Open Monologue
Just because I'm making it up as I go along doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing

Archive for November, 2008

A modest reform

2008/11/25

Ever write a blog post that started as one thing but then ended up as another? This is one of those. It started after I finished reading 21st Century Schools – Pedagogy Must Give Way to Andragogy over on Open Education. The basic point was that there was a need for educational reform based on [...]

Hot off the press – another EdTech Posse podcast

2008/11/20

I couldn’t make it, but Dean Shareski, Alec Couros and Rick Schwier talked Tuesday with Michael Geist about Canadian copyright law and the changes first proposed in Bill C-61. I’m enjoying listening to it because a) it’s a great conversation, and b) I don’t need to worry that I sound like a knob. EdTech Posse [...]

There are no bogeymen in your cybercloset.

2008/11/17

I’ve just been taking a glance over the literature review released by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society (thanks to Clarence for his post on this, which sparked my interest). To be honest, I would encourage you to go read the lit review itself. The only advantage my few thoughts might have is brevity. [...]

World of Wall sneak peek

2008/11/14

I’ve been working on a project lately that relates somewhat to my earlier post about who owns student work. In addition to exploring alternatives for storing student work online, I have also been looking at where I can put my teacher stuff online. I don’t want to bring that into my personal blog so I [...]

There's something in the share

2008/11/14

I’ve been trying to put together some resources for my grade 9 computer literacy class to use so they can find some legally usable images to use in an assignment. In addition to links to public domain and CC licensed search engines or repositories, I want to give them a sense of why they should [...]

Who owns student work, and where do I put it?

2008/11/12

I’m teaching a Computer Literacy 9 class this semester and, although I hadn’t taught grade 9s for nearly 15 years (I’ve been teaching that long – geez, I’m gittin’ old), I’m starting to have a really great time. The last two assignments in particular have involved some seriously fun learning. Both involved students creating a [...]

3 kilospam landmark

2008/11/12

Sometime recently, I passed the 3000th spammer deflected by Akismet mark. This incarnation of my blogging presence is just over a year old so it’s nice to know that I’m noticed. It gives me a feeling of belonging and acceptance, somehow, to know that some loathesome, SEO-pimping spam-whore considers this blog worth targeting. Thanks for [...]

Projects

2008/11/06

I haven’t written much here lately, because I’ve been happily busy working on some school related projects that are starting to get interesting: I have a Grade 9 computer literacy class working on The Amazing Web Search Tool Evaluation Assignment, putting their web searching guides into a wiki. They are each doing their own page [...]