote, still incomplete, my writing deadline looming, conference proposals due, and I start serious travel again next week, Brenda and I are taking off for Cullowhee, North Carolina, this morning for Mountain Heritage Day, which starts in the morning.  Today, we’re hoping to get away early enough to drive up through Marion and pick up the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We’re...