An Ode to OETC
ode | ōd |noun definition: a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter, a poem meant to be sung origin: late 16th century: from French, from late Latin oda, from Greek ōidē,...
HeyGen—AI Translation Test
Artificial Intelligence is all around. Literally. Every conference and keynote this busy fall focused on the who, what, when, where, how of AI. And my email inbox pings dozens of times a day with new AI-powered offerings from vendors that range from network...
Cryptography for the Classroom
Come have fun cracking codes with me at #ipdx19 and take home resources for your K-12 students. Cryptography, prior to the modern age, was effectively synonymous with encryption, the conversion of information from a readable state to apparent nonsense. It’s the building blocks of our modern systems, too.
How to Write Stuff People Will Read
This is an active writing workshop for the IntegratED 2019 conference in Portland, Oregon. #ipdx19
Storytelling for Innovation at High Desert ESD | Day Three
Photo credit: Mark Zuckerberg, by TechCrunch, a Creative Commons image on Flickr. We started a new innovation series in this new year. It's 18 Days to Storytelling for Innovation, a program on the Avanoo platform. (Thanks to Anna Higgins, our Director of Innovation,...
Storytelling for Innovation at High Desert ESD | Day Two
Photo credit: Woody on is new space on the DVD shelf by semihundido, a Creative Commons image on Flickr. We started a new innovation series in this new year. It's 18 Days to Storytelling for Innovation, a program on the Avanoo platform. (Thanks to Anna Higgins, our...
Storytelling for Innovation at High Desert ESD | Day One
Photo credit: Forest Road in Oregon by Michael Matti, a Creative Commons licensed image on Flickr. We started a new innovation series in this new year. It's 18 Days to Storytelling for Innovation, a program on the Avanoo platform. (Thanks to Anna Higgins, our Director...
Low-Tech Social Network
We are gearing up for another busy summer of professional development events in Oregon. I brainstorm our activities ahead of time and want to continue our focus on ones that increase our movement, collaboration, and human connection elements. We've been doing quite a...
Internet as Conscience
Thanks, ºNit Soto, for licensing your CCFlickr photo (binoculars) for remix. Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking. —H.L. Mencken For this invention [writing] will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because...
On CIOs in K-12 Education
Thanks to Marco Torres for the Flickr Creative Commons image above. Confession. I am a reluctant CIO. I catch myself swallowing the words Chief Information Officer during moments of introduction in a figurative hunching of the shoulders. I don't have issues with the...
RSS Feeds…. Still Using Them
Thanks to Stephan Geyer for the Flickr Creative Commons image above. @richards92 @rwentechaney give me your best and fav feeds (RSS)Happy Thanksgiving — iwolff (@iwolff) November 22, 2012 Better late than never, Don? (Happy Thanksgiving...and Christmas, too.) I still...
Put a Bird on It — Oregon Ed Twitter List #ORedu
@actionhero and @mrmacnology at ITSC 2012 (now called IntegratED PDX) Corin and I were at the Oregon School Law Conference this week. We laughed our way through Charles Leitch's session on technology and social media in K-12. After years of yelling loudly about...
2012 Training Team — Oregon Virtual School District
Group juggling with the ORVSD Training Team I have been part of the Oregon Virtual School District Training Team since 2009. The Oregon Virtual School District is a program of the Oregon Department of Education that provides online curriculum tools, hosting, and...
Chromebooks in Our Schools — One Year Later — The Coda
Mr. Cochran, Mr. Fleming, Mr. Felton, and Mr. Hisaw This is the final part of a series. Part one is here. Part two is there. Part three is here. 1) I've been taking a lot of photos and talking to a lot of our students, teachers, and interested parties this year. I...
Chromebooks in Our Schools — One Year Later — Part Three
This is part three of a series. Part one is here. Part two is there. The coda is here. (I'm a big fan of unboxing posts and videos. But, I always want to know how things are a year or two later.... Did the device hold up? Is it still in use after the shininess and...
Delightful Design and the New, New Delicious – #edcampPDX
Edcamps are pretty cool. They're a low-stress, high-energy day of sharing. My session this month was on design. I'm not a designer, but I know good design when I see it (or something like that). I like things to be pretty and usable. Robin Williams (not that...
Chromebooks in Our Schools — One Year Later — Part Two
CCMS student and teacher, Casey Callan, during rollout week This is part two of a series. Part one is here. Part three is there. The coda is here. (I'm a big fan of unboxing posts and videos. But, I always want to know how things are a year or two later.... Did the...
Chromebooks in Our Schools – One Year Later (Part One)
CCMS teachers coming up to speed quickly on the Cr-48 pilot machines in early 2011 This is part one of a series. Part two is here. Part three is there. The coda is here. One year ago today, we had a special delivery and announcement at Crook County Middle School. The...
(Self) Selection Bias and Big Data
City Java magazine rack by Ken Jenkins on Flickr (Creative Commons) 11.11.11...tomorrow is Veteran's Day, Corduroy Appreciation Day, and edcampPDX. I pitched a talk for edcampPDX: Selection Bias v. Self-Selection Bias. I want to explore the similarities (or...
Consumerization in K-12 Education
In April, I presented two sessions on Google Apps for Ed at the Southern Oregon Ed Tech Summit. It was a great event, co-hosted by Southern Oregon University and Southern Oregon Education Service District, with support from Oregon Virtual School District. I had a free...
Happy Birthday, Twitter
Today is Twitter's fifth birthday. As part of the celebration, Jack, Ev, and crew asked users to post their favorite tweets with the #5yrs hashtag. I did. One of my own. And one of a longtime twitter friend. As I was scanning my timeline, I realized this medium is...
Google Search at Astoria High School (Revolution in Libya)
The Oregon Virtual School District Training Team was at Astoria High School this week. Astoria is one of the Google Chrome Notebook pilot locations. We spent two days talking Google Apps and information literacy with the students while the teachers were getting some...
The Pencil
Okay. I know I write a lot about weird convergences in my life and it's probably getting boring. BUT, this week.... 1) I was with our state K-12 CIOs. We began setting a project scope and timeline for the transition to a new student information system. (See earlier...
Data Informed, Not Data Driven
For the past several years, we've been moving toward data-driven decision making in our schools. I've been involved in that effort with both our Oregon Data Project and our regional data warehouse. I think data is valuable for teachers and school administrators, but...
Scarcity
Punched Cards by Werner Kratz on Flickr (Creative Commons) This week, we learned that our state's largest student information system (eSIS) was purchased by Pearson School Systems. The news comes during a month of announcements about school closures, staff reductions,...
Gone Google
Sherwood Students at the Google Summit, October 2010 Oregon has Gone Google. We were the first state to provide a state-level agreement for Google Apps for Education. I'm part of the training team that travels the state, providing Google Apps training and support to...
Information Implications
Google Android Newsweek Cover I was in Sherwood, Oregon this week for our Google Summit. I pulled onto our lane and stopped by the mailbox after the long drive home. I was excited to see this Newsweek in the stack of mail. The best part of the cover article was this...
Grateful Fundraising in a Small Town – Prineville, Oregon
Our hometown gained celebrity this year as the future home of the Facebook data center. The announcement couldn't have come at a better time. Like most of the nation, we're struggling with high unemployment and home foreclosure rates, as well as state, county, and...
Project Management Workshop
At the High Desert Education Service District, we manage multiple, simultaneous projects. They range from special and early childhood education to technology and building projects. Keeping track of promises, timelines, outcomes, and deliverables is overwhelming. This...
Yarn and the Art of Copyright Maintenance
I gave a five-minute talk on copyright at the inaugural Ignite Bend. The gist of it was that our copyright laws need to evolve. Copyright was originally conceived of to provide protection for authors who were being taken advantage of by unscrupulous publishers...
Tekhne – Artful Technology, Article 7 (Flickr)
1913 Baseball Photos from the Library of Congress Flickr Project The following is from a series of articles I wrote for the education section of the Central Oregonian. Lifelong Learning and Lifelong Sharing It’s the month of April and, at our house, that means it’s...
Tekhne – Artful Technology, Article 6 (Right-Click)
The following is from a series of articles I wrote for the education section of the Central Oregonian. The Super-Secret, All-Powerful Right-Click! We know that, as individuals, we each learn a little bit differently than the next person. Some people learn best by...
Tekhne – Artful Technology, Article 5 (Resources)
CCMS Teacher Casey Callan and Student The following is from a series of articles I wrote for the education section of the Central Oregonian. 1:1 Learning Program Last month, Crook County School District completed the final stage of the computer rollout for its 1:1...
Tekhne – Artful Technology, Article 4 (Reader Questions)
The following is from a series of articles I wrote for the education section of the Central Oregonian. Phishing and more… Happy New Year! Readers have emailed in the past months with various technology questions. Here are three good ones to share: 1. My daughter and I...
Tekhne – Artful Technology, Article 3 (Search)
Android cookie on Google campus The following is from a series of articles I wrote for the education section of the Central Oregonian. 9,000,000,000 results match your search! So, let’s start with a quick recap of last month’s startling figure: the World Wide Web now...
Tekhne – Artful Technology, Article 2 (RSS)
Cojines RSS by Señor Muñoz on Flickr (Creative Commons) The following is from a series of articles I wrote for the education section of the Central Oregonian. RSS – Bring a World of Information to Your Desktop The maturing World Wide Web is changing the way we...
Tekhne – Artful Technology, Article 1 (Intro)
Hay Baler, circa 1944 The following is from a series of articles I wrote for the education section of the Central Oregonian. From Tekhnē to Technology…. Quick! What’s the definition of the word technology? How many of our immediate responses included a reference to...