Project simplify

I’m trying, but not always succeeding, to simplify my life. The whole family is looking through all the crap that has accumulated over many years in our house. My rallying cry has been “We don’t own our stuff, our stuff owns us” and I’ve tried to be discriminating about what is going to own me. Case in point – university notes. I’ve kept my notes from university classes going back almost 30 years. (Jeebus, I’m getting old). For most of the notes from my B.Sc. and B.Ed. I can count the number of times I’ve looked at it on zero hands. Zilch. So why was I still hanging on to them? (Most have now been recycled). I’m fascinated by the reasons people hoard stuff. Sometimes there are practical reasons for hanging on to things. Quite often, though, I have kept … Continue reading »

Hacking pedagogy via netbooks

Phase 1 of the school’s 1:1 netbook has begun (and I’m documenting some of my activity for that project in my Netbooks at NBCHS blog). This year, all teaching staff will be given a netbook to play and explore with. One of my first explorations has been to install the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. My findings so far is that it is has a much better interface and is more responsive than the pre-installed OS. The Unity GUI is designed specifically for the screen size of a netbook so my big sausage-like fingers can easily move the cursor into position without having to dance around a tinier icon that is the result of a scaled down version of a desktop GUI. I’ve left the Windows 7 partition on the computer only so I can use it for demos to students who … Continue reading »

Winter cleaning the RSS feed

cc licensed flickr photo shared by twicepix Time for some winter cleaning. There are a lot of people who prefer to do spring cleaning, but once spring hits I’d rather be outside. I like this time of year so that it clears out the space I’m going to be in for the next few months. If I don’t need it or use it, it is in danger of being evicted. I’m looking at the same thing for the RSS feeds in my Google Reader. The current count of unread items is well into the 4 digit range. Some of them are unread news sources and some are unread blog posts. I’m going to clean out the news sources by the standard *mark all as read* technique but for the blogs I’m going to be more heavy handed. They are all … Continue reading »

Anecdotal records using iPad

One of my professional goals this year is keeping some anecdotal records of what my students are doing in class so I have a better record of what they do during class in addition to having some artifacts of their work, such as exams, audio or video projects. My tool tool of choice is my iPad, not (just) because it’s so darn cool, but because it’s something I have with me all the time. I was also inspired by Chris Lehmann’s plan to use his iPad as a tool for facilitating his walk-throughs (and I’m hoping that Chris will share his experience with the world). After a few days of research and pondering I’ve put together a set of tools and a workflow that I think will work. The two primary criteria I’m looking for are portability and simplicity. I … Continue reading »

A better status quo

cc licensed flickr photo shared by motionblur I’ve been thinking/pondering about how much new tools/technology really change learning since Edubloggercon at ISTE earlier this year in Denver. There were a lot of smart people with interesting ideas there, but the one that created the strongest impression was during a breakout discussion on the use of iPads in schools. There were a lot of iPads at ISTE and they were in especially high concentration at Edubloggercon so this was a discussion that was of interest to many of the folks there. Most of the iPad nation (I was amongst them) were abuzz about how the iPad was going to be a transformative tool that would really change teaching and learning. But Scott McLeod (or David Jakes – they were both pursuing the same line of thought in the ensuing discussion) asked … Continue reading »

A cell is like a …

I love teaching biology but there are some parts of it that weigh heavily on my soul. I usually explain to my students at the start of each semester that bio has a lot of things that need to be remembered (at least in the curriculum I am working from), unlike physics and chem which have fewer main ideas but a lot of time is spent examining applications of the basic principles. There are, however, some key theories in biology that help to tie all the facts together. Two that I always focus on early in the year are cell theory and natural selection. And in order to understand cells, it is necessary to understand basic cell anatomy (in my opinion – the comments are open so that you can try to enlighten me to the contrary). I am embarrassed … Continue reading »

WordPress blogging from the iPad, part 1

I’ve had the iPad for a couple of months but haven’t really been able to use it as a blogging tool. The wordpress app was one of the first that I downloaded but I hadn’t used it much (at all, really) because I couldn’t find a way to make links. But – tada – I have just figured it out. Just in case I’m not the last person to figure it out, I’ll share my findings with you as well as a general review of the ease of blogging with it. I hadn’t realized that the wordpress app accepts HTML input. Once I did, I thought i could create a link by typing in the good old HREF code. I’ve done a fair bit of coding in raw HTML, but really hoped there was a better solution. There is, but … Continue reading »

Catalyzing change in schools

I’ve had many good conversations with brilliant people during the past two pre-ISTE conference days and any one of them would be worth writing about. The one that keeps whirling around my head tonight is a serendipitous conversation with Don (last name unknown). It started as I was getting ready to say good night to The Kids™ via Google Talk using the iPad. On a side note, I’ve made an interesting iPad observation. I’ve seen more people using iPads than laptops over the past two days. I would agree wholeheartedly with anyone who says that it is not a laptop replacement, but on the other hand a laptop is not an iPad replacement. There are affordances using the iPad – the weight and size, the simplicity of the interface, the unitasking (which can sometimes be a feature instead of a … Continue reading »

Netbook use case in high schools

A netbook program was discussed at today’s staff meeting. Year 1 of the program would involve providing each teacher in the school (grades 9 – 12) with a netbook so they could have a year to experiment. It was emphasized that a netbook doesn’t have the same capabilities as a full laptop, so teachers should get familiar with the limitations and possibilities afforded by the netbooks. Several colleagues raised an excellent question – what would I or my students use it for? I try not to be too much of a fan of implementing technology just because it’s new and shiny and cool, although I have on occasion fallen victim to BSOS. I know of some of the uses for my classes, but when teachers in other subject areas are asking this I don’t have any answers to give them. … Continue reading »

"It's a strange kind of job …"

I’ll explain the title for this post in a moment. First, I want to point out that if anyone would contend (as I sometimes do) that twitter and microblogging have wiped out the engaged discourse that was once the hallmark of good blogging, I direct you to read through Jim Groom’s writing, and the ensuing comments, on Networked Study. If you follow that link and get so engaged in the conversation that you don’t come back here, I won’t be offended. Now back to the explanation of the title. About 18 years ago, I was finishing up my first teaching contract. The principal made sure he had some time to sit down with me at the end of the year to see how my first year had gone. Something he said stuck with me all this time. “Rob, teaching is … Continue reading »