STOP

I used to blog for my old company, but they took the blog down. I am
not actually allowed to own the writings I put up on that blog, but as
I reference them on occasion in my writing I am putting those articles
up in my archives here for reference sake. I'll put the tag GS on those
articles noting that they were originally published on the http://schoolfinder.globalscholar.com/blog/

STOP

October 3, 2008 – 6:24 am by Brendan

I get so much information from twitter these days I don’t know how I leaned anything before. I started blogging for GlobalScholar a few months ago. To research I started with searches of news sites for education. I got a lot of stories about things that happened at schools. I read a lot of articles on shootings, and awards, and some spotlights on kids or teachers.

I started reading a few blogs. Mostly teachers, but a few ex-teachers like myself, some administrators, and even some students. I have twenty or thirty blogs I try to read on a regular basis. Then I started to get a few twitter names and started to follow them. I only have about 30 people I’m following on twitter yet I get so many interesting tidbits of information from them I rarely go back to the traditional searches for stories.

Often through using twitter and blogs I end up learning what and how technology is really being used in some schools. I learn how research from universities and professors is actually being used in real life. I see the connection between the technology start up that I am working for and how it might be used in the classroom. (Yes we are specifically designed for use in schools, but that doesn’t mean that is exactly how we will be used in the real world, in every situation)

Two things I learned in the last two days following twits. (I never thought I would ever imply that following a twit was a good idea).

In 2005 Mark Federman let us know that the definition of literacy has already changed.

Business Week shares a video of Chris Lehman informing us that it is time to STOP blaming teachers, STOP blaming schools, STOP thinking we can measure everything a student knows from a test, STOP thinking school is just like business. He informs us that if we put a good people in a bad system more often than not the system wins. …

Later Chris says, “They should not give us schools and computers, they should give us whole new schools.”

That last one hit home because I just listened to a podcast yesterday. In the podcast the principal was talking about the logistical problems in his school, the big problem that no one thought about, he literally did not have enough outlets. I’ve worked in two school buildings both over 100 years old. Now that I think about it we didn’t have that many outlets. How would we put more than just a few computers in the classroom?

If I can use this technology right below should be the video embedded into this post. I encourage you to also check out edtechtalk as they have many other great interviews.