Author Archives: witchyrichy

Just finished reading Ginsberg by Barry Miles. Excellent biography, and I finished with the impression that Ginsberg knew everyone of any importance not just in the sixties but throughout the whole second half of the 21st century. At one point, I found myself just making lists of names: the beatniks, their girlfriends, other poets, musicians, artists, and photographers. Was the world smaller then? And what would have happened if Ginsberg had learned to blog?

In terms of technology, I was struck by the description of taping the Dialectics of Liberation conference in 1967. There were plans to make a set of albums: “A woman at the pressing plant, listening to a test pressing of Allen’s speech to check for faults, was so upset by the quotes from Nova Express that she became ill and had to be sent home. The plant refused to press the record, and other means had to be found, holding up the release of the entire series” (p. 398). Forty years later, we can publish immediately without the problems on an intermediary who questions the worth of what we publish.

Found myself making the same point twice today in two completely different environments: we in the educational technology community have not done a good job of making the case for technology integration. We can mandate and evaluate technology use, but until we convince teachers and administrators that there is some value added when using technology, it will only be the innovators who truly integrate. Others will continue to use technology when it fits neatly into what they’ve always done but we won’t see any major changes in pedagogy or instructional strategies.

Tired of looking at the FedEx rant I wrote so long ago and then discovered this blank post–#85–sitting in my draft box. Hmm, what was I thinking about? Who knows, who ever knows! But it’s blank and as a writer, I need to fill it up. But with what? Let’s start with personal drivel: I’m heading to campus to work at the Swem Library Media Center for most of the day, but it’s too early. I love the work, helping to set up a multimedia production studio complete with 5 sound proof booths and lots of great equipement. I got to work on the tutorial for Final Cut Pro last week…much better than the usual GAship that includes certification as a copier technician by the end of your program.

In interest of full disclosure, the FedEx thing worked out fine…the driver got the message and called to be sure I was home. He also told me just to leave a note the next time, and he would leave the package.

This really is drivel, isn’t it? Guess that’s why I have trouble keeping up with this personal blog: can’t imagine that anyone is interested in my personal doings! I pictured it as a book review blog, but mostly what I am NOT doing right now that bothers me is reading. I’ve started a couple books–Philip Jackson’s Life in Classrooms and Barry Miles’ biography of Allen Ginsburg. But I can’t seem to get to them, end up instead in bed with the remote in my hand, surfing crappy television. In fact, my television show is just a series of 20-second vignettes, a string of commercials, football games, court room dramas, sitcoms, just enough of them to form a story that I visit the next time round the dial. It’s like peering into your neighbors’ windows but only for a moment. So, my goal this week is to avoid television and spend more time with a book in my hand.

Got home this afternoon to see a note from FedEx that they had tried to deliver a package but needed my signature, and the signature release wasn’t good enough. It didn’t specify a time when they would try to deliver it again, and it indicated that after the third attempt, they would return the package. So, I called Customer Service (an oxymoron in this case), explained that there wasn’t a time on the tag and asked to schedule a delivery time. How naive of me! The driver hadn’t put a time on the tag because they wouldn’t schedule an appointment for home delivery. Drivers deliver between 8 AM and 8 PM, and if I want my package, I need to be here.

I was a little taken aback, and I’m afraid I wasn’t very nice to the operator. In other words, I asked her, FedEx expected me to be at home for 12 hours on Tuesday to receive the package? That seems a little ridiculous! The best she could do was request a time, but my driver was under absolutely no obligation to try to meet it. I gave her two times, and we shall see if they are able to honor it. I’m not going to be around at all on Wednesday so if I miss it on Tuesday then I’m done and my package gets returned. And maybe I should be ranting about Apple here since the signatures are required on Apple packages.

Sometime during this very annoying conversation, I asked to be directed to a higher up so I could lodge an official complaint. The operator was in such a hurry to get off the phone (I really wasn’t that bad) that she wished me a nice day and hung up before I could remind her. I’m heading off to FedEx’s site right now to find a way to complain more officially.

I have never encountered real hostility towards Wikipedia, mostly just concerns that, with a little education, can be answered. Inevitably, when I do a workshop and mention Wikipedia, I get one or two questions about accuracy. How can we trust something that we all create together? So, I give them some time to browse, reading articles in their particular areas of expertise. We look at the history of a page, how it is built by consensus and then monitored and maintained by its creators. And, since Tom Friedman’s book came out, I share with them his comments about how he used Wikipedia regularly in writing his latest book, The World Is Flat. These practices help them understand how Wikipedia works and the community that has developed around it.

I loved Andy Carvin’s idea for incorporating Wikipedia in the classroom that he suggested over the summer. Since then, I have shared his ideas with several groups and most have found it a great idea that they planned to implement during the school year. Again, giving people time to understand and explore is important if they are going to be supportive of Wikipedia.

I am using my own wiki (http://www.simplykaren.org/wiki) as part of the pre-service education classes I am teaching. Small groups are developing entries related to technology topics that we don’t always have time to cover in class. My special education class is working on an entry about assistive technology. I explained to them that this really is an experiment in a new way of writing and creating. You can watch the development of these entries at the wiki. Later in the semester, I will have them reflect on the process, which is actually what I’m really interested in!

Doesn’t the Secret Service have better things to do? And who’s the company that contracted them??

WAVY.COM – N.C. High School Project Considered Potential Threat To Bush

Finally, I found free time to go back to my bibliography/note taking program. I had built in very basic functionality that allowed me to use it to write at least one or two papers last year. But I had dreams and this past week, I got started on those dreams, beginning with adding the ability to store documents related to the record. I am hoping this feature, which after a week of tinkering and getting help from the web and my husband, will help eliminate lots of paper and also consolidate storage of research documents.

Currently, the digital documents I use get stored on my hard drive along with the paper in which I used them. From there, they become part of the archive for each class. But I obviously refer to the same articles across classes and will need them for my lit review. So it only makes sense to save them in the database along with the record, quotes, and notes. And, I am happy to report, now I can.

Besides my husband and several books, I found two websites particularly helpful: PHP MySQL Tutorial and Joao Prado Maia’s tutorial at O’Reilly Network.

I went through a couple iterations, starting with independent pages to view and download the documents, but now, after you upload a document, you can link it to a record and from the View page, download the document. So, I’m going to stop coding and start entering!

Oh…I also learned how to make URLs appear as hyperlinks. (Found the code here.) At this point, besides some cosmetic stuff, Noter is everything I imagined when I started this project in August 2004. And I think I even understand a little about PHP after all this! In fact, I was surprised how easy it was to fall back into coding after a nearly six month hiatus.

Steven Johnson’s commentary in the Los Angeles Times answering Hillary Clinton’s charges against Grand Theft Auto is a good read for anyone living and working with teens.

My 17-year-old nephew made an interesting point about some of the video games that doesn’t have to do with violence and sex. His concern was with the stereotyping that takes place so that the gangsters tend to be from minority groups and perpetuate the image of poor urban youth as lawbreakers. From the mouths of babes?

I am spending the week in Glenns, VA, at Rappahannock Community College working with a great group of teachers, most of whom will be Instructional Technology Resource Teachers for their school divisions next year. This new position was created by the Virginia Department of Education as part of the Standards of Quality and requires each division in the state to have one ITRT for every 1000 students. The goal is to help the regular classroom teachers better integrate technology. I asked the participants to say a little something about their jobs or their ideas about technology and here’s the first…

Jon Udell’s very cool walking tour of Keene, NH along with directions for how to do it using various hacks and scripts created by various people. Here’s the important part, the same point that Tom Friedman makes quite a bit in The World Is Flat:

“There’s lots of stuff here to play with. Was this all just an unintended consequence, or does Google really get that the future is services co-created by the people who use them? The latter, I hope, but we’ll soon see.”

The users are creating the product…

Jon Udell: Walking tour of Keene: followup