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Gary Bertoia

Teaching Tools: Using Online Simulations and Games | Edutopia - 17 views

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    "Students who are passionate gamers can talk a blue streak about the virtual online worlds where they invest their free time and energy. Usually, of course, they get to play only when they're not at school. But why not bring gaming into the classroom? Could teachers tap that same passion to spark learning?"
Vicki Davis

Ninite - Install or Update Multiple Apps at Once - 10 views

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    This incredible website lets you pick all of the software you want and automatically says NO to toolbars and "junk" you don't want on the computer. I'm using it to make sure I have everything on the new computers I'm putting in at school. It is missing a few virtual world programs but overall it saves TONS of time! It even does updates! Works for Linux and PC.
yc c

The KDE Education Project - Marble - 0 views

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    Marble is a Virtual Globe and World Atlas that you can use to learn more about Earth: You can pan and zoom around and you can look up places and roads. A mouse click on a place label will provide the respective Wikipedia article.
Vicki Davis

ISTE Eduverse Talks: Join us for ISTE Eduverse Talks: Episode 5 - 0 views

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    Julie and I are excited about participating in the ISTE Eduverse Talks next Tuesday 5PM SLT. Here are the show details. Just think, if you come in, you can see HOW BAD I am at operating my avatar. (Actually, I don't think I"m as bad as I think, but my strength is definitely scripting.) Julie is having to get up at 2 am to make this happen but she is such an amazing dear -- she is doing it! We are SOOOOOO excited and hope you'll take a venture into SL to join us. We're so excited. Maybe you'll join us. If not, their blog will have the video and audio. Hey, and if you come, I"ll hang around afterwards -- would love to acquire some notecards about your projects. Let's post these in my office in the C.A.V.E. or any where else. When we talk about flattening, it is not just about these projects but all of the projects going on out there -- so share your notecard and we'll find a place to collect and share them all. HOpe to meet you soon! I'm CoolCat Whitman on Second Life (and ReactionGrid -- my favorite home for virtual worlds.)
Vicki Davis

ELT Techniques: LISTENING and PRONUNCIATION: Online Course - 4 views

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    Here's the page where you sign up for the MOOC. There are already 83 enrolled in the class. "ELT-T consists of virtual classes, collaborative work by participants, and social engagement around content. It is designed for anyone teaching children or adults, in large or small groups, and in public or private schools. It is also appropriate for teachers-in-training. Whether you are working part-time, full-time, or not at all, you'll find that ELT-T easily suits your schedule. You do NOT need to have special knowledge of technology to participate in this course. ELT-T is overseen by Jason R Levine (Fluency MC) with the help of Sylvia Guinan, Dr. Nellie Deutsch, and a team of passionate English teacher facilitators from around the world.   Course Presenters: Jack Askew of Teaching ESL Online Drew Badger of EnglishAnyone Sean Banville of Breaking News English Kip Boahn of Virtlantis Dr. Christel Broady of Georgetown College Mau Buchler of Tripppin Dr. Nellie Deutsch of IT4ALL and WizIQ Adir Ferreira of Transparent Language Charles Goodger of English FunSongs Sylvia Guinan of ESLbrain and WizIQ Tony Gurr of Momentum Learning Solutions Vicki Hollett of Simple English Videos Jennifer Lebedev of English with Jennifer Jason R. Levine of ColloLearn and WizIQ Paul Maglione of English Attack! Stephen Mayeux of ESLhiphop Justin Murray of Real Life English Carissa Peck of mELTing Activities Chuck Sandy of iTDi Rachel Smith of Rachel's English Shelly Sanchez Terrell of The 30 Goals Challenge for Educators Teresa Hecht Valais of University of Dayton Center for Intl. Programs Andrew Weiler of Strategies in Language Learning Jason West of English Out There"
Vicki Davis

ASCD - 0 views

  • first 60 seconds of your presentation is
    • Vicki Davis
       
      How many of us emphasize the first 60 seconds of a presentation students give?
  • Summers and other leaders from various companies were not necessarily complaining about young people's poor grammar, punctuation, or spelling—the things we spend so much time teaching and testing in our schools
  • the complaints I heard most frequently were about fuzzy thinking and young people not knowing how to write with a real voice.
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  • Employees in the 21st century have to manage an astronomical amount of information daily.
  • There is so much information available that it is almost too much, and if people aren't prepared to process the information effectively it almost freezes them in their steps.”
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Buidling a PLN using an RSS Reader is ESSENTIAL to managing information. THis is part of what I teach and do and so important!
  • rapidly the information is changing.
  • half-life of knowledge in the humanities is 10 years, and in math and science, it's only two or three years
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Personal learning networks and RSS readers ARE a HUGE issue here. We need to be customing portals and helping students manage information.
  • “People who've learned to ask great questions and have learned to be inquisitive are the ones who move the fastest in our environment because they solve the biggest problems in ways that have the most impact on innovation.”
    • Vicki Davis
       
      How do we reward students who question teachers -- not their authority but WHAT They are teaching? Do we reward students who question? Who inquire? Who theorize? Or do we spit them out and punish them? I don't know... I'm questioning.
  • want unique products and services:
  • developing young people's capacities for imagination, creativity, and empathy will be increasingly important for maintaining the United States' competitive advantage in the future.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      IN a typical year, how often are your students asked to invent something from scratch?
  • The three look at one another blankly, and the student who has been doing all the speaking looks at me and shrugs.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      When teachers tell students WHY withouth making them investigate, then we are denying them a learning opportunity. STOP BEING THE SAGE ON THE STAGE!.
  • The test contains 80 multiple-choice questions related to the functions and branches of the federal government.
  • Let me tell you how to answer this one
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Drill and test is what we've made. Mindless robots is what we'll reap. What are we doing?
  • reading from her notes,
  • Each group will try to develop at least two different ways to solve this problem. After all the groups have finished, I'll randomly choose someone from each group who will write one of your proofs on the board, and I'll ask that person to explain the process your group used.”
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Every time I do a team project, the "random selection" is part of it. Randomly select -- classtools.net has a random name generator -- great tool - and it adds randomness to it.
  • a lesson in which students are learning a number of the seven survival skills while also mastering academic content?
  • students are given a complex, multi-step problem that is different from any they've seen in the past
  • how the group solved the problem, each student in every group is held accountable.
  • ncreasingly, there is only one curriculum: test prep. Of the hundreds of classes that I've observed in recent years, fewer than 1 in 20 were engaged in instruction designed to teach students to think instead of merely drilling for the test.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Not in my class, but in many classes - yes. I wonder how I'd teach differently if someone made me have a master "test" for my students at the end of the year. I'd be teaching to the test b/c I"m a type "A" driven to succeed kind of person. Beware what you measure lest that determine how you grow.
  • . It is working with colleagues to ensure that all students master the skills they need to succeed as lifelong learners, workers, and citizens.
  • I have yet to talk to a recent graduate, college teacher, community leader, or business leader who said that not knowing enough academic content was a problem.
  • critical thinking, communication skills, and collaboration.
  • seven survival skills every day, at every grade level, and in every class.
  • College and Work Readiness Assessment (www.cae.org)—that measure students' analytic-reasoning, critical-thinking, problem-solving, and writing skills.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Would like to look more at this test, however, also doing massive global collaborative projects requiring higher order thinking is something that is helpful, I think.
  • 2. Collaboration and Leadership
  • 3. Agility and Adaptability
  • Today's students need to master seven survival skills to thrive in the new world of work.
  • 4. Initiative and Entrepreneurialism
  • 6. Accessing and Analyzing Information
  • 7. Curiosity and Imagination
  • I conducted research beginning with conversations with several hundred business, nonprofit, philanthropic, and education leaders. With a clearer picture of the skills young people need, I then set out to learn whether U.S. schools are teaching and testing the skills that matter most.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Background on the research done by Tony Wagner.
  • “First and foremost, I look for someone who asks good questions,” Parker responded. “We can teach them the technical stuff, but we can't teach them how to ask good questions—how to think.”
    • Vicki Davis
       
      This is a great aspect of project based learning. Although when we allow students to have individual research topics, some teachers are frustrated because they cannot "can" their approach (especially tough if the class sizes are TOO LARGE,) students in this environment CAN and MUST ask individualized questions. This is TOUGH to do as the students who haven't developed critical thinking skills, whether because their parents have done their tough work for them (like writing their papers) or teachers have always given answers because they couldn't stand to see the student struggle -- sometimes tough love means the teacher DOESN'T give the child the answer -- as long as they are encouraged just enough to keep them going.
  • “I want people who can engage in good discussion—who can look me in the eye and have a give and take. All of our work is done in teams. You have to know how to work well with other
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Last Saturday, my son met Bill Curry, a football coach and player that he respects. Just before meeting him, my husband reviewed with my son how to meet people. HE told my son, "Look the man in his eyes and let him know your hand is there!" After shaking his hand, as Mr. Curry was signing my son's book, he said, "That is quite a handshake, son, someone has taught you well." Yes -- shaking hands and looking a person in the eye are important and must be taught. This is an essential thing to come from parents AND teachers -- I teach this with my juniors and seniors when we write resumes.
  • how to engage customers
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Engagi ng customers requires that a person stops thinking about their own selfish needs and looks at things through the eyes of the customer!!! The classic issue in marketing is that people think they are marketing to themselves. This happens over and over. Role playing, virtual worlds, and many other experiences can give people a chance to look at things through the eyes of others. I see this happen on the Ning of our projects all the time.
  • the world of work has changed profoundly.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Work has changed, school hasn't. In fact, I would argue that schools are more industrial age than ever with testing and manufacturing of common knowledge (which is often outdated by the time the test is given) at an all time high. Let them create!
  • Over and over, executives told me that the heart of critical thinking and problem solving is the ability to ask the right questions. As one senior executive from Dell said, “Yesterday's answers won't solve today's problems.”
    • Vicki Davis
       
      We give students our critical questions -- how often do we let them ask the questions.
  • I say to my employees, if you try five things and get all five of them right, you may be failing. If you try 10 things, and get eight of them right, you're a hero. You'll never be blamed for failing to reach a stretch goal, but you will be blamed for not trying.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      If our students get eight out of 10 right, they are a low "B" student. Do we have projects where students can experiement and fail without "ruining their lives." Can they venture out and try new, risky things?
  • risk aversion
    • Vicki Davis
       
      He says risk aversion is a problem in companies -- YES it is. Although upper management SAYS they want people willing to take risks -- from my experience in the corporate world, what they SAY and what they REWARD are two different things, just ask a wall street broker who took a risky investment and lost money.
Ruth Howard

High Scalability - High Scalability - The Amazing Collective Compute Power of the Ambient Cloud - 4 views

  • Earlier we talked about how a single botnet could harness more compute power than our largest super computers. Well, that's just the start of it. The amount of computer power available to the Ambient Cloud will be truly astounding.
  • By 2014 one estimate is there will be 2 billion PCs. That's a giant reservoir of power to exploit, especially considering these new boxes are stuffed with multiple powerful processors and gigabytes of memory. 7 Billion Smartphones By now it's common wisdom smartphones are the computing platform of the future. It's plausible to assume the total number of mobile phones in use will roughly equal the number of people on earth. That's 7 billion smartphones. Smartphones aren't just tiny little wannabe computers anymore either. They are real computers and are getting more capable all the time.
  • One Google exec estimates that in 12 years an iPod will be able to store all the video ever produced.
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  • But all the compute power in the world is of little use if the cores can't talk to each other.
  • Inductive chargers will also make it easier to continually charge devices. Nokia is working on wireless charging. And devices will start harvesting energy from the surroundings. So it looks like the revolution will be fully powered.
  • . Literally billions of dollars are being invested into developing a giant sensor grids to manage power. Other grids will be set up for water, climate, pollution, terrorist attacks, traffic, and virtually everything else you can think to measure and control.
  • . Others predict the smart grid could be 1,000 times larger than the Internet.
  • Clearly this technology has obvious health and medical uses, and it may also figure into consumer and personal entertainment.
  • What if instead smartphones become the cloud?
  • In the future compute capacity will be everywhere. This is one of the amazing gifts of computer technology and also why virtualization has become such a hot datacenter trend.
  • It's out of that collective capacity that an Ambient Cloud can be formed, like a galaxy is formed from interstellar dust. We need to find a more systematic way of putting it to good use.
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    digital citizenship headed for the clouds...
J Black

WorldWide Telescope - 0 views

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    New World Wide Telescope from Microsoft. Another alternative to Google Sky - it looks pretty cool.
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    An alternative to google sky, this is a world wide telescope from Microsoft.
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    World Wide Telescope allows your computer to function as a virtual telescope. Includes guided tours of the stars.
Vicki Davis

In English-Crazy China, 8D World Teaches Kids To Speak In Virtual Worlds; Lands A Deal With CCTV - 7 views

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    MAjor innovations in Language Learning are happening in the form of some of the first and best edu-gaming sites. This site is paid for by parents and uses voice feedback to let students "level up."
Adrienne Michetti

Why Women Still Can't Have It All - www.theatlantic.com - Readability - 7 views

  • Just about all of the women in that room planned to combine careers and family in some way. But almost all assumed and accepted that they would have to make compromises that the men in their lives were far less likely to have to make.
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      and this is what bothers me. SO MUCH.
  • when many members of the younger generation have stopped listening, on the grounds that glibly repeating “you can have it all” is simply airbrushing reality, it is time to talk.
  • I still strongly believe that women can “have it all” (and that men can too). I believe that we can “have it all at the same time.” But not today, not with the way America’s economy and society are currently structured. My experiences over the past three years have forced me to confront a number of uncomfortable facts that need to be widely acknowledged—and quickly changed.
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  • I had the ability to set my own schedule most of the time. I could be with my kids when I needed to be, and still get the work done.
  • the minute I found myself in a job that is typical for the vast majority of working women (and men), working long hours on someone else’s schedule, I could no longer be both the parent and the professional I wanted to be
  • having it all, at least for me, depended almost entirely on what type of job I had.
  • having it all was not possible in many types of jobs, including high government office—at least not for very long.
  • “Having control over your schedule is the only way that women who want to have a career and a family can make it work.”
  • Yet the decision to step down from a position of power—to value family over professional advancement, even for a time—is directly at odds with the prevailing social pressures on career professionals in the United States.
  • “leaving to spend time with your family” is a euphemism for being fired.
  • Think about what this “standard Washington excuse” implies: it is so unthinkable that an official would actually step down to spend time with his or her family that this must be a cover for something else.
  • it cannot change unless top women speak out.
  • Both were very clear that they did not want that life, but could not figure out how to combine professional success and satisfaction with a real commitment to family.
  • many of us are also reinforcing a falsehood: that “having it all” is, more than anything, a function of personal determination.
  • there has been very little honest discussion among women of our age about the real barriers and flaws that still exist in the system despite the opportunities we inherited.
  • But we have choices about the type and tempo of the work we do. We are the women who could be leading, and who should be equally represented in the leadership ranks.
  • women are less happy today than their predecessors were in 1972, both in absolute terms and relative to men.
  • The best hope for improving the lot of all women, and for closing what Wolfers and Stevenson call a “new gender gap”—measured by well-being rather than wages—is to close the leadership gap:
  • Only when women wield power in sufficient numbers will we create a society that genuinely works for all women. That will be a society that works for everyone.
  • We must clear them out of the way to make room for a more honest and productive discussion about real solutions to the problems faced by professional women.
  • These women cannot possibly be the standard against which even very talented professional women should measure themselves. Such a standard sets up most women for a sense of failure
  • A simple measure is how many women in top positions have children compared with their male colleagues.
  • Every male Supreme Court justice has a family. Two of the three female justices are single with no children.
  • women hold fewer than 30 percent of the senior foreign-policy positions in each of these institutions.
  • “You know what would help the vast majority of women with work/family balance? MAKE SCHOOL SCHEDULES MATCH WORK SCHEDULES.” The present system, she noted, is based on a society that no longer exists—one in which farming was a major occupation and stay-at-home moms were the norm. Yet the system hasn’t changed.
  • “Inflexible schedules, unrelenting travel, and constant pressure to be in the office are common features of these jobs.”
  • I would hope to see commencement speeches that finger America’s social and business policies, rather than women’s level of ambition, in explaining the dearth of women at the top. But changing these policies requires much more than speeches. It means fighting the mundane battles—every day, every year—in individual workplaces, in legislatures, and in the media.
  • assumes that most women will feel as comfortable as men do about being away from their children, as long as their partner is home with them. In my experience, that is simply not the case.
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      This is fascinating. Really. 
  • I do not believe fathers love their children any less than mothers do, but men do seem more likely to choose their job at a cost to their family, while women seem more likely to choose their family at a cost to their job.
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      This. This is SO TRUE. I think this is the same.
  • To many men, however, the choice to spend more time with their children, instead of working long hours on issues that affect many lives, seems selfish.
  • It is not clear to me that this ethical framework makes sense for society. Why should we want leaders who fall short on personal responsibilities?
  • Regardless, it is clear which set of choices society values more today. Workers who put their careers first are typically rewarded; workers who choose their families are overlooked, disbelieved, or accused of unprofessionalism.
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      This disconnect has ALWAYS bothered me. SO MUCH.
  • having a supportive mate may well be a necessary condition if women are to have it all, but it is not sufficient
  • Ultimately, it is society that must change, coming to value choices to put family ahead of work just as much as those to put work ahead of family. If we really valued those choices, we would value the people who make them; if we valued the people who make them, we would do everything possible to hire and retain them; if we did everything possible to allow them to combine work and family equally over time, then the choices would get a lot easier.
  • Given the way our work culture is oriented today, I recommend establishing yourself in your career first but still trying to have kids before you are 35—or else freeze your eggs, whether you are married or not.
  • But the truth is, neither sequence is optimal, and both involve trade-offs that men do not have to make.
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      exactly this -- men do not have to make this choice. Thus, it will always be unequal.
  • You should be able to have a family if you want one—however and whenever your life circumstances allow—and still have the career you desire.
  • If more women could strike this balance, more women would reach leadership positions. And if more women were in leadership positions, they could make it easier for more women to stay in the workforce. The rest of this essay details how.
  • I have to admit that my assumption that I would stay late made me much less efficient over the course of the day than I might have been, and certainly less so than some of my colleagues, who managed to get the same amount of work done and go home at a decent hour.
  • Still, armed with e-mail, instant messaging, phones, and videoconferencing technology, we should be able to move to a culture where the office is a base of operations more than the required locus of work.
  • Being able to work from home—in the evening after children are put to bed, or during their sick days or snow days, and at least some of the time on weekends—can be the key, for mothers, to carrying your full load versus letting a team down at crucial moments.
  • Changes in default office rules should not advantage parents over other workers; indeed, done right, they can improve relations among co-workers by raising their awareness of each other’s circumstances and instilling a sense of fairness.
  • The policy was shaped by the belief that giving women “special treatment” can “backfire if the broader norms shaping the behavior of all employees do not change.”
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      This is so progressive.
  • Our assumptions are just that: things we believe that are not necessarily so. Yet what we assume has an enormous impact on our perceptions and responses. Fortunately, changing our assumptions is up to us.
  • One of the best ways to move social norms in this direction is to choose and celebrate different role models.
  • If we didn’t start to learn how to integrate our personal, social, and professional lives, we were about five years away from morphing into the angry woman on the other side of a mahogany desk who questions her staff’s work ethic after standard 12-hour workdays, before heading home to eat moo shoo pork in her lonely apartment.
    • Adrienne Michetti
       
      UGH.
  • Women have contributed to the fetish of the one-dimensional life, albeit by necessity. The pioneer generation of feminists walled off their personal lives from their professional personas to ensure that they could never be discriminated against for a lack of commitment to their work.
  • It seems odd to me to list degrees, awards, positions, and interests and not include the dimension of my life that is most important to me—and takes an enormous amount of my time.
  • when my entire purpose is to make family references routine and normal in professional life.
  • This does not mean that you should insist that your colleagues spend time cooing over pictures of your baby or listening to the prodigious accomplishments of your kindergartner. It does mean that if you are late coming in one week, because it is your turn to drive the kids to school, that you be honest about what you are doing.
  • Seeking out a more balanced life is not a women’s issue; balance would be better for us all.
  • Indeed, the most frequent reaction I get in putting forth these ideas is that when the choice is whether to hire a man who will work whenever and wherever needed, or a woman who needs more flexibility, choosing the man will add more value to the company.
  • In 2011, a study on flexibility in the workplace by Ellen Galinsky, Kelly Sakai, and Tyler Wigton of the Families and Work Institute showed that increased flexibility correlates positively with job engagement, job satisfaction, employee retention, and employee health.
  • Other scholars have concluded that good family policies attract better talent, which in turn raises productivity, but that the policies themselves have no impact on productivity.
  • What is evident, however, is that many firms that recruit and train well-educated professional women are aware that when a woman leaves because of bad work-family balance, they are losing the money and time they invested in her.
  • The answer—already being deployed in different corners of the industry—is a combination of alternative fee structures, virtual firms, women-owned firms, and the outsourcing of discrete legal jobs to other jurisdictions.
  • Women, and Generation X and Y lawyers more generally, are pushing for these changes on the supply side; clients determined to reduce legal fees and increase flexible service are pulling on the demand side. Slowly, change is happening.
  • In trying to address these issues, some firms are finding out that women’s ways of working may just be better ways of working, for employees and clients alike.
  • “We believe that connecting play and imagination may be the single most important step in unleashing the new culture of learning.”
  • “Genius is nothing more nor less than childhood recovered at will.” Google apparently has taken note.
  • the more often people with different perspectives come together, the more likely creative ideas are to emerge. Giving workers the ability to integrate their non-work lives with their work—whether they spend that time mothering or marathoning—will open the door to a much wider range of influences and ideas.
  • Men have, of course, become much more involved parents over the past couple of decades, and that, too, suggests broad support for big changes in the way we balance work and family.
  • women would do well to frame work-family balance in terms of the broader social and economic issues that affect both women and men.
  • These women are extraordinary role models.
  • Yet I also want a world in which, in Lisa Jackson’s words, “to be a strong woman, you don’t have to give up on the things that define you as a woman.”
  • “Empowering yourself,” Jackson said in her speech at Princeton, “doesn’t have to mean rejecting motherhood, or eliminating the nurturing or feminine aspects of who you are.”
  • But now is the time to revisit the assumption that women must rush to adapt to the “man’s world” that our mothers and mentors warned us about.
  • If women are ever to achieve real equality as leaders, then we have to stop accepting male behavior and male choices as the default and the ideal.
  • We must insist on changing social policies and bending career tracks to accommodate our choices, too. We have the power to do it if we decide to, and we have many men standing beside us.
  • But when we do, we will stop talking about whether women can have it all.
Sandy Kendell

Online Learning in the Traditional Classroom | Edutopia - 8 views

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    A little village of providers of free online lessons is sprouting up. Many are video-based; all are free. MIT's OpenCourseWare helped launch this effort in 2001 and now offers 1,900 full, free courses online. The idea, simply and democratically, is to use the power of the Web to spread knowledge around the world.
Vicki Davis

Blogger: Cool Cat Teacher Blog - Post a Comment - 0 views

  • I don't feel that any of the names mentioned act or feel like they are better than me and have even included me on many conversations
    • Vicki Davis
       
      This blogger is a good example of someone who has jumped in with all 10 fingers and gotten to know a lot of neat people. As a relative newcomer, loonyhiker knows a lot of people. Newcomers just need to "jump in!"
  • I do love when you say, "if one person reads our blog and get something out of it.. it is important." I try to keep that in mind all the time. Numbers don't matter..people do.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Remembering each reader as an invidual is a vital thing about blogging.
  • Lisa Parisi
  • ...66 more annotations...
  • As far as the ego thing goes who cares. Your blog's this mine is that. Whoopdy do! If you're learning and growing your PLN that is what counts.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      I love Charlie's perspective on this.
  • Charlie A. Roy said.
  • I feel similar frustration. If the point is about learning than reading and commenting is a great way to add to our own creative potential.
  • Tennessee
  • Great response to a burning question/statement that most of us (well probably all of us)feel at one time or another.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      I find tennessee's comment interesting. What is the "burning" question? Do we matter? Is anyone else really out there? Is Internet realilty -- REAL reality. We are grappling with this and just now realizing that there is an emotional thing going on with it all!
  • Many of the people that I have learned the most from are not the ones involved in the "cocktail party" but rather those in the trenches doing what I love to do each and every day, just like you!
    • Vicki Davis
       
      He has an important point -- if you're only reading the uber-popular bloggers -- you're missing the point of the blogosphere. I make it a point to find some newcomers. To me, it is like a game, I want to find new people doing great things and encourage them like so many greats like David Warlick, Darren Kuropatwa, Ewan McIntosh, and more did for me when I started.
  • agree that developing a readership takes time.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Many educators don't know the number of readers they have b/c they don't use the right tools -- I recommend consolidating to ONE feedburner feed. It just makes sense.
  • Carolyn Foote
  • Scott McLeod
  • Re: the depressing aspects of 'comment intensity,' I actually meant it to be an affirming post rather than a depressing one
  • I think that the comment intensity idea is important in this respect: I often see laments from bloggers that they don't get many comments on their posts. What the table above shows is that even those of us who are fortunate enough to have large readerships often don't get many comments. My personal median over the past 20 posts, even WITH the big spike of 89, is still only 2.5. Ewan, your blog and Vicki Davis' are similar. The point is that many, many posts don't get a lot of comments, even those by the more widely read bloggers.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      It could be encouraging for some -- for me it made me feel like I had another thing to count! Although, I see Scott's point -- his article wasn't written for me!
  • tom said...
  • Thanks for bringing this up. This has been an issue for me personally as well. OK, so nobody's IN, but the (pseudo?) community nature of blogging makes it feel that way.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Tom is right -- we all feel this way! I think the feeling of looking in on the blogosphere is one of feeling "out" looking in -- for all of us!
  • But, like other artists, we have to work a little every day whether we feel like it or not, and whether we get validation that day or not.
  • I think many of us are working at blogging because there's an element of self improvement, which implies self evaluation. Without feedback from others it's easy to be hard on ourselves.
  • Christopher D. Sessums
  • For me, the conversation is hardly closed; it is simply a matter of having something to say, something to share.The emotional commitment is another aspect of the conversation that is easily glossed over.
  • MIke Sansone
  • I've found (both with myself and those educators I've worked with in their blogging starts) that the edublogosphere is open and welcoming -- but as we engage in any cultural group (even offline), patience really is a key.Still, we sometimes measure our success by the interaction from those we look up to (esp. teachers - many of whom were probably the best students in their class, yes?)
  • Sometimes we don't see the comments -- because the talk happens offline.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      This is a very important point and one to remember -- the "quiet" audience online may be a very vocal audience offline.
  • Britt
  • I get very few comments on my blog but see through the clustermaps that I have readers each and every day, so continue to feel that the blog is benefiting me through reflection and may even be benefiting others as well.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      This is why having a statcounter or clustrmap is SO very important -- it helps you understand traffic and audience!
  • atruger
  • I NEVER get to share tools I discover because someone ALWAYS beats me to the punch...but I am ok with that.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      But you should share ANYWAY! -- we're not people breaking news -- we're talking about what we USE. So, talk and share!
  • I truly connect with what you write even though I am one of "those" people who reads but rarely comments. YOU do make a difference and so do I!
    • Vicki Davis
       
      These comments mean so much to me!
  • Bego said...
  • the whole cocktail party analogy is just a grown up version of the kickball line-up in elementary school.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      I was always picked last there -- whew this analogy hits me close to home. I was always picked last b/c I was the worst. Even the worst kickball player needs to feel encouraged and not destroyed for getting up and kicking the ball. Even the "worst" blogger - if there is such a thing -- needs to feel encouraged sometimes too just for blogging.
  • In the blog world, change is effected by good content, and while good content isn't always noticed at first, it does eventually get a respectable position--sometimes because the cocktail group points them out.
  • How could I think to be in the same boat as John Scalzi who started in 1998 if I've only been blogging since 2007?
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Remember this -- I've been blogging just over 2 years. Strange things can happen -- consistent creation of meaningful content is important.
  • I found your blog, Vicki, because a project you do for Atomic Learning mentioned you, and your name is on the movies they use.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      I did the Web 2.0 workshop for atomic learning and many have found my blog -- actually I had to use a source that I had permission to use!!! ;-)
  • jeanette tranberg
  • 2005 - you were the only ones out there to follow
    • Vicki Davis
       
      lol -- I started blogging in December of 2005 and had about 7 followers until mid 2006 -- but there are many who think I've been around forever!
  • Oh yes, I have felt the cocktail chill at times. I'm a norwegian edublogger, that have been following your brunks (blogdrunks) for a while. To start with - in
  • Wes told me once I twittered, that nobody should twitter alone and I could not agree more - so I don't.
  • So, from the outer side looking in: Anybody stopping by in Second Life tonight (which is today for you) for a virtual edu cocktail?I'm aka Kita Coage at Eduisland II, waiting to cocktail connect with you c",)
  • Paul Hamilton
  • For most of us, blogging is very much a personal venture.
  • I suspect that we all have a deep desire to be heard and to be accepted. The longer I'm involved in the edublogosphere, however, the more impressed and encouraged I am by the level of acceptance that there is here. It is a good thing that we don't always agree with each other. Disagreement is often at the heart of constructive conversation
  • At the same time, we are no different than the kids in our classrooms. We educators need to know that we will be accepted, no matter what we have to say and no matter how well we are able to express it. I think we help to make the edublogosphere a "safe place" for each other as we try to keep it positive and as we take advantage of the numerous opportunities to be affirming.
  • Jim Dornberg said.
  • I don't at all feel excluded from the blog "cocktail party", because just like a real cocktail party, I am drawn to the people who have something important, and engaging to say and I am content to listen and learn from them. I have seen a few of the "big names" at conferences, and even met a few of them in person. I have emailed several of them and others, or left an occasional comment, and I have been very pleasantly surprised at the thoughtful responses I have received.
  • I read many blogs, but comment rarely, and I suspect that those who read my blog do the same. So I don't feel at all excluded. I'm just happy to occasionally be part of the conversation.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Many people feel this way -- just happy to be a part of the occasional conversation.
  • Alfred Thompson
  • When I was at EduBloggerCon last spring I felt quite the outsider. There were famous people there and I was unknown. I still feel that way in the broad edublogsphere. But honestly the broad sphere is not who I am blogging for. I blog for a niche - computer science teachers. The event for that niche is SIGCSE and there I (blush) feel a bit like a star. Few of the people there know the edubloggers with much larger readership or Technorati ranks. And really reaching the CS teachers is my goal not reaching everyone who teaches general subjects.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Knowing your audience is very important.
  • There is, I believe, room for more at the top if only because the number of teachers reading blogs is still very small but we all hope it is growing. We are still at the ground floor. That makes edublogging different from tech blogging I think.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Alfred thompson is right on the money!
  • Jason Bengs
  • I think we need to all remember our focus for blogging. Mine is for reflection. I use my blog as a tool to improve my teaching. If others start to read and can learn from it, great. To my knowledge I am the only one seeing my blog right now. Which is fine with me. I don't think blogging should be a popularity contest and having a large number of readers is great, it must mean that you, and others, have something to offer that others want to emulate.
  • prof v said
  • I think you could have added three additional points. First, a suggestion on how to increase readership. I think new bloggers (myself included) are still trying to figure out how to make the connections that allow for conversations within blogs. I go back to your list of 10 tips for successful blogging, and still find things I never noticed before
  • would love to see an updated list that perhaps would include how to make sure your blog is part of an RSS feed and how to set up subscriptions for potential readers to make it easy for them to subscribe to your blog.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      If you go to my blog and search for feedburner -- that is what I use -- I've written several posts on that. I'll have to update the original 10 habits. perhaps I'll do that soon!
  • I think even you have realized that it is more difficult to break into the edublogger field as there is now so many new bloggers (just in the last two years).
    • Vicki Davis
       
      I don't know -- I've seen some newcomers like Darren Draper jump into the blogosphere pretty quickly -- it is about getting involved in the conversation, which is easier now with twitter and webcasts at edtechtalk. Good conversationalists rise to the top.
  • Finally, I am surprised that you did not point out how you have helped new bloggers by both asking for new voices and then publishing them in your own blog. I think this is an indication that you are trying to open up the "party".
    • Vicki Davis
       
      I always let my readers defend me. I'm not perfect, none of us. We also don't have unlimited time... so I have to do the best I can.
  • Dean Shareski
  • Isn't the whole point of web 2.0 is that it exudes democracy and equality? Those that get all concerned about rankings and ratings are, as you've suggested missing the point.
    • Vicki Davis
       
      Dean has got it right here.
  • We often quickly want to find ways of ranking. Reminds me of the evils of current assessment practices. We tell kids to do their best and work on improving performance and yet continue to use ranking systems that is clearly a mixed message.
  • Anonymous said.
  • I'm new to this world as of Monday...yes, 4 days of immersing myself in as much ed. tech, web 2.0, online collaboration "stuff" that I can. (thanks to Lisa Thumman at Rutgers U.) Cocktail party or not, your blog and the comments people have left have increased my list of people to follow. Even a discussion about "being on the outside" has led me to the "inside". I'm thrilled to be in the company of such great minds and promise to start contributing once I wrap my brain around it all! Thanks to everyone for sharing! cmtvarok
    • Vicki Davis
       
      A 4 day old newcomer to the edublogosphere comments.. what an amazing linkage of conversation! Wow! Older, newer, very new. Wow!
  • Mrs. V.
  • thanks for coaxing me out of my blogger drought!
    • Vicki Davis
       
      She wrote a great post!
  • Vicki A. Davis
  • I believe that this "post" has been made stronger by the comments, which have added to the post greater depth of meaning.
  • All over this conversation I see the change in society. We are all going through the emotions of becoming accustomed to something new... kind of like I first experienced when the Internet first came out.
  • And while, when I began blogging, I didn't really set my sights or aim for a large readership... now that it is here, I will seriously consider and appreciate each individual reader and take my job seriously
  • @tennessee -- Those in the trenches are my most important reads... I just wish there were more of us. It seems as if many teachers view blogging as a way out of the classroom when they should see it as a way to improve the classroom!
  • @scottmcleod - I believe the comment intensity is highly correlated to controversiality AND immediacy. If a lot of people SAW someone recently, they want to interact and comment (immediacy.) If someone says something very emotional or controversial, people want to comment and interact (controversiality.) While I guess looking at these stats are fine, I've found in my very short time blogging that looking too much at numbers of any kind removes my focus from what is important. When I focus intently on conversation, my blog traffic and numbers just grow. I always say "whatever is watered, grows." If I water my investigation of stats, I become a good statistician... if I water my blog but also commenting and participating in the blogosphere as a WHOLE, I become a good blogger. I'd rather be the latter. And while the post was meant to be encouraging... I have to admit I'm a competitive perfectionist and always have to reign in that aspect of my nature.
  • @christophersessums - I think the emotional nature of something is like the proverbial elephant in the Net -- it is there. It always stuns me the number of people who discuss their feelings on this when it comes up... it means that many of us are experiencing the same thing.
anonymous

Woogi World - Teaching kids Internet safety, life values, and fun! - 2 views

  •  
    Amanda Stone and the teachers in Hoover City use this to teach internet safety. They have to pass certain courses. The teachers set up the student accounts and the teachers manage their own classroom -- controlling their buddy lists and everything. The teachers connect w/ their students on the weekends and off times w/ their kids. Great entry to a virtual world!!! It bans them if they do innappropriate things -- so their goal for 5th grade is to get zero bans for the year. The teacher can control it. Each student have their own woogie -- eg. Davisteacher would be me -- my students would be davis1 davis2, etc. Pretty cool.
  •  
    Great place to teach digital citizenship, highly recommended by Amanda Stone, instructional technology coach in Hoover City, AL.
  •  
    This is fantastic!
Michelle DeSilva

Virtual field trip - 0 views

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    WITH AN INTERNET CONNECTION, STUDENTS CAN TRAVEL AROUND THE WORLD RIGHT IN YOUR CLASSROOM. SO BUCKLE UP YOUR SEATBELT, AND TAKE YOUR STUDENTS ALONG FOR AN EXCITING RIDE!
Clif Mims

Shidonni World- virtual pets drawings come to life - 0 views

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    This is a kid friendly website where kids can make drawings come to life. This site could be integrated in the following ways: --Preschool
Vicki Davis

The comment that became a post | Do U C What I C - 0 views

  • it’s lonely outside the box
  • for the most part, we are all just trying to soak it up and learn from each other.
  • I don’t think you can take anything here in this world of virtual connections too seriously, or you’ll lose sight of the real reason we are all out here doing this.
  •  
    Another reflection from a blogger -- I love this quote, "It's lonely outside the box!" It has been very insightful to share information on how people of all types feel about the edublogosphere.
  •  
    Interesting reflections on how edubloggers feel about the whole thing.
Dean Mantz

Edusim - Inventing the future, one classroom at a time - 0 views

  •  
    Here is an open source education software package from Greenbush. It is a virtual world environment that is to be used on interactive boards. A major advantage is the application permits collaboration among those using the software regardless of location.
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