Eric Baumgartner discusses the Harrsch article and reflects on how he sees weblogs and rss being used in education.
The cool thing about being a maven is that, once you've established your rep and your readership, your readers start sending you content. This is the tipping point for weblogs: the content flow has reached a point where it becomes (relatively speaking) self-sustaining. Look at Barry's humor log. Most of his links are sent to him by his readers. [Designing Learning Technology ]
Joe Luft has posted information about his action research presentation. One of the highlights of my year on leave from Portland Schools was having the opportunity to meet Joe and to spend a day in his classroom.
Yesterday, I presented a preliminary version of my action research study ("Weblogs: Creating Digital Paper for English Language Learners") at the Teachers Network Policy Institute before an audience of teachers, principals, and university professors. The most compelling parts of the presentation were the video clips of one of my students discussing how his weblog changed his attitude towards writing (the importance of a real audience, a sense of ownership of his writing space). For an audience new to weblogs, Pat's digital paper metaphor was quite effective. I received some constructive feedback afterwards along with several inquiries from a few principals... [Brooklyn BloggEd]
Seblogging: Dynamic Webpublishing, CMS and Weblogs in Education : by Sebastian Fiedler Today Sebastian Fiedler points to a Guardian article about the Munich municipal government's move from Microsoft to OpenSource software. The interesting thing here is that we are not only talking about server environments, but desktop software.
This past February I had the opportunity to visit with educators in Munich and Dillingen and it was interesting to hear several of the IT folks I talked with express resentment at the high cost of licensing Microsoft software.
The K-12 Linux Terminal Server Project is one solution that looks very promising for education. Portland has set this up in several middle school labs. The best implementation of this I have seen is Riverdale High School. A diskless workstation with a powerful office suite, web browsing and a graphical desktop environment that is easy to learn.
We hope to have a few 5th grade classrooms set up with this this coming fall.
Have been working on learning a bit more about CSS. Will tweek with this a bit more later today...
'Harry Potter' Fans Wait Online, Fotolog and Sites for List Lovers
Writers of Potter fan fiction - stories that use Ms. Rowling's characters in new or expanded plots - are particularly tense.
Interesting piece from the Technology section of the NY Times about Harry Potter fans using sites such as Fan Fiction to fill the void while they waited for J.K. Rowling to bring out her version...
Also a bit about the use of Fotolog by a couple who are posting photos from an album they found in a junk shop in Brooklyn. The post images and then folks comment and make up stories about the images.
Hundreds more photos remain to be posted, so Natalie's online life will continue to unfold even as the person the site calls Real Natalie remains a mystery.
Signals From Nowhere What a miserable trip. I heard America droning.
Walter Kirn writes about the demise of local radio...
NPR : States Face Challenges with Federal Education Act This NPR report discusses the mandates of the "No Child Left Behind" act, and the funding burden it is placing on states.
States say the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires more student testing and tougher standards for teachers, is overly intrusive and will require schools to increase their education budgets significantly.
Let's get something straight right away: my father was hopelessly unhip. He was the corporeal embodiment of an Air Supply eight-track.
Harlon Coben piece from The New York Times...
