McBloglin

Today captured in many ways the path we have walked since Fall 2007 in supporting teachers with IWB’s and tablets. Believing that technology, whatever that may be, can only be used successfully as a tool for integration if dedicated professional development is attached, we gathered a group of teachers together, with a complete range of experiences. From our initial meeting, then on-site release time, and to our final reflections today, a dedicated and diverse group showed a commitment to collaborate and connect. A Professional Learning Network is a dynamic and organic entity, and ours has ebbed and flowed, but in the end has grown in numbers, has a commitment to sustainability, and has a mandate to facilitate other teachers with like technology throughout the system. Must tell you, it was all pretty cool!

Keep an eye out for videos, lesson templates, learning objects and personal reflections in the Interactive Whiteboard conference on Commun-IT http://www.commun-it.org/community/whiteboards/files/

My thanks to all my colleagues who gave their time and dedication to this project.

Barb

I was surprised actually at the lack of comment about Arthur C. Clarke’s passing (at least in my rsses). Mostly known to me as a science fiction writer, he was rather prescient regarding “geostationary orbit”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C_Clarke#Concept_of_the_geo

As a kid I avidly read science fiction, but never Arthur Clarke. However, I can remember so well watching “2001: A Space Odyssey” and just getting such a buzz when the ape “got” it (that musical score didn’t hurt). Never really understood really what was going on, but Hal was cool; 2010 seemed anti-climatic and even more confusing really.

I decided to pick up “2061; odyssey three” and “3001: the final odyssey”(*) for some fun reading this weekend, and to pay tribute to a great mind.

Here’s a couple of quotes from page 15, “2016: odyssey three”:

“….the political tectonic plates were moving as inexorably as the geological ones….For in the beginning, the Earth had possessed the single supercontinent of Pangea, which over the eons had split asunder. So had the human species, into innumerable tribes and nations; now it was merging together, as the old linguistic and cultural divsions began to blur”

and

“With the historic abolition of long-distance charges on 31 December 2000, every telephone call became a local one, and the human race greeted the new millennium by transforming itself into one huge, gossiping family”

This was written in 1987!!!

I am spending entirely too much time this week enjoying my RSS feeds and direct delivery of comments that are filling my inbox. Fascinating “debate” going on at http://weblogg-ed.com/ where Will Richardson has hit several hot buttons. I sifted out 3 key points: the frustration of the converted in trying to understand why everybody doesn’t get it and use Web 2.0 tools exclusively, some name-calling between the bloggers and the academics (bloggers are winning that by sure numbers, obviously…it’s a blog), and a few tentative notes by teachers and administrators who are down in the trenches, trying to be agents of change amongst the realities of bandwidth, RFP’s for hardware, cranky images, creaky AUP’s, parent councils, EBDM’s and sometimes yard duty. I’m in that little group of reality-pushers. Between that debate and all of its jump-outs, and the Ryerson thing, my head is spinning. So I thought I’d share an interactive game, that I came across when I was roaming around the TED lectures. Enjoy! http://www.etchy.org/single.php There is also a LightBrite sim, but I didn’t Del.cio.us it and I have to get out of this chair and go ski or something!