Font is Important

I see all the time from both students and school staff, where unusual or fancy fonts are used. Students will use them for lab reports and it just comes off and unprofessional and a little annoying to read -- especially data tables. As for teachers, I sometimes have a hard time taking an e-mail seriously if the font is "kiddish." There is a time and place for those more creative fonts -- advertisements, parties, fairs, etc. Not for the professional world.

No, You Can't Be My Facebook Friend!

Chapter 9 of Richardson says when asked if a teacher should friend their students on facebook, "I would advise against it." I agree 100% with this. It's not the kind of relationship that you are meant to have with a student. Now, perhaps a graduate from a few years ago that you had in your class, that is perhaps a year away from a bachelors degree and taking on responsibilities such as looking for internships and building up a resume, sure. They were your student once, but how they are a young adult; far more mature and have more common sense on how to use a social networking site like facebook.

Old Ideas Can Still Be Good!

I found this article on "Think-Aloud" which is a much older education strategy. I use it from time to time in my classroom and always felt a little cautious while doing so, mostly because there seems to be such a big emphasis on using newer methods.

I was happy when I found this article because it does help emphasis that just because something is new does not mean that it is better.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/think-aloud-strategy-oldie-but-goodie-elena-aguilar?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EdutopiaNewContent+%28Edutopia%29

Protecting Identity

 So, I was reading the 7 things you need to known about google apps and I came across this section.

"From an administrative standpoint, Google doesn’t offer as much granularity in managing user accounts as many institutions want and need."

This was rather interesting to me because I do use a lot of apps from google, and I have put a lot of faith in them as a company. I suppose though, this is the drawback to the much more open and wider market for development that google supports where apple does not.

Twitter

First, I am against twitter. To me, it always seemed like a web tool where you could tell the world what you're doing and when you're doing it. My opinion -- I don't want the world to know what I'm doing and when I'm doing it!

I read Chapter 6 and have seen a potential use for it. I liked the idea of a "Network at my fingertips." The idea of having your school teachers on a network, or even a "hotline" if you will, ready to help if needed.

Perhaps I need to reevaluate Twitter and see what other uses it could have.

"Enlighten us, but make it quick."

I read an article on why teachers need to be great story tellers. I personally like to incorporate my students into a rather flashy, crazy story when it comes to designing Physics problems, as it seems to get them a little more interested in it.

What this article made me think about -- and what it encouraged you to ask as a teacher -- is when did you (others) learn the most?

Well, I reflected and thought about what sticks out in  my mind is when material was presented to me in a good story. I also thought about what do we often do in social gatherings? We talk about our lives -- in some sort of story format, we watch TV shows or movies, which are stories. When we don't go out to do something like bowling or golf, etc, but instead stay in and talk or watch something together, it's story time!

The quote in my title for this post is about how people do want to learn -- humans are naturally curious -- but the attention span is short, so tell us a story and don't let it drag out!

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/why-educators-need-to-be-great-storytellers-suzie-boss?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EdutopiaNewContent+%28Edutopia%29

Wikipedia Registration

So when I read the Wikipedia Article, I noted that it was dated June 2007. I came across this line, "Although Wikipedia encourages contributors to create accounts, registration is not required." I wondered if after six year this had changed, and according to the site itself, you can still edit without an account. I guess I was a little surprised to see that was the case even today.

The only counter measure for this is that a site is flagged if it has not been checked for accuracy recently, but otherwise, it's totally fair game.