Category: disruptive-technology
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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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China, WikiPedia, Flickr, Web 2.0 and The Tank Man
I was pleased to learn today (via Jeremy Goldkorn) that China has chosen to unblock WikiPedia. Andrew Lih theorizes the reason for the unblock is that WikiPedia is value neutral, and the Chinese government is glimpsing the constructive power of the read/write web. He writes: I believe it was because of the argument Jimmy Wales…
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Firefox 2 and Skype 2
Close on the heels of Microsoft’s release of IE7 from beta, Mozilla has released Firefox 2.0 this week for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. Check out their “all” page listing every available version in different languages. Amazing! In addition, Skype 2.0 for Macintosh with support for desktop videoconferencing (one to one) was also released. Skype 2.0…
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Simplifying collaborative videoconferencing
Despite all the technology around us in many U.S. schools, collaborative videoconferencing remains a rarity for many students and teachers. Certainly some schools utilize videoconferencing for foreign language, higher mathematics, or other types of high school courses– and students may be able to earn college as well as high school credits for successfully completing these…
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IM Survey Results
This survey is in no way scientific, but despite that fact I find these results interesting. A few weeks ago I posted a survey about instant messaging in schools, and tonight I checked the results. 31 people responded: Based on this feedback, it looks like about half the schools of respondents allow at least some…
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Deep tagging video
Michael Arrington’s TechCrunch article “All The Cool Kids Are Deep Tagging” discusses how “deep tagging” video content posted online can help others locate content of interest faster than search engine algorithms: Figuring out how to search the meta data around rich content (tags and lots of other descriptive data) is big business. Truveo, a video…
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University changes mind on Skype
I blogged last week about San Jose State’s decision to block access to Skype, now it appears the university has relented and will allow Skype use by students and faculty. According to arstechnica: On-campus criticism of San Jose State’s decision was strong, with professor Steve Sloan rallying colleagues and students to protest the ban, which…
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Universities banning Skype
K-12 schools are not the only ones banning Skype use these days, some universities are banning it also. According to this latest article from ARS Technica: In a move that has sparked protest from both students and professors, San Jose State University has become the latest California school to ban Skype from most of its…
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Educational assumptions about instant messaging
Why do school district administrators, as a general rule, assume that all instant messaging websites are evil and inappropriate? I’ve made a case for instant messaging in the classroom before— But I am wondering today what the most effective ways to help administrators understand the potential value of IM and desktop videoconferencing is and can…