Women's March on Washington Minnesota-style

So it's been awhile and I have been busy with life, haven't we all?

My last post was about my return to Twitter. And I must say that after a few rocky starts I am using it again to expand my thinking and broaden my perspectives. On my! What time to be alive!

This post will be my reflections of the Women's March that took place in cities and towns around the globe on January 21st. I marched in St Paul, MN with 100,000 friends and neighbors. It was amazing. The buses and trains were overwhelmed, so for many people the march began with the walk to get there. For me that was two miles from where we got off one bus to transfer, only to find that all subsequent buses were too full to pick up passengers at any more stops. All along the route to the march and on the march to the capitol, women, girls, men, boys walked together in community with the hope that we were doing something special, that we were making a difference, that we were marching in solidarity for equality, freedom, justice, self determination, human rights for all women.

My friends and I did note that while the signs acknowledged respect for diversity and there were people of color present, overall it was a fairly white crowd. Now at 85% Caucasian, Minnesota isn't known for it's diversity, but Saint Paul itself is only 60% white and over a quarter of the population speaks a language other that English at home so we were a little sad that we saw mostly people who looked like us participating.

Since the march I have been reading on Twitter and Facebook of how people of color, indigenous people and gender non-conforming people were treated poorly at the Women's March in DC. Reading their stories has been a lesson for me. White privilege is so ingrained in our beings as women in the dominant culture that even when we are trying to do the right thing, we further marginalize the very people we say we want to help.  If this is something you'd like to explore, I encourage you to look for people around you or to follow on social media who are very different from yourself and seek to understand their stories. What they say may trigger a defensive response but the resist the urge to say, "That's not me." If we white women are truly going to make a difference, we must do a better job of listening to every voice and not expect everyone to experience the world as we are accustomed to living it.

Now, I want to end with a picture of my grandma's gloves.

I wore these on Saturday to march. My grandma, who died in 2000, came as an immigrant with her family to the United States as a young girl the year that women here won the right to vote. She was a quiet but fiercely independent woman who worked all her life to make the world a better place. I marched for her and for my daughter and for my four-day-old granddaughter with the hope that despite the way things look right now, we can make the world a better place for all women in whatever form we are present.

Giving Twitter another look

After a two and a half year hiatus, I have been back on Twitter for a week. I came back because a colleague has just begun to play with it and I thought I’d reconnect in support of her efforts.

As far as I can tell, not much has changed since I was last active. The folks I follow, true believers in education amongst a cacophony of self-promoters and wilderness criers are still tweeting out quotes, quips and links to articles they think will change the world.

My problem, and yes, it is my problem, with Twitter, the reason I left is this. I can’t build and maintain relationships in a sea of chaos. And for me communication should be about developing relationships, not spouting fascinating tidbits for whomever happens to be floating by. Have I grasped anything useful in the last week by watching the tweets scroll down the screen? Yes, I’ll admit to having learned a few things I may not have known without Twitter. Therefore, if I am to stay active on Twitter this time around, I’ll need to change my expectation of the medium. For it to work for me, I’ll need to treat it more as a river of information and opinion rather than a place to connect with friends.

I took a break from Twitter because I was more comfortable with my “friends” on Facebook, most of whom I know well in my day-to-day real life. But I’ll give Twitter a go for another week or two and see what happens.

AnswerGarden 2

Thanks to all those who have responded to the AnswerGarden question I planted a few days ago. Here is what I have learned about AnswerGarden since.

As people come to your question and add new answers they appear in the display box. It is also possible for visitors to vote or agree with answers that are already there by clicking on them. When you click on an existing answer it appears in a text box and then you click "submit" to register your vote.

At anytime you can use your original link to go back to your question and see how many people have answered.

I'd also like to a couple of things you can do with the answers after you've collected them. The first thing you may notice is that some answers are bigger and bolder than the others. These are the ones with more than one vote. You can find out how many votes each has by hovering over text with your cursor.

The number of votes will appear.

Clicking the options button below the display box will expand your view and you'll be able see how many total answers you've received. Finally, you have the option of exporting your answers directly to Wordle or Tagxedo as I did to generate the image at the beginning of this post.

If you have an interactive whiteboard, your students could enter their answers right on the board while the whole group watches the work progress. Don't you think this would be an engaging way for young students to learn to gather and analyse data?

AnswerGarden

Please bear with me while I try out a newly discovered tool. Answer Garden looks like a quick and easy way to gather short comments from a group. After a couple of minutes of checking the particulars on the website, I created this AnswerGarden poll.

This time of year in northern North America most of us are desparately looking forward to spring. Today we in Minnesota are getting yet another round of snow and from here that snow is headed to Chicago and then off to the East where I can't imagine they have anymore room to put it than we do at this point. Therefore, as a coping mechanism, in my poll I am offering winter-stressed folks an opportunity be hopeful about spring, but even if you're in an area that is not buried under an icy blanket of white stuff right now, please help me out by submitting your words of encouragement.

I can see AnswerGarden being simple to use even with young students. There are no accounts. You get a link that you can hand out to your group and it goes right to your poll. No sign in or further navigation is required. Check it out. What do you think?

Active Listening?

Listening centers have been around for a long time, probably as long as we have been able to record sound. I remember sitting on the floor in my kindergarten class listening to music from Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker Suite" while watching the phonograph needle dance lightly over the top of the spinning record. That was nearly fifty years ago. We have many more options now, yes?

This morning I had a dream. It may have been spurred by a conversation I had this week with a teacher who is converting his classroom books on CD's to mp3's. In the dream I was a student in a class where the instructor asked us to share a wish we had for our school. In my dream I thought about it a bit and then told of a new feature I would like to add to our library. It would be a listening center where kids could come in and “check out” audio resources (stories, songs, podcasts, the possibilities here seem endless) and instead of sitting of the floor or at tables in chairs, they would have a variety of exercise equipment choices. These could include exercise balls, yoga mats, stationary bicycles or even treadmills. I am not so sure about the bikes and treadmills. Can we have kids use them? Is there an age requirement? But you get the idea; kids need to wiggle and stretch even if it’s just a little bit, so why can’t we combine activity and listening in a way that will make both more fun and productive?



 Gregory Rec/Maine Sunday Telegram Staff Photographer: Third graders sit on fitness balls at their desks at Peaks Island Elementary School on Wednesday, January 27, 2010.



Right now in our school a couple classes are using exercise balls, although not to the extent that this classroom is. Our students and teachers using them and those interviewed for this article published February 26, 2010, in the Maine Sunday Telegram seem to like them and feel they are beneficial. Is anyone using them in libraries or listening centers? What do you think? Is it doable?

Learning Movie Maker

Today I set out to teach myself Windows Movie Maker. Eight years with a pc and until now I haven't had a need to use it. Well, I have been given a video assignment, so now is the time and here is my first stab at it. Most I did by figuring out the features myself, but when I got stuck I went to these resources: Windows Movie Makers and Editing Video with Windows Movie Maker 2.0. For music I went to Freeplay Music.

Oh, and this is also the first time I have every posted anything to YouTube. Welcome your constructive comments. Thanks!

Spelling Mania

Many of you are Spelling City fans, as well you should be if you're an elementary school teacher teaching spelling. This site is the best I have seen for offering many different teaching and reinforcement activities using words from your own lists and curriculum. So if you haven't seen it yet, do check out Spelling City.


After that, I encourage you to try these other spelling sites. No accounts are needed to use them.

Literacy Zone's English Spelling Games: This one has interactive stories and 14 spelling games addressing such spelling skills as plurals, clusters and blends, synonyms, prefixes and suffixes and homophones.

Mr. Nussbaum's Everglades Spelling: I liked this one because I could pick the animal I wanted to be and race against the others to fill in the missing letters in words as they appear.

Gumleaf Games Word Safari: This one has different challenge levels and I can see kids really liking it. Once I figured out I had to use the arrow keys to guide my little guy through the air (think "Up") to the correct letters while dodging the incorrect ones, I had a great time.

Candlelight Stories Stellar Speller: This one has kids spell the words for pictures they see. I think it might be good for partner work because some kids might not have the prior knowledge to know the exact word for the picture. It is like hangman in that it gives the number of letters for each word.

Zaner-Bloser's Spelling Connections: Beside complete the sentence and word sorting activities, this site has a proof-reading game where students find errors in prepared text and correct them using proofing marks and proper spelling.

Language Arts Spell It: This one is a collection offering about 40 spelling games including a number of quizzes and bees.

Photo credit to Mr Gustafson on WikiMedia Commons http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chelsea,_England,_Spelling_Lesson,_1912.JPG

Lesson learned: Get up off my backside

Twice this week I have been reminded of something I know and I know I know, but it still surprises me when I see it. There is no one way to communicate, or teach, or learn. These endeavors happen through all of our senses, so why would I think that merely putting things in electronic print, or showing them in a staff training session would meet the needs of all my collegaues? In these two instances specifically I stumbled into conversations with indviduals who told me they had to find some way to organize their web favorites. In the most recent, I was flattered to find two teachers were spending the afternoon going through a long list of links they had saved one by one as I had sent them out throughout this year. They were pleased, as was I, to find a number of good sites and ideas to incorporate into their lessons, and they told me to keep the links coming even though they lamented not having a better way to save them. To these teachers and one yesterday, I mentioned I'd be happy to help them set up a Delicious account so they could organize all their favorites by topic and access them from any Internet capable device.

Now keep in mind, our librarian and I have been singing the praises of Delicious, Diigo and Sqworl for more than a year, I have created a page with instructions and videos on social bookmarking on our tech tips wiki, and I have made several references to it in email messages. However, for these teachers what we were offering wasn't connecting with them until they found themselves in need of the solution. Because I happened to be there in their time of need with just the information they needed and was able to present it in a personally tailored message, they can now see how social bookmarking could become a useful tool for them.

So what are the lessons learned? First of all, I have learned (again) that sending out emails and posting information on a blog or wiki is not enough. I must get up out of my chair and go to where I can interact face to face with people. Only this way will I truly be able to ascertain what they need. Second, I have learned (again) that teaching only works if the learner has a need to fill and is receptive, which goes back to lesson one, correctly identifying individual needs. And finally, I have learned (again) that when I am the learner I need to let my would be teachers know what I need to know and how they can best help me.

ARRA Grant Offers Hope for Closing Digital Divide.

Normally, I don’t get too excited about grant funded initiatives. My experience has taught me grants can be at best a temporary boost to a program, but more likely to put it mildly, they become an unbearable burden not worth the time and effort it takes to administer them. The ARRA grant our district has been awarded is different. I am excited and hopeful that the technology integration specialist we have hired, albeit for only the 18-month duration of the grant, will help us establish the sustainable momentum we need to make lasting changes, ultimately laying the ground work for greater success for all of our students.


Our district is small by urban and suburban standards. Two schools currently serve fewer than 1000 kindergarten through tenth graders and we’re different than many districts in that, while we are a public school district, we are not supported by local property taxes. And no, we’re not charter schools either. We’re a district created and maintained by the MN State Legislature and the ten or so districts from which we draw our students. This structure poses some unique challenges, but every district faces its own set of challenges and these days most of these have to do with trying to the best they can with limited resources. Suffice it to say, our district has never been able to fund a district-wide technology integration specialist position. In the past we have had technology specializing teachers in each of the schools and we have a tech support specialist in each building, of which I am one.

So why is this new position different? And why am I hopeful given that the granting is only funding a year a half? This technology integration specialist position will make a lasting difference because unlike our previous specialist positions, its purpose is to assist and coach teachers. As described in the posting summary, the person who fills this position will focus almost entirely on “planning, implementing and supporting the effective integration of technology into curriculum.” This person will also “provide leadership in developing and implementing a multi-tiered approach to professional development.” In the past our school technology specialists have been competent and committed, excellent teachers of students. In fact, these teachers were so good, classroom teachers sometimes had the idea they could take pass when it came to using technology themselves. This caused a digital divide between classes whose teachers embraced technology and those whose teachers waited for the specialist to come in, or in some cases never asked the specialist to come in at all, to teach a technology-infused lesson. With this new model, this specialist will work with “tiers” of teachers at their different levels of need so that all teachers will gain skills and comfort using technology with their students. This is a more sustainable model that we hope will set on a path to closing the existing digital divide and give all our students the access they need to today’s technology.

Three well qualified individuals interviewed for this position. They each demonstrated a different set of skills and any one of them would have been able to this job impressively. The committee chose the individual we believed has the experience and creativity to lead the staff in new directions as well as a personality amenable to building the relationships necessary for successful coaching and collaboration. Having had the privilege of getting to know him a little better today over lunch, I am even more excited and hopeful to begin working with Carl Anderson when he starts as our new Technology Integration Specialist on March 1.

Photo cropped from IMGA0929.JPG on Rick McCharles' Flickr photostream.

Our Amazing PLC Team Challenge

Maybe you have heard of or seen The Amazing Race, a CBS television show. I haven't watched the program but from promos I have seen I get the sense that teams have to travel from place to place and complete some tasks along the way rather like the scavenger hunts we used to do for entertainment as kids. It is with this idea in mind that my colleague and I designed this morning's hour long technology staff development activity.

Our goal was to expose our teachers to a number of available technologies in a way that encouraged them to learn from each other in a non-threatening way. We came up with the idea of assigning a different series of tasks to each of four teams. We hoped that accomplishing the tasks together would give them experience with procuring and using the various equipment we have and teach them some skills they could use in their classrooms with their students. And so that all the participants could benefit from what each of teams learned, we challenged them to come back and use the technologies to present what they had discovered to their peers.

As it is in every school our staff has a wide range of comfort levels and experience using computers and digital technology. We decided to group the teachers for this challenge in their newly formed Professional Learning Committees. Looking at these groups we could see that each group had some early adopters, some willing followers, and at least one novice or technophobe. It seemed like the best way to go. With any luck the teams would work together, learn some new things and have a positive technology experience that would bolster their confidence, increasing the likelihood they be able to see way to use it in their lessons.


Here are the challenges we devised:

Team 1: Checked out a document camera and an LCD projector. They were to take these to a classroom and come up with ways to use the camera to teach a lesson with pattern blocks and read aloud a picture book.

Team 2: Also checked out a document camera and an LCD projector. This team was directed to use these tools to demonstrate an activity and to show student work.

Team 3: Found a YouTube video related to a unit they were currently teaching and went to our tech support wiki to find ways to show that video to a class on an interactive white board without actually showing it in YouTube.

Team 4: Checked out a laptop cart, logged into the laptops, took a screenshot depicting the drive where they would save if they were students, pasted it into a Word document and printed it to the media center printer, which they had to find and add.

It's likely you're thinking these are pretty elementary tasks, but for most of our teachers these were fairly new experiences and they only had a half an hour to complete them before returning to the media center where they shared their stuff using the IWB, document camera, and LCD projector. I am quite pleased to report they all did an amazing job completing their tasks and most followed the given directions. Team 1 showed us their pattern lesson, but then they went on to tell us how they would be able to take the camera around to project what individual students would do on the floor as that's where they usually work with manipulatives. Team 2 decided expand on their assigned to use a digital camera to take photos of each other using the demonstrating how students would use the document camera. Team 3 demonstrated how to paste a YouTube link into SafeShareTV to show the video without all the YouTube distractions, and Team 4 proudly displayed their printed screenshots. They also relayed what they had learned about how students might feel when logging into the laptops...some get in quickly while others aren't able to and may fall behind if the teacher goes ahead with directions.


When asked if they had learned something they hadn't known before, all the teachers raised their hands. When asked if they had learned something they could use with students right away, most raised their hands. When asked if they had fun, almost all raised their hands. The best question I heard at the end was, "When can we have another one of these?" Yes! I hope the answer is, "Soon."

Reflect and resolve -- Twitter's impact

Created by Oatmeal

This morning I sent out a Happy New Year message to my teachers with a link to How to Survive 2010-Digitally explaining how I had learned more and been able to support them better in the last year than ever before because of my new found connections via Twitter, RSS feeds and blogs. I encouraged them to explore Ozge Karaoglu's suggestions for new year's resolutions. Ozge's resolutions are approachable, not only because they are few in number and reasonably achievable, but also because she has shared several links to helpful, user-friendly resources.

How did I come across Ozge's wonderful post? Through Twitter (via @AuntyTech,) of course! As you can see by my "Twitter addiction score" I am not yet entirely consumed. I use Twitter primarily for professional connections, though I am beginning to find it useful for some personal and civic interests as well. But I must agree with Ozge's assertion that "Twitter has been undoubtedly the best tool I started using in 2009..." My 280+ Twitter connections to delightful, smart, engaging and generous individuals and groups have become invaluable to my professional and personal growth. Without them I would have had a hard time finding the all wonderful blogs that feed my Google reader and I certainly would not have had access to as many resources to share with my staff.

My goals for 2010 are:

• to improve and strengthen my PLN connections
• to look for new ways to support my teachers at their individual comfort levels using technology in their classrooms
• to nudge each of my teachers to a higher level of engagement with the content they're teaching using technology

so that teachers and their students will benefit from more opportunities for collaboration with each other and engagement with the world.

Learning to use Picasa

Got a little spare time and some photos to organize or share?

Here again are direct links to Atomic Learning video tutorials. These lessons demonstrate how to begin to use the free online photo editing and sharing tool Picasa 3.5. In addition to these tutorials, the Atomic Learning Picasa series has many more showing how to add labels, edit and share photos. While the first couple of links in this list may be freely viewed, you must be signed into Atomic Learning to view the others.

• Picasa 3.5
  
  
  
  • A. Get Started
    
    
    
    • Downloading Picasa 3.5
    
    
    • Exploring the Picasa interface
    
    
    • Importing photos from a digital camera
    
    
    • Importing photos from a removable drive
    
    
    • Importing screen captures
    
    
    • Adding photos from a folder on your hard drive
    
    
    • Controlling how folders are monitored
    
    
    • Selecting which file types are displayed
  
  
  
  
  • B. Organize
    
    
    
    • Organizing photos in folders
    
    
    • Editing Folder properties
    
    
    • Creating a new album
    
    
    • Adding photos to an album
    
    
    • Deleting photos from an album
    
    
    • Editing Album properties
    
    
    • Sorting photos
    
    
    • Sorting albums and folders
    
    
    • Hiding and unhiding folders
    
    
    • Hiding and unhiding pictures
    
    
    • Password-protecting a collection
    
    
    • Deleting photos
    
    
    • Recovering deleted photos
    
    
    • Renaming photos
    
    
    • Searching for photos
    
    
    • Viewing Photo properties
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

The Facebook Effect

There were a number of presentations at TIES this year that I was not able to attend. The Facebook Effect was one of them. A huge thank you goes out to Lisa Sjogren for sharing her slide presentation! When Facebook changed it's privacy policies a few weeks ago I read them and made what I thought were the necessary changes. Then I heard from Twitter friend @cathycrea about the fan pages being entirely public as in everyone in the world can see you on them. I removed myself from a list or two, but left myself on Farmville because for me Facebook is a place for recreation and I like playing Farmville. Sure enough, last night I had a friend request from someone I do not know who found me on the Farmville fan page. That's fine, but it brings me closer to the point of this post, which is, be sure you know who can see what on your Facebook pages.

I spent a fair amount of time this afternoon going through this presentation slide by slide, following Lisa's step by step instructions and found quite a few holes I had not known existed.

So even if you think you know it all already, I highly recommend you check out this slideshare.

The Facebook Effect

View more presentations from lisa.sjogren.

Managing the Digital Classroom

I LOVE this Voicethread conversation posted by Jeff Utecht! The 33 participants are teachers at International School Bangkok completing their fourth COETAIL (Certificate of Educational Technology and Information Literacy) course. These teachers are doing a terrific job of exploring ways to use the technology they have available to offer life-relevant learning experiences for their students and sharing what they have found, whether successful or frustrating, using a free tool collaboration tool that just about any teacher with Internet access can use in his or her classroom.

This is a fantastic example of using a tool you're trying to master to share with others what you know. Did I say that right? What I want to convey is that we need to use the tools we have at hand for every professional development exercise. I am no expert but I believe teaching someone how to use an application or gadget just so they know how to use it will not be as effective as using an application or gadget to teach a life or professional skill.

Anyway, watch, read, listen to this conversation* about how to manage technology gadgets in your classroom. I can assure you. You will come away with more information and understanding than you have now. Thank you, Jeff for sharing!


*If you are using a Windows PC and wish to make the screen bigger, type Ctrl/Shift/+ until the screen is large enough. If you have an Apple computer substitute the Apple Command key for Ctrl.

ActivInspire tutorial videos from Atomic Learning

I am trying something new. Atomic Learning now features direct link sharing to subscribers, so because we have installed 10 new Promethean ActivBoards this year I am embedding links to their ActivInspire videos. (Note: the first three links are active without an Atomic Learning account. You must be logged into AL for the rest of the links to work.) My plan is to direct our teachers to this site as kind of a one stop AL ActivInspire shop. My hope is that readers will find the videos helpful as well as see yet another way blogs can be useful. My fear is that the formatting AL provides in its code make the list look long and intimidating. What do you think?

• ActivInspire Studio - Professional
  
• A. ActivInspire Intro
  
• Introducing ActivInspire and the Dashboard


• Using the ActivInspire Studio window


• B. ActivInspire Studio Basics
  
• Creating a flipchart


• Using the Main Toolbox


• Opening and viewing a flipchart


• Importing a flipchart from PowerPoint^®


• Importing a flipchart from other types of files


• Changing the page view & using page zoom


• C. ActivInspire Studio Browsers
  
• Introducing browsers


• Using the Page Browser


• Using the Resource Browser


• Using the Object Browser


• Using the Notes Browser


• Using the Property Browser


• Using the Action Browser


• Using the Voting Browser


• D. Flipcharts
  
• Writing on a flipchart


• Adding and formatting text


• Inserting and deleting pages


• Inserting a snapshot of your desktop


• Inserting resources


• Adding a resource to the Resource Library


• Using grids


• Showing and hiding grids


• Using the Grid Designer


• Creating page notes


• Saving and printing a flipchart


• Publishing flipcharts


• Adding an image to a flipchart


• Adding a link to a file or Web site


• Editing and removing links


• Adding sound to your flipchart


• Inserting a movie


• E. Objects
  
• Adding shapes


• Changing the size of a shape


• Changing an object's shape


• Grouping and ungrouping objects


• Copying, pasting and duplicating objects


• Cutting and pasting


• Deleting text and objects


• Introducing layers


• Stacking objects


• Adding labels


• F. Action & Interaction
  
• Creating Containers


• Creating Restrictors


• Adding a Command action


• Adding a Page action


• Adding an Object action


• Adding a Voting Action


• Applying an action using drag & drop


• Using Express Poll


• Using the Insert Question Wizard for prepared questions


• G. Resources
  
• Inserting templates


• Inserting a resource into the Resource Library


• Importing Resource packs


• Exporting Resource packs


• H. Tools
  
• Annotating over the desktop


• Using Desktop tools


• Using the Camera


• Using the Clock


• Using Handwriting Recognition


• Using Shape Recognition


• Using Magic Ink


• Using Tickertape


• Using the Revealer


• Using the On-screen Keyboard


• Using the Spotlight


• Using Teacher Lock


• Using the Dice Roller


• Using the Calculator


• Using the Ruler


• Using the Protractor


• Using the Compass


• Setting the XY Origin


• Using the Connector tool


• Using the Screen Recorder


• Using the Sound Recorder


• Accessing the Web browser


• Spell-checking your flipchart


• I. Profiles
  
• Changing your profile


• Customizing the layout


• Customizing the Main Toolbox


• Defining your own buttons

A Teacher's Guide To Web 2.0 at School

I know...I have been away for a LONG time. While I know I need not offer excuses I do want to explain that the month before school begins again is a crazy time for techs, so when I haven't been working I have been attending to the rest of my life (including that entertainment piece of it referenced in my last post.) But now that it is the first day of school, I am easing my way back into my professional connections and thinking about how to move myself and my collegues to our next steps. Check out this SlideShare Presentation from Sacha Chua:

A Teacher's Guide To Web 2.0 at School

View more documents from Sacha Chua.

I'm an Ambivalent Networker

This is what the Pew Internet & American Life Project has determined about me:

"If you are an Ambivalent Networker, you have folded mobile devices into how you run your social life, whether through texting or online social networking tools. You also rely on ICTs for entertainment. At the same time – perhaps because of the volume of digital pings from others – you may sometimes find all your connectivity to be intrusive. You are confident in your ability to troubleshoot your various information devices and services."

Not sure what I think about that...I don't think I RELY on ICTs for entertainment, but maybe I do. It depends on how entertainment is defined. I love to garden, walk and play with my dog, spend time with friends, knit, curl up with a good book. None of that is reflected in the above analysis. When I am not doing any of those things, then yes, I would say I enjoy sitting in front of a ballgame on TV, dog snugged up against my hip, computer on my lap with Twitter, Facebook, Tetris all going at once. Could I do without most technologies in my personal life? Probably, but I have to say have them makes it easier to connect with my far away family and colleagues and I would miss these connections if they were no longer available.

What Kind of Tech User Are You?


Posted using ShareThis

25 Tools: A Toolbox for Learning Professionals 2009

Check out this SlideShare Presentation from Jane Hart. I am affirmed when I see I already use a number of these tools and challenged to try a few more.

25 Tools: A Toolbox for Learning Professionals 2009

View more OpenOffice presentations from Jane Hart.

Dear Oprah, Is plastic my true purpose?

Ever since my Environmental Science class in highschool (1974) I have tried to use less plastic. These days I attempt to purchase items that don't include plastic packaging and reuse and recycle the plastic containers I do buy. However, my feeble attempts don't hold a candle to the dedication of Beth Terry. I am once again inspired to redouble my efforts to live mindfully and consume less of everything, especially plastic.

According to the calculator at Global Footprint Network it would take 3.2 Earths to sustain all of our planet's inhabitants at my personal standard of living. Ouch! I have some serious work to do.

BADD--Blogging Against Disablism Day 2009

Although I thought I knew what "disablism" is I it looked up anyway. Most references pointed me to "ableism," a term I knew I knew. It, like its cousins racism, sexism, classism, ageism, etc., is a label for a discriminatory practice we humans use to set people who are different from us apart from us. In this case, ableism and disablism practices discriminate against people whose abilities don't fit the standard we have as a whole set for "abled." Our societal conventions and institutions are structured to favor those who can walk on two legs, see with two eyes (glasses allowed if they correct to 20/20,) hear with two ears, work with two hands, and use our voices to speak smoothly and distinctly. Oh, and let me not forget, we must demonstrate mental health and acuity on a level with our peers at every age. Operate outside of these parameters and one is certain to be the object of discrimination and quite possibly distain.

Many of us considered abled have the privilege of not having to think much about how we get around, what we'll need to get through new and existing experiences and environments or that we might be turned down for a position for any other reason other than our qualifications. We need to change that. We must adopt the mindset individually and collectively where everyone has earned our consideration and respect on no other merit but they exist as individuals. Our humaness dictates we will all use tools to complete the tasks we need to do to survive. We will have varying abilities and skills and use different tools to move through life and as a society we must not set up barriers to success for those needing more or different tools than others.

Disablism or ableism, whichever the name, is wrong. Don't do it. Don't allow it. Seek it out and destroy it. Our world will be a better place when it is no more.