Month: November 2006
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Boredom and engagement
I saw this quotation today on Mike Temple’s blog, and was reminded of the reading and thinking I’ve been doing lately related to flow and learning: Children, taught either years beneath their intelligence or miles wide of relevance to it, or both: their intelligence becomes hopelessly bewildered, drawn off its centers, bored, or atrophied.- James…
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Reservations about empowerment without accountability
Joe Makley shared a thoughtful comment last night to my post from December 2005 on “Educational Banner Evangelism.” Joe is questioning advocacy for constructivism and empowering teachers without accountability and at least minimum expectations based on identified standards. He wrote: The point being, we still have standards, and they are more important than ever. It…
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Online music collaboration tools
I just love articles that include phrases like, “The only limit is the teacher’s imagination!” According to last week’s eSchool News article, “Music education moves online: Web 2.0 technologies, broadband access fuel extension of music education beyond:” Using eJamming Studio 1.5, musicians can plug their MIDI-enabled digital instruments–keyboards, guitars, bass guitars, drum kits, and wind…
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K-12 Online reflections
It was a great learning experience as well as privilege to serve as a convener this fall for K-12 Online. In the weeks ahead I’m thinking I’ll be putting more ideas, reflections and responses about the conference down in writing and possibly in some podcasts. Here are a few thoughts I drafted tonight. K-12 Online…
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Private file sharing proliferates
I learned about Dropload as a result of K-12 Online the last few months, as a great website to use to transfer large files to other people without sending email attachments and bogging down mailservers and email accounts. The article “Peer-to-peer gets personal” from November 1st lists a veritable plethora of other sites offering similar…
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Dabble offers powerful webvideo search
As the number of webvideo sites continues to proliferate (as information online in general continues to grow) the most apparent challenge is wading through an overwhelmingly large quantity of content to find relevant, high quality material that is entertaining or of use for a particular purpose. This morning I discovered Dabble via a CNN Business…
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The Wii redefines interactive gaming!
Yesterday I had my first opportunity to personally experience gameplay with the new Nintendo Wii game system, and my summative thought is: WOW! My cousin managed to purchase a Wii shortly after they came out, and we played (along with other members of our family gathering for the Thanksgiving holiday) the Wii Sports games bowling,…
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Flow, curiosity, and engaging education
I am continuing to read “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and am seeing lots of connections for educators and learners. At the outset of chapter 4, Csikszentmihalyi summarizes the “common characteristics of optimal experience” or flow: …a sense that one’s skills are adequate to cope with the challenges at hand, in…
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3rd grade website about Africa
Several weeks ago when my 3rd grade son, Alexander and I presented at the regional technology conference in Plano, Texas, he won a free copy of WebBlender software from Tech4Learning. He has wanted to make his own website for quite a while, and several years ago he made a little progress using a WYSIWYG webpage…