Category: Uncategorized
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Man the planner–another Ur-technology
Had dinner with my boy tonight, the university student-recording artist (mostly the latter.) He was dressed in his last clean clothes–his suburban clothes. He freeloaded on a Metra train out to the house–having no money for laundry, food, etc. His rent he’d paid, but his job screwed up his paycheck, so he needed to borrow…
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How can I not raise my voice
in praise of Voice? Google Voice, that is? It transcribes my voice messages with scary accuracy and supplants the need for a call to a voice messaging machine. It is a technological friendly scribe, a replacement for the friend who says, “Hey, so and so called. He says…”. Oh, sure, it’s not perfect. Take a…
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If their predictions are correct, it's 2-3 years until game-based learning "tips"
I love writing that affirms my hunches and verifies my observations. So I am appreciative of former Elmhurst, Illinois resident Will Richardson‘s participation in and linking to the recently-released Horizon Project Report. The 12th annual product of the New Media Consortium, it makes some exciting predictions. Here’s a run-down of how they see things evolving in the…
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Stanford Prof: Video games teach leadership and collaboration
Especially the multi-user massive kind, such as World of Warcraft. People are looking to escape this world, but not its labors–hence the huge numbers of regular people (not just alienated adolescent boys) who are so engaged with the “game world” that they think nothing of paying $15 a month to study problems, create narratives, delegate roles, and…
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Energized, and then enervated by my first collaborative IM session tonight
conducted via Skype. I actually made the beginner’s mistake of clicking on one of my colleagues names so as to open up a window and a video/audio connection. She expected to text with her three colleagues and now here was her t-shirt-ed fellow student showing up on her computer screen expecting collaboration. Weird for us…
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an open letter to State Superintendent of Illinois Schools
to State Superintendent of Schools Christopher A. Koch100 N. 1st Street • Springfield, IL 62777 Dear Superintendent Koch, As your fellow educator, I write in response to the rapid changes going through Illinois public schools this spring. At a time of unparalleled disruption in Illinois public education, it is important to act flexibly and wisely,…
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Look what Detroit is producing now: Hybrid of project-based and online learning–and it seems to work!
The Detroit Free Press, a great old newspaper, has these happy tidings today: the hoped for (in terms of cost and progress) hybrid of project-based learning with online web 2.0 offerings. The tiny URL for this article http://tinyurl.com/y3ntwsr allows you to read the entire piece. It cannot come at a more direful time for American…
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Diane Ravitch–a non-partisan public education critic who deserves a wider audience
Diane Ravitch showed up on Chicago’s NPR station yesterday and in an interview available here said some very accurate things about the state of education. The great thing about Ravitch’s story is that she has moved beyond partisanship–though she worked for the first Bush president as assistant Secretary of Education, and although she approved of 2001’s NCLB, her thinking…
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What's it look like from the Ivory Tower of Educational Administration?
Spoke to a district administrator friend of mine yesterday, and yep, even in those elevated towers, school leaders are feeling the shift in public education too–a shift brought on by the following factors, discussed in this post, this, and others: Budgetary shortfalls–catastrophic cuts of curriculum ensue, as does (in Illinois, at least) Restructured teacher pensions–which…
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Changes so rapid, it seems things are converging
Changes like this $99 e-tablet, the “Moby tablet” by a company called Marvell. It comes out just as Apple’s i-pad is to be released (selling for less than half what a mac book would) and just as drastic cuts in school districts make digital solutions look very attractive. The Moby shows up as if on…
The Wikiness 