Online calculus

A couple of profs in the Math department here are kicking around the idea of creating an online Calculus course.

When I took calculus (shortly after Newton invented it), it was taught in a huge lecture hall. The professor spent the period with his back to the class, writing equations on the chalkboard and saying things like, "It is therefore intuitively obvious that..." (Have I ever mentioned that Calculus was one of the reasons I switched majors from engineering to education?) That's not the way it's done here. Class sizes are small, and the profs really interact with their students on the fly.

That's one of the reasons that Calculus is one of the courses that students like to take at a community college. Still, we could reach more students if we could put the course online, or perhaps in a hybrid format.

One of the profs (call him Luke) is using Adesso CyberPads in his F2F classes. Students can hand-write their homework on paper using the special pen and the electronic pad. The CyberPad creates a digital image file that the student can then sent to the instructor. This is very handy for classes that meet once a week or Monday-Wednesday. If a student has a question on Wednesday night she doesn't have to wait until Monday.

Luke has proposed that we create an online Calculus course around this tool. He's got serious questions about how to structure the instructional content, because his teaching style is extremely hands-on. We hashed thing over during lunch last week with two other professors from the department. One of them (call him Vince) was vocal in his opposition to "canned" online courses that consist of nothing more than a publisher's Blackboard cartridge. yesterday he wrote:

It may have taken me a couple weeks, but here's my opposition to on-line courses as they are currently done at LCC. There's a TV in my classroom. What do you say if instead of me lecturing in Calculus, I just put in the DVDs that come with the book and we watch them as a class? What would people say about that kind of education? In many ways, it's better than on-line, isn't it? At least the students can pause the DVD and I can explain things to them. At least the learning is "synchronous" and they can interact with each other. Plus, I'm available during office hours and via e-mail. Somehow, I don't think people would think very highly of this kind of learning environment. I'm sure students would complain, and people like Jim would lose respect for me. Could I honestly say this is in the students' best interest? Would people honestly believe that this is academic freedom? Somehow, I don't think so. So, how is on-line, especially how it's done in our department, any better than this?

Valid issues. I asked him if I could open the discussion to the wider community (that's you) and he agreed. Here was my initial response:

Vince raises some very important issues.

There is currently no central authority regarding the content, format, or quality (however that is measured) of online courses at Lakeland. The quality of an online course is up to the instructor and the department. As a result, we see a wide variety of online coruses. Some instructors create their course sites entirely from scratch, including self-produced multimedia elements such as narrated powerpoint presentations, recorded lectures, or videos. Some departments have developed standard templates for high-enrollment courses, and instructors have little leeway in the way they facilitate the course. Some instructors use a publisher's course cartridge (which can vary in quality from abysmal to outstanding), and do little other than monitor students' progress. Others extensively modify and rearrange the pre-created content, putting their own spin on it, and use the online forums to facilitate deep, reflective, substantive class discussions.

Classroom teaching shows the same range. Some instructors read out of the book or off the powerpoint slides, some just work problems with their backs to the class, others are dynamic and engaging, responding to the students.

The online environment isn't any better or any worse than the classroom. It's just a different set of affordances and constraints. The question is, is it possible to leverage the affordances (and work around the constraints) in the particular knowledge/skill domain? What do we give up, and what do we gain? What CAN we give up? What must we NOT give up?

A common reaction is, "I can't give up the ability to respond in real-time to a student's question." But let's drill down - what's *really* at issue there? The root principle is that we want to identify the moment that a student gets lost, and at that moment, bring them back on track. But it's not always necessary to repeat information or give an alternate presentation. Sometimes the student just needs a little more time to work out how you got to Point B from Point A. Can we do that online? Sure. It's just a question of how we want to do it.

So - what do you folks think?

CCK08 Connections

Well, it's about time I got off the dime and wrote something longer than 140 characters...

For the past couple of weeks I've been following along haphazardly with George and Stephen's Excellent Adventure, aka CCK08. Now, my attitude towards theories of teaching and learning mirrors that of M. David Merrill (see P. 59, #10), so I've been letting a lot of the heavy discussion pass by. But last week's notion of overlapping networks has sort of stuck. I'm a big fan of James Burke's "Connections" series, where he shows how seemingly-unrelated things are actually deeply intertwined. I like that sort of thing, even when the connections are a bit tenuous.

John Connell writes about a young man expressing himself through the medium of music and video, linking it to the notion of "postliteracy." In the comments, Jenny Luca asks whether it is just literacy, as practiced in the 21st century.

In the video John lnked, a young person is playing Pachabel's Canon on an electric guitar. I've seen the video before (as have several million other YouTube viewers), but this time the context caused some lights to go on.

John describes the video as having "low production values." I disagree. The video is very well-made for its purpose. The image is well framed. If you are a fairly-skilled guitarist wanting to learn this piece and you have the tabulature, this video gives you very useful information without attempting to be a typical "guitar instruction video." The scene is backlit so strongly that it is almost washed-out. As a result, the player appears in a golden halo of light, with few details of the room discernable. The player's identity is obscured to the point that even gender is not obvious. The hat is pulled low over his or her face, concealing his or her identity except probably to a few close friends. Instead of the typical amateurish "sitting back from turning on the camera" and "reaching forward to turn it off", there are opening and closing credits (with music!)

As an example of a YouTube video, it's *extremely* well-done. Or to put it another way, it demonstrates the "literacy" of making video for YouTube guitarists

The video is also ironic in the connections it makes - and breaks. Pachabel's Canon is a venerable piece of classical music that requires only moderate playing ability, but the modern rock arrangement in the video requires a fair amount of technical skill. In addition, the fast legato arpeggios are played with a sweep-picking technique that mimics violin bowing (many rock guitarists are fans of the great 19th-century violinist Niccolo Paganini).

Now - how many folks are geeky enough to pick up on that bit of irony? Probably not a lot. Was that connection intended by the young performer? Almost certainly not. And that brings us to the connection between Norse Sagas, the Bible, and Weezer.

You might dimly recall from some grade school literature unit that the Medieval Norse (aka Vikings) wrote these long, bloody poems called "sagas." (It would also be accurate to describe them as "bloody long" poems.) The sagas made great use of a literary device called kennings. A kenning is a metaphorical set-phrase such as "sea-steed" (sailing ship) and "swan-road" (ocean). But the kennings were not just general poetic riddles; they had very specific cultural connotations - baggage, if you will. So a kenning that refers to a shipwreck doesn't refer to just any shipwreck, but the shipwreck that tragically took the life of the young man who was fleeing his father's undeserved wrath and and and... they packed a lot of meaning and emotion, these kennings. You can think of them as a sort of cultural zip file. The listeners (sagas were originally an oral tradition) "got" the deeper references because they were literate in the context of their culture.

I'm thinking that this cultural awareness is a pretty key concept.

For example, a great deal of Western culture (and I don't mean rodeos) is based on the Bible. But a lot of folks nowadays aren't all that familiar with The Book. Case in point, the phrase "The writing's on the wall." Where does that phrase originate? The situation has gotten to the point that schools are starting to teach classes called "The Bible as Literature" in order to acquaint students with their greater cultural heritage. These students may not understand "mene" but they sure understand "meme."


So what does this all mean? Good question. I think I'm still constructing that.


Oh - for a different take on Pachabel's Canon (complete with its own set of musical memes),watch this.

This post was lovingly handcrafted in Notepad, since Blogger's crummy WYSIWYG editor doesn't work right, and doesn't put target="_blank" in its hyperlinks. And folks wonder why I don't post more often...

Salami-Scented Puppy Poots

Also posted at Dadosphere.

Ah, the fun of getting into the back-to-school routine. The packing the backbacks. The setting out of the clothes - and the shoes - and the socks - and the underwear. The making of lunches. The parental verification of said lunches to ensure they do not consist solely of Rice Krispy Treats and Little Debbie Nutty Bars.

Actually, the kids are pretty good about their lunches. Herself (the 5th grader) and Mr. Brown (the 3rd grader) got out the new half-pound package of salami and made their sandwiches (two slices of salami between two slices of bread, no condiments). They packed some fruit, filled their water bottles, and packed it all back in the fridge. As I said, good kids.

Good, but not quite perfect. They put *almost* everything back into the fridge. But something was forgotten, something left behind.

But it was not neglected for long.

I came back into the kitchen a few minutes later, and found Duke the Amazing Canine blissed -out under the table, loving licking the inside of the now-empty salami package. He was in hound-dog heaven.

I summoned Herself. The following conversation ensued:

Herself: "Duke! You're not supposed to eat the salami!"

Duke: "Buurp!"

I kid you not. It was *perfectly* timed. That dog has a future in stand-up comedy, I tell you.

That's a good thing, too. Because now, several hours later, it's quite clear that Glade *won't* be hiring him to develop new air fresheners. :-/

Hello!

I really didn't intend for a month to go by with no posting. I've actually been pretty busy given that it's summer.

Word art

Wordle.net is a cool site that creates a word cloud based on text that you give it. Here's what happens when you feed it the text of Ephesians 1, and the text of Romans:



The fish shape just sort of happened on its own.

Sometimes the lights go on after lights-out

Sometimes you Just. Want. Them. To. Go. To BED!!! But you should never (Never!) pass up an opportunity to talk to your teenager. Even when you know that tomorrow AM will Not Be Fun as a result.

The Karate Kid boarded the Clue Bus tonight:

Last year he was State Champ in his martial arts division. But as he approached his teens he decided that he was bored in karate class, and didn't really want to go, and, and, and. He hasn't really focused on martial arts in about six months.

So tonight we're talking about this and that and the other thing, and I offhandedly remind him just how gifted he is in martial arts. (He really and truly is, and that's not just Daddy pride.) He gets inspired to get physical. Ignoring the fact that I've told him to go to bed already - twice - I help him stretch (his foot reaches over my head!?!)

He then heads downstairs to work off some energy on the punching bag.

Ten minuntes later he comes back upstairs, red skinned, sweating, in tears. His leg angle is All Wrong! His foot is like This and it should be like That! "I. Can't. Do. Anything!!!" he wails. That's right, kiddo. No matter how gifted you are, if you don't use it, you lose it.

I give him a cool wet washcloth for his face. Send him to bed. A few minutes later, the light is still on. He says needs to listen to some music and write down his goals for the summer.

That's cool by me.

I'm not an edupunk

"edupunk" is an idea that's been tossed around recently on Twitter and various blogs.

It seems to resonate with a lot of folks, embracing the ideas of do-it-yourself, anti-authority, share and share alike, and so on. The anti-corporate part of it resonates with Blackboard-bashers as well.

But though I share many of these values, I'm just not comfortable with the label. It carries a lot of baggage. We don't really want total anarchy in the classroom, do we? We do have goals and objectives for our students, don't we? We may rebel against giving multiple-choice tests, but we do want students to know that the Civil War happened before WW2, right? Is CBGB really a learning environment that we want to emulate, with used needles littering the vomit-stained floors? (Given, there are some students stuck in facilities not much better.) Is Sid Vicious really a better role model than Jaime Escalante?

I just can't get into punk as a model for learning. I never was a punk; I never wanted to be a punk. But what if we took some of those ideals and recast them slightly?

• We can protest against injustice and foolishness when we see it.
• We can use the good things of the past, and update them to be relevant for today.
• We can collaborate to create new things out of old things.
• We can share and learn together.
• We can celebrate our individual unique styles.
• We can join our voices in harmony rather than screaming and spitting on each other.

Yeah, that's it. I'm not an edupunk. I'm an edufolkie.



Besides, at my age it's a lot easier to grow a ponytail than a mohawk.

I wrotez another poem!

A friend at work had a baby shower not long ago. It's her second child. I found out about it at the last minute - she works in another department and word didn't filter over to me until the very last minute. I didn't have time to run out and buy her a present, so I sat down and wrote her a little poem:

You're an old hand by now
You know how it goes:
The burping, the bathing,
The playing with toes.

You've got all the gear
A new parent can use
The teether, the toys,
All in soft pastel hues.

You've been there and done that,
It's same-old, same-old.
Same song, different verse,
You're on a parenting roll

You don't need my advice
So I'll say not a peep,
But just leave you with this:
While you can, get some sleep!

On persistence in job-hunting

This seems to be the time of year when lots of folks are job-hunting, especially new graduates and educators looking for a new gig. You send out resumes and cover letters by the ream, it seems, and get enough rejection letters to wallpaper a room.

Way back in 1988 I finally escaped grad school and moved out of state with five hundred bucks cash. I lived with my sister until I was able to find a place of my own. I put my newly-minted M.Ed to good use bussing tables and washing dishes on the night shift at the local diner. (This was actually a great gig - I ate free, had the days open to job-hunt or work temp, and it was a block from my sister's apartment.)

I signed up with a temp agency and got steady if varied work doing data entry and other semi-menial office tasks. (The upside is that I worked with many different computer systems in many different companies. This gave me a real feel for the user experience in interface design, as well as exposure to a wide range of working environments.)

I also joined the local NSPI chapter to get to know local professionals. I looked for companies that were looking for instructional designers. I finally found one that seemed to be doing what I wanted to do. So I applied for a tech writer job and was turned down after the interview. I applied again or another writing job - and was turned down.

I really wanted to work for these folks - they were rising stars. An opening appeared for an instructional designer. But by this time I despaired of ever getting in with them. But a wonderful wise lady at an NSPI meeting suggested that I try one more time. About the same time I had read the Bible story of the widow and the unjust judge. The old lady essentially pestered the judge into hearing her case.

So I applied one more time, and this time I got the job!

A couple of years later I'm working on a project at about 9 at night, and my boss Larry is puttering in his office. (Larry = cross between Gene Wilder and Albert Einstein with a dash of Groucho Marx.) He calls out, "Hey, Corrie - I was clearing out my resume' file, and came across yours. Now I know why we hired you!"

"Yeah? What's that?" I asked, wondering what golden phrase on my resume' had finally opened the door.

Larry replied, "There are six copies of it in the file!"

A thing of beauty

Tweetwheel shows you a picture of your twitter connections. Here are mine:

Falsifiability and Christianity

For the past day or so, fellow twitterers "Peter Rock," Clay Burell, and I have been having a mostly-civil discussion of religion over at Pete's blog. At one point I noted:

Just produce a corpse/set of bones/ossuary/occupied grave (with good provenance, of course) that can be positively identified as belonging to a 1st-century CE itinerant rabble-rouser/rabbi/healer/preacher named Y’shua Ben Y’suf, of Nazareth (or Capernum), where the body is that of a robust man in his early thirties, and has been scourged and crucified in the Roman manner.

Clay suggested that the falsifiability argument is silly - we can't find Adam's grave, either.

But it's not silly. Not at all. You see, it's not possible to disprove any other religion. You can argue that their teachings are silly, or dangerous, or inconsistent with archaeology, but it is not possible DISPROVE them. But it IS possible to disprove Christianity. It may nt be probable, but it is possible. There've even been novels written exploring what might happen if someone discovered the body of Jesus.

Why is it such a big deal?

Because the Empty Tomb is absolutely central to Christianity. Paul wrote, "If Christ is not risen, then all our teaching is in vain, and I am the most miserable of men, for I have been spreading false hope."

But how did this belief get started? The earliest written documentation of the belief in a literal resurrection are the letters of Paul, written ~55CE. They clearly show that belief in a literal, physical resurrection was central to "The Way." The earliest copies of the first Gospel to be written, Mark, include the discovery of the empty tomb.

Jesus was not buried in some common grave in a potter's field. He was buried in a rich man's tomb, and a guard was set over it by the Romans at the specific request of the Sanhedrin. And then the tomb was empty.

So what happened?

Muslims believe that it's wasn't Jesus, but someone else who was crucified that day. There was a last-minute switch. The only evidence they cite is the Q'ran. That's the only evidence they need. Mohammed said it happened that way? Case closed.


It's been suggested that Jesus wasn't really dead, and that he revived in the cool tomb. This of course flies in the face of modern trauma medicine and what we know about the physiology of crucifixion. (Not to mention the fact that the professional executioners were so sure he was dead that they didn't bother to break his legs.)


Maybe the disciples stole the body? Interesting hypothesis. Not a shred of supporting evidence, unfortunately. First of all, the record shows that the disciples didn't understand that Jesus would rise again. They thought he was dead and gone. Second, they were unsophisticated country folks, not exactly the sort of calculating crew that could pull off a truly world-class burglary and cover-up - and do it almost literally overnight. Besides, as Watergate felon Chuck Colson notes, conspiracies *always* fall apart. The conspiracy idea also omits the fact that the disciples were devout Jews, who would NOT about to defile themselves on the first Sabbath of Passover by handling a dead body.


There's an argument that the story is derived from Mithraism, which shares some interesting similarities - a demi-god hero who goes to the underworld and returns, a ritual meal, baptism. The first problem with this idea is culture. Mithraism was a secret cult popular among Roman soldiers. The first followers of Jesus were Jews - the last people you'd find adopting practices of the Roman soldiers. The second problem is time. Jesus died in the year 30CE. Paul wrote his letters around 55-60, after spending five years or so travelling around (sometimes with Luke).

Twenty years is nowhere near enough time for the folklore of Mithras to get jumbled up with the folklore of Jesus. There are folks *today* in the hills of Kentucky who sing songs their ancestors brought over from Scotland and England, and the songs are nearly identical to the "folk songs of the British Isles" collected by F. J. Child in the late 1800s.


There are a couple of other twists to the story that I find interesting. Both speak to the historical reliability of the Gospel accounts of Easter morning.

First, no one is recorded as having witnessed the moment of the resurrection itself. This is THE most dramatic moment in human history. If you were writing fiction, wouldn't you have someone there who could later say, "I was weeping next to the body when suddenly there was a blinding light and the sound of angels singing..."? But instead, we get two women who find the tomb empty and are bewildered. Women were not considered reliable witnesses in those days. They could not even testify in court. So not only do we not have any witness to the resurrection itself, the witnesses we do have are suspect.

It may seem counterintuitive at first, but those facts strengthen the case for the Gospels being collections of eyewitness testimony. If they're fiction, they're pretty bad fiction.


When the disciples started seeing Jesus alive again, they got excited and started talking about it. Just a few weeks later at Shauvot (the Jewish harvest festival akak Pentecost) they caused a big ruckus. (See Acts 2.) The Romans and the Sanhedrin had plenty of motive to haul out the body of Jesus and shut down these fanatics. It should have been easy - if they could have located the body. :-)

It all adds up

My wife was having a conversation with The FMO (age four-and-a-half) the other day:

FMO: "Mommy, is one hundred and three the biggest number?"

Wife: "No, honey. You can add one to one hundred and three and get one hundred and four. Infinity is the biggest number."

*pause*

FMO (with furrowed brow): "*How* old is Daddy?"

The obligatory "How I use Twitter" post

"Twitter lets me subscribe to the brains of smart people who are kind enough to think in public."

That's the line I use to describe the wildy popular and addictive Web2.0/SMS/SocialNetworking phenomenon that encourages you to "Connect with your colleagues, friends and family by answering one simple question in 140 characters or less: What are you doing?"

But if you're new to Twitter, have few followers and no idea how to find folks to follow, you may not "get" the whole Twitter thing and give up on it.

A number of folks have made excellent blog posts about how to use Twitter. For example, GeekMommy's post on blocking vs. following is a keeper, and Caroline Middlebrook's Big Juicy Twitter Guide is encyclopedic.

But I'm not looking to use Twitter for marketing or as part of an internet business. It's part of my Personal Learning Network, which feeds my efforts at Viral Professional Development. So here's how I use Twitter:

I became aware of Twitter quite some time ago via several blogs I read, notably Alec Couros and Alan Levine. I'm a late adopter - I wait to try out something new until I see that folks are talking about it consistently. (Kind of a "Keep up with the Jones' - eventually" mentality.) Late last summer I finally decided that it was something I needed to get involved with. So, I looked up Alec and Alan on Twitter as soon as I set up my account and followed them.

When you follow someone, you can see all their posts, including the @username posts directed at another user. On twitter @username posts become a conversation. Quite often, the half of the conversation I see is interesting. (I follow smart people, and they follow smart people.) So I'll click on the @username link, which takes me to the tweetstream (list of posts) of that person, which includes their Twitter profile - name, link, and bio.

When someone follows me (that started happening when got to about 25 follows/followers) I get an email with a link to their tweetstream / profile page as well. I just click the link in the email and in a few seconds, I can see whether or not I want to follow that person as well.

Here's what I look for:

• Posts with @'s - that means they're having a conversation with other people.
• Posts with links - that means they're sharing resources
• Posts that are interesting to read. I like witty. I don't like snarky.
• Posts @ people I already follow
• A profile that includes a description of what they do - I pretty much automatically follow folks in my profession (educational technology)
• A profile that links to that person's blog or website
• Reasonable numbers for "following" and "followers." A few hundred is manageable. More than that, they're not likely to engage in conversation.*
• A ratio for "following" vs "followers" that's close to 1:1. Someone who's following thousands but has only a handful of followers is a broadcaster or a bot, not a person I want to be feeding data to. That gets blocked tut suite.

If I like what I see, and want to see more, I just click the Follow button. Simple - another brain subscribed to. I don't follow everyone who follows me, or who @s with someone I follow. Some folks only Tweet about their personal lives. Some are way-technical geeks whose tweets are over my head - or al about systems and tools that I don't use. Remember, I use Twitter mostly as a professional-development tool both for myself and the faculty I serve. Yes, it comes with a nice side serving of social chitchat, but I look at that as water-cooler chatter.

So, that's how I use Twitter. I hope to @you there!


*I do make a few exceptions. For example, Howard Rheingold has a gajillion followers, but he actually engages folks and his observations are of course interesting. Besides, it lets me name-drop shamelessly: "I was talking with Howard Rheingold about this last week..." :-)

Schooled Bully

This is a true story. Obviously, names have been changed. Details have been reconstructed and simplified somewhat, and some dramatic license has been taken in imagining inner dialogues. But it happened pretty much this way, as far as I can tell.


There are two boys. One we'll call Eric. The other, Kenny. Both are in 7th grade at a very good suburban middle school.

Eric has a good reputation. He's a straight-A student, active in extra-curricular activities and sports, and a popular kid. He's funny, cool, easy-going, enjoys playing the class clown and high-fiving people in the hallways. But he's just a little too busy, involved in just a few too many things. It doesn't help that he's a perfectionist. So... he has stress. Most of the time he keeps it deep down inside.

Kenny also has a reputation. He is well-known to the school administrators, but for all the wrong reasons. He undoubtedly has stress, too. But he lets it out in all the wrong ways. He is failing his classes, and proud of the fact. He enjoys vandalizing school property and picking on other kids. He is widely disliked by the other students.

Kenny decides that Eric is to be his new victim. He starts tripping Eric as they pass in the hallway each day. Eric doesn't report this to an adult - that would violate The Code. When you're 13, you're expected to solve your social problems yourself. Eric does his best to ignore Kenny. Day after day, he just picks himself up and goes on. Turns the other cheek. Restrains himself.

He's not giving Kenny much amusement.

So Kenny ups the ante. He posts obscene comments about Eric online, which Eric's friends forward to him. Eric doesn't tell an adult about this, either, despite having several caring adults in his circle who'd hear him out on any subject. When you're 13, certain subjects are on the uncomfortable teetering edge between really gross and quite interesting. The only thing you're really sure of is that you don't want to talk about them. And you sure as heck don't want some jerk you hate spouting off about you and... certain subjects.

Eric is on a slow simmer the next day. The very last person he wants anything to do with is Kenny. But there he is in the hallway, coming Eric's way. Eric grits his teeth and says nothing. And as they pass, Kenny trips Eric and saunters away, grinning.

Now, Kenny almost certainly did not know that Eric is a black belt in karate. A state champion, in fact, with a shelf-full of trophies.

Ignorance is not always bliss.

Eric's foot lands squarely between Kenny's shoulder blades and knocks him into the lockers. Kenny's a tough scrapper, though, and comes back swinging. The boys grapple as the crowd backs away. Kenny throws a haymaker punch at Eric's head and knocks him across the hall, slamming his head into a locker. But Eric takes control of his momentum as he bounces off the lockers and spins around, landing on his feet in a low crouch.

His head *hurts*, dammit, and now he's mad. Really mad.

All that stress he's been carrying is about to come out.

His landing out of the spin has wound Eric like a spring. He's poised to launch a flying roundhouse kick and plant his foot on Kenny's ear. Eric has broken boards with this kick, many times. He's knocked over the large, heavy punching bag at the dojo with this kick, many times.

Kenny weighs half of what that bag does. He's not going *into* the wall. He's going *through* the wall.

Eric is *not* thinking that he could do permanent, severe physical damage to another human being. He's not thinking of the possibility of his family being sued into permanent penury to pay for Kenny's lifetime nursing-home care. Eric's not thinking at all, really. He just knows that Kenny has been begging for a first-class ass-kicking for a very long time, and the time has come to deliver it.

Kenny *is* thinking, though - about just how wrong his earlier thinking had been. He had thought that Eric was just a short, skinny kid that he could push around. And when Eric fought back, Kenny had thought that he could stop him with his best shot. Head punch, right across the hall, face-first into the lockers. Eric *should* have crumpled to the ground. Instead, he *bounced off the wall* and came up locked and loaded.

With eyes full of flame. Kenny looks at Eric and sees his doom. A low murmur ripples through the crowd.

In that instant, a third boy jumps between the two and stops the action - a very brave move, all things considered.

After a long moment, Eric picks up his backpack and glares at the white-faced Kenny as he shoves past. Later, goes to the nurse to get an icepack, and the administration finds out about the altercation. Eric will serve a Saturday detention. Kenny is a repeat offender and will face harsher penalties.

Later that day, Kenny comes up to Eric and offers friendship. Eric's not interested, but he knows that Kenny won't be bothering him again.

A postcard from Twitter

Todd Jordan (aka Tojosan) is one of the smart people who think in public whose brains I subscribe to via Twitter.

The other day he tweeted an offer of a postcard to the first ten people who responded via DM. I couldn't DM him because he didn't also follow me, so I tweeted @him directly. (If you use Twitter, you'll understand what I just said. If you don't use Twitter, you probably think my rye toast was tinged with ergot.)

He was good enough to immediately follow me, so I DMed him my work address.

Today, I came back from somewhere on campus to find a postcard propped up on my keyboard. I'd post a scan of it, but I'm at home right now and the postcard is at work. (Lame excuse, I know.)

Here's the point, though:


Forget Soylent Green. The Internet is People!

Digital identies redux

It's bad enough that Al Upton got his class blog yanked, but now a teacher has lost his job over his online presence.

FWIW, this was the fellow from Doha, Qatar, who joined me and Clay Burell on an amazing Skype chat a few weeks ago.

It's not as if he posted pr0n or hatespeech, or that he posted anything offensive at all - according to his account, the problem was the fact that he linked his personal life to his professional life.

It's horribly ironic that recently a number of us were talking about the very same thing, and I concluded that I've pretty much given up trying to separate my "public and professional" online identity from my "private" online self. I think I even left a comment on the post that Jabiz felt obliged to take down.

How can we teach our students to be transparent, integrated, whole human beings if we are forced to compartmentalize ourselves?

Just feed them through the bunghole

Oh, for crying out loud.

Australian educator Al Upton has been ordered by the government to shut down his class blog. Apparently a parent - despite previously giving permission for their little darling to participate in an innovative, authentic learning activity with other students and teachers from around the globe - got upset that said little darling's picture was not removed faster than it was technically possible. Said clueless parent threatened legal action and contacted the Aussie Feds.

Look, I have kids, and I understand a parent's concerns. And if you read this blog you'll understand that I am hardly a libertine. But the risks to kids from online predators have been grossly overstated. And besides, these kids are in Australia! Are the little darlings really at risk from people who live on the OTHER SIDE OF THE PLANET?!?! Hull-lo?

Let's just put the kids in a barrel and feed them through the bunghole. Then they'll really be safe.

Addendum:
Nancy White has a typically wiser and more thoughful response over at Full Circle. I'm still a bit too cranky to be wise and thoughtful at the moment.

Something in the water

In the news today: AP probe finds drugs in drinking water

Not exactly news - I blogged about this last May.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose

I posted the following as a comment over at ReadWriteWeb in a thread about the Economist debates on whether Web technology is making our lives better.

A man universally renowned for his wisdom once said, "There is nothing new under the sun. All is vanity and chasing after wind."

Human nature has not changed since the beginnings of recorded history. Look at the Greek or Norse gods, Native American tales, Gilgamesh, the Baghvadgita, the Bible, Confucius, the Arthur cycle, the Edda, Chaucer, Shakespeare, etc., etc. You will see the very same human wants, needs, faults, and foibles as we see today.

Want to see a struggle to improve one's lot in life? See the ancient African tales of Anansi the Spider, or the Native American tales of Coyote. Noble sacrifice for a great cause? Look to the Spartans of Thermopylae, Roland at Roncesvaux, or today's Medal of Honor recipients. Soap-opera infidelity? Peek at Guinevere and Lancelot, or King David and Bathsheba.

Human needs have not changed. What *has* changed is the way we go about meeting those needs. For entertainment we download MP3s - remix our own - instead of waiting for a traveling minstrel to come through town. For news we have an RSS feed piped to our Blackberry. To communicate long-distance we use Twitter or Skype rather than couriers carrying sealed scrolls.

The ends are the same, but the means have changed. On those means, though, are industries and empires built and lost. There's not much of a market for sealing wax these days. But build a killer Facebook app, and you might make a buck.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. The more that things change, the more they stay the same.

Four Barriers? Really? - Fireside Learning

Reason # 954 why I love Twitter. BudTheTeacher did one of those irresistable "Excellent discussion. http://tinyurl.com/2jfxep" tweets, which led to this post on Nathan Lowell's blog. (Nathan is one of the Smart Folks to whose brains I subscribe.)

He seeded a class discussion by outlining four barriers to educational equity (the "digital divide") and let the students have at it. Great stuff.