Rules for Pod People and a Proposal for Banning Pencils

Ex abusu non arguitur in usum. (The abuse of a thing is no argument against its use.)

One of the goals this year of our district tech advisory committee is to formulate guidelines for student-owned technologies. At yesterday’s meeting, I thought we’d start with an “easy” set of rules to create – those for the use of iPods and MP3 players. What possible reason could a school have for banning these things?

Well, I got a list (and earful) from the teachers and librarians on the committee…

1. They might get stolen.
2. They make kids who can’t afford them feel bad.
3. Kids might listen to them instead of the teacher.
4. Who knows what kinds of lyrics that the kids might be listening to!
5. Kids might listen to test answers (There’s a stretch.)

November 06, 2006

State of the Blogosphere, October, 2006

Hey, it's that time of the year again! We’re well into the crisp days of autumn and its time for the quarterly State of the Blogosphere report.

The State of the Blogosphere continues to be strong.

The last few months have prompted a great deal of thought amongst the team here about the maturation of the blogosphere since I wrote the first algorithms that led to the creation of Technorati nearly four years ago, and I'll be going into a lot more depth below.

OK, let's start with the overall numbers:

Currently Tracking More than 57 Million Blogs and Counting.

November 06, 2006

State of the Blogosphere, October, 2006

Hey, it's that time of the year again! We’re well into the crisp days of autumn and its time for the quarterly State of the Blogosphere report.

The State of the Blogosphere continues to be strong.

The last few months have prompted a great deal of thought amongst the team here about the maturation of the blogosphere since I wrote the first algorithms that led to the creation of Technorati nearly four years ago, and I'll be going into a lot more depth below.

OK, let's start with the overall numbers:

Currently Tracking More than 57 Million Blogs and Counting.

Welcome to the Digital Citizenship Website

Digital Citizenship is a concept which helps teachers and technology leaders understand what students should know to use technology appropriately. But Digital Citizenship is more that just a teaching tool, it is a way to prepare students for a society full of technology. Too often we are seeing students as well as adults misusing and abusing technology. The issue is more than what the users do not know but instead what is considered appropriate technology usage.

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