About a month ago, I started listening to the Immigration Tales podcast. The show features interviews with people who came to the United States as immigrants. The program is produced by Cuban American Vitor Cajiao, who came from Cuba at age 11. The first episode tells his story. Since then, he has interviewed people from El Salvadore, Montenegro, Poland, and England. Each talks about his … Continue reading Learning English with Podcasts

When we dispose of old computer equipment, we generally keep most of the parts that we can use elsewhere. We pull out hard drives, memory, CD-ROM drives, etc. We then use these as replacement parts in newer computers, and reduce the amount of money we have to spend on parts. Keyboards are a problem, though. They’re generally pretty durable, and we often find that the … Continue reading In Search of a Cleaner Keyboard, Part 1

My blog receives a lot more traffic when I update it . Can you tell how many times I’ve updated it in the last nine days? These little graphs are called Sparklines. They’re easy to make and embed in a document. They can also be used (as you can see) on web pages and blogs. They’re not full-blown, data-intense graphs. Sure, I could (and would) … Continue reading Sparking Interest

Old books are everywhere. We buy books, or receive them as gifts. We read them, and put them on the shelf. In our house, we have a separate room for them. We’ve lived in the same place now for ten years, because no one will help us move any more. We try to get rid of them. We take a pile to the church book … Continue reading BookMooch

My wife told me I should read this Scientific American Article. She found a link to it on Ryan’s blog. I immediately noticed that it’s much longer than my normal attention span. “Make sure you read all the way to the end,” her email told me. I knew I was going to be quizzed on this, so I dutifly clicked on the link. That was … Continue reading The Expert Mind

Karl Fisch is a technology coordinator at Arapahoe High School in Colorado. Each year, he is given the opportunity to speak at the school’s opening day meeting. In the constant struggle to come up with a message that would be beneficial to everyone, he came up with a PowerPoint presentation about the changes coming from globalization and technology. While most of his content comes from … Continue reading Did You Know?

I’ve seen several recent news items about GPS tracking systems being used in different contexts to keep tabs on people. Most of them work in essentially the same way. A device is attached to something that doesn’t stay in once place (like, say, a taxi — or maybe a child). This device reports its position to a GPS satellite, which interfaces with software that tracks … Continue reading I'll Be Watching You

I finally finished updating the WordPress Getting Started Guide for Brecksville-Broadview Heights teachers. We upgraded to WordPress 2 this summer, and the new guide will help teachers set up blogs and get started with the program. Despite a couple recent requests for copies of Frontpage, I still think blogs are the way to go for teacher web sites. They’re fast, relatively trouble-free, and easy to … Continue reading Getting Started With WordPress

Sometimes, we fail to realize the degree to which systems are interdependent on one another. Last Friday, a sign appeared on the front door of the high school. “The building will be closed on Saturday due to electrical work.” The custodian clarified. The electricity at the high school will be off on Saturday between 8:00 AM and noon. If the maintenance work goes poorly, we … Continue reading Domino Effect

In 1999, I was applying for a teaching position in the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Schools. The first interview was at the high school. After the interview, I asked if I could walk around the building a little before leaving. I had never been there before, and wanted to take a look around. School was out for the summer, and I was given permission to roam the … Continue reading Distance Learning

The Stop Badware Coalition was mentioned last week on Security Now! In a week of truly depressing security news, this was the one beacon of optimism discussed. The Stop Badware Coalition is an organization that is developing a list of web sites with known malware content. The coalition categorizes software that disregards a user’s choice over how his or her computer will be used as … Continue reading Stop Badware

I have three calendars on my bulletin board in my office. One is a standard calendar that clearly shows the days with Sundays highlighted and holidays easy to pick out. The second is the school calendar. This one-page calendar shows the whole school year at a glance. If I can find the month we’re on, it’s easy to find the next school holiday, or to … Continue reading The Calendar Problem