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National Public Radio's tribute to the 10 year anniversary of the blog. NPR did a great job of giving tribute to the blog with a complete mashup of many voices (including mine) about the blog. It is amazing to be included in this tribute to the blog with many blogging greats. Amazing! Take a listen to the show. I think it is a great, creative piece that really highlights the aspects of blogging using audio.

a simulpost with TechLearning Just when society needs education to step in and help us learn to well-use this technology, education chooses to treat electronic media like some stiff sock found behind the bench in the boys locker room. This week as I pondered the tragic deaths of several people in our hometown, I had new insight into the meaning of the season. What did I do? I wrote a poem and blogged it. I want to share it and what this means for the evolution of communications. This is what I posted today over on my blog: Christmas Wrap Up Based upon true happenings in my hometown this season. Snuggled amid neat, shiny houses set in a line the funeral home rests quietly across the street from mine. Tonight nestled in its silent passages a young man reclines neath icy lashes. Ageless in repose, his friend slumbers at the church juxtaposed to the trappings and tree and merry gaiety. In the crestfallen morn they’ll be transformed. Wrapped in silken blankets, put into a wooden box and s...

Christmas Wrap Up Based upon true happenings in my hometown this season. Snuggled amid neat, shiny houses set in a line the funeral home rests quietly across the street from mine. Tonight nestled in its silent passages a young man reclines neath icy lashes. Ageless in repose, his friend slumbers at the church juxtaposed to the trappings and tree and merry gaiety. In the crestfallen morn they’ll be transformed. Wrapped in silken blankets, put into a wooden box and sealed to be hidden under an old fir tree in the field, shiny new granite tags labeling their present plight sleep in heavenly peace through the silent night. Around the world in holiday splendor, homes exude hope for a time to remember. Sleepy tousled noggins eagerly wriggle out of their supine blanketed nests with a shout! While anxious kinfolk dream of perfection hoping for squeals and happy satisfaction. Yet, if we’d rub the avarice from our eyes I think most clearly we would surmise the best pres...

I'd like to share with you my favorite books (since we're approaching Amazon's "drop dead" date for ordering for Christmas.) Amazon.com Widgets During Christmas, I'll also share how I made this widget and ideas for bloggers to utilize them on their blog. A long time critic of google adsense, programs like Amazon Associates can allow a blogger to ethically "monetize" their blog while retaining their own independence and credibility.

Hurricaine Maine has written a very open discussion about something happening within her control. I think that we need to respond on our various blogs and link back to his article to show multiple perspectives on this topic. This is a summary of what happened: Student's viewed Al Gore's Movie, an Inconvenient Truth. "Back to the movie: One student wrote in his my space about what he felt about the movie and global warming. Not kind, but his opinion. What bothers me is how he reacted when another student tried to clear up some of the misconceptions he had and also asked for an explanation of a statement that he made. She had links, direct statistics from reputable sources, etc. I know it is off of school time, but he reacted by removing her as a friend and deleting her posts. I equate that to the same as saying: "Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah - I can't hear you". "Maybe I am making too much of it but I am trying hard to get them to be critical of information...

The younger folks who read this blog will make fun of me for this. But I really needed this song this morning. Sometimes the greatest things in life are completely free. I particularly like this song because he sings it beautifully in Spanish at the end and it is just beautiful. The beauty of wanting to communicate, no matter the language. And I contemplate just the beauty of love. The greatness of my own husband. The beauty of seeing my three children and four nieces and nephews make sugar cookies last night. The beauty of enjoying a great laugh with my students in the midst of pushing ourselves past what we can do. Sometimes my senses are full and it is a great thing. Good morning world! tag: inspiration

Twenty nine of us at the session with Dan Pink tonight over at Discovery educators took notes! We're still working on them and you can view the google doc to take a look of the current information. I've pasted the current document below. Great session! Group Notes from Discovery Educators Webinar with Dan Pink December 13, 2007 Notes as taken by 29 participants. _Right brain = creative, artistic Left brain = teach to the test, logical Impact of Abundance - Asia - Automation Utility and Significance and its importance. The media often reports the bad thing that happens quickly rather than the quiet good thing that happens slowly. The role of school is not to deliver employees to employers however this dominates conversation Abundance Material prosperity Good news that happens quietly doesn't get the airtime of bad news that happens quickly -- that is a profound statement Utility and significance......utility is ubiquitous Offshoring and outsourcing Not a huge number of ...

With a week and a half left in the semester and Flat Classroom under their belts, I allowed (with Administrative permission) my computer science to propose and carry out projects that will either promote internet safety or create a website that will improve the communication and connection in the school. The student projects are outlined on the Wildcat Web 2.0 project . Three days into the project and they have blown me away. Here are some things they have planned. Private school wide social network for parents, students, grandparents, and teachers - The students decided immersive learning is the best. Additionally, they wanted the elementary students to participate. After a meeting with me, I set up the site, they joined and I made them administrators (yes I did.) They customized the look, added RSS feeds, and have just done a tremendous job. They are in the process of setting up groups for every class. Google Map with all of the area schools so that people can generate their d...

Today for Motivational Monday, I want to share a video that I came across recently. I think that Richard Dreyfus ' proposal on the non partisan basics of democracy are important to listen. I am a Christian and yet, I promote and allow full debate on all subjects in my classroom. Free choice is a tenet of my faith. Everyone has a choice of what to believe. I can (and will) share my faith, but each person has a RIGHT to have their own faith. They have a right to choose. (Of course, truth is not determined by what we believe, I believe the truth is the truth, however, we do have a right to decide for ourselves.) While, the discussion of the roots of democracy at the end could be debated, at the beginning he talks about how we must encourage civility, reason, logic, clarity, dissent, and debate. I couldn't agree more! (I'm sure if I think a bit longer, I could figure out something that he missed, however, the thoughts this provokes are so important and fit with the dis...

Posted for my new friend Dr. Curtis Bonk. I am sharing the following e-mail verbatim with permission: My research team and I are conducting research on the motivational and educational aspects of YouTube and have created a Facebook group for it. We need 1,000 respondents by January 1st. Please join this new Facebook group and participate in this research or pass this email on to your friends. New Facebook Group: “ Bonkian YouTubian Researchian ”: http://indiana.facebook.com /group.php?gid=6703696942 Or, if you want to skip Facebook and still participate , just go to http://trainingshare.com/video/ and click on the video or the link. Purpose of Research: What motivates people to watch, create, share, or comment on YouTube videos? Participate in this survey research on YouTube by Dr. Curt Bonk and his colleagues at Indiana University: click to http://trainingshare.com/video/ . Take a survey on one of 60 of the most popular YouTube videos of all time. Some are educational, some in arts...

I haven't talked a lot about the new book I'm working on, however, Bob Sprankle, Alice Barr, and Cheryl Oakes are really easy to talk to. See the show notes and links. The folks in Maine are just incredible! tag: Bob Sprankle , Alice Barr , Cheryl Oakes , education , teaching , learning

a simulpost with TechLearning I've been enjoying facebook and learning about social networking since Thanksgiving. I think that there are some things that need to happen in facebook and other social networks before we can head over there en masse and use it as the nexus of our life's network. (Author's Note: From this point on, I'll write (social) network to denote the network of the future because I believe it is about networks for everything not just social.) Until they fix these things, we will continue to see news articles as people make a melting pot of their work and social lives that was never intended to be and is not what people really want. 1) Multiple connection types Finding me On social networks, you're either unfindable, hidden except for your face, or you're naked! What I mean is this: There are basically 3 flavors of access icecream on facebook: 1) No access (unfindable) 2) Limited Access (just your face) 3) Full Access (you're naked, we...

From 8:15 until 10:00 EST, I will have my two classes presenting in elluminate. They are elluminate newbies but Flat Classroom Pros . Each student is allowed 1 JPG file and 1-3 minutes to reflect on the project, the good, the bad, the ups, the downs. You get the real story. Please give us an audience and join us in elluminate by clicking on this link ! I'm going in now! (Oh and tomorrow morning at 5 am EST, Barbara in Vienna will be presenting in the same room.)

I don't know anything about buying a MAC!!! Regardless of my claim, on Friday, I have to help my sister, who is an online professor for Savannah College of Art and Design and freelance graphic designer for some really big names help her buy a mac to replace her big powerful mac we bought 6 years a go. Help! Quad core? RAM? I don't know! I need help! MORE INFORMATION! Thank you for commenting and yes, I do need to give you more information. She is a graphic designer and will be running the full Adobe suite including Flash, Photoshop, all the biggies. Additionally, as a prof at SCAD, she has to always upgrade and keep the latest version of everything on her computer. She already has a Mac Laptop and this thing has to be a work horse. We were pricing this thing the other day and ended up at $8,000 (with school discount around $6K) -- Now if she has to pay that, she just has to, however, she's starting out with her graphic design business and if she has to pay that much it...

Here are the currently scheduled dates and times for the student presentations in elluminate. These times are in Eastern Standard time, however if you have an airset account, go to the public calendar to view new summit times (that may not be mentioned here) and have it convert to your time zone. This week we have Austria and my classrooms presenting. Next week Julie in Qatar is presenting. We hope to see the other teachers present as well in our room. To join the presentation, click on our elluminate room about 10 minutes prior to the event. ( See the hardware and software requirements .) tag: flatclassroom , flatclassroomproject , flat classroom project 2007 , Thomas Friedman , learning , elluminate Flat Classroom Student Summit Schedule Listen to John's Recorded Presentation John Turner has already hosted a summit with some of his students and has set a pattern that we will follow. ( You may watch the recording .) His Australian Classroom was getting out for summer...

Tonight is simply going to be a great show on Wow2 . Jennifer and Sharon are hosting Corey Verner from Letterpop and Colleen King with Math Playground . Remember it is at 9 pm EST. While I will be listening by podcast and reviewing the chat archive, I will be listening. I look forward to coming back in January! tag: letterpop , math playground , Corey Verner , Colleen King , Jennifer Wagner , Sharon Peters , wow2 , education , teaching , edtechtalk

I don't have much time to give thoughts on this post from Alec Couros , however, it is brilliant and a must read for anyone trying to understand what needs to be done in schools to teach digital citizenship skills. It is NOT, I repeat NOT a post to share with your students because of references to some videos we should not repeat, nevertheless we should know that they are there. Several of the videos shown are key discussion points for my digital literacy material. I'm mad! It is heart breaking and yet it is important. We cannot sit idly by and let the base and offensive go viral while we sit back and say "tisk tisk, blogs, wikis, podcasts, social networks, they don't belong in school." When we should be creating good material, we're creating no material. Students have always needed help making sense of the world and having multiple viewpoints (other than that of their peers) is vital. We've relegated the Internet as n0-teacher space, t elling teachers ...

I was perusing a great article Beth Kanter posted on Facebook and saw that she had some notes about Robert Scoble . So, I wanted to follow this rockstar-for-geeks on Facebook and see what I could apply for education. Here is the screen I got when I tried to add Robert to Facebook. It seems unfortunate that Facebook cannot handle the uber-geek popularity of Robert Scoble. I'm enjoying some things about facebook, but other things like its slowness and now realizing that I'm too late to the party and because I didn't get there first I can't follow someone like Robert. Looking at Beth's article again and considering that Robert is using facebook to network and obviously make money, I think that the chart on digital citizenship that I've used in the past should be revised to include effective networking . (See below.) Beth's article encourages learning to add friends of friends (which I do also by the way.) And we tell students never to do it! The "Goo...

I love the Elf on the Shelf that my sister gave me this year. It is a cute little book and this comes with an elf that you name as a family. This little "elf" appears in the house around thanksgiving and "flies" to the North Pole to tell Santa what he's observed in that room that day. Then the next morning he "flies" somewhere else to observe. So far, he's been in the den, each child's room, the car, the kitchen and the hall. On Christmas day he "disappears" until next year. Each morning, my kids wake up eager to find the shelf elf! It has been hilarious. As I'm sitting here blogging, my daughter just got up and said "Where's Mombu" today. That is the short name for our shelf elf. The long name? "Mombu Dogface in the Banana Patch" ... it is sort of a long story but let's say this... we have two girls and three guys in our family and when it came to voting... my daughter and I lost. (Although our n...

The completion of the Flat Classroom project has had Julie and I meeting continually and working through things. There are some new things I've learned this week, but I don't have much time so it will be quick! Uhm, Facebook is like a monstrous rolodex. You'll find people you really might be missing and link up with others ( like edubloggers .) The Ohio Education Association who are telling teachers not to get facebook and myspace profiles need to realize that professionalism should be encouraged not abdication of society. (Teachers shouldn't have to be told not to run around naked in town, likewise, professionalism is everywhere. Don't stay away from town, just don't run around naked!) Innovation has centered around human enhanced computing. It is soon to move to computer enhanced human-ing. The robo-soldier announced this week gives people the ability to have robotic exoskeletons with super human strength. Often these innovations begin like this and al...