Category: General

Polywogg is a new blog tool for the Mac. It is presently free. You can host your blog with .Mac or with a WEBDAV server. The Polywogg system supports an wide variety of media types.

The November edition of eSchool News reports that four technology-specific programs (including PT3) are at risk in the 2004 Federal budget (note you may have to register to examine this article online). The House has been particularly problematic in supporting specific educational technology programs. Community Technology Centers, Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology, Ready to Teach, and Star Schools are presently in danger.

Cindy received a Department of Education Teaching American History grant last year. Part of the mission of this grant was to create a database supported web sites offering ideas for history lessons that could be searched by topic, standard, or grade level. This web site has just gone public – Grand Forks Teaching American History Site.

The most recent issue of Learning and Learning with Technology (Nov, 2003, 31(3)) offers several articles on a similar topic. This issue is available online and ISTE members can download the articles as PDFs.

The new Mac operating system – Panther – appears to have a problem with some specific external fire wire drives. MacFixIt reports that the data on firewire drives with a specific chip set (see article) are corrupted.

I would guess some poor users tried to do the right thing – back up essential data – loaded Panther and then tried to move the data back.

Check this out. I came across this link on the MIT Technology Review blog site. Blogger fired.

The Education Department has produced a press release summarizing Internet access. The short version – access in schools has greatly improved and equity issues have diminished, differences in student access from home are increasing.

The body of this press release provides some useful statistics and links to additional information.

There are some folks you can count on to consistently oppose what you advocate. I think this predictability is helpful and saves me some time when I need to search for resources. I like to challenge the students in the “pro technology” classes I teach to determine what they might say to refute the position of X (insert name of famous anti-technology person here). For example, I still sometimes show a Nightline tape I purchased (9/30/98) because it quickly establishes the positions of a number of individuals and ask that students identify key arguments and possible counter arguments. Books are also a nice way to present the “other view”. I buy and read these books, but my students seem to think it is too much of an investment on their part to do the same.

I bring this up because it appears there is a new book of this genre. Todd Oppenheimer has a new book called The Flickering mind: The false promise of technology in classrooms (see review).

{sarcastic rant} The arguments seem to be about the same (my simplified and obviously biased interpretation follows) — schools seem impervious to true change and yet spend money on new technologies (insert historical reference to TV, film, radio — I would also suggest insert book, but that one seemed to work). We have no strong research evidence that the innovation (insert innovation of your choice) improves performance on standardized multiple choice examinations. Since these “technologies” never seem to stand the test of time (unless one considers use of said technology in any venue external to schools) and have little research support, these pointless experiments cost money that might better serve some other purpose. {/sarcastic rant}