I’m intrigued by the semantic web possibilites of loopt. The application uses your GPS in the cellphone to track where you are—and your friends.
Now that could be cool. You put in “pizza” and it tells you where a good pizza place is within your friend radius. This could have really cool uses for student trips.
Obviously, this can be troubling as well (”why is my girlfriend at that restaurant with Bobby?”).
I’ve been spending some time in Change.gov during this transition. I am amazed at the speed and transparency of all this. They are using a Google Moderator type function to have a discussion. 600,000 votes from 100,000 people rank the top questions. That very day the Obama team prepare a YouTube video answering the question.
Now, I don’t know if most of the people on these sites are loyal “Blues” or “Reds”. But we should entertain the thought that people from around the world are part of this community. If nothing else it has a very democratic (small d!) feel to it.
I find it fascinating that the government is leading this. What if General Motors or Fannie Mae (or the school where I work for that matter) had operated the same way?
I discovered Pandora while searching for internet radio. Really cool application using ads to broadcast music.
There is little user control, you pretty much get what they give you, but you can create new “stations” like “Rolling Stones” or “New Country” and supposedly they use an algorithm to improve your station based on if you click the “I like it” box. Pretty cool.
Is there a site that incorporates this type of function with an iTunes type database?
Google is beta testing a web design software that comes with 100MB of space. I tried it out and it is set up a lot like google-docs.
Does your school utilize iPods and technology? I know that schools are worried about students “voting with their attention”. And I understand administrators don’t want to spend the day dealing with missing iPods.
But could we buy an old iPod for $100 and use them for podcast creation and broadcast, audio recorders, display of video, etc…?
When will we see the tipping point when educators insist on using these tools and force administrators to figure out all the issues? I get frustrated sometimes…
I remember how a few months back many bloggers were excited that a 17 year old student unlocked the iPhone. Now I am not so sure it was a good idea.
What part of the technology does the consumer own? The actual phone, the software, or the concept that one can change anything on the phone? As networks become wireless and we all keep our documents at Google, our photos at flickr, and our movies on YouTube will there be a push back from corporate America? Apple and AT&T view the iPhone and the network as a tangible asset (hence the two-year agreements). If it was my computer Dell would not care if I rebuilt the machine (but they would void the warranty).
David Warlick gave the opening address to our school system today. It was the same presentation that I saw at CECA last year about how to redfine literacy. Seeing it for the second time was interesting because of David’s idea of conversations. I have been reading so much since that presentation 10 months ago and following his blog. I know the “backstory” about his information which changed how I processed the presentation the second time. Already two conversations were started with me about learning more about these topics as I walked back to SHS. Should be fun.
I need to work hard to systematically introduce a lot of these tools. I am definately using Lulu this year and need to work on del.icio.us and aggregators with the kids. Lots to do…
I am taking two courses this summer: Curriculum and Learning Theory. This will complete my courses for my administrative certificate. Next year is my internship year.
I have been reading a lot about change this week from Scott McLeod. I also wonder how much change is possible in today’s climate. As I reflect on the courses I take I realize that while the content might change year to year the delivery is almost the same as it has been for decades (paper-discussion-exam-group work). Administrators and teachers are rarely given the opportunity to learn in an interactive-global-visual manner. Is it impossible to think that our major universities could not develop collaborative projects for administrative students that connect students on a global stage, much like the horizon project?
A few years back our state added a technology portfolio to the requirements for the administrative certificate. It is basic stuff (insert chart into email, etc..) but it is OLD stuff. No blogs, podcasts, wikis. Much of its content is largely irrelevant today (list-serves?). Can a large bureaucracy adapt to change? Can a school?
If I teach web design next year I have a good idea of my objectives. But I have almost no idea what my tools will be. Tools are coming out so fast. The need to be fluent in google maps, weebly, wiki technology, and basic programming seems to be growing. How do I set up an environment where the newest technology has an opportunity to flourish and be tested?
So, as Scott says, is the knowledge of change possibly the most important skill in the modern educational environment?
We have been preparing for the year end Tech Fair at our school. As this is my first year at SHS I really have no idea what to expect. I do know that the Board of Education members visit along with some parents. I do know how to perform, however. So we are pulling out all the stops. Instead of signs pointing the way we reserved three laptops that will play student created Flash movies saying “Go this way!”.
We don’t have web server space at our school, a situation that proved difficult at the beginning of the year has largely become irrelevant. This weekend I read about internet start-ups in NewsWeek. So on Friday we tried out weebly. Weebly offers a seriously easy WYSIWYG editor and its free. It looks like any professionally created page.
This obviously has huge implications for curriculum. You can now blog, publish (Lulu), and have your own website. My students just took a year of web design so they were able to start their pages very fast. But I think any third grader could do this.
Check out our pages as they develop. The assignment for the tech fair is listed there as well.
I’m tackling a paper about Building 21st Century Schools this weekend so I might post some thoughts looking for feedback.
Question 1:“If a student brought his laptop to school would he be applauded…or suspended?”
Scenerio 1:
“You are not allowed to use your phone, iPod, laptop, watch youTube or send email. Please use only this pencil and paper. No you may not use the computer. We are scheduled to use the computer next Thursday for 45 minutes. You will have to pair up as we only have 24 computers and there are 32 of you.”
Sound familiar?
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