Blog Juice for Educational Technology

[Another Conversation Starter]
I was scanning through one of those “Which countries are doing a better job of taking tests?” reports when I ran across this in the chapter on context.
According to the National Science Foundation (NSF, www.nsf.gov/statistics), the average U.S.
citizen understands very little science. For example: 

66% do not understand DNA, “margin of error,” […]

The last few weeks have been pretty intense with travel.  My life has consisted of navigating a wild variety of travel modes, trying to remember my current hotel room number, presenting to fantastic audiences, conversing and learning, resting as much as I could, and not a lot of writing.

The most of Alaska I got […]

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 […]

Our demonstration of social networking yesterday was nothing less than amazing.  Even Brenda was impressed when I showed her what happened to that wiki page in just the first 10 minutes.  The presentation on social networking in the afternoon, at the MEGA meeting, was over in 45 minutes (something of a real effort for me).  […]

I will be doing two sessions in the next two of days about social networking for educators.  There are some basic questions about social networking that I plan to explore, hopefully modeling social networking in the process. 
I’d like to produce a demonstration of social networking by capturing the update of a wiki page about […]

I had a pleasant conversation last week with Steve Nelson of the Association of Alaska School Boards while working at their annual conference in Anchorage.  Steve manages their 1:1 initiative called the Consortium for Digital Learning.  Our discussion was mostly professional and may show up as an upcoming podcast (hear two-part podcast with Holly Jobe, […]

I’m sitting in the delightful Portland Airport with a Starbucks in sight, but nothing else that strikes of a chain.  Right now I’m sitting in an area that is labeled only by the sign for Classic Pianos: Portland’s Lowest Prices for Highest Quality.  The resting area is ringed by two concentric circles of seating pods, […]

Most of the time, the traveling that I do is tedious, stressful, and humiliating (you often feel like cattle being herded into and out of airplanes).  But this is a very interesting trip.  First, Brenda traveled with me on the first leg, flying up to New York, and then the train to New Haven, Connecticut […]

I watched a lot of television when I was growing up.  It was the golden age of TV, when we told our stories in new ways, broadcasting them as culture to wide ranging communities.  I spent much of my childhood playing these stories.  I would watch Errol Flynn play Robin Hood on our Zenith black […]

This came to my attention from John Moranski, a school librarian from Auburn High School and Middle School in Auburn, Illinois. It seems that Michael Wesch is at it again, with his Introduction to Cultural Anthropology students at Kansas State University.  Please forgive me if you all already know about this video, but when […]

At the Illinois School Library Media Association conference last week, a librarian walked up to me, after the keynote, and asked about online databases.  “What’s the future of databases?”  “They’re expensive, should we be investing in them?” 
Of course, I can’t predict the future of databases.  I do not know enough about them to characterize […]

The talk at the Illinois School Library Media Association conference, last night, seemed to go well.  Much was working against me.  I’m much more of a morning person, and I’d already done two presentations.  I ate a full dinner at the banquet, but rejected the birthday cake (ISLMA’s 20th birthday).  The sugar crash that was […]

You now when we’re living in an information society, when people come to a Halloween party dressed as a YouTube video.
The following is just me thinking out loud!  Please feel free to continue the thoughts.
I’ve not yet read through all of the comments from yesterday’s post about Web 2.0 and libraries, and I’m […]