tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38874088372079202982024-08-30T14:37:42.922-04:00A Blog focused on Education written by a geeky, tech-obsessed, self admitted nerd. Who also happens to be have a obsession with education.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-34746683017256412722013-03-13T06:30:00.000-04:002013-03-13T06:30:02.520-04:00

Image Credit: Lorenabuena All schools want happy students. It makes sense. Happy students mean easier days for everyone involved. Less fights, less distractions, better performance. As I thought about this I realized the following: Schools want their students to be happy Schools need money to provide those happy things Schools budgets are tied to testing results Schools cut non-essentials

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-43688752348086608492013-02-20T06:30:00.000-05:002013-02-20T06:30:02.535-05:00

It seems more and more lately that schools are adding a specific goal to the list they display to the public and it goes something like this; "Prepare students to utilize 21st century skills" Sounds good. But what does it actually mean. Far to often it means that students are simply going to be taught how to use current technology; keyboarding classes, computer centers, "netiquette".

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-28395185458729963292013-01-24T11:50:00.000-05:002013-01-24T11:50:14.277-05:00

When I heard that Kristen Swanson was releasing a new book on my birthday I jokingly reached out for a copy as a present. Little did I know that she took me seriously. Find the review below. When I received my copy of Professional Learning in the Digital Age : The Educator's Guide to User-Generated Learning I was initially put off by the size of it. How could someone possibly fit a guide to

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-18188293386718728152013-01-10T09:29:00.003-05:002013-01-10T09:29:57.016-05:00

Found this infographic fairly true.  /* Infographic: Why it Sucks Being the IT Guy */

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-64112022993836271932012-11-20T07:00:00.000-05:002012-11-20T07:00:08.961-05:00

Wait, that title might not come out right. Let's try this again... Teachers Need to be More Like Foxes and Less Like Hedgehogs! Amazon.com Okay forget the title. I am currently reading "The Signal and the Noise" by Nate Silver, the now famed economist/blogger that correctly called 50/50 states in the 2012 presidential election. The book discusses how predictions are often incorrect but

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-163120242377603012012-11-13T11:05:00.001-05:002012-11-13T11:05:05.259-05:00

Right now I am not teaching. I left a teaching position at a private high school to take a position in the IT department of a public school district. I hope to go back into the classroom next year and as I mosey around my PLN I am collecting ideas that I may want to implement in that classroom. The most recent idea I came across that interested me is the idea of standards based grading. I have

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-74213760251971075172012-11-06T11:00:00.000-05:002012-11-06T11:00:04.086-05:00

An idea came to me today while reading through the blog roll of David Jakes, specifically a post titled Words Matter | Professional Development. David questions the current popular definition of professional development. Professional Development carries with a sort of negative feeling. It is something that is required of you in order to continue doing that thing you enjoy doing, teaching. He

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-35342847778844062262012-10-30T07:00:00.000-04:002012-10-30T09:56:35.966-04:00

If anyone has not yet found the webcomic XKCD do yourself a favor and read all of it! Written by former NASA roboticist (seriously) Randall Munroe the comic is covers a wide range of themes including forensics, social networking, politics, weather and teaching. The comic even has a website dedicated to explaining the meaning behind some of the topics. I wouldn't hesitate to say that this may be

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-68364549069947563702012-10-24T12:15:00.005-04:002012-10-24T12:15:39.484-04:00

Maybe it's because my first teaching job was in a vocational school. Maybe it's because I have always enjoyed learning about every aspect of everything I possibly can (I love Curiosity on the Discovery Channel). Maybe it's because I believe that a school should be a community, with teachers, administrators and students sharing and helping each other out. Whatever it is I have a strong belief that

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-70208076909042044382012-10-05T06:00:00.000-04:002012-10-05T06:00:15.905-04:00

Is there a college degree for "Fireman"? The "Christmas Creep". That time around mid-October when stores begin peddling their Christmas goods. It's annoying. I freak out every year when I go to pick out a Halloween costume and Rudolphs red lightbulb nose is glaring at me from the next aisle over. So it's no surprise that when I saw this banner hanging in one the elementary schools in my

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-1834739023906508362012-09-27T09:48:00.001-04:002012-09-27T09:48:24.468-04:00

Image from HackCollege I was listening to the Freakonomics podcast a few days ago as they were discussing how human behavior is influenced by outside forces. Tweaking a person's environment (clothing, scenery, rules, etc) can have a very profound effect on that person's behavior. This may sound obvious but it doesn't take as much of a tweak as you might think. Here is something you can try

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-2007823905058137722012-05-23T14:44:00.002-04:002012-05-23T14:46:13.588-04:00

I ran across this article on Gizmodo about a book funded by Kickstarter that attempts to get young kids (ages 5-12) to think like a programmer. The book is called Lauren Ipsum and you can read the first chapter here. The article on Gizmodo links to an article from Jeff Atwood titled Please Don't Learn to Code in which he claims that trying to teach everyone to code is 

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-28150210282004492842012-03-07T15:30:00.004-05:002012-03-07T15:31:58.485-05:00

Students assembling a Biz Challenge computer In the education reform world there is always talk of PBL or Project Based Learning. To some people it is seen as the saving grace of the educational reform movement, the "magic bullet" if you will. The problem is implementation. How do you fit PBL to the standards required within your school? I am fortunate enough to work at a school that

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-57465718881020321682012-02-26T18:15:00.002-05:002012-03-13T12:01:25.350-04:00

If there is one thing we can all agree on it is that the educational system is broken. There are plenty of solutions out there but they all feature one fatal flaw, they attempt to build on top of an already collapsing structure. This type of thinking is pervasive in American politics. Is something not working? Stick some legislation on top of it, that oughta' take care of it! Imagine if a

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-4723130662228213542012-02-08T23:05:00.000-05:002012-02-09T07:36:53.562-05:00

image: Bill McConkey I love Open Source. This wouldn't be a surprise to anyone that knows me but few people actually understand why I am so enamored with the idea of Open Source. I thought I should take a minute and explain why Open Source is so important to me. What is Open Source? I have talked about Open Source before but I will quickly redefine it here. Open Source refers to software

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-22632468692871110902012-01-29T06:54:00.000-05:002012-01-29T06:54:01.490-05:00

I had an odd epiphany yesterday while at EduCon 2.4 in Philadelphia. This epiphany has been long overdue but I think that many others may feel the same way so here it is... I am an Education Fanboy. That may not be a big surprise to the hundreds of educators at EduCon who dedicate their lives to furthering education but I say fanboy in a very specific way. When most people meet

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-53045567813056086212012-01-06T10:07:00.000-05:002012-01-06T10:07:57.366-05:00

About a year and half ago I walked into my first classroom as a teacher. I walked in to no curriculum, 4 different textbooks and about a month to prepare. Needless to say it was extremely difficult to get started. My vice principal was as helpful as she could be in this regard but a curriculum still needed to be created from scratch. My first step was to create a "curriculum" for the

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-49336223235902688132011-12-07T14:59:00.001-05:002012-01-18T08:23:49.216-05:00

If there is one ting that I am good at it is teaching. I have been told that I have a way of making complex topics easy to understand. I've decided to take that quality and use it here. I hope to write a series of posts that help to explain how the common computer works. As the title implies I hope to make this as simple as possible. You won't be able to get a certification from reading these

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-11112882837047409122011-10-25T12:12:00.001-04:002011-10-25T12:12:22.680-04:00

Have you ever wanted to test your search skills? How about find out useless trivia that you will never be required to recall again? Well have I got the tool for you! A Google a Day is a new Google play-thing that gives you a question and provides you with a 1-day old search box (to avoid any spoilers via increased searching for that topic) to answer the question. It could be a useful

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-78569088873680337672011-09-22T19:47:00.001-04:002011-09-23T06:23:45.800-04:00

...and learn about optical multi-touch techniques in the process  I found the above video on StumbleUpon a couple of months ago. That video led me to this link about building a cheap and easy multi-touch display called the MTmini. Apparently I was to busy to think but I had the good sense to at least bookmark the link in Diigo. While looking ahead in my

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-46531899026129131802011-09-20T06:36:00.000-04:002011-09-20T06:36:13.817-04:00

Read Write Web is one of the best sites available for interesting articles that may or may not apply to education but are interesting none the less. This was what attracted me to this article titled, "The Pay-It-Forward Culture: Silicon Valley's Practical Generosity". Written by Steve Blank the article describes the culture present in Silicon Valley from the 1960's through today which

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-85629697843823948802011-09-04T10:56:00.000-04:002011-09-04T10:56:58.883-04:00

This comic is based on an experience my wife had on her first day back to school. I'm always looking for stories to illustrate. Got a great one? Let me know!

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-38769187154622509862011-09-01T16:16:00.001-04:002011-09-01T16:16:36.127-04:00

You took this photo You are spending your last days off for summer on a beautiful beach in Hawaii (I can dream can't I?). You decide to take a stroll along the coast in order to take in the scenery. You are enjoying the walk, digging your toes into the wet sand as the tide kicks up to your bare ankles. Suddenly you wince in pain as your toe stubs an object buried in the sand. You reach down

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-1196208425165727932011-08-18T10:00:00.004-04:002011-08-19T08:23:35.908-04:00

There has been quite a push recently for open source software. For those of you not familiar open source refers to software where the source code is readily available. This means that anybody can access the code, make changes and release the result themselves. Because the code is freely available there isn't one person who must track and fix bugs and generate updates. This leads to a piece

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3887408837207920298.post-23937134843753682212011-08-16T13:10:00.001-04:002011-08-16T13:11:34.506-04:00

#Edchat turns 2! There is always a reason for Perry Bible Fellowship comics And this article in USA Today is butter-cream frosting on an already delicious cake!Mmmmmm... Butter-cream....

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0