So I finally got my butt in gear and put my money and my effort where my mouth was. My thoughts over the past few years hosted here terrifically by Edublogs have been exported and imported to their new – hopefully permanent – location. Edublogs combined with the power of Wordpress have provided an amazing service, helping me find my voice online and participate in a conversation that pushed my thinking and continued my learning.
I am grateful. Thanks Edublogs.
The introduction of ads onto my educational blog was perhaps inevitable and completely understandable from Edublogs side, but not something I wanted. It served as an impetus for me to take control of my online identity, learn more about Wordpress installs, coding and such, and finally take that last step into owning, managing, and developing a domain.
With the change in location comes a change in name as well.
“The old king is dead! Long live the king!” – Coldplay, Viva la Vida
My continued online thoughts on education, techonology, learning and leadership will take place at my new blog, Building Understanding. (more on the name can be found in the first post over at B.U.)
If you have enjoyed or been provoked by anything you’ve read here at Thinking Allowed, I hope that you will join me at Building Understanding and subscribe to that feed as well. I have redirected the Thinking Allowed Feedburner feed, so many of you will automatically be subscribed to the new site.
Here at Thinking Allowed, I have made some good “friends” who have been part of a great conversation. I didn’t ask you to help me move, but I hope you’ll join me at my new place.
image by RBerteig, found using Flickr Creative Commons
Edublogs have made some necessary changes. By necessary, I mean that I assume that, like the rest of us, the great people at Edublogs have to earn an income for all their hard work and creative design. Of course, it is their perogative to do this, they know their needs, they have nothing but positive intent, I’m sure.
Like Edublogs, as an educator, I too have my own uses and needs related to blogging. Edublogs provided for years now, the best product that I could access. I passed the word, encouraged new edubloggers and was able to get a message out.
And I get that that’s worth supporting.
But many of those services are behind a wall of payment now. I cannot justify their use with yet-to-be-convinced teachers and students and expect them to pay. Being able to create blogs from an admin account spoiled me. And maybe that was edublogs greatest flaw…offering me so much for so little. Now I expect it, want it, demand it.
I use it to spread a message of 21st century learning and now, how can I keep pushing teachers thinking if I have to make them pay first.
Of course, it could be that I’m cheap.
Regardless, it’s time we part ways.
If I am going to be putting out money, then it’s probably best if I begin to spend it on a domain and the ability to host to suit my needs and those of my clientele.
Thank you, edublogs for all that you have provided. It’s is an unfortunate parting of ways. But we both have different needs now.
I feel like I’m breaking up with someone….it’s not you, it’s me.
A story in the news lately has a 13-yr old Italian boy diagnosed with addiction to PlayStation. Is this a case of lost in translation from Italian to English or does it mark the beginning of a new medical diagnosis? The American Medical Association thought otherwise last year when it essentially stated that “while overuse of video games and online games can be a problem for children and adults, calling it a formal addiction would be premature.” (Wash Post article)
Here’s the story in a nutshell:
I watched this story and had some thoughts…
I believe that people become obsessed with games because they represent an outlet from a “regular” life that doesn’t live up to expectations or desires. Gaming provides feedback, praise, challenge, success, and potential that many are not finding in their non-virtual experiences.
If teens in our schools are becoming addicted (for lack of a better word) to escaping reality, then we need to find ways to include positive experiences in their real lives.
I get that we are about embracing who they are and how they interact with the world. I get that games are here to stay – in fact, I quite like most of them.
But we have to care about the whole child. If we are really producing 21st Century success stories, then let’s make sure that includes being a part of a world. I think we will increasingly value this as it becomes less and less a part of our lives.
What are we talking/sharing/doing about ensuring that kids are out helping people, feeling like they count for something, and are important?
Are we challenging kids?
Are we praising kids for accomplishments they care about?
Are we engaging kids to be better than they were?
If we can do that, we will find that kids are having fun with games, and are addicted to life.
The Learning 2.008 Conference in Shanghai, China is later this week. Continuing ISB’s dedication to always improving learning, we are sending a large group of teachers to the conference.
Awesome.
Keynote and other presenters include (does this look like a who’s who of blogrolls or what?!):
In addition to thought-provoking sessions, one key element to the event are the “un-conferences” where conversations develop in pre-determined time blocks about anything. The conference will monitor Twitter tweets to determine what unconference sessions will occur and then people will just “join the conversation”.
This year, I won’t be presenting – which I did do at last year’s Learning 2.0 with colleague Justin – so my focus is really going to be on learning from others. This conference is always a tough one because there are always 3 or 4 sessions you want to go to in the same time slot!
I have quite a few former colleagues in Shanghai as well, so it’ll be great to catch up with them and to continue the great networking that this conference brings face2face. Looking forward to meeting Brian Lockwood and Jenny Luca (all the way from NZ) who are a big part of my Personal Learning Network.
Okay, so I concede right off the bat that by posting this link, I am cementing my status as a geek. I guess the good thing is that among this crowd, that ain’t such a bad thing.
From Wired’s GeekDad section, I came across this post citing a University of Wisconsin Milwaukee study write up on PhysOrg.com that links instilling confidence in young girls with success in math and science. No surprise there, of course, but certainly nice to have the hard data. The three year study looked at the barriers and supports for girls in learning and pursuing math and science.
While interest is certainly a factor in getting older girls to study and pursue a career in these disciplines, more attention should be given to building confidence in their abilities early in their education, says UWM Distinguished Professor Nadya Fouad. She is one of the authors of a three-year study aimed at identifying supports and barriers that steer girls toward or away from science and math during their education.
“The relationship between confidence and interest is close,” says Fouad. “If they feel they can do it, it feeds their interest.”
Do our teachers and parents get this?
Are they not only providing opportunities for ALL students to learn, but also help them become confident young people?
If kids, as GeekDad’s Vincent Janoski suggests (and most of us believe), that a secure child does better in all things, then how much of what educators do is directed at this part of the child?
If we KNOW this works, why isn’t making kids confident and secure a bigger part of our curriculum and the needs of a 21st Century Learner?
I’ve recently returned to my RSS reader (anyone else incredibly frustrated with Netvibes right now?) and as expected, rememberd why I loved subscribing to all these writers in the first place.
One in particular that I want to get out there quickly since it could be a powerful start to your year, is a video that NCS-Tech shared with the tag line:
Every. Educator. Must. Watch. This. Now.
So I did.
Fifth grader, Dalton Sherman of Dallas, TX delivers the keynote address - just 2 days ago – to 20,000 educators. Not to be missed.
A great inspirational speech to start your year.
He’s in fifth grade!
It’s making the rounds now and since it’s so new there isn’t much about this kid out there. Here’s an article I found.
Also a little shout out to Tracy for reminding me to get back on the blog and start writing again…this hardly counts, but the first step is just getting on.
My wife recently passed on to me an International Herald Tribune issue. Long story, but essentially, I was ‘unplugged’ somewhere and needed something to pass the time. It was a random day, with a random issue. I love the IHT, but don’t find much occasion to read it anymore (read that as time to read it) and get most of my news via RSS anyway. But here’s the thing…via RSS, sometimes, you miss the random gem, which you only come across if you either a) subscribe to everything, or b) get a hold of a newspaper.
On this particular day, the IHT re-ran a NYTimes Op-Ed piece by David Brooks called “Lord of the Memes”, which I’ve since also found online here.
In it, Brooks – with tongue in cheek – discusses the changes in what it takes to be psuedo-intellectual:
It pains me to see so many people being pseudo-intellectual in the wrong way. It desecrates the memory of the great poseurs of the past. And it is all the more frustrating because your error is so simple and yet so fundamental.
You have failed to keep pace with the current code of intellectual one-upsmanship. You have failed to appreciate that over the past few years, there has been a tectonic shift in the basis of good taste.
He writes of a change in times for what it takes to impress people. It’s a great article, read it.
He takes us from the period in which:
status rewards went to the ostentatious cultural omnivores — those who could publicly savor an infinite range of historically hegemonized cultural products. It was necessary to have a record collection that contained “a little bit of everything” (except heavy metal): bluegrass, rap, world music, salsa and Gregorian chant. It was useful to decorate one’s living room with African or Thai religious totems — any religion so long as it was one you could not conceivably believe in.
To one currently, where “media displaced culture.”
Now the global thought-leader is defined less by what culture he enjoys than by the smartphone, social bookmarking site, social network and e-mail provider he uses to store and transmit it. (In this era, MySpace is the new leisure suit and an AOL e-mail address is a scarlet letter of techno-shame.)
Today, Kindle can change the world, but nobody expects much from a mere novel. The brain overshadows the mind. Design overshadows art.
Pretty funny and poignant stuff.
His main point, nowadays, being cool means keeping up with new technologies and gadgets so much so that “you want to be already sick of everything no one else has even heard of.”
Good stuff.
Anyway, I could quote the whole thing really…so I won’t. I’ll just suggest again, that you read it.
Awesome.
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