my 1080i and your 1080p

We will no longer wait for an exemplar. We will no longer wait for the model, the evidence, the research, the rubric, or the time.

Instead, for 2010, we will create the model which will serve as the evidence. We'll use our time differently, and through our persistently restless spirit, we'll become the exemplar.

And somewhere, someone is snickering:

Cure cancer while you're at it.

all the tech in the world...

can not transform teaching.

But removing chairs would be a great first step. Seriously, here's the proof.

contactable

alternately entitled, 'trees of bandwidth'

Everyone began exchanging business cards, and everyone handed me one, like a present, but flat, unwrapped, quaint and rectangular.

I had no card to give. I have no card to give. No card to give!

So I gave them all that I could gather:

my Twitter username

strangers in a strange ballroom

Did you just find out that your conference presentation proposal received the good to go signal?

Let me be the first to extend kudos and hugs. And I would hug you, lovingly, in a way that feels, upon embrace, like I'm also presenting. Because I am.

And I am going to attend your session. And you will attend mine. We will compliment one another while our teachers will be at school, teaching the teach. They'll miss the conference.

So, when we're done hugging, we'll each go back to our schools. We'll hug our respective Technology Directors, and we'll whisper in their ears:

One teacher from each building will go to this conference every year. We talk about technology and integration and innovation and digital literacy and access and apps and taxonomy. It's worth the investment. You know it is. Now keep this hug going for ten more seconds.

the lesser known mayan calendar prediction

We all know about 2012:

The end of the world

But lesser known, embedded like a footnote on the calendar is the 2010 prediction:

The end of poster board

Projects crumble. Assignment sheets fall. Audience survives.

What if schools ceased purchasing any paper larger than 4 x 4 inch?

10 strategies for top ten lists

10. Number descendingly to increase anticipation and excitement.



9. Use appropriate spacing to milk empty space for all it has to offer.



8. Include wonderful and passionate feeling adjectives to create sensuous appeal to any included, life-changing item.

8a. Employ sub-numbers to eliminate ties. Ties slow down the countdown process. Better to go with '8a'.

8b. You'll need this is you use an 'a'. Standard outline rules and regs apply, even after middle-school.

7. Avoid lists that are application-based. For the purposes of real education, craft a skill-based list, or something 'Bloom-y'.

Example, Good:
Top 10 questions to use in the formulation of student-learning opportunities:

10. How can I foster more student participation during class discussions?

9. How can I promote greater outlets for student creativity?

Example, Bad:
Top 10 questions to use in the forced integration of whiz-bangy technology:

10. How do I make Twitter relevant in the classroom?

9. Seriously, how do I make Twitter relevant in the classroom? I mean, I love Twitter. I'm on it all the time. I have a Twitter app, I Twext my Tweets. Tweeet, tweet, tweet.

6. Include a rhyming scheme for number six to help this middle-of-the-pack item stick.

5. Bold and color-code intermittently to reveal deliberate connectivity and patterns of varying ideas.

4. Bold and color-code sporadically to mirror the hectic nature of daily life while simultaneously destroying any bolding and color-coding street cred you may have once had.

3. Link to some of your own previous posts, preferably last year's top 10 list, or your mid-year top 5 list. I don't have one.

2. For number 2, make sure you use phrases like 'so close', 'such a tough time deciding', 'this could have gone either way', or 'for poohs and chortles' to indicate that deciding between number one and number two was so close and a tough decision that could have gone either way, but for poohs and chortles, number two falls just a wee bit short, presumably because it requires a complicated sign-up process for students and doesn't yet offer up an educational version.

1. You can put whatever you want here, as it clearly trounced the other nine items on your list.

And make sure you end with a heart-felt thank you to your PLN. It's the huggy time of year, and they've earned a friendly digital squeeze.

Good luck, and thanks for being a part of my PLN. This digital hug is for you. And you. And you, that guy in Australia.

half-naked math

This:



leads to two questions:

1. What's the real discount?
2. Why don't more people know the answer to #1?

Of note: the image really brings "50%" to life.