I’m currently sitting in the lobby of the John Knox Center having thoroughly enjoyed my continental breakfast of strawberry toast and juice. The discussion I had last night with my colleagues is still swirling around inside my head, and made it difficult to sleep. I tried to escape the questions by searching through my camera roll of picture I’ve taken since arriving in Geneva last Saturday, and while the image of this...

I got really really excited about an application I recently downloaded for the iPod Touch, and wanted to share a short preview, nothing too fancy. I’ve been coordinating my buildings efforts to pilot some iPod Touches, leading up to an eventual full classroom trial this fall, but in the meantime, we’re figuring out where these little devices might be useful in the classroom. Lots of people decry the use of the iPod since...

A few weeks ago, I posted a rather lengthy, and somewhat heated, response to the cacophony of alarm and doomsaying that took place when Ning announced it was going to phase out it’s free social networking services in order to focus on just it’s paid services. At the time the edusphere explored with knee-jerk reactions of panic, pandemonium, and fear. As everyone scurried to jump ship, I calmly waited for an actual announcement...

The most recent posts on one of my favorite blogs, the Google Earth Blog, have done a great job of highlighting natural and environmental disasters visible in Google Earth. There are many sites and news organizations covering the oil spill in the gulf, and other natural disasters around the globe, but I was fascinated with the before and after shots that the Google Earth Blog posted for both the Haitian earthquake and the recent Yazoo City...

Yesterday, the not-so startling news broke that Ning is planning to do away with their free, Google Ad supported service for social networks. The twittersphere lit up with posts from people scrambling for free-alternatives, jumping ship faster than a drowning rat (alright, so at least one tweep had the sanity to post a comment that’s close to reality). Steve Hargadon was one of the first educators in my PLN to put up a post about it,...

Every April I like to do at least one environmental-themed lesson or activity with my students. I’m not a granola-eating hippie that’s out to save Mother Earth, and I’m not a right-wing climate-change denier that claims humans couldn’t possibly wreak such havoc on the planet. I like to take the middle road, and that’s where I like to guide my students as well. Rather than start with a position, I start with a...