Dangerously Irrelevant

Schools that are interested in promoting innovation, science, technology,
engineering, and math are eligible to apply for one of Motorola’s Innovation
Generation Grants. Recipients can receive up to $100,000 and you can see what was funded last
year. The deadline for applications
is March 1. Good luck!

Just two days left to complete the 2008 Education Blogosphere Survey. We’re currently at 382 participants. Absent a last-minute deluge of responses, I don’t think we’ll make my revised goal of 500 respondents, but maybe we can tip over 400!

A HUGE THANKS to everyone who has participated and helped publicize the survey!

Deadline = January 26, 11:00pm, (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)

My latest higher education article for Technology &
Learning, Knowledge
Networks, is now available. The article draws deeply from my previous
blog posts, Linked,
Scholarship
2.0, and The
Future of Academic Publishing.

Here are a couple of quotes from
the article:

[T]he system [of academic writing] is fairly clunky. There aren’t easy ways
to tell who the [top scholars] are, nor are there ways to easily find hidden
nuggets of wisdom. . . . Tracking down a new resource from an existing article
or book also is difficult, since readers have to first find the publication
through trial-and-error searching of various databases and then either download
it or track down a print version. Much high-quality writing never sees the light
of day or isn’t cited by anyone because it’s not in the "right place." We can do
better. . . .

If we can figure out how to get beyond academic publishers’ revenue
protection concerns, the world’s body of scholarly research can be available to
anyone with an Internet connection. That’s a goal worth working
toward.

Happy reading!

I was recently cited in an Education Week
article, The
Knowledge Gap, that addressed the technology-related knowledge of school
leaders. The article echoes many of the themes from two of my articles last
year, The
Absence of Leadership and A
Responsibility for Asking the Right Questions.

Here’s the quote they pulled out as a highlight:

The people who are in charge of facilitating schools’ transition to the
digital global economy – superintendents and principals – are typically the
least knowledgeable about the digital global economy. It’s
scary.

Happy reading!

Here’s a short video of Seth Godin:

• Curious

Here’s the money quote:

For 7, 10, 15 years of school, you are required to not be curious. Over and
over and over again, the curious are punished.

P.S. Every educator (and other change agents) should see Seth’s speech at TED.

Three men who were willing to risk all for an important cause. How brave will we need to be to transition our schools into the 21st century? Are we willing to go all in?

Photo credits

• Martin Luther King, Jr. – Time Magazine
• Nelson Mandela – Paying The Bribe
• Mahatma Gandhi – MANAS

The second annual Education Blogosphere Survey ends on Saturday. If you have a holiday today, it’s a great time to complete the survey or publicize it to others!

We’re off to a good start. Last year 160 edubloggers participated. Right now the total is 307. It looks like we’ll make my goal of doubling last year’s participants. Dare I strive for 500?

Please use the link and/or the graphic and help spread the call for participants. Here’s the HTML code if you want to paste it on your blog / web site:

• 2008 Education Blogosphere Survey HTML code

As I noted in this year’s call for participation, you can see last year’s survey results to get a sense of how I’m going to report out this year.

A HUGE THANKS in advance to anyone and everyone who helps publicize this!

Deadline = January 26, 11:00pm, (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)

For those of you who are interested, here are some blogs that cover school law issues:

• At the Schoolhouse Gate
• The Edjurist Accord
• The School Law Blog
• School and Education Law Blog
• Education Law
• Texas Teacher Law
• Connecticut Education Law Blog

These blogs also often have posts related to school law topics:

• BoardBuzz
• Blog from the Capital

Here are a few special education law blogs:

• Special Education Law Blog (Charles Fox)
• Special Educaion Law Blog (Jim Gerl)
• The FAPE Page

And here is a higher education law blog:

• UnivAtty

Want to read all of these at once?

• See list of school law blogs
• Read all school law posts on a web page
• Subscribe to all school law posts via RSS
• Subscribe to all school law posts via e-mail
• Clip code (for web pages)
• Blogroll code (for blogs)

Let me know if you know of a school law blog I missed. I’ll add it to the feed!

One year ago: Gone Fischin’

Here are some new videos I have recently run across:

• Blogs in Plain English
• Online Photo Sharing in Plain English
• Google Docs in Plain English
• Having Our Say: Middle Grade Student Perspectives on School, Technologies, and Academic Engagement
  
• The Essay

The last one is very funny and also illustrates yet again the power of Web 2.0. elkedas added the link to the video on the Moving Forward Videos and Handouts wiki page. If I hadn't made that page publicly editable by anyone, and if she hadn't voluntarily taken the time to add the link, I probably never would have seen the video. Now I have a new resource for when I present (thanks, elkedas!).

These are the kinds of examples we need to give educators in order to help them see the power and potential of some of this technology stuff. Also, please remember that the Moving Forward wiki is intended to be a free resource for all of us who are trying to facilitate technology-related change in schools. If you've run across a great education-related blog / wiki / podcast / video / etc., please add your resources to the wiki so that we all can benefit, just like elkedas did. Thanks!

It’s time to name the next recipient of the crimson megaphone! This week I pick Scott Meech’s blog, Technology in Education isn’t the Future… It is the Present!, as one that I think deserves a bigger audience (DABA).

Here are a few posts (SMosts, Scott?) to get you started:

• Digital Citizenship – Modern Day Slavery?
• When Web 2.0 Tools go bad… Tonight at 10 PM on your local News Network.
• I am a teacher @#@#$%#%_#$% …. why doesn’t she listen to me and learn!
• Response to Gary Stager’s Rant Against
• The most important quality of a technology coordinator is…

Scott’s also a great commenter on others’ blogs and is very active in the Texas educational technology scene. Happy reading!

• See list of DABA blogs
• Read DABA posts on a web page
• Subscribe to DABA posts via RSS
• Subscribe to DABA posts via e-mail
• DABA clip code
• DABA blogroll code
• The Crimson Megaphone