News:
California bill wants Google to blur out schools and churches. I certainly have concerns about Google’s eye on the earth from above, but I’m wondering if this bill is really necessary, or hysteria over nothing.
Study confirms that TxT SPK doesn’t hurt kids’ language skills. The tendency for students to write in short hand on their cell phones and IM clients is not all so bad. In fact, it is like a second language. It’s more of an indicator of a stronger handle of language to be able to use TXT SPK than not.
Podcasts better than attending class or here. Those who listened to podcasts of their professors’ lectures scored better than those who attended in person. Hmm, I find this result hard to believe. Actually this is only based on one lecture. Why does Ars Technica even publish a news story like this?
People are becoming better web searchers, using more keywords.
For Discussion:
Control is a Worthless Pursuit and Format bigotry. Two blog posts raising the constant need for school districts, administrators, and teachers to ban students from certain sites and tools. We need to provide proper instruction in using these tools, not restrict them completely. In my school district, many valuable sites are blocked, including YouTube, all email clients, and Flickr. Instead of encouraging intelligent use, we restrict everything of questionable nature.
Wikis are a great tool that many teachers have little knowledge about. Here’s a nice post about guidelines for editing a wiki.
Recommendations:
You may have heard of Wikipedia before. How about Simple English Wikipedia? A good resource for EL students. This definition is much easier to understand than this one.
Mr. L’s Math. A very well done blog for math. Frequently updated and nice resource.
Typealyzer. Analyze your personality type from your blog’s writing style. Hmm, this blog turned out to be ISTJ–Duty Fulfillers, and my baseball blog was INTP.
The Ultimate Open Courseware Toolset. A nice list of resources to check out when time presents itself.
Top 10 tools for your blog or website.
Trap 4 mathmaticians in a room that is shrinking. Here’s a movie worth checking out.
Just for fun.
Polar clock. Check out this screen saver. Pointless and unique.
Unrelated to tech:
Glendale schools ban teachers’ personal coffee makers and fridges. Ironically, I see this article days after our assistant principal confiscated the fridge in my room.
skramstad EdTech
