EduBlog Insights

eSchool News Online has published an excellent article, RSS could transform online communication by Dan David. It explains RSS in a simple, coherent fashion that will be easily understood by educators. eSchool News Online posts that they are proud to be one of the first educational technology publishers to join the RSS movement. Readers can receive the latest school technology headlines in a free daily RSS feed. They give step-by-step directions on how to do this. I’ve already added them to Bloglines. Good reading!

Good quotes from our edublogging community……

Craig Nansen, technology coordinator for Minot, N.D. Public Schools…..

“I really like the convenience of not having to go to a specific site to find information. With RSS, I’m getting information I want when I want it, and I don’t have to wade through any other junk.”

Will Richardson, supervisor of instructional technology and communications at Hunterdon Central Regional High School in New Jersey……..

“This technology gave kids a chance to collaborate. They could maintain their own blogs, but since they were generating their own RSS feeds, they could also track what other people were doing. Their work is sudenly visbile and open for comment.”

Thor Prichard. CEO of Clarity Innovations Inc……

“Everything within a district can be set up in directories that are either limited to select lists or are open to the entire public. This really makes everyone rethink the meaning of how schools organize.”

Go read the entire article and be sure to add eSN’s RSS feed to your list!

The June issue of Wired lists the top 40 whom they consider “masters of innovation, technology, and strategic vision - 40 companies driving the global economy.”

It includes a Done & To do list for each one. Interesting reading….

We made it to the final 5 but Wheeler High School won the Spirit of Endeavor award last night. Those students were involved in DeanKamen’s FIRST Robot competition. It was exciting watching the enthusiasm of the students involved in those competitions. We were proud to be in the final 5! Hey, maybe down the road we can have a student blogging marathon where we meet and gather students from all over the world. I envision them blogging about issues of the world, possible solutions, future endeavors, educational innovations, and ways they can make a difference in the world. Let’s dare to dream……

Joyce Hooper (Principal), Carolyn Poole (Assistant Principal) and Marcia Mateling (the 5th grade teacher of many of the kids I work with and the Rockdale County teacher of the year for this year) were thrilled to be at the banquet last night and took home a very beautifully engraved finalist plaque. I will get a picture of that tomorrow! Jim Flowers was there with us. See his post today. Thank you, Jim! It touches my heart to see J.H. House acknowledged in this way. They are a terrific group of educators who do what it takes to make a difference in the lives of children. The students are at the center of every decision made at J. H. House. “Whatever it takes’, is the motto at JHH. They are determined that no child will fall through the cracks.

I wrote the following to my Wrinkles group last week:

“J. H. House is a finalist in the category of Technology Innovation by an Educational Institution for the AeA’s (American Electronics Association) Southeast Spirit of Endeavor Awards. I have a good friend in the weblogging world. His name is Jim Flowers. He emailed me a few weeks ago and said that I really should answer the 4 questions they were asking schools to submit in order to be considered for this honor. Jim Flowers thinks the weblogging work you students do is really good. He thought of us right away for this. I sent in the answers to Jim,who then nominated us for this award. Here’s a peek at the award….cool! The awards will be presented next week at a banquet in the Egyptian Ballroom of the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia.”

The banquet is tonight and I will be going with 3 other wonderful J.H. House educators - the principal, the assistant principal, and the teacher who shares some of her wonderful students with me when I work with them on weblogs. Jim will be there, of course. When I looked at the competition for the Technology Innovation award, I gulped.

Technology Innovation by an Educational Institution:
Cobb County School District
Columbus State University
Wheeler High School FIRST Robotics
GT FIRST
Atlanta International School
Valdosta State University
J.H. House Elementary
North Cobb High School
Gwinnett Technical College
CATEA

Stiff competition, huh? Well, we are proud just to be in the running!  Dean Kamon is the guest speaker.

This  is so cool and once again, a great link via Stormy. She points us to a Wired News’ website, a hotspot finder. Just fill in the address, zip code, etc. and it will list all the nearest wireless spots and info about them. Cool!

via <Dave Winer>

AP: “Best Western will offer free high-speed Internet in all 2300 of its hotels in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean.” 

The article

tired of being nickeled and dimed at hotels.”

I say hooray! Let’s hope all other hotels follow suit. 

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Children, Families and the Internet 2003 is a recent survey conducted by Grunwald Associates. It reports that more than 2 million U.S. children, aged 6 to 17 currently have their own web sites.  They predict that more than 6 million children could have their own personal sites by 2005. They view this as a way kids today are expressing themselves. They say kids want the tools to build better sites. The survey also revealed that there was dissatisfaction with school internet access.  They want more online time.

Grunwald Associates is the research and consulting firm whose surveys on children, family and school use of technology and the Internet are considered the „gold standard‰ of market research on new information services in the home and school markets.

Seems like weblog tools would be a tool that would certainly be easy to use.  It also makes me think that we need to really need to double our efforts at getting kids to see reasons for writing, to learn the joy of writing, and to use their voices in responsible ways.  We gotta keep on track in getting the message across that it’s not just about getting web space available for children, but it’s also about our teaching and getting our kids doing some good writing and thinking!

I ran across an article on The Exponent Online about Purdue instructors using weblogs.  Here are a few excerpts:

Blakesley, the director of Purdue’s professional writing program, learned about blogs from a colleague, researched them and began using them in his classroom last summer. In Blakesley’s courses, students use their class blog to respond to readings and to keep in touch with teammates when working on a collaborative project.

Samantha Blackmon, assistant professor of English, uses blogs in her classroom as well. She began using the technology in her graduate classes in the fall of 2001. “I saw it as an opportunity to actively share teaching journals between class members and provide the opportunity to open up ideas about pedagogy and theory to a global scholarly community,” she said.

However, class blogs do not replace journals, in-class discussions or e-mail in Blackmon’s classes, but rather supplement all of those things.

Chris Meador, graduate student and blogger, said he thinks blogs in the classroom are a good thing.  Meador said he thinks the trendiness surrounding the blogging culture -  polls flashing animations, icons, chain letters, etc. - is a fad, but the medium itself is not.

“I think the Weblog format is a very fundamental concept in Web publishing and Internet culture. It is the result of the evolution of chat rooms, personal Web sites, news sites, e-zines and message boards, not merely a passing fad. My feeling is that the community Weblog is becoming one of the fundamental metaphors of online publishing.”

Good article by Paul Boutin in Wired Magazine entitled “Would You Like Wi-Fi with That?”  Boy, do I agree!  Hotels should also take note. The very nice hotel that I stayed in when we were in Washington, DC charged $14.00 a night for their service.  Boo hiss! He points to Schlotzsky’s as a good example of knowing the right way to serve wi-fi.

Schlotzsky’s lets anyone sign up and use its network free, even if they don’t come in for a sandwich. The chain advises its 600 franchise owners to beam Wi-Fi signals through the walls into nearby hotels, parks, and college dorms.

He closes with “Wi-Fi isn’t a luxury or even a commodity. It’s a condiment.”

Hear! Hear!

eSchol News Online paints a depressing picture of the state of funding for technology and education, in general. Corey Murray’s article Budget ax falls on school tech programs points out the following:

With state budget deficits soaring to near record levels, school technology programs from coast to coast are being slashed as policy makers and school leaders struggle to make do with sharply limited resources.

In Wisconsin, where budget shortfalls are expected to exceed $3.2 billion over the next two years, Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, has asked the state legislature to cut short the state¡Ás Technology for Educational Achievement (TEACH) program.

In West Virginia, Democratic Gov. Bob Wise has proposed cutting nearly $5 million for the purchase of computers and other technology equipment used to support the state¡Ás 281,000 students.

In Oregon, the fallout from a severe statewide budget crunch has all but booted technology from its place on the high-priority list. As many as half of the state¡Ás school districts are cutting days or even weeks of instruction off of the school year, and at least 1,100 teacher positions have been eliminated so far.

The poorer schools, he said, are at a distinct disadvantage because they lack the saving graces of charitable contributions from wealthy families and other alternative means of fund-raising. “The schools that have trouble raising money within the community really are going to get left behind”, he said. “Many districts ,not just Portland aren’t going to be able to perform the necessary upgrades.”

The list of desperate stories goes on and on¨and increases almost daily¨but no one is more intimate with the urgency of this problem than the educators whose task remains
unchanged, despite fewer resources.

And we hear first hand reports from Joe Luft in New York. “Obsolete equipment is a serious problem we’re facing at my school as we look to next year. Despite the best efforts of our tech squad, almost all of our classroom computers are no longer useful since they are now about 6-7 years old. Our labs are quickly aging and as a result our mobile iBook lab gets heavy daily use. No new equipment is on the horizon so access to reliable machines becomes increasingly problematic and further discourages teachers who are interested in integrating technology.”

Tim Lauer cuts to the chase with this comment: “ Like in many states we are mortgaging our future in the name of tax cuts and tightening our belts.”

Sigh……
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