November 2007 Blog Posts (30)

In the beginning...

and this is only the beginning. As a relatively new tech educator I'm looking forward to learning and growing from the collaborative knowledge that I hope many will share. Many blessings to you and yours...

Added by Wade Thaxton on November 30, 2007 at 11:33am — No Comments

Alan November

Alan November is speaking at NCETC right now. He's doing his thing--I've heard him before and he's always interesting. Some highlights:

Google's main page shouldn't always be student's first choice for searching. Are we teaching them how to find information or just sort through the first 10 hits? Go to the advanced features (or another search engine). His example--using Google's front page and researching riots in Turkey after Pope Benedict XVI's speech last year. Google turns up all… Continue

Added by Sarah Hanawald on November 28, 2007 at 2:33pm — 1 Comment

Composting Project

In our environmental Science Class, everyone is doing a project of our own choice that has to do with our enviornment. Shiloh and I are working on a composting project. We are planing on finding some compost bins at wholesale, selling them to parents at school, then holding some informational meetings to show the parents and their children how to use a compost bin. Then we would take them out to our compost bins and garden to show them our setup and show them how easy it is. All feedback on… Continue

Added by Kelly V. on November 27, 2007 at 6:13pm — 12 Comments

Matt's Great Prof. Dev. Plan

Matt has a discussion on this ning about his plans for an upcoming 90 minute faculty meeting in which he will ask each department to produce a product using various engaging and collaborative tools. It's a wonderful idea and the discussion adds to it. My problem is that I only happened to stumble across this discussion. There are a lot of discussions on this site, and I don't click on all of them. I'm hopeful…

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Added by Demetri Orlando on November 27, 2007 at 3:22pm — 1 Comment

Ebooks are back! Now I want something more...

Let me just preface my unbridled enthusiasm here with a little history. I was in the field of publishing technology in the 1990's during the first ebook experience, gave up a decently functioning consulting company to merge with some book agents to form an ebook company, serving as the chief technology officer. Lots of money, time, hopes and dreams spent. Some critically acclaimed stuff was created, including a Jack Kerouac undiscovered… Continue

Added by Tim Cooper on November 25, 2007 at 2:05pm — 2 Comments

Let's Make More Mistakes

If you're familiar with the literature on the topic, you won't find much new in "The Many Errors in Thinking About Mistakes," an article in the Business section of today's NY Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/24/business/24shortcuts.html, but the article is nonetheless useful as a reminder that it is easy to tell students that it's okay to make mistakes, but hard to treat their mistakes in a way that doesn't contradict that message. That is, we tell them they have to try and fail, but we… Continue

Added by Richard Strean on November 24, 2007 at 1:00pm — 1 Comment

Moving away from the current PC model

Okay, I probably should have said "Paradigm," but I've come to dislike that word . . .

As has long been the case, I cannot find a single computer solution to my computing needs, which is probably a very common complaint among this group. However, rather than get into the cycle of constantly upgrading every two or three years (and the inherent pain of transferring files and settings - no matter what MS says), I'm looking to create an environment that is non-computer… Continue

Added by Norman Maynard on November 23, 2007 at 11:01am — No Comments

"We are always ahead of our thinking" - McLuhan predicts world connectivity

McLuhan from the CBC archives 1965

Added by Josie Holford on November 23, 2007 at 9:55am — No Comments

Connectivism 101 from George Siemens

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Added by Josie Holford on November 23, 2007 at 8:55am — No Comments

You must take a look at this!

A photostream called "interesting snippets" that gives a visual display of much of what we are talking about.Some rights reserved, but much available for noncommercial use.

Added by Susan Carter Morgan on November 22, 2007 at 6:11pm — No Comments

What's all this about "tagging" anyway?

At about hour 5 on our drive down to my wife's parents for Thanksgiving we pulled a CD out of the wallet and listened again to an audio recording from WorldBridges in which Jeff Lebow and Dave Cormier were interviewing Nancy White about her work with online communities. It's a great interview and it was wonderful to listen to it again today. I want to go through and pull out a few gems, like "transactional trust," but they… Continue

Added by Demetri Orlando on November 21, 2007 at 8:30pm — No Comments

OS X Leopard Surprise...

Actually, not such a good surprise.

With around 800 Macs on campus, it's not unusual for us to have to order extra Macbooks and iMacs as the year progresses. I recently ordered three Macbooks to replace faculty machines, and they came with OS X 10.5 Leopard installed. Not a big deal, we thought, we'll just put on the 10.4 faculty image.

Bong! Wrong answer. Currenlty, there's a firmware change on the Leopard Macbooks that prevents 10.4 from working. Apple "should" come… Continue

Added by Jim Heynderickx on November 21, 2007 at 2:37pm — No Comments

Thanksgiving Break (first draft of article for school newsletter)

"10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" and with a flurry of voices shouting "Good bye!" "Have a great vacation!" "You too!" the middle school officially began Thanksgiving break. Or, put otherwise, the middle school officially ended Fall Term. Indeed, that's exactly how one of the students had announced it earlier on: "10 minutes and thirty seconds left in Fall Term." It is a subtle but important difference - not counting down to the time when we… Continue

Added by Bill Ivey on November 20, 2007 at 7:29pm — No Comments

Need to update photo

I need a better photo of myself! This one is from our website that I cut and paste.

Added by Ahsan Karim on November 20, 2007 at 3:28pm — No Comments

Ahhhh, Thanksgiving vacation.

A little bit of time to kick back and reflect on a busy fall. Trees here in the NY area putting on their last show before shutting down for the winter. After some snow flurries yesterday it is expected to be up near 70 on Wednesday.

I've got a nice juicy SketchUp project to work on and some good books to read. Should be an enjoyable and relaxing break. Hope the same for all of you!

Fred

Added by Fred Bartels on November 20, 2007 at 3:18pm — 1 Comment

The beginning - Social networks, ISEnet and blogging

At first glance I like Ning. I am a Facebook person and this has a somewhat facebookish look. What I like best is the smallness of it. Social network sites are so huge, going in off in so many directions. I meet work firends, school, friends, former students, and people I haven't met in ages. The multidirectionness of it makes it hard to make any use of it for any real work (how can I get any work done when Scrabulous is constantly tempting me!) .

I am not saying that all of this is real… Continue

Added by Tim Cooper on November 20, 2007 at 10:26am — No Comments

Pot-Luck Party

This experiment in social networking feels a little bit like an unplanned party and I seem to be an unwitting host. That little box that says "Demetri created this social network" tasks me like the white whale to desperately want to create substance out of form. I'd like to put out trays of tasty hors d'oeurves, and promise an enticing entree later this evening, but a truer analogy is that this is an invite-yourself pot-luck. As usual, props to Fred for pushing this forward, and to all of you… Continue

Added by Demetri Orlando on November 20, 2007 at 10:23am — 1 Comment

Leveling the Playing Field

Just listened to Alex and Don chatting at the recent Mohonk NYSAIS Unconference for Managers of IT and Librarians. Among other ideas, Don mentioned leveling the playing field among the conference participants. This struck a nerve with me because that idea is behind my proposal for my school's Professional Development Day this coming April. Below is the pitch I made to our Curriculum Council or you can read the full… Continue

Added by Laurie Bartels on November 19, 2007 at 4:15pm — 6 Comments

Where is my blog?

Since I started my blog elsewhere it is displayed on the lower left hand side of my page via RSS.

Added by Larry Kahn on November 19, 2007 at 10:20am — No Comments

Supporting High School Students at Risk

For about 8 years I have, as a volunteer, been supporting HS students that are "in my non-educator's terminology" having a tough time in school. I am always looking for models to help such students. If you know of any please let me know. Most of my other voluteer work has been in Independent schools which have far more resources and take the time to work with each student one on one - not as easy in public schools.

Ron

Added by Ron Decker on November 18, 2007 at 1:32pm — No Comments