Turkey Day

As we gear up for the holiday season, it does seem appropriate and right to have a day to step back and reflect on the things for which we are thankful and lucky. I'm lucky to have had a year of incredible learning and career growth, and to have made connections with so many old and new colleagues. I'm blessed with a healthy and happy family who are just fun to be around and spend time with. I'm extremely lucky to have great friends all around me, and a great support network.

Thanks.

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• Papercraft turkey dinner

New Book Idea

I think that Seamus and I are going to write a book together about the funny experiences he's had with his baby sister. We're thinking of calling it "Meatballs Don't Make Very Good Hats."

Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy

There are some really interesting ideas in this post:
Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy

Thing 8

As I was looking around at the education wiki spaces, I really did discover some exciting stuff. In the "Code Blue" 6th grade project, the links that the kids gathered for the body systems and code blue stuff were excellent--what a great aggregation of learning! The "School in the Past" site shows a great way to bridge the gap between generations and encourage active learning at the same time. And, finally, the "Kindergarten Counting Page" was simply inspirational for me, in that the page did not depend on textuality (which is key for that age group!) to achieve deep and real learning.

Thing 7a

I recently signed up for the "ISTE Recent News Feed" and really enjoyed the article from the CEO about digital teaching being "No Longer an Isolated Endeavor."

Thing 5

Although I have been signed up on Google Reader for some time now, the required feeds for class really contained some fantastic reads. The Students 2.0 blog give me so many great quotations for the upcoming Web 2.0 presentations. :)

I love this: Innovate or Die. The succinct, yet poignant style really struck me.

K12 Learning 2.0 Course Response

* What do you notice about the genre of blog writing in general? Blogging is very personal, and conversational in tone. The information almost always feels more real than other media formats.

* (How) is blog reading different from other types of reading? How is it similar? It's not so linear, and it's more interactive; however, most of the bloggers in this space do at least conform to most of the standard writing conventions, etc., so the reading feels familiar. :)

* How does commenting contribute to the writing and meaning-making? The ability to comment and respond is where we help create the content and become actively engaged with it. I think the ability to do so can encourage readers to read more carefully.

* Is there a "blogging literacy?" How does blogging affect the way we read and write? Not all blogs are worth reading, so we must be selective and critical in our reading styles in the blogosphere.

* (How) can blogging facilitate learning? The Math blog (scribe) page that we reviewed is a beautiful example of how user-created web pages can really encourage active learning. The expectation here is that each student will summarize a unit of learning for the rest of the class in the class blog, which puts an intense responsibility to not only engage with the topic, but to digest and regurgitate it. Beautiful.

NACOL KeepingPace 2007 Report

This is John Watson's most current "Keeping Pace" report. . .

KeepingPace07-color.pdf (application/pdf Object)

NACOL National Primer on K-12 Online Learning

This is a pretty extensive report put together by John Watson, Evergreen Consulting Associates:

national_report.pdf (application/pdf Object)

K-12_Online_Learning.pdf (application/pdf Object)

This is the Sloan-C Survey of U.S. School District Administrators from 2007, and "[t]he purpose of this study was to explore the nature of online learning in K–12 schools and to establish base data for more extensive future studies." Interesting stuff.

K-12_Online_Learning.pdf (application/pdf Object)

Hello World

Mobile post sent by petergunk using Utterz.  Replies.  mp3

New tool

I'm posting this blog to test the intense debate tool.

Voki

I added the "Voki" dynamic avatar (see right) to the blog today. I think it has some real potential classroom use.

Mar's day in Puerto Rico. Sheesh.

1. On my way to go hiking in el yunque rainforest.
2. Went swimming in a waterfall. Just beautiful.
3. Lunch at a little mountain shack. fried plantains stuffed with crab and pina coladas. Yum.

(extracted from three separate tweets from throughout the day)

Poster from May '68 Student Uprising in Paris

Interesting Slideshow

Universal Mccann International Social Media Research Wave 3

From: mickstravellin, 3 weeks ago

| View | Upload your own

This is the Social Media Research done by Universal Mccann including 17,000 people in 29 countries


SlideShare Link

Testing Twitterfeed

Although it seems like a waste of virtual space, I'm using this post to test the twitterfeed. . . :)

Irish Lent (author unkown)

An Irishman moves into a tiny hamlet in County Kerry, walks into the pub and promptly orders three pints. The bartender raises his eyebrows, but serves the man three pints, which he drinks quietly at a table, alone.

An hour later, the man has finished the three pints and orders three more. This happens yet again. The next evening the man again orders and drinks three pints at a time, several times. Soon the entire town is whispering about the Man Who Orders Three Pints.

Finally, a week later, the bartender broaches the subject on behalf of the town. "I don't mean to pry, but folks around here are wondering why you always order three pints?"

"Tis odd, isn't it?" the man replies. "You see, I have two brothers, and one went to America , and the other to Australia . We promised each other that we would always order an extra two pints whenever we drank as a way of keeping up the family bond."

The bartender and the whole town were pleased with this answer, and soon the Man Who Orders Three Pints became a local celebrity and source of pride to the hamlet, even to the extent that out-of-towners would come to watch him drink.

Then, one day, the man comes in and orders only two pints. The bartender pours them with a heavy heart. This continues for the rest of the evening. He orders only two pints. The word flies around town. Prayers are offered for the soul of one of the brothers.

The next day, the bartender says to the man, "Folks around here, me first of all, want to offer condolences to you for the death of your brother. You know--the two pints and all."

The man ponders this for a moment, then replies,"You'll be happy to hear that my two brothers are alive and well. It's just that I, meself, have decided to give up drinking for Lent."

Chicken Parts

I was told by a colleague today that he was disappointed that I hadn't posted about a chicken yet. Well, here's one.

52 Goals

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhmk7k5w_7d8r54bdn

Progress

Sam and I are solidly three song into the really real "for kids" unplugged punk rock project. Although there's a bit of the snail's pace feeling to this endeavor (we both work too much, so getting together proves tough), I think we're getting somewhere. Amee's ideas for the illustrations are good.

Catch a Lizard

A few days ago Seamus woke up in a meloncholy mood, and said that he had had a dream about Water Island. We then want and saw that "Mim" flick, and that propelled his desire to visit a far away island even further. I asked him what his favorite momory of the trip was, and he said that after hermet crab beach, his favorite memory was learning how to catch a lizard from the island kids. The big lesson that he learned was that you press down on the tails first, and then scoop them up. There's a metaphor there somewhere. . .

TweetStats :: for petergunk

I love the "cloud" option at the tweetstats site. TweetStats :: for petergunk

Amazon.com: Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web2.0 Technologies to Recruit, Organize and Engage Youth : Ben Rigby,Rock the Vote: Books

Amazon.com: Mobilizing Generation 2.0: A Practical Guide to Using Web2.0 Technologies to Recruit, Organize and Engage Youth : Ben Rigby,Rock the Vote: Books

Start of Gardening Season

I had a pleasant surprise this weekend as I was turning my compost after a long winter--the dirt is nice and dark and smells great. I'm ready for a fantastic spring.

Now that I know we're good to go, I look forward to getting Seamus' hands in the dirt. :)

Babies Don't Drink Coffee

Yup, Seamus is ready to write his first book, and apprantly it has a song to accompany the text. :) He told me that he'd have to wait until he was "six or eight" to start it, but I let him know that I'd be more than happy to consult. I think I'm going to push him to work on it tomorrow. . .

warm and toasty

networking or innovating?

I was in a conversation with a colleague from our IT department today, and I asked him whether he would prefer to use a wiki or a Google doc to collaborate on a creative project. He said that he had another, better, tool that he'd use. I asked him the cost of the tool, and he (surprisingly) said it was free ware; however, after some coaxing he did admit that you had to purchase a server to implement it. Although the kid that cracked the iPhone did have to initially purchase the device, it seems that the next generation of innovation will be found in innovation without big start-up costs. Or, maybe not. . .

Discovery (from Sunday the 30th)

I've been toiling with the conundrum of why it's been so tough to get myself started teachning lately, and I've come to the conclusion that after you've taugh a very static course for a very long time, the work begins to feel more like that of a professional grader than a fully functional teacher. Don't get me wrong, I thrive on the threads, but I think that I might need to mix it up a bit next term in the assignments.

Anyway, we did some shopping yesterday, and I spent much of the rest of the day onling finish up the week for classes.

The Gardens

We had a great day at the botanical gardens today--started with a visit to the children's section, and then had a nice picnic by the steep grassy area. I was inspired to begin the "digging area" project out by the play house, and had some real success with a couple of simple 2x8 boards. Seamus used his dollar to purchase some "strawberry popcorn seeds." They look neat.

What did I learn today?

I made some neat discoveries about the social networking site that our school has already launched, and am considered running a "Creative and Critical" thinking pilot this term. It's nice that I don't have to invent the proverbial wheel to give these ideas a shot.

hello world

OK, I'm not really a programmer, but this did seem to be the fittest title for the first entry. I'm currently working on some technology research stuff, partially influenced by some of the presentations that I viewed at the eCollege CiTE conference this week, and thought that it was about time that I made camp and set up shop online with my very own blog. I'd give a quotation from Elliot here about you and I going now, and being "etherized upon a table," but I suppose that you'd expect that, so I won't. See you online. . .