I’ve set up a little page with one-click access to my past podcasts. You’ll see it on the right side of the page if you’re reading this on my site rather than in your aggregator. This should make it a little easier to locate old episodes that you might want to listen to again… and again… and again.
Monthly Archives: March 2006
Podcast Palooza
I think my presentation at Apple’s Podcast Palooza on Wednesday night went pretty well. (There was no audible booing.) David Warlick was there and snapped a photo. At least half the group had listened to a podcast before. I’m not sure how that compares to similar gatherings, but I had the sense that there was pretty good awareness of the broad topic. Feel free to have a listen to the event. We recorded it and posted it on the FETC 2006 podcast page. You can also link directly to the Podcast Palooza presentation, but I would recommend subscribing to the whole collection of podcasts. We’ve been talking to some really interesting people. I spoke with ISTE CEO Don Knezek today, and tomorrow we’ll be interviewing Chris Dede from Harvard, Cheryl Lemke from the Metiri Group, and David Thornburg. Check it out.
Blog warnings
Here’s the latest in a recent string of articles highlighting how one’s online life can carry over into the very real world of work and school. From the NY Daily News, an account of how potential employers use Google as another method of checking up on job applicants. I continue to hear stories of college admissions departments visiting MySpace as an additional step in the application process.
I doubt this matters much to most kids. I maintain that shortsightedness is one of the distinguishing characteristics of adolescence. (And I’m not trying to be too harsh here. It just is.) Many high school students have trouble recognizing the near-term ramifications of their actions, let along what might happen to them several years from now.
At the very least, this Daily News story is a potential opening to a larger and more important conversation with students about appropriate online behavior.
Backstage at FETC
I’ve been to a few conferences over the last few years, but this is my first one with a vendor badge. My badge got me into the vendor hall the day before it opens. (The conference doesn’t really start until tomorrow.) It’s quite the logistics exhibition.
The vendors ship all of their equipment in huge wooden crates. There are forklifts everywhere distributing all of the crates to the booths. It’s a lot of hard, physical labor for everyone and they definitely don’t have the air conditioning on yet. By the way, you can see all of my photos from the conference at my Flickr page.
Off to FETC
I’m getting on a plane bright and early tomorrow for a trip to sunny Orlando, FL and this year’s Florida Educational Technology Conference (FETC). I have a vendor badge for this trip since I’ll be the point person on the Apple podcasting crew. I’ll be speaking at the “Podcast Palooza” on Wednesday night which will be similar to the event held at last year’s NECC in Philadelphia. Beyond that we’re hoping to produce a bunch of great podcasts from the conference including some tours of the vendor hall, conversations with some ed tech luminaries, interviews with attendees, and other things we haven’t thought of yet.
Our podcasts will be available in the iTunes podcast directory. (Search for “fetc.”) You can also find a subscription link at our podcast Web page at web.mac.com/fetc06/. If you’re at the conference, keep an eye out for some folks running around with recording gear. I’d love to meet some of you there.
Joe Lambert: Digital Storytelling, Part 1
Working on the 1-to-1 computing project in my school district has really opened my eyes to the power of storytelling as a learning activity. I’m delighted to present the first in my podcast series on digital storytelling. My guest is Joe Lambert, founder and director of the Center for Digital Storytelling. Joe does a great job of setting the stage for the rest of the series by laying out some of the “big picture” ideas.
Perhaps you’ll listen and think of a few questions that you’d like to ask. If so, feel free to email text or audio questions to savvytechnologistpodcast@gmail.com. I’ll work as many as I can into future episodes.
Download: STP-JoeLambert (15.6 MB, 33:45)
Google snaps up Writely
I’ll never forget when I first figured out why Microsoft was scared of the Internet. I had just built my first Web application, an online event scheduling system for my old school district that would display information about upcoming sporting events, concerts, etc. That was the moment when I realized that the Web made the underlying operating system nearly irrelevant.
One of the best recent examples of a Web-based application that directly challenges the traditional software model is Writely, an online word processor. Writely allows you to share your document with other authors nearly in real-time. I used it to collaborate with a co-author on an article recently and it worked great.
The big news of the day is that Google has just purchased Writely. Google’s been on a bit of a buying spree and this latest acquisition is yet another indicator that the future is on the Web.
Speaking at the ATA
I’m writing this post from the airplane on the way back from the Administrators Technology Academy in Jackson, TN. (Though I’m posting it from the comfort of my recliner at home.) It’s an annual event that draws school administrators from around western Tennessee for a day of learning about educational technology. I was lucky enough to do the opening keynote this morning and got the day started by looking ahead to the year 2016 and the technology that we will be using by then. My talk had several themes:
- Technology is advancing at an exponential rate, and most people don’t understand exponential growth. The implication is that we ain’t seen nothing yet with respect to technological change. If Moore’s Law holds, computer chips ten years from now will be 32x more powerful than the ones we have today.
- Old teaching methods don’t work with today’s kids. I raised a few eyebrows when I suggested that the act of a teacher consciously deciding not to use advanced technology with his or her students might be considered educational malpractice.
- The value of factual knowledge is plummeting. I showed how quickly basic facts can be accessed with Google and looked ahead to a day within ten years when all students will carry an Internet-connected computing device with them 24×7.
- We are in a relevance race. If we fail to utilize new technologies, we risk alienating our students. It won’t be many years before students can homeschool themselves and earn a high school diploma without setting foot inside a traditional school. If schools as we know them are to survive and prosper, we’re going to have to adjust to a world where we’re not the only game in town.
Of course, it was much more exciting than that in person! I tried to come up with some choice quotes to leave with the group. Here are two that seemed to go over well:
If your work can be automated, it will be.
And the question of the day:
What are you doing right now to prepare your students to collaborate seamlessly across cultures in jobs that probably don’t yet exist?