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“If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.” Rachel Carson, A Sense of Wonder

Make Social Media and Blended Learning Strategies as much a priority as traditional literacies.

insist that all teachers have a solid understanding of the tools, strategies, and pedagogies so that we can help kids navigate in these online social environments

how many educators are encouraged to teach with it, without fully understanding the tool itself, or grasping the research behind its use, or acknowledging the implications of its use (including safety)

forecasters have little ability to predict how intense future El Niño episodes will be. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) it is also near impossible to pinpoint the exact dates that El Niño will begin.

Within the next month more details regarding El Niño and when it will begin will become clearer.

90% chance of striking again this year

On Archinect, a discussion forum for architects, Peter Normand wondered what he could do to design spaces that reduced the chances of getting shot

One idea brought up by several speakers this year is a hybrid grades-free way of evaluating students. In each case, it included a high-bar pass/fail approach to class assignments, with a final, more regular grade for the entire semester. One of the speakers who presented what he called a “Not Yet” grade was “digital ethnographer” Michael Wesch, a professor at Kansas State University. That’s his photo at the top. He told the crowd that they had to inspire “wonder” in their students in order to get them to learn as much as possible. Some key quotes from him: “Low standards/high stakes are the opposite of what you want.”

Keynote speaker George Couros is a what’s called a “division principal” back home in Canada. He’s a blogger and author who is all about encouraging creativity and change in public education with an emphasis on taking advantage of digital tools. He told the conference that that it’s foolish to deny students use of their smartphones and other digital tools in the classroom — and even on exams. In 2015, being able to figure out what information is relevant is more important than memorization when most facts are a click away, he said.

While the eTextBooks initiative is a wonderful stride forward from our old paper textbooks it’s still essentially a re-constituted content delivery system that wasn’t designed or intended to change the one-way process of educational exchanges.