Category Archives: Technology

Reading keeps getting better

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I’ve written before about the way that my personal technology, including my iPhone and the Instapaper web service, have changed the way I read. I now have a simple method for gathering text (RSS, the Reeder app), a straightforward system for reading those items that show promise (Instapaper), and the ability to share what I like through email or social networks.

This week, however, things changed dramatically. My wonderful and beautiful (and patient and tolerant) wife gave me an iPad for my birthday. As a hardcore Apple fanboy, I know everything there is to know about these devices. I can recite their specs and troubleshoot their problems even though I’ve never owned one until now. I thought that I understood the draw of the tablet over the laptop or smartphone, but I didn’t really appreciate it until this week.

While I expected to continue using Reeder and Instapaper through their iPad versions, I did not anticipate how much I would enjoy reading with one other application: Flipboard. I had heard about it from others and knew that it could pull in your RSS feeds, Facebook news feed, and Twitter timeline. But that’s just the beginning.

Flipboard (free app, iTunes store link) takes these feeds, along with recommended reading from the likes of The Atlantic, National Geographic, Geekologie, and MANY others, and puts them into a gorgeous magazine interface. The reader flips through pages of articles with bright color photos. One tap on an article and it feels the screen in an animation that must be seen to be appreciated. There one can read the entire article, post to Twitter, send to Instapaper, or email a link. In short, everything that I might want to do with it.

The end result is a powerfully engaging reading experience that I find myself coming back to several times a day.  While my kids keep trying to borrow the iPad to play games and watch YouTube videos, I slip away to a quiet place and read for hours.  I get lost in the experience, similar to the way we all surfed the Internet for hours in the early days of web browsing when hyperlinks would take you down a rabbit hole that you would never have imagined.  I see this as the future of twenty-first century reading, and I think that it has tremendous potential for bringing young people back to the page, albeit a digital one.

I’m still exploring some of the amazing things that a tablet can do, and I’m sure to have more thoughts and questions to share here in the near future.  In the meantime, I’ve got a lot of reading to do.

What’s your favorite use for your iPad?

 

Sad Day: Instructify signs off

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One of my favorite resource-sharing blogs, Instructify, has announced that it will stop publishing new content in a few days. It’s always sad to lose a valuable resource, especially because it is likely linked to the current economic troubles affecting the State of North Carolina.

Bill Ferris has said that all existing content will continue to be available for the foreseeable future.

Rest in peace, dear friend Instructify.

That’s What I’m Talking About: Creationism

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The last few weeks have been a flurry of activity related to my “day job” and the many responsibilities that I have (voluntarily) taken on there.  I’ve spent a lot of mental time trying to figure out how to maintain the conversation here that I value so much personally and professionally, while slogging through the day-to-day joys and challenges of being a middle school teacher.

An idea that I’ve come up with is a new type of post called That’s What I’m Talking About or TWITA, for short.  I plan to use this type of writing from time to time to share the work of other authors that jives so well with my thinking that I wish I wrote it.  In each case, I’ll add some commentary of my own and try to start up some interesting conversations here.

Continue reading →

Quick Note: Webpages about Webpages

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Recently, I was looking to set up a page of web links for my students to use in class and at home. I thought of Diigo and its social bookmarking, but that required a little more setup and “front loading” with my students than I was hoping for. So, I did some research and found some great resources.

Before long, I began to realize that I really didn’t want to make separate webpage because of the time involved. That’s when I discovered that the URL shortening service called Bit.ly has a “bundling” feature that allows one to create a page of links and descriptions that all share one URL. Fur.ly is another tool that goes one step further and includes thumbnail screen shots of the webpages that are all linked from one page.

I would strongly recommend either tool for those of you finding yourselves in the same situation.

My Top 10 in 2010

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As much as I crack corny jokes and “pun”-ish those around me with my cheesy humor, I am actually not a big fan of tired cliches.  Nonetheless, I feel the need to wrap up every calendar year with a look back on the things I learned and the highlights of my digital world.  To this end, and possibly just to put them all in one place, here are the ten blog post and articles that influenced me the most in 2010.  They are sorted by the effect that they had on me.

Made Me Laugh

Short Imagined Monologues by Timothy McSweeney (and others)

This entire blog deserves your undivided attention for about one hour.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.  Okay, wasn’t that AWESOMELY funny?!?  It’s easy in a year that bashed teachers and promised that firing them would make education better to get depressed and forget how to laugh.  That’s when I visit McSweeney’s for some much-needed hilarity.

The Oatmeal Comics at TheOatmeal.com

I think it was Jerry Seinfeld who said that the funniest jokes are about the things all around us that we all grumble about in our daily lives.  The Oatmeal is a perfect way to turn grumbling into laughing.

Made Me Nod in Agreement

7 Class Size Myths (and the truth) by Valerie Strauss at The Answer Sheet

This is one of several WaPo blog articles that really pushed my thinking this year, as well as fed my growing frustration with the class size problems that we all see coming.  I walked away from this article realizing why my biggest classes struggle more and why so many policy makers want to make us believe that teachers are the biggest factor in a kids life.

The Social You vs. The Professional You by Jeff Utecht at The Thinking Stick

I use the ideas in this blog post when I’m talking to teachers about the difference between Twitter and Facebook and why it’s helpful to write a blog.

Education Experience is Paramount by Kurt Wootton at Huffington Post

The new education blogging section at the HuffPo has been very interesting and a nice range of views get shared there.  This one has immense significance for so many districts across the country that are hiring superintendents from outside the world of education.

Finding the Strength to Write by Chris Lehmann at Practical Theory

Chris, who is the antithesis of every administrator I’ve ever known, expresses himself in ways that I wish I could match.  He strikes directly at that feeling of hopelessness that plagues all ed bloggers and classroom teachers from time to time.  Is what we are doing actually making any difference?  He convinced me that the answer is a resounding YES!

Made Me Think in New Ways

Roger Ebert: The Essential Man by Chris Jones at Esquire.com

Always a fan of movies (of the crappy B variety or the Oscar-nominated cerebral kind), I have always had enormous respect for the film critic Roger Ebert.  This article is a must-read for any film buff as it shares the largely untold story of Ebert’s major surgery and his writing since.

Seven habits of highly effective technology trainers by Doug Johnson at The Blue Skunk Blog

For better or worse, more and more of my time over the past few years has involved providing edtech professional development to my colleagues.  This piece did more to improve my presentations than any other single resource.

tl;dr by Will Richardson at web-logged

As most of my like-minded colleagues, I often bow at the altar of Will Richardson.  This post uses the “too long; didn’t read” shorthand to symbolizes the way that reading is changing and reading instruction is not.  Great stuff!

Ignore the Test by Scott McLeod at Dangerously Irrelevant

Scott makes some very good points about standardized multiple-choice tests being the scapegoat for the poor preparation we are giving many of our students.

What do you think about these?  Where’s your Top Ten list?  Well, get on it!