Blog Juice for Educational Technology

America’s young people have made substantial improvements academically over the last three decades, nearly doubling their college completion rates and demonstrating improved mathematics performance during the teenage years, according to a new ED report.

This op-ed by Ray Simon, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, appeared in Investor’s Business Daily.

Something is really wrong with staff development in our schools when articles like this continue to flourish. Listen to the last paragraph:


“It’s no longer about individuals making choices about whether they
want to grow and learn,” said Ms. Hirsh of the National Staff
Development Council.” We have to narrow the scope of what we offer to
teachers and use it in a more deliberate way.”



Now it’s not this article in
particular. It’s just that I probably have read hundreds along a
similar vein. I really tire of all the discussion that goes on outside
our schools. I’d like to see some discussions from those inside the
school. Why don’t we put the focus on letting schools be responsible
for their own learning? We should work to make our schools learning
communities that are models for our students.

Just think, not only would you be building a dynamic learning community
but the entire school would be writing. Writing to learn, to explore
our thinking, to make needed changes and to think about possibilities.
What better model could we provide for our students?

Cellphones and portable music players are inescapable on college campuses. But if students don’t show some discretion in using the devices, hearing aids could soon be ubiquitous, too, according to researchers on Purdue University’s main campus. The researchers say they’ve…

Texas AM University’s Corps Cadets, a group that bills itself as the largest uniformed body of students in the nation outside the U.S. service academies, harks back to the days when Texas AM was still a military school. But to…

NewsForge | Sharing files between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office

Bruce Byfield of Newsforge has published an article that anyone playing the Microsoft Office/Open Office conversion game will want to print and keep next to the computer. According to Byfield, the key to successful conversions is the preparation you do beforehand. This means selecting the right filter, ensuring you are using compatible fonts, and making sure you have all the Microsoft Office options open in Open Office. It also helps to format documents with character and paragraph styles rather than manually (the way I’ve always done..argh!)

The top technology administrator of the Dallas Independent School District (DISD) has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation into whether he broke any rules with his frequent use…

Researchers at Osaka University say their new robot, which resembles a young Japanese woman, is the most lifelike android ever created. The robot, named Repliee Q1, can’t stand up on its own, but it can flutter its eyelids, mimic human…

If you are interested in the possibilities of using podcast production in your classroom for helping students develop communication skills (writing & vocal presentation), then pay attention to Bob Sprankles latest podcast (Bit by Bit). He recorded a few minutes of one of his class’ podcast sessions. Students are writing the scripts for […]

Colleges that granted doctoral degrees had speedier Internet connections in 2003 than those that did not, the National Science Foundation has found in its first-ever analysis of institutions’ information-technology infrastructure. (The Chronicle, subscription required)…

So the bad news is that after more delays and groundings, I finally got home at about 1:30 a.m. yesterday morning. Oy. The good (?) news was that I got to sit next to 16-year old girl blogger from Seattle on the first leg of my flight and we had a really interesting talk about the state of adolescent journaling online. In a word, it seems she and her friends are “addicted” to their Myspace sites. Seems they spend more time than they should reading and commenting to each other, even though they’ve just seen each other at school. And she told me stories of her friends putting all sorts of private information and pictures online, even though she said she didn’t do that. And it seems they’re not doing a heck of a lot of blogging (v.), that most of what they do is just basically IM each other on their sites. I asked her if they used blogs at her school and she kind of chuckled. “Not really. I mean we read blogs sometimes; we use them for research.” I pressed her on how that worked, but she was vague on the details. At one point I was tempted to pull out my iPod and capture the conversation digitally, but I resisted. Would have been interesting. She was smart, the kind of kid whose blog probably would have been a pretty good read.

So when I told her about the article I’d just read that said that kids are doing a lot of real writing online, she said, “Oh, I used to do that at my Live Journal site.” Hmmm… Seems she wrote volumes in real sentences there. She told me, however, that even though she kept all of her posts private to just her friends, her mom found out about it when she read all the friends’ posts. That was pretty much the end of that. Now this girl consciously tries to not spend too much time at Myspace, even though, she admitted, it’s hard not to. She seemed surprised when I told her I was a blogger. She was also decidedly unimpressed when I told her what I blogged about. “Oh, that’s cool,” she said before moving on to a story about a girl whose mother found her “blog” and grounded her for a month.

So, what does this mean? I dunno. My brain is still numb from the trip. And much of this isn’t news, I know. But it was an interesting hour, one that just confirmed a lot of what I (we) already knew. But here’s the most telling moment, at least to me. As we were descending into Memphis, she goes “You know, I think you’re the only grown up blogger I’ve ever met.”

What a surprise…

I’m headed out of town this morning for a long weekend with the family. The next post will be on Monday.
- - - - -
Yesterday’s post on the Academic Calendar was an example of institutional inertia and how historical effects can have durable impact. Th…

Early childhood has distinctive learning and developmental characteristics. We asked the Education World Tech Team: How do you use technology effectively in K-2 classrooms? What activities and software programs have you had success with? Find out what Tec