Thinking Allowed.

It’s a new look for Thinking Allowed (for those 15 regular visitors). No real love for the current theme - simply the old theme was not interacting well with Firefox, which many (most?) of you use. Sidebars were going haywire.

Anyway, let me know what you think of this one. Basically, I like having two columns for the widgets and the text on the left. Maybe I’m a creature of habit - regardless, it limited my choices.

On another note, I haven’t posted in ages - so much for my holiday plans - but I have been out there commenting recently, only I forgot to turn on my CoComment extension, so the comments I made are not appearing on the right in my RSS feed of comments elsewhere.

So, to direct your attention to the posts that drew my attention, check out the post and comments of these two solid posts. In particular, read through the comments (not just because mine is there). Some interesting thinking out there.

• Jeff Utecht’s Thinking Stick post on Interview Questions
• Will Richardson’s Weblogg-ed post on the Curriculum of Politics (which busts into a conversation on media coverage)

Commenting is the stuff that makes the blogsophere work, because it becomes a conversation instead of an article, yet I find often that readers digest a post and leave or even leave a comment without reading the other comments. Not sure why that is.

In a related vein, today, I was talking (in person!) with Jeff and Kim (Always Learning) about how there is a real sense of negativity out there.

Is the holiday season getting on everyone’s nerves?

Is the conversation getting tired and repetitive?

Are techies getting frustrated by lack of action?

Do we need more outside voices, chiming in and questioning?

Is the economy just making us depressed?

No answers, just thinking aloud.

(originally posted on harterlearning on Jan. 9, 2007)

Steve Hargadon: “Aha!” Moment on Adoption of Web 2.0 in the Classroom?:

“The light bulb went off for me. There is no way that teachers are going to be able to bring this technology into the classroom without support from the administration. So, the key would be to help the administrators experience the personal educational benefits from the read/write web technologies. And how would you do that? Maybe not providing them with just more information on the benefits of the read/write web, but actually providing them with some kind of training that actually helps them use these technologies in their jobs. They then would experience what happens, and can either promote or be more supportive of these technologies.”

Steve speaks of what it will take for technology to really be embraced and used in schools. He finishes the article with a little downside pessimism, but is he on to something here? Our administration is hoping that this is the case. Training the leadership team in not only what technologies are out there and can be used but also on what kind of teacher to recruit that will embrace these technologies are powerful forces that our Leadership Team supports. We are lucky that way, but Steve’s idea here can be the way to increased support and increased use by teachers. Ultimately, the leaders of a school set tone. This type of knowledge and understanding would definitely set the tone for technology use as well.