Educon 2.3 is over.   Last year was my first year attending.  I enjoyed it more this year than I did last.  In part, this had to do with my being firmly entrenched in K-12.  Though I got a lot out of the sessions last year, this year, they meant a lot more and I felt [...]

Regular readers of this blog know that I’ve gradually retreated from the kind of gung-ho online enthusiasm I had previously engaged in.  I still find much of value online, but I find myself either easily overwhelmed in spaces like Twitter or Facebook, and now, Quora, or not stimulated enough by blogs and other longer form [...]

Technology Really irked about the FCC’s “Net Neutrality” ruling.  I think one of the side effects of the ubiquity of computing has been a slide into complacency among users.  Mr. Geeky thinks an alternate Internet will pop up.  I’m not so sure.  Yet another reason why I think delving into the more technical issues of [...]

Although I have tons of questions and still feel that what my job is going to really be like is somewhat of a mystery, I’m starting to feel pretty confident about what I’m about to do.  Over the weekend, I met with a former student of both mine and Mr. Geeky’s who will be teaching [...]

Close readers of this blog have probably noticed more than one post about how I think technology in education is overhyped and that we could all benefit from stepping back a bit and thinking a little harder about how we use technology in education.  In higher ed, more so than in K-12, there’s a tendency [...]

My teaching career is filled with being given a class to teach mere weeks before classes begin in an unfamiliar area.  In fact, my career began with my taking over a class for a classmate in which he had selected his books already.  One or two of the books’ authors I was familiar with, but [...]

Several stories have crossed my radar over the last week touting the horrifying news that computers might actually make kids worse at reading, writing, and studying.  Mark Bauerlin wrote up something for Chronicle (oh, Chronicle, can you please stop doing this?) about two of the stories and that prompted me to write, because I’m all [...]

This past week, I’ve begun planning my courses in earnest.  I’ve had ideas in my head, made some notes, etc.  Now I’m really in the thick of it.  I have four classes–6th, 7th, 8th & 9th grades.  The middle school classes meet once a week while the high school class meets twice a week.  The [...]

I know the last couple of posts have been all “omg, I have so much stupid stuff to do I can’t see straight,” but I do actually think about other things outside my domestic sphere.  Here are some of them: The oil spill.  It’s just awful, and I think I’ve decided that the profit motive [...]

This week has seen a lot of developments on the tech front, which can be summed up as “Google is taking over the world”.  Oh, and “Facebook is evil.” First Google: the android has surpassed the iPhone in sales, and they released a new version they’re working on an operating system their browser, Chrome, is [...]