Year: 2007

  • Sausage Balls: The Culinary Delight of the Holiday Season

    Rachel and I enjoyed making sausage balls several times for our family during the holidays this year. We took several photos (and had family members snap a few pictures) during the cooking process, so we could make a VoiceThread about cooking sausage balls. This reminds me of “how to” essays I helped my students write…

  • ClaimID and website verification

    Our digital identities online are only going to increase in importance in the months and years ahead. How do people verify what websites are genuinely yours? This is a question many people (including teachers) may have not given much thought in the past, but I think it’s a good idea to start considering it. The…

  • Upgrading multiple WordPress installations

    A new version of WordPress is out, and I’ve upgraded the three installations I’m now maintaining this evening: this blog (Moving at the Speed of Creativity,) Learning Signs (our family learning blog) and Eyes Right (a Christian team blog.) Several of the newer features of WordPress DO make the process of upgrading easier, but this…

  • Historical and Current Abolitionists: Fighting to end slavery

    I saw the remarkable film “Amazing Grace” when it was released in US theaters this past April, but for some reason I did not blog about it or the issues it raises before. That is an oversight I am pleased to remedy this evening. I adore NetFlix. Our use of NetFlix waxes and wanes, but…

  • Fun with a Gore-Tex diagram

    I have posted some new thoughts to the TechLearning blog which piggybacks a bit on David Jakes’ post from yesterday, “Semi-Permeable.” I titled the post, “A model for permeable classrooms.” This is my remixed schematic of Gore-Tex applied to the “permeable” or “semi-permeable” classroom. 🙂 Technorati Tags: permeable, goretex, education, learning, reform, school If you…

  • Conference blogging and next year’s personal / professional development

    As you look forward to 2008, consider the role conference blog posts and conference blogging can play in your own personal / professional development and in the PD of other educators within your personal learning community. There are at least five different ways you can utilize and promote the effective utilization of conference blog posts…

  • Schools should abandon no-fault punishment schemes

    Joanne Jacobs’ December 23rd post, “Self-defense is no defense” struck a chord with me, largely because of the experiences of some family friends last here in Edmond, Oklahoma, last Spring. The middle school age son in the family was having trouble adjusting to his new school, and ran into trouble with some bullies who picked…

  • Holiday traditions around the world

    VoiceThread is not just a wonderful tool for sharing ideas and and school presentations like book reports. It’s also a a great venue to ask an international audience to share experiences like holiday traditions. Currently, this one includes folks from the U.S. (Mays, Kansas), New Zealand, and Israel: I either had never heard, or didn’t…

  • 4 Year Old Perceptions of Christmas

    This evening Rachel (my 4 year old) recorded an eight-image VoiceThread digital story, sharing some of the things she knows about Christmas. Her thoughts ranged from Santa and stockings to baby Jesus and the star of Bethlehem. At age four, her recorded voice reveals the stream-of-consciousness way in which she processes the world and connects…

  • Understanding the way forward for copyright reformers

    Dr. Lawrence (Larry) Lessig was the first professor I ever encountered online who blogs regularly. As a result of his work I read online, I not only learned about Creative Commons, I also ended up learning a great deal about the history of the Internet and our current state of affairs with regard to intellectual…