2¢ Worth

It’s New Year’s Eve and we’re out exploring eastern North Carolina.  I hope to be able to share some magnificent pictures tomorrow.  Or not!  We’ll see.

I selected this creative commons licensed photo because it is a miraculous photograph. But also because there was this look of expectation on the child’s face, that nourishing water […]

I really wasn’t aware of this going on until Andy Carvin tagged me last night at 6:27.  It seems that folks are blogging five things that their readers don’t know about them, and then tagging other people to fess up.  How can I top getting shot at by Turkish military police, or knowing Taekwondo, or […]

Andy Carvin writes a fine summary for the Deleting Online Predators Act at Learning Now.
TeacherSource | learning.now . DOPA Dies on the Vine | PBS:
But the final nail in DOPA’s coffin came with the switch of Congress from Republican to Democrat. Legislation that doesn’t get signed into law by the end of a congressional term […]

Geek Index is pretty high on this one!
You know how frustrating it is when you want to respond to somebody’s blog posting with your well thoughtout disertation, but the scrolling text box is only 14 columns by 2 rows?  Well The Man in Blue, Austrialian web designer, Cameron Adams, just showed me a way […]

I wrote yesterday (North Carolina Aims for the 21st Century) about my state’s Future-Ready Students for the 21st Century goals, commenting on some aspects of the learning and teaching elements.  As the day progressed, I found myself thinking more about the process.  As a thirty-year educator, I have seen many such initiatives in North Carolina, […]

Skelleton of a T-Rex Looks out over the Legislature Building from the NC Science Museum across the Street

I’ve known about this  for a few months, but only took a close look the other day after a meeting with some folks at our state department of education (NCDPI).  It’s called, Future-Ready Students for the 21st Century, […]

Fred Koch alerted me to another story about video games in education.  This Chicago Tribune piece is about David Williamson Shaffer, of Epistemic Games and the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
There’s not a lot that is new in the article, but we have another serious researcher to pay attention to.
Video games […]

Microsoft’s Dan’l Lewin posts in his AlwaysOn blog, a rather long piece on what’s next in video games.  It is largely a Microsoft commercial, but uncovers some of the emerging trends in the video game industry.
Gaming — The Next Generation Moves On | AlwaysOn:
Gaming is clearly one of the trend stories of the decade. It […]

This in from the trickle of e-mail that has hit my mail box over the past very busy couple of days.  Bonnie Bracey1 posted the story over WWWEDU that was originally posted on edweek.org.2
Science teachers, who wish to use Vice President Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” can go to www.participate.net, and request the DVD.  […]

Google’s Blogger Adds Privacy Options - Forbes.com:
Google Inc. has released a new version of its Blogger service, adding privacy settings that restrict readership to a predetermined audience. Users can choose to have blogs accessible to anyone or just to themselves. Or they can list the e-mail addresses of the people they want to […]