Educational Insanity

I have an idea. Maybe it’s a meme. Who knows? Who cares?

Anyway, the idea has three origins. First, it dates back to a dinner conversation in Chinatown (D.C.) during NECC ‘09 with (CAUTION: name-dropping to commence…) Joyce Valenza, Doug Johnson, Wes Fryer and Scott McLeod. I forget how the discussion started, but we ended up talking about resuscitating old blog posts. I thought it would be interesting to somehow curate a collection of self-nominated “favorite” or “best” blog posts.

Second, I’m fairly convinced that many of “us” use our blogs less regularly since Twitter came upon the scene. Sometimes I struggle to write anything that is more than 140 characters.

Finally, I’m reminded of when Scott McLeod used to recognize blogs that deserve a bigger audience (DABA). I know I’m not alone in thinking that there are individual blog posts that deserve a bigger audience.

So, here’s the idea: resuscitate a blog post that was written “before Twitter” and be sure to include the tag: #edublogBT.

For those of us that blogged reasonably regularly before we starting tweeting regularly, that should be pretty easy.  For those of you who started blogging and tweeting about the same time (or started Tweeting first), you can’t play…Well, I suppose you can still play and revive a post that you wrote a while ago that you would like to reintroduce to the world.

I have some ideas of how I’d curate this collection of posts (which all assume you are good about including the “edublogBT” tag.  If you have other ideas, fell free to share them in the comments here.

I’ll (re) post my first “edublogBT” post tomorrow.

Wanna play?

photo credit: Jasmin Baltres PhotographyI

According to some studies, charter schools are good. According to other studies, charter schools are not so good.

There are some good charter schools. There are some bad charter schools.

On the whole, then, charter schools make no difference.

[Peer-review *THAT* fellow academicians!]

To those of you who know and learn with Alec Couros (aka @courosa),

Please consider filling out the form below.  The explanation is in the form.  I’ll send the data (or an analysis of the data) to Alec and/or his tenure committee.

Thanks in advance!

One of the earliest and largest 1:1 computing initiatives in the United States has been transpiring in the Henrico County (VA) Public Schools(HCPS) for nearly a decade.  For the last X years, every student in grades 6-12 in the county has been issued a laptop.  The program began under the leadership of Dr. Mark Edwards and continued under the stewardship Fred Morton.  A new superintendent, Dr. Pat Russo, took over the reigns of the school system this year and now the county is holding a series of parent input sessions on the “Middle School Laptop Initiative.”  Given that the program has been implemented across all of secondary education, that they’re holding parent input sessions on the “middle school” initiative suggests that there is a real possibility that the program will be cut in the middle schools.

I have been working for a number of years to help educators understand the affordances for learning of technology in education.  I am also a parent of two not-yet-school-aged children in Henrico County.  Wearing those two hats, I intend to attend the last parent input session on Thursday, November 19 and I hope to offer my input.  I have a pretty good idea of the points I’d like to make, but I’ve built up a respectably large network of educators through my blog, through Twitter and through face-to-face meetings.  So, I’m modeling the power of social learning and I’m asking you to help me frame the arguments to the HCPS board. [Or, I'm outsourcing the work; you decide ]

I’ve started a Google doc where you can help me frame the argument(s).  Please click on that link and head on over there to offer your ideas.  Thanks in advance!

I haven’t written much here since the summer.  I need to.  I want to.

So, I’m hoping that a remodeling of the site breathes some new life into my blogging efforts.

There are apparently 7 reader selectable themes, so you get to have some say in how this space looks for you (I think you have to have cookies enabled to save your customization, though).

Let me know what you think!