I must say I was appalled when I read this piece this morning (and responded with several tweets of my own). I called this decision “naive and unfortunate”, and finally decided to jot some of my points down here. Smartphones… …are the Zeitgeist, from which there is no return As apprehensive as folks may be, smartphones have changed the way we work, create, live, interact with others….indefinitely. Yet, when considering all the other forms of technology humans have developed,

The other day my dear friend @Braddo posted this little jewel of a link on the user interfaces that have really made an impact in the ways we work, play, and, well, live: https://www.xerox.com/en-us/insights/user-interface-examples It struck me that this would be an excellent springboard for an inquiry project, particularly for older students though I never underestimate the mind power of the younger ones. Idea 1: Mash Up Makery Mash up two more more of these innovations to c

One of my favourite lines from media theorist and muse of mine, Marshall McLuhan, is “we become what we behold. We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us” While he was undoubtedly talking about the involuntary submission to our technological “extensions”, I wonder what it might be to submit freely? Like falling into a wave and allowing one’s body to be carried hither and thither in the surf, what would it mean to give oneself over to a device or app, and let the to

my version: bull with wifi A few weeks ago I was in one of my favourite Twitter chats – #EDENchat – with Steve Wheeler (@timbuckteeth) as host. The topic was “Which Personal Technologies?” (check out the Storify), and overall was lively, helpful, and civil.  But something about the conversation struck me about halfway through – it occurred to be suddenly that a preoccupation with devices, hardware, and software persists. Don’t get me wrong – I think most people have moved int

Salt (aka sodium chloride) has always been fascinating to me, particularly since it’s something we in the modern age seem to take for granted – almost every restaurant and home table has a ample supply of the ubiquitous granular substance. But this wasn’t always the case. It can be said that salt or the lack thereof has made or broken societies, or – in the case of Napoleon’s army, military expeditions. The word “salary” comes from the economic use of salt (by Romans), as doe

“Blessed are people who see beautiful things in places where other people see nothing” – Camille Pissarro This is the 3rd blog entry in a series of four in which I aim to draw comparisons between the paradigm shift in education today (in particular, the influence of mobile and connected learning), and the Impressionist Art Movement. My main point is that something considered to be avant-garde or revolutionary eventually becomes quite ordinary, and therefore we need not fear s

If you had control of the district ed-tech budget what would you do? Recently, I keynoted In Texas at Region One’s “Using Technology to Make a Difference Conference”. My keynote centered around “New Literacies” and how technology can be integrated seamlessly to cultivate those (see all 400+ hand-drawn pink slides here). We then broke up for a workshop later on Remix and Re-Contextualization for the Classroom (If you are interested, I’ll be doing a Master Class at Alan Novembe

above: “The Tyranny of Text”, from my Myconography collection This post is going to be penned in haste during a lunch break when I have way too many projects to be working on, but I was overwhelming inspired by this tweet from Brad Ovenell-Carter and a student presentation given today by Nick Pederson. It’s going to be brief – and you will understand how meta that is in a minute. A while back I wrote a post called “Soundbitification”, and this is really an extension of those

It’s been a few days since returning from my third (and probably most inspiring) year at November Learning’s Building Learning Communities Conference (aka BLC13) at the exquisite Boston Park Plaza Hotel, which- as @Braddo pointed out upon arrival, has graciously included a portrait of me. All joking aside, I was thrilled to have attended, albeit alone (but, with Twitter, is one ever really alone?). For me, BLC is the ultimate conference…not only is it pedagogy (versus technol

An Instagram Perspective Story I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting with hashtags and social media lately, particularly because: 1. Finding stories with data intrigues me 2. I like the serendipity aspect 3. I want to further explore McLuhan’s “medium is the message/massage” concept One blog post I’d recommend is this one by Clive Thompson: “The Tag Is the Soul of the Internet” He addresses the McLuhan/Innis notion of bias in communication: “That how a medium functions is fa

I loved the  first week resources in #edcmooc. Like most coursemates, I was impressed by the poignancy and Indonesian shadow puppet aesthetics of Bendito Machine 3 …but did anyone think of Hieronymous Bosch when the “computer” character emerged? This is what I’m talking about: “Inbox” reminded me of this charming love story, “Post-It Love”  (also wordless and using Post-its, but devoid of technology except for the fact that the entire project is an exquisite example of stop-m

image: my student, Sam St. John I’ve been really enjoying participating in #etmooc, and the last Blackboard session with Alec got me thinking of connectivism again. Each year I have my IB Theory of Knowledge students read “Knowing Knowledge” by George Siemens (2006) KnowingKnowledge_LowRes (1) Last year we had a lively socratic circle activity with a Twitter backchannel, but this year I decided to include the reading and obligatory reflection in their semester exam. They resp