November 11, 2010
Feature Article
The Secreted Life of Bees
Stephen Downes, November 11, 2010.
Harvested from Half an Hour
Educational Technology and Related Education Conferences
Clayton R. Wright,
Document, November 11, 2010.
Clayton R. Wright has produced another of his widely appreciated calendars of education and ed tech related conferences. This calendar is for the first half of 2011. Wright writes, "As usual, the list contains an updated listing of events in December 2010 as well as listings after June 2011. Only listings from December 2010 to June 2011 are complete as information for a number of events after July 2011 were not available at the time this list was prepared. Some of the items on the list have attractive/interesting titles such as:
- Redesigning Pedagogy: Transforming Teaching, Inspiring Learning
- Crossing Borders: Traveling, Teaching and Learning in a Global Age
- Education in a Changing Environment: Creativity and Engagement in Higher Education
- Nothing Left to the Imagination? Media Arts Conference
Expletives Deleted: Swearing in Social Media
Jolie O'Dell,
Weblog, November 11, 2010.
Via Edudemic, which also examines social media language stats. I like Jolie O'Dell's video, which consists of a question posted to her social media friends and a summary of the responses she received, together with her own conclusion (to tone down the language) about the issue. Myself, I keep the language pretty clean. I have a wide range of expression, so I don't feel limited if I don't swear. And I see no upside to making people uncomfortable with my language.
But also: live professionally.
It an attitude. It's like that line from Karate Kid (2010): "Kung Fu is in everything you do." It's true. The standards of behaviour in your office or your classroom should apply to your life as well. Because it's about being better in your life. Being off the job doesn't give you a free pass on behaviour. Similarly, the standards of behaviour from your home - what counts as moral, decent, and right - should also apply in the office. Being at work doesn't give you a free pass on ethics. Why? Because it's better. It makes you better.
Every Teacher's Must-Have Guide To Facebook
Unattributed,
Edudemic, November 11, 2010.
I'm not sure I'd rank this as a "must-have" but the page contains a few useful resources, including a video of a 10-year old explaining how to use Facebook, some lists of things teachers should and should not do on Facebook, and a good list of Facebook types to avoid.
How Canada became an open data and data journalism powerhouse
Simon Rogers ,
The Guardian - Data Blog, November 11, 2010.
This is pretty encouraging. An article in the Guardian describes how Canada is leading the way in open data, and more importantly, ways to use open data to support journalism. For example, "Patrick Cain [is] quietly and methodically producing strikingly interesting maps of his home city of Toronto" using open data. Others involved include Chad Skelton at the Vancouver Sun, Rob Cribb at the Toronto Star; David McKie at the CBC and Glen McGregor at the Ottawa Citizen. There's also Trish Garner who runs Toronto's open data initiative. Finally, see presentations from Jury Konga "who has been helping to create the G4 Open Data Framework" and a collection of Canadian open data sites.
Election night with Share Toronto and Patrick Cain
Patrick Cain's % of votes cast for (winning mayoral contender) Rob Ford, 2010 local elections. Via Media Awareness Network.
Stuy student uncovers SAT score "secret"
Steve Koss,
Education Notes Online, November 7, 2010.
I sometimes talk about using communities to assess learning. People ask, how can you be sure this will result in better evaluations. Certainly a part of my response consists of, "how could it be worse?" In the case of SAT essay tests, for example, we have this story: "there was an exceedingly high correlation between number of lines in the essay and its score, so high that the probability of its being random was effectively zero." See also this.
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