Last month, Ponca City Schools in Oklahoma faced a news headline any 1:1 laptop school could potentially confront in the local media: “Ponca City student accesses porn on school laptop.” According to the article: A Ponca City mother is outraged. She says her son has been accessing pornography….on a laptop that was issued by the
(Read More…)
On June 16, 2011, the PEW Internet & American Life Project published a new report titled “Social networking sites and our lives.” According to PEW, this represents the “first national survey of how the use of social networking sites (SNS) by adults is related to people’s overall social networks.” Some of the study’s significant findings
(Read More…)
These are my notes from Phyllis Van Hemert’s presentation about “Emotional Intelligence” on 6 Oct 2010 at the “Family Matters” class at 1st Presbyterian Church in Edmond, Oklahoma. Phyllis was the counselor at our kids’ elementary school in Edmond and is now a family and kids counselor in private practice. Recommended Reading: The Optimistic Child
(Read More…)
This morning on The Today Show, hosts interviewed a San Diego family which was challenged to give up cell phones, computers and TV for an entire day. In addition, Tony Schwartz (author of “The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance” addressed the need we have to take proactive
(Read More…)
Christopher Stewart’s article, “The Lost Boy” in the February 2010 issue of Wired magazine (not yet available online, apparently) relates horrifying tales of abuse in Chinese “Internet Addiction Camps” for youth. Since 2002 when state-run newspapers started sharing stories about the dangers of Internet addiction, thousands of worried Chinese parents have sent their allegedly Internet-addicted
(Read More…)
I’m following the lead of my wife and son this past summer, who both read 4+ eBooks on their iPhone / iTouch devices using the free Kindle for iPhone app. This week I started reading Naomi Klein’s book “No Logo: No Space, No Choice, No Jobs” in eBook form. According to WikiPedia’s entry, Klein: …
(Read More…)
My 8 year old daughter recently googled something like “cool games for girls” and came across the website GirlsGoGames.com. We had a discussion this morning about the site and this is something we need to talk about more at length, because of all the issues it raises. I asked Sarah to blog about this, but
(Read More…)
Telecommunications convergence is a topic with which I’ve grown increasingly familiar over the past few years, and I address frequently in blog posts, workshops, and conference keynote presentations. Convergence has BIG implications for learning. As digital devices become increasingly ubiquitous, people of all ages will have opportunities to access digital content (including video) in more
(Read More…)
This fall I’ve shared the Nokia advertisement “The 4th Screen” several times at educational conference presentations and with an adult class on digital technologies (mostly iTunes University) I taught at my church to discuss the implications of telecommunications convergence. These are some of the brainstormed responses audience members, adult students, and presentation participants have shared
(Read More…)
Remember watching Saturday morning cartoons as a kid? A discussion about cartoon favorites is probably a good way to date myself, for better or for worse. Your cartoon memories may be quite different from mine. Some of my most beloved cartoons growing up were Speed Buggy, Thundarr the Barbarian, Space Ghost, Scooby Doo, Felix the
(Read More…)
The Media Awareness Network (MNet) is home to one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of media education and Internet literacy resources. The website has a wide variety of free resources for teachers (en)(fr), parents (en)(fr), and students (en)(fr). One of their special initiatives is the Be Web Aware (en)(fr) program, which includes many helpful
(Read More…)
I am in a quandary and wonder what you think I should do. I’ve volunteered to co-teach a 2 part workshop with my wife for adults (mainly targeted at parents) at a local Oklahoma City Church later this month. The title of our workshop is “Internet Safety for Families: The Benefits and Dangers of Social
(Read More…)
It is quite challenging to return to “normal life” and work after a week-long trip and face email inboxes.Since starting David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” several months ago, I’ve started applying several of his core organizational principles with limited but positive results. Since it is quite hard to change
(Read More…)
Partly recorded on the airline flight from Detroit to Tokyo and partly recorded from our hotel in Shanghai for the Learning 2.0 conference, this podcast features four additional implications of our 21st century “attention economy” for teachers and students. This is the last part of a three part podcast series focusing on Michael Goldhaber’s 1997
(Read More…)
This podcast is the second of a three part podcast series focusing on a 1997 article published by Michael Goldhaber on “The Attention Economy.” In this episode I explore the first three of six implications I see of the attention economy for schools, teachers, students, and learners of all ages. SHOWNOTES: Podcast174: Relevance in the
(Read More…)
I’m about a fourth of the way through David Allen’s outstanding book “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.” I mentioned this book to a friend yesterday with the comment, “This book is going to change my life by helping me really get more organized and efficient with my use of time,” and I
(Read More…)
One of my favorite rhetorical questions to ask during workshops is, “Is anyone here NOT receiving enough email?” I don’t know an adult soul who spends time online (my own children and other kids who don’t yet have email accounts are not counted in that group) who suffers from a LACK of email. Remember “the
(Read More…)
Many kids (both the chronologically young and the young at heart) love video games of different varieties and flavors. What lessons can we learn from this common tendency, and what action steps should our thoughtful observations and research provoke? In Atlanta last week for NECC, I read the front page headline article, “Millions of kids
(Read More…)
I was interviewed at the Kansas State Department of Education’s annual conference in April 2007 following my spotlight session on “Copyright, Liability, Cyberbullying and Social Networking.” The video of this interview is now available on the KSDE conference podcast page in both Quicktime movie and MPEG-4 formats. The interview runs 16 minutes and 4 seconds.
(Read More…)
