geek.teacher

I’ll keep this one short and sweet. If you’re at all interested to find out how Apple can take a flat phone with a touch screen and one button and turn it into an amazingly accessible device for people with vision/reading disabilities, watch this video.

Tonight the new Wolfram|Alpha computational knowledge engine launched.  Thanks to an overload of paperwork, I’d successfully avoided the hype until a few hours before the launch, when I decided to sit down and watch the introductory screencast.  I had an immediate reaction that I needed to share with my friend Brian:

Once I saw that it launched, I decided to test out a few different things.  I discovered the weather on my birthday (cloudy, average temperature 8 degrees).  To the surprise of everybody, I discovered that I am apparently the ideal male:

Sorry, ladies, I’m already taken.  Honestly, though, my favorite part of the data provided is “normal” in quotation marks.

Finally, I had to know the most important answer of all:

Yes, it’s fun to play around with, but this kind of tool could be incredibly useful for our students and is definitely something to keep an eye on.  As opposed to links, it’s pure data and information.  It’s a search engine that will solve math problems for you and provide definitions for words.  I really do recommend you check out the gallery of examples to see the huge scope that this engine provides already.

It makes me proud to see high schoolers taking a delightful jab at the march of progress (or lack thereof).  Chris Lehmann from SLA shared this awesome video on the Twitters done by some of the students there which explains the problem with textbooks.  I’d say more, but I don’t want to spoilt it.  Thoughts after the video.

My favorite bit is definitely when he wants to save the image, but realizes he doesn’t have a folder to drag it to.  But every single point is spot on when comparing the interactivity of the learning experience when reading hypertext vs. plain text.

Now, I love a good book, as seen here:

But we need to face facts: texbooks are incredibly lame in comparison to hypertext.  I’ve had to attend a lot of reading trainings the past couple of years as my school fights for AYP, and the key point that’s always made is that good readers interact with the text.  The whole point of a hypertext setup is the interaction.

Of course, this doesn’t need to be just on a computer.  Earlier today I read an interesting writeup by Seth Godin in which he describes changes he would make to the Kindle.  Relevant ones for education in particular:

3. Anytime I send someone a book (see #1) or recommend a book, let me (with the other person’s consent) see the comments they write in the margins of the book as they read it. Imagine being able to read a novel this way with your book group, or a sales manual with your department.

6. Demolish the textbook market as soon as possible by publishing open source textbooks for free.

7. Give publishers the ability to insert quizzes or feedback. This creates a certification or continuing ed or textbook opportunity far bigger than a book can deliver.

In particular, #3 is just the kind of thing that would be awesome for a classroom environment.  Teachers could see the notes that students are taking to help them see if the students understand the material, and students can see what everybody else wrote to lead to a richer understanding.  Add the ability to do a quick gogole.wiki search for any word in the text, you have instant, limitless, connected, and relevant knowledge.

I also very much enjoy the idea of destroying the textbook industry.  Having recently listened to the audiobook version of A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (please note: that there is a link to the apparently full text of the book.  For free.  Awesome!) and also being a fan of Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen, I can pretty safely say that, at least when it comes to history, there’s a lot that can be improved there.  Being able to quickly and easily look up more information, possibly from a very different perspective, would be a huge improvement.  Science and Math books need some serious improvement, too, as Dan Meyer likes to point out.

This post started as just me wanting to embed a funny video.  Funny how my brain made all these connections as I worked.  Hyperthoughts!

I had my students write paragraphs about what they are thankful for this year, so I figured I would write along a similar trend.  I am, of course, thankful for many things in this world, not the least of which would be my family and friends.  However, the thing I am most thankful for this year in relation to how it has changed (some might say warped) my thinking would undoubtedly be my Personal Learning Network.

A year ago I didn’t have a PLN.  I took the plunge early this year as I started to check out some more educational blogs and found a lot of good stuff.  Those blogs got me into Twitter.  I had signed up for Twitter back when I first heard about it because it sounded interesting, but, as I would imagine many people do, I hit a brick wall early.  I didn’t know anybody on Twitter, and couldn’t convince anybody to join me.  When I discovered the same people writing the blogs I liked to read also tweeted, I jumped back in, following them.  Then I started following people that they were talking to, so I could understand more.  Things kind of snowballed from there.  

While I still continue to follow blogs, and use diigo groups a little, at the end of the day, Twitter takes the crown as the most important piece of my PLN.  I interact with so many different educators from all around the world, getting links, resources, and advice.  I share my own knowledge as well whenever possible, but I get back so much more than I could possibly give.

Some wonderful things that make Twitter so worth it to me:

• As stated before, talking to educators living quite literally on the other side of the world, like Jeff Utecht in Thailand
• Talking to some great local educators I never would have talked to due to them being in different districts, such as Kristen Hokanson and Diana Laufenberg
• The strange near mind-melds I occasionally get with Damian Bariexca and Chad Brannon
• Talking about students having laptops in the classroom with Jackie Ballarini, Chris Champion, and Karen Janowski.  Should we put them into the IEPs?  Should students bring their own laptops?  Can they check them out?
• Early this morning, thanks to Mr. Tweet, I started following Craig Nansen.  he follows me back, notices I’m asking about DSLRs, and gives me tons of really helpful information as I try to figure out exactly what to ask for on my Christmas list.
• The generally goofy humor that occurs when a bunch of nerdy teachers interact, providing some at times much needed comic relief to my day

So, thank you fellow edutwitters.  You’ve given me so much, and I hope to continue to provide back in kind.  Thanks for giving me new material, for stretching my thinking about a wide variety of topics, and, in essence, helping me to develop into a better, more knowledgeable teacher.  Thank you.