Dangerously Irrelevant

In August I announced a wiki, Moving Forward, that is intended to provide technology-related resources for everyone who gives presentations or delivers training workshops for K-12 or postsecondary educators. I asked readers to contribute blog-related resources and URLs to the wiki, including good classroom blogs and other blogs that can be used as models for educators.

A big thanks to everyone who contributed to the blogs page. We still could use some more model classroom blogs. It would be particularly nice if some of our ‘superhub’ bloggers could throw in a link or two. I know that many of these folks show examples to schools all the time and they’re extremely well-versed on cutting-edge stuff that’s occurring in the world of K-12 ed tech. The average educator who’s trying to facilitate technology-related change in his/her school or district could use some help. Can we give those folks a few choice links that they can show their staff as examples rather than making them dig around the Web trying to find their own?

In addition to my plea for more blog-related resources, I’ll now request some links to some good K-12 wikis. If you have some good examples of how teachers, students, and administrators are using wikis to facilitate their work, please add them to the Moving Forward wikis page.

Thanks in advance. We’re all in this together. Let’s help each other out?

This week is the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week. The most-banned book of 2006? A multiple award-winning children’s picture book about two male penguins that adopt an egg.

Support your local library.

Cherish your freedom to read what you wish.

Like others, I am finding that Jott is becoming an integral part of my life. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the service, you call a toll-free number, talk for up to 30 seconds, and then a typed transcription appears in your e-mail inbox. You can also use Jott to post to your blog, Twitter, get a Zillow estimate, add to your to-do list, and so on. For me, the best part of Jott may be that I can send myself reminders for a specific date and time. I also like that I can send a message to an e-mail group (like my family or my Educational Administration faculty team).

The service is free. All you have to do is register your e-mail account and phone number. Check it out!

The more time we spend at our computers, the more importance we need to place on proper ergonomics. Prevent repetitive stress injuries, back pain, and eye strain by checking out the resources below. Your body will thank you for it.

Is your primary computing place ergonomically correct?

Ergonomic resources

• Ergotron – Make Your Workstation Fit You (see image above)
• UC-Irvine Ergonomic Review Tool
• CDC Computer Workstation Ergonomics
• CU Ergo (particularly the product and posture evaluations)
• UNC Office Ergonomics
• HealthyComputing

It is my great pleasure to announce that Dr. Chris Gareis and Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach are the recipients of the 2007 Technology Leadership Research Award. Here is the abstract from their co-authored article, Electronically Mentoring to Develop Accomplished Professional Teachers:

With nearly half of all new teachers leaving the classroom within five years, schools are faced with the challenge of retaining early-career teachers while simultaneously providing them with the support they need to develop into effective professionals. Mentoring novice teachers by pairing them with experienced teachers in schools is a widely adopted practice for addressing these needs; however, face-to-face mentoring is subject to challenges. A promising complement to face-to-face mentoring may be found in the innovative use of computer-mediated communications, such as online forums. In an effort to support, develop, and retain novice teachers, The College of William and Mary has partnered with the Center for Teacher Quality to create ENDAPT – Electronically Networking to Develop Accomplished Professional Teachers. ENDAPT is an asynchronous online forum that brings together novice teachers and teacher leaders in a virtual mentoring community. This article provides an overview of the program model and presents research findings from a study of participants’ postings using content analysis methodology to identify and describe the nature of professional conversations among mentors and novice teachers.

Although we can’t share the actual article with you (because it’s currently under review by a journal), Chris and Sheryl will be giving a presentation on their paper at the UCEA conference in November which we will try to make available to folks.

I would like to publicly thank the other practitioners and academics who took the time out of their extremely busy schedules to participate in the anonymous review process this year:

• Kurt Bernardo, Technology Coordinator, Orange City (OH) Schools; 2005 Ohio Technology Coordinator of the Year
• Dr. Jim Morrison, Editor-in-Chief, Innovate
• Dr. Chris Sessums, Director of Distance Education, University of Florida College of Education; Best Individual Blog, 2006 Edublog Awards
• Dr. Jon Voss, Coordinator, Northern Star Online (MN) Schooling Collaborative

The Technology Leadership Research Award is jointly sponsored by CASTLE and the UCEA School Technology Leadership Special Interest Group.

Kudos to Chris and Sheryl. I’m looking forward to the submissions for next year!

A few years ago I had the opportunity to do a behind-the-scenes tour of the National Archives. The sense of history was very palpable as we passed around the journals of Lewis and Clark, Sigmund Freud’s sketches, and the military telegram announcing the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Which sort of leads me to my topic for today: libraries. As the pictures below show, the world contains some beautiful pantheons of learning. Will they become dusty relics, set aside for gawking tourists? In our digital age, what will we do with these places that used to be national centers of learning? Fifty years from now, will the local town library have any relevance or purpose?

I’m sure that Doug Johnson, Carolyn Foote, and others have some thoughts…[click on pictures for larger images]

Trinity College, Dublin

Real Portuguese Cabinet of Reading, Rio de Janeiro

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Operation Chamber, Lower House, States-General, The Hague

British Library, London

Russian National Library, St. Petersburg

National Library of France, Paris

New York Public Library, New York City

Photo credits:

See this comment noting Candida Hofer for many of the photo credits

and also

• http://thenonist.com/index.php/thenonist/permalink/hot_library_smut/
• http://crystalking.wordpress.com/2007/09/11/library-love/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Library_of_Congress.jpg
• http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=419652947&size=l
• http://www.inepac.rj.gov.br/modules/Guia/images/Real%20gabinete%202.jpg
• http://www.sheilaomalley.com/archives/bodlein.jpg
• http://www.easternct.edu/personal/faculty/pocock/brmus.gif

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a great feature on Dr. Henry Jenkins, director of the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT. Too bad it's locked down so that most folks can't access it...

If you haven't yet read Convergence Culture, you should!

I received this question recently:

What resources (contacts, advisors, print, online, etc.) do you recommend to our school leaders - and lawyers - so they can make informed decisions about student access to social networking tools?

Anyone have any suggestions? Is there a place for current social networking tools in our students' education?

This is a screenshot of the page for AERA proposal reviewers. Can you find the link to download the proposal I'm supposed to review? (click on the image for a larger version)