"Clearning the Tabs" Episode #473

Only 29 tabs open today. Here’s a few of the things I’m hanging on to:

Twitter Tales: This might be old news since I’m having trouble even finding my aggregator these days much less read anything in it, but somehow I stumbled across Nancy White’s “Twitter Collaboration Stories” Wiki. Really cool. Twitter as “Virtual Water Cooler”. Twitter for “Serendipitous Improvement”. And, my favorite, Twitter for “Global Presence and Participation in Professional Development.” Who woulda thunk just a few short months ago that this kinda whacky, 140-character, micro-bloggy, not-sure-why-the-heck-I-like-it-but-I-do tool could have so many good uses? And, of course, the even warmer fuzzy is that you can add your own story to Nancy’s wiki. Life is good (as long as the Cubs win, of course.)

Electoral Education: So I’m not a Hillary Clinton supporter at the moment, though she’s still in my mix. And I have to say that after listening to her responses to the education question at the Yahoo Democratic Debate Mashup, I’m a little more impressed. She actually says things like “Is education working in the 21st Century?” and “We have to ask ourselves some tough questions about how we better prepare our children who live in a very media rich environment and who are much more tuned into the world than I ever was at their age” and “just because I went to school and folded my hands on my desk with the teacher at the front of the room does that mean we need to keep on doing that year after year after year?” (or something close to that.) And in response to a Jonathan Kozol question, she says “we should not look at our children as if they are walking tests…we’ve gone way overboard…” On balance, considering it’s politics, I was surprised. (Now if only she didn’t laugh at the Bill Maher question the way she did.)

Sage Students: Darren coined the term “scribe” to describe the student whose responsibility it was to summarize and extend the days events from class on the blog. But now KB Foglia has come up with a different, and I think even more interesting moniker for students working her AP Bio blog: “sherpa.” “Each day a student in class will be assigned to be the class sherpa — our guide who will show us the clear path up the mountain of knowledge.” Nice.

Quote O’ the Day: “They expect to be part of the discussion, part of the living thing that text itself is becoming.  This is how we get kids excited about language, about writing, about thinking: by giving them the power to be part of the conversation. When we lock our machines down, filter their internet service and not allow them to be contributors we take away the involvement, the intensity, the power. Remember doing grammar worksheets in school? I don’t. But I do remember art class, the time I got to take part in making a radio play and another teacher that let us act in class. They involved me, they challenged me, they forced me to think, to play with language, to defend my opinions. Language fairly pulses and thrives across cyberspace. Let kids in to the conversation.” Clarence Fisher

25 to go…

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