Blog Juice for Educational Technology

Okay, it’s not getting that much play, or any play, beyond the local media–two of my colleagues wrote me a note to comment positively on it–but here’s the story I was interviewed for and a link to the blog to discuss it as well.

Story: http://www.spokesmanreview.com/tools/story_pf.asp?ID=147981

Blog: http://www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/spot/archive.asp?postID=3922

Go there and see what’s up and make me look better than I already made myself look

Inside Higher Education reports that the Microsoft representative to the Commission on the Future of Higher Education lobbied for changes to the final report regarding the language on open source. Here is the original language:

The commission encourages the creation of incentives to promote the development of open-source and open-content projects at universities and colleges across the United States, enabling the open sharing of educational materials from a variety of institutions, disciplines, and educational perspectives. Such a portal could stimulate innovation, and serve as the leading resource for teaching and learning. New initiatives such as OpenCourseWare, the Open Learning Initiative, the Sakai Project, and the Google Book project hold out the potential of providing universal access both to general knowledge and to higher education.

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Here’s a blurb I discovered in today’s paper but couldn’t find online:

RadioShack Corp. notified about 400 workers by e-mail that they were being dismissed immediately as part of planned job cuts.

Employees at the Fort Worth headquarters got messages Tuesday morning saying: “The work force reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated.”

Company officials had told employees in a series of meetings that layoff notices would be delivered electronically, spokeswoman Kay Jackson said. She said employees were invited to ask questions before Tuesday’s notification on a company intranet site.

Jackson said the electronic notification was quicker and allowed more privacy than breaking the news in person.

I guess if you don’t have to look someone in the eye to sack them, it would be quicker and more private. Like those who are left wouldn’t know you were fired once you stopped coming to work. Maybe you’re on extended holiday?

EDIT: Here’s a link the story, though not much is added: ?threadid=8CM6TTBDEED2JJ52…

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I’ve been contacted by a local reporter to talk about blogging as an educational tool. If you’ve got some suggested talking points, I’d be happy to hear them, ASAP!!!!

Off the top of my head, I’ll emphasize writing for public consumption and collaboration; teaching writing in environments that students may write in on their own, more authentic pedagogies that fit what students will do outside the classroom, technological literacy at various levels so as to empower students socially, politically and functionally; and I’m not sure what else. Suggestions? Please?

The Government Accountability Office has been told by Congress to have a look at file sharing activities on collee campuses: http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/07/25/gao. I’m sure only good things will come of this.

As part of the SIG, we talked about putting together a literature review. Anyone interested in getting this going? Anyone started this, Dennis? Anyone who wants to be involved in this, let me know and I’ll see what I can get started.