Archive for May, 2008:


Podcast255: Implications of Transfer of Wealth for Schools and Communities

Published by in leadership on May 31st, 2008

This podcast is a recorded interview with Tom Fryer discussing the transfer of wealth opportunities which exist for schools and other nonprofit organizations in our communities. Tom is one of the 2008-2009 trustees of the Manhattan Community Foundation (in Manhattan, Kansas) and an advocate for educational efforts focused on estate planning which include giving to

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Podcast255: Implications of Transfer of Wealth for Schools and Communities [ 26:50 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4282)
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Watch the space shuttle launch live today!

Published by in edtech, science on May 31st, 2008

In less than 4 hours, the space shuttle Discovery (STS-124) is scheduled to launch into outer space! (At 5:02 p.m. EDT) Watch the launch LIVE on NASA TV! SpaceVidcast is a Ustream.tv channel where you can watch the launch as well, participate in an interactive text chat, and hear commentary leading up to, during and

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High speed WiFi? Please give me available bandwidth details!

Published by in mobile, travel on May 31st, 2008

More hotels, coffee shops, and other locations in the United States are providing “high speed” WiFi Internet access for customers, guests and visitors. Often such access is provided free, but it is also common (especially in airports I’ve noticed) to only have commercial / paid WiFi access available. Just as all transportation options are not

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Transparency of coursecasting comes to kindergarten

Published by in disruptive-technology on May 29th, 2008

The ability of students and teachers to affordably and relatively easily create digital recordings of teacher lectures as well as other conversations which take place in the classroom represents a potentially “disruptive technology” for many reasons. Yesterday’s ABC report “Teacher Caught On Tape: Kindergartner ‘Ignorant, Pathetic, Self-Absorbed’” reveals that the potential for disruptive technologies and

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links for 2008-05-29

Published by in edtech on May 29th, 2008

Post New Bookmark to Diigo (can be used for direct link PDFs) (tags: diigo socialbookmarking socialbookmarks WebTools) World Caching Homepage page for commercial stuff related to geocaching (tags: geocache geocaching) Old Time Wooden Nickel Co. NICKEL Order Form reasonably priced single color wooden nickels, look great for geocaching swag (tags: geocache geocaching) Online Learning Standards

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Podcast254: Coaching and Leading Faculty on the Blended Learning Journey: An Interview with Scott Charlson

Published by in distributed-learning, leadership, open source, podcasts, schoolreform, web 2.0 on May 29th, 2008

For the past three years, Scott Charlson has served as the Director of Learning Support Systems at Western Oklahoma State College  (WOSC) in Altus, Oklahoma. In this role, Scott has served as a facilitator and coach for college instructors teaching entirely online and in blended learning environments. In this recorded interview from May 28, 2008,

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Podcast254: Coaching and Leading Faculty on the Blended Learning Journey: An Interview with Scott Charlson [ 26:20 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4353)
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Geocaching in Altus

Published by in geocaching, travel on May 28th, 2008

I’m currently in Altus, Oklahoma, co-facilitating one of our Celebrate Oklahoma Voices workshops for educators at Western Oklahoma State College for a couple of days. This evening after another great dinner at the Backdoor Steak House in Blair (just a few miles north of Altus – I reviewed the restaurant on our team blog “Good

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Podcast253: Developing 21st Century Skills in School and District Leaders (COSN 2008 panel)

Published by in edtech, leadership, podcasts on May 28th, 2008

This podcast is a recorded panel discussion from the 2008 COSN conference in Washington D.C. which was facilitated by Helen Soulé. Panelists included Terry Clark, Christopher Corallo, Marianne Hauser, and Susan Norton. The official program description for this session was: Education leaders must harness the value of information and communications technology and reconsider the longstanding

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Podcast253: Developing 21st Century Skills in School and District Leaders (COSN 2008 panel) [ 1:02:20 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4249)
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Podcast252: Effective and Appropriate Use of Text Messaging with High School Students (Digital Etiquette)

Published by in disruptive-technology, mobile, podcasts on May 28th, 2008

This podcast features an interview with Rhonda, the drama teacher at Yukon High School in Yukon, Oklahoma. This past year, for the first time, Rhonda has shared her cell phone number with her high school students with clear guidelines about the hours when she checks text messages. She receives over 1000 text messages per month

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Podcast252: Effective and Appropriate Use of Text Messaging with High School Students (Digital Etiquette) [ 9:50 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4599)
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links for 2008-05-28

Published by in edtech on May 28th, 2008

College Students Score Higher In Classes That Incorporate Instructional Technology Than In Traditional Classes 25 March 2008: Important article on coursecasting and blended learning (tags: coursecasting education research technology edtech learning EducationalResearch) Blended Learning: The Convergence of Online and Face-to-Face Education (PDF) North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL) report from spring 2008 about blended

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Amazed by international connections

Published by in blogs, leadership, schoolreform, web 2.0 on May 27th, 2008

In my recent presentations and workshops for teachers and librarians titled, “A Summer Of Professional Learning Choices for Educators! Where Should I Start?” I have enjoyed introducing teachers to the Classroom 2.0 learning network. Visit Classroom 2.0 With over 8000 current members as of this writing, Classroom 2.0 is a fantastic place for teachers to

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Reflections on IQ, cognitive development, and distributed learning

Published by in assessment, distributed-learning, podcasting, science on May 27th, 2008

If you and your students think you face “high stakes” for standardized tests taken at school this year, consider the case of Daryl Atkins, whose life was literally on the line based on his repeated test performances. His story is instructive not only because of the heavy weight it shows our society sometimes places on

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A science fair project changing the world?

Published by in creativity, science on May 27th, 2008

“Meet the Robinsons” is one of my favorite movies for many reasons. The way in which the film celebrates creativity, innovation, and perseverance in the face of difficult circumstances is wonderful. Louis, the hero, is an aspiring science fair inventor, who eventually realizes his dreams and creates (or discovers) inventions which help shape the world

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Diigo difficulties

Published by in web 2.0 on May 27th, 2008

I’m continuing to use Diigo to save and tag my Internet website finds, and have Diigo cross-post my entries to del.icio.us, but there are two specific things I haven’t been able to do with Diigo which are frustrating. Perhaps others can provide some help with these situations. My first difficulty involves saving the URL to

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links for 2008-05-27

Published by in edtech on May 27th, 2008

Police chief resigns in Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez amid wave of killings – International Herald Tribune 18 May 2008 AP Article – of 22 public officials in Juarez threatened by drug cartels, only 1 remains in his post, the rest have been killed, injured, or resigned. (tags: mexico drugs politics intimidation violence cartels

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Thank you, Rick Riordan!

Published by in books, literacy on May 26th, 2008

Few things warm a parent’s heart more (especially a parent who is an educator) than seeing one’s 10 year old child voraciously devour two relatively long books in a single week. As I have detailed previously (see “The power of reading” and “Gifts from Christopher Paolini”) access to diverse, interesting texts, time to read, and

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Juarez violence trivialized by some media headlines

Published by in blogs, globalvoices, literacy, politics on May 26th, 2008

The headline of today’s AP article, “Violence no worse than usual in Ciudad Juarez” trivializes a ridiculous and unacceptably violent situation in the border town across from El Paso, Texas. The second paragraph in the article reads: But violence did not appear to be worse than usual in Ciudad Juarez, home base of the powerful

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Thumbs down for Indy Jones 4, thumbs up for Prince Caspian

Published by in creativity, digitalstorytelling, movies on May 26th, 2008

WARNING: MOVIE SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THESE FILMS YET, YOU MAY NOT WANT TO READ THIS POST. One of the best tests of quality for new, professionally produced movies these days, in our family, is whether or not we want to own the DVD of a movie we have seen at the theater.

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The joy of data in the clouds

Published by in apple on May 25th, 2008

I received my Macbook back from the Apple Store last week after turning it in for warranty repair for strange intermittent slowdown problems. They replaced my “M42 BAttery Transfer Board Cli,” which apparently connects the CPU to the battery and electrical system. Hopefully this will remedy my problem! Since I had installed a new hard

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Howe 2008: The Last Lecture

Published by in edtech on May 24th, 2008

It was both an honor and a pleasure to share the commencement address in Howe, Oklahoma, last night. Approximately 640 family members and friends gathered in the Howe gymnasium to celebrate the graduation of 38 high school seniors. Watching the “class history” video during the ceremony, I was reminded of Miranda Lambert’s song “Everybody Dies

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