Free and Open Content

I want to consider a distinction between free open source software, and free and open content.  
Teemu Leinonen brings us this picture of the evolution of educational technology:    
Leinonen describes our current state as social software and free and open content. I think we confuse the issue be assuming that all social software is free open source software. [...]

From Parental Involvement to Engagement

I spent the evening doing online research on parental involvement in K-12 education.  There is significant research to demonstrate a link between parental involvement and student achievement (which I will document in a future post).  I wanted to write about an insightful paper by Dr. Debbie Pushor from the University of Saskatchewan.  In Parent Engagement:  [...]

Dealing with Parents

As part of my readings about Parent Voice I just finished a book by Elaine K. McEwan on How to Deal with Parents….  The book is a mix of understanding parent needs (with sources) and how-to’s for school administrators in creating a healthy school environment by working effectively with parents.  Here’s her list of what parents want:

Instructional [...]

Defining Safety (and security)

Under the umbrella of “do we worry too much about safety”, I’ve realized I need a framework to categorize the worry bits.  In the absence of a framework, safety covers too broad and diverse a set of topics.  There are some worry-bits that are worth worrying about, and some that can be addressed with information [...]

More on Social Networking for Kids

Thanks to all who responded to my last post.  I’d like to try to summarize the responses, which wove threads into the same fabric:  we are being over-protective:
1.  There is a difference between safety and literacy.  Children must learn to survive in this new culture they themselves are creating.  Ignorant children cannot grow up to [...]

Social Networking and Security for Kids

Do we worry too much about our kids in online spaces?
I work in a large school district where we invest a lot of energy in securing our technology environment.  We use strong passwords to protect data. Technical security protects the environment from multiple threats – the size of our network makes it a target.  The [...]

2008 has arrived.

Can you believe the technologies available to support and enable learning today? I’m starting this blog, rather fittingly on the first day of a new year, to chronicle my journey through my M.Ed. degree in Educational Communications and Technology. I have been working in technology for 30 years, but only the last nine in K-12 [...]