Last week, Michigan state Democrats faced a firestorm of criticism after proposing a budget that includes $38 million to purchase mp3 players for all school-age students in the state. Presumably, these would be used for “educational purposes,” but there aren’t any details about how such a program would be implemented. The Detroit News immediately attacked the idea in an editorial (An iPod for every kid? … Continue reading Better Gadgets

I was composing an email about our upcoming curriculum mapping project. I try to be grammatically correct most of the time. It really annoys me when people mess up subject-verb agreements or possessives. I’ve read Eats, Shoots and Leaves. I listen to Grammar Girl. I even tuned in to The Word Nerds for a year or so. Most of the time, I can put words … Continue reading Write Right

I’m staring at this list of resources. There’s some great stuff here. In delicious, I have a “2checkout” tag that I use for things I want to learn more about. At the moment, the list has 23 items. Some of these are really great, exciting resources. I want to learn more about them. Others are just fun things. Some of them are probably sites that … Continue reading Overwhelmed

Mr. Butler has been getting a great response to his book blog over at http://staff.bbhcsd.org/butlerj/archives/2007/03/16/first-two-weeks-a-smashing-success/ Mr. Wasil has also been having a lot of fun with his blog. Check out this post about passwords: http://staff.bbhcsd.org/wasilt/archives/2007/03/23/changing-your-password-for-email-and-logging-into-your-computer/ Continue reading Trackback Test

Last week on the Ohio Tech Coordinators’ listserv, tech guy John Case tore the lid off the web filtering debate. He pointed out these facts: Most schools block social networking sites, because objectionable content can easily be posted by visitors to these sites. Most schools have filtering systems that can be circumvented by knowledgeable and/or ambitious students. Many technology in education luminaries (including Alan November … Continue reading "Protecting" Our Students

By request, here’s the current version of my WordPress Getting Started Guide. It’s specifically aimed at staff members in the Brecksville-Broadview Heights schools, but others may find it useful as well. This document covers WordPress 2.1, sidebar widgets, and all of the plugins we have installed. It was last revised March 1, 2007. WordPress Getting Started Guide Continue reading WordPress: Getting Started

There’s not much to see here. Really. This blog is just here so I can play around with a WordPress.com blog, try things out, and answer questions for others. I can’t believe you’re still here reading this. Move along…. Continue reading Hello world!

The New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative have released the 2007 Horizon Report. Each year, this report describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative expression within higher education. The report has been issued annually since 2004. Within the next year, the report predicts that we will see a number of technologies gain widespread use in higher … Continue reading On the Horizon

This is just a test to make sure I can podcast and have it show up in the feed. I hope Andy doesn’t mind that I’m using his song. Just Can’t see Continue reading Maybe It's Me

BBHCSD-WordPress Getting Started Guide Last updated 1 March 2007 Introduction WordPress is a blog package that makes it easy for teachers to communicate online with parents, students, colleagues, and community members. It allows them to have a presence on the web without learning a lot about creating and managing web sites. Teachers who want to have a professional-looking site on the web that is easy … Continue reading How Many Tests?

Last week, I mentioned that the world produced an estimated 1.5 exabytes of information last year. This statistic came from Karl Fisch’s Did You Know? presentation. He got this number from an Ian Jukes presentation, and Ian’s source is a Berkeley study from 2003. As it turns out, the Berkeley study later revised its numbers to 5 exabytes of new information, and these numbers were … Continue reading Information Overload

In 1984, Richard Saul Wurman collected some of the brightest stars in Technology, Entertainment, and Design for a conference in Monterey, California. The Macintosh computer was introduced at that conference. So was Sony’s new method for storing and distributing audio: the compact disc. Benoit Mandebrot explained how he uses fractal geometry to map coastlines. Six years later, the TED conference became a regular event. The … Continue reading Spend Some Time with TED