Point A to Point B

Category: Russo’s Ramblings

  • Summer Haiku

    Welcome back, everyone! I’d love to hear how your summer was – so let’s try it in the form of ahaiku haiku. I’ve read up on haiku a little, and the “rules” for them are not set in stone – but typically one is set with 5 syllables, 7 syllables, and then 5 syllables in 3 lines, along with a reference to the season. Here are some from me:

    Teachers get the time to be learners in the summer – I had a great opportunity to go to Calgary, Alberta to learn in-depth about SMART Boards:

    Learning is so sweet
    Water the brain with knowledge
    Sunny Calgary

    It is also a time for teaching – I taught two workshops with Mrs. Calandra on Internet Safety, and one on SMART Boards:

    Time to surf and play
    Keep those predators away
    Use your brain always

    But the best part of summer was with my family – my kids are 3 and 1 – time with them is awesome:

    Warm sunny hazy
    Children laughing on the swing
    Lazy summer days

    So, I’d like to hear from you! How was your summer – leave a summer haiku here in the comments.

    Image citation:
    Elijah. �haiku.� Flickr.� 4 Sept. 2006 http://flickr.com/photos/evdg/973981/.

  • Hey you mouse potato – you wanna supersize that !?!?!?

    Mouse PotatoMerriam-Webster has updated its 2006 Collegiate Dictionary, and added approximately 100 new words. In the technology category, mouse potato is a newcomer, and the definition is exactly what you would expect. Like its cousin the couch potato who spends too much time in front of the TV, such is the case with the mouse potato and computer. And as scary as it is, supersize now joins the ranks of “official” words in the pop culture category. Hmmm…our society needs work…

    Check out the sampling of some of the new words added.

    Photo courtesy of parlau, via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 license.

  • Predictions for the New Year

    Happy New Year!!!Prediction

    Well, almost…still a couple of weeks before we start…sorry to our southern neighbors who are already back 🙂

    Andy Carvin posted his Back to School: Five Predictions… today, and encouraged others to do the same, so here we go. I’ll start by briefly commenting on his five predictions:

    1. The Cell Phone Wars Will Heat Up Across the Country Until a Number of Parents and School Board Members Spontaneously Combust

    • Agreed, but only if you “pick this battle.” Let the phones in, but keep them off. Kids need to keep in touch after school, etc. A phone that is on during the day should be taken away until the end of the day. More of an issue here may be – how do you model non-cell phone use when staff members are seen routinely using them?

    2. MySpace Loses It-Girl Status To Some Upstart Punk

    • Way agreed on this one – the MySpace attention only taught teens to NEVER mention the sites they use.

    3. Cyberbullying Gets Worse Before It Gets Better

    • Neutral – I’m not sure if the amount will get worse, or just the realization of how bad it is. Our school has been much more concerned and focused on this issue, since it is something much more likely to have happen to a student than a threat from a predator (of course we deal with the predator issue as well).

    4. Moodle’s Meteoric Rise Become a Hurtling Asteroid

    • Neutral – Moodle is awesome, and will surely continue to grow. Bigger question – will Blackboard take the low road with its new patent on LMS and go after Moolde (and all the others) for infringement somehow?

    5. Vlogging Becomes the New Podcasting

    • Agreed – video is finally getting hot – easy tools have been around for enough years now that we have reached that tipping point, I believe. Storytelling in the digital age is so awesome – give the kids the tools, and stay out of their way!!! (but continue to guide them…)

    So, for my predictions…

    1. Web 2.0 will be understood by the masses. Things take time to “filter down.” DOPA will give the great new tools attention (albeit negative), but will bring the conversation to everyone’s breakfast and dinner tables. We’ll have to use whatever publicity we can get, and then take the teachable moment to show the power of the tools.

    2. Video, in all its forms, will be hot (see above #5).

    3. As much as we want to take 10 giant steps ahead in educational technology – we won’t. This is not meant to be a cold water item – just a mental note that we will feel the hurt of the 9 steps we don’t succeed in more than the joy of the one step we do. We have to go for the 10, or more, but also have to be our own best cheerleaders no matter what.

    Thanks, Andy, for your post – it got some juices going!

  • What’s the Beef?

    Blogs! Wikis! Podcasts! Aggregators! Web 2.0!

    In a salute to the great Wendy’s slogan of the 80’s, the “beef” of current trends in technology are NOT those things listed above. Those items (except for Web 2.0 which is a general label for all of the latest technology trends on the web) are awesome products of the real beef:

    RSS and tagging

    or more simply put,

    subscriptions and keywords.

    Those 2 items alone are the core of the current fury in technology. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) allows one to electronically subscribe to anyhing that they want to read, hear, or watch (provided whomever creates the work offers an RSS feed). Tagging, or assigning keywords, allows one to search or create content (text, audio, video) by topic.

    These 2 pieces form the foundation of how blogs, podcasts, aggregators and the like become powerful tools. By subscribing and keyword searching, you can create an extremely personalized and extraordinary web of information and learning.

    Thanks go to recent posts by David Warlick and Will Richardson to help push my thinking on this.

  • Open Source Sweetness

    So in the land of pesonal learning, I have been working with open source software to learn how this type of software can be beneficial. What is open souce software? For the most part it is FREE software that does all the things pay-for software does. People write code for this software in the interest of making good things, and are not looking for money.

    I have a computer that I built and have installed Linux OS on (instead of Windows or Mac OS). The particular version of Linux (called a distribution) is Suse version 10.1. Along with the OS comes the web browser, tons of utilites, and more so you can do all the things necessary without the price tag.

    Doing open source is not for the faint-of-heart, but it is well worth it. Since it is FREE, the possibilities are ENDLESS. Many corporations, and now schools, are switching to open

    opensuse

    source solutions to control costs. Open source may be in your future!

  • Whew!

    This is a test post to make sure the transfer of my WordPress data made it into the new domain. It appears that the new home, www.pointatopointb.org, is happy & healthy!

    Onto the more important work of building the site…

  • Revisiting an Old Friend

    A number of years ago I saw a quote on the cover of an educational periodical. It jumped out at me and resonated with what I have always felt. To this day I have that cover, albeit a bit beat up, taped to my desk. It is a quote from T.H. White in The Once and Future King:

    “The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then— to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”

    To this day the quote is my favorite – I always find strengh in learning. Technology is doing things to learning like never before, but it is STILL the learning that is the key. Technology is an awesome vehicle, but not the destination.

    Everyone loves to learn something. What we need to do is connect the desire for learning with the content for learning.

  • Learning is Everywhere

    I love going to workshops. I don’t necessarily find huge new ideas, but there are always great little tips and tricks to hear, and you can observe different ways to teach particular concepts. It is very refreshing to not be in the driver’s seat, and soak up how someone else presents. It is invaluable in the learning cycle to participate in it from all vantage points.

  • Homerun

    I just finished the last presentation of the year – woo-hoo! I convinced my very talented colleague Pam Lombardo to present with me about our first year of having SMART Boards full-time in classrooms. We had a full house in the session, and I think the message of what can be done with interactive whiteboards came across well.

    This brings to a close a great 2005-2006 year. We had quite a few building-wide initiatives, and all were fully realized. I have the priveledge of working in an environment that encourages and supports great learning with technology. I am looking forward to what next year will bring – I love my job!!!

  • DON’T (!) Use the Computer

    When you are researching something, don’t always go to the computer first. Ask yourself who/what/where might the best place be to find what you need? There are still TONS of great resources of information that don’t involve the Internet. BOOKS still have information, and can get you what you need very quickly. PEOPLE have information, and can get you what you need very quickly. The Internet is an awesome place to find out stuff, but you have to be careful that what you find is trustworthy. ASK for help if you need it, and happy learning.

    Kind of a funny thing for the computer teacher to say, huh? Any thoughts?