Day: June 30, 2005

Next Few Weeks

We fly back to Grand Forks tomorrow. When I arrive home, I will place my bag in the house, grab a different bag I packed before I left, get in my car, and head for Alaska. We have to reach Prince Rupert to board a ferry by Tuesday.

I hope to offer a few posts while I am gone and hope to offer more than travel stories. I love to travel by car and camper for long periods of time and think of the experience as a learning opportunity (hence relevant to the purpose of this list). It is a great opportunity to read, listen to my iPod (audiobooks or music), and edit papers I owe students. We take a couple of computers, digital cameras and video cameras. We have a converter that allows us to plug in our technology while in the car so we can write, edit video, etc. No Internet access, but there may be opportunities at stops.

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NECC 2005 – The END (for now)

First, I would like to announce that I have won a prize at the “end of conference give away.” Year after year I have attended this event without a reinforcement. I wondered about practice – bribing folks to stay to the end in hopes of winning a computer, air fare to next year’s even, etc. If one believes in the principle of thin schedules of reinforcement one might predict I will attend the give away again next year. I feel a certain sense of loss – I can not longer complain about the probability of attending year after year without a prize. Now, I must attend many more years to get back to the basic law of averages. Oh – my prize? A 64 flash drive. I still have mixed feelings about the strategy – my preference would be for a few larger prizes (rather than many small prizes) and more time spend on a presentation of some type.


Latest episode in the web quest saga?

Bernie Dodge presented on new developments in the world of web quests – how to make development easier so more teachers use them. The grand strategy is a new web site called “Web Garden” that will be available Sept. 1. It is basically a scaffolded online development site which includes the opportunity to export the code for the finished product and the opportunity to load a webquest developed by another author and made modifications.

Watch http://webquest.sdsu.edu/ for release information.

Bernie also took the time to participate in a podcast that provides additional information on this venture.

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