Link to: Mommy, Help Me Download ‘Farmer in the Dell’ to My MP3 Player – New York Times Digital cameras and MP3 players designed for kids 3 years old and up. Increasingly, I’m being drawn into discussions by K-12 educators about the appropriateness of various technologies for very young students. I’m not sure about the…
Category: General Technology
Presidents Who Blog
The recent issue of University Business ran an interesting Editor’s Note on college and university president’s who blog. Arizona State University president Michael Crow has a blog, offers podcasts, and even has his own domain! Other president’s who blog, according to the article, include Michigan State president Lou Anna K. Simon and Trinity University President…
MySpace Isn’t Blogging
Link to: Scobleizer – Microsoft Geek Blogger In the recent session that I took part in with a group of K-12 teachers, we talked about how MySpace and FaceBook actually work against teachers who want to use social software for learning purposes. Our initial premise was that students who had experience with online communities will…
Captioning and Searching Rich Media
Link to: 2005-09-12: Captioning services update The opening of the Multimedia Studio and the increased discussion of podcasting, and other rich media is raising numerous questions about our future ability to index, search and recombine those files in the way we can remix text today. That’s some time in the future, but there are some…
The Dangers of Envisioning the Future
Link to: 21st Century Computing As we start working on a strategic plan and speculating on what the threats and opportunites for the future will be, it’s fun to look back and see what has come of past speculations. Here is what some of the great futurists of 1989 predicted for computers by 2001. The…
Reflections: Education as a “Wicked Problem”
I’m glad that I only teach one class a year. When that one class is finished and the grades are turned in my mind is always churning with unanswered questions, suggestions for books and articles that have emerged from our reading and gaping holes in my knowledge that have been exposed by 15 weeks discussion…
“Tribes of the internet” The Critical Role of Higher Education
Link to: Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog: Tribes of the internet One of the most important messages I’ve taken away from this semester’s class is the critical role that higher education has to play in helping students learn how to more effectively use the internet. One of the phases that I’ve used over and over…
Wireless in the Classroom: Where’s the Kill Button?
Link to: The Rules of Distraction – Hey, you—with the laptop! Ignore your professor and read this instead. By Avi Zenilman This Slate story highlights an interesting dynamic going on at many universities. The academic computing and networking teams are working feverishly to bring wireless connectivity to every classroom at the same time as faculty…
Media Literacy and General Education: Test Podcast
Troy Davis, the new director of the Swem Media Center, and I have just finished making a test podcast which we hope will become the first in a series of conversations we’ll be having with folks in the William and Mary community who are interested in bringing the power of this tool our students. Speaking…
Educause Core Data Survey
Link to: pub8002.pdf (application/pdf Object) Educause has released its annual core data survey, the leading source of comprehensive statistics about the state of the world of campus IT organizations. The summary report, which is well over 100 pages long, is posted on the Educause website. Educause members can log into a password protected web site…