YAAY! I am also going to smash all my corporate-made computers and hand-build my own. It’s NOT about the vehicle – it’s how you use it…
— Lee (no last name provided) dismissing EDUPUNK in a comment on the Chronicle article
As a person who has been involved in quite a bit of social activism, and done [...]
31
2008
A short explanation from a terminal smasher (or, Blackboard as an access control company)
30
2008
Bowling Alone, the Local Internet, and XBox Live
From Putnam, 1995:
The most whimsical yet discomfiting bit of evidence of social disengagement in contemporary America that I have discovered is this: more Americans are bowling today than ever before, but bowling in organized leagues has plummeted in the last decade or so. Between 1980 and 1993 the total number of bowlers in America increased [...]
26
2008
Edupunk
Jim Groom brings a new term into being in a recent post — edupunk.
There’s a couple reasons why I find the term useful, but the most important is that it captures the cultural revulsion many of us feel with the appropriation of the Learning 2.0 movement by corporations such as Blackboard. Learning 2.0, like punk, [...]
23
2008
Why Halo 3 is more educational than "intellectual" games
I always *felt* like I should be a gamer. After all, I built educational games for a good portion of my career — first for children (reading readiness software), then for Columbia University and Cable & Wireless, where the name of the game was social simulations — choose-your-own-adventure style scenarios where you interacted with professional [...]
22
2008
Made the jump to Linux
Vista on my budget laptop was the straw that broke the camel’s back. (really, there must be a better and more current saying for that, but I’m pre-coffee today).
I was losing an untold amount of time clicking links and x’s and waiting for Vista to do something (anything!). I was watching as Vista crashed — [...]
14
2008
UMW Faculty Academy — on Ustream!
So I was unaware until I got a twitter from Jim that the UMW faculty academy was on UStream.tv.
They are off air right now, but they should be starting up around 11:15. I’ve embedded the Ustream below.
Live Videos provided by Ustream.TV
The Janet Murray presentation was wonderful, and the the faculty participation was absolutely stunning. Whatever [...]
12
2008
Ning Death Syndrome (a.k.a the Dead Shark Problem)
I’m a big fan of Ning, and lately I’ve been gearing up to launch an Alumni site in it. The first email invites will go out tomorrow.
Well, not exactly the first invites. And therein lies a story.
See, before I launched this, I tried a little experiment and invited a few of my alumni friends to [...]
7
2008
If a Columnist Calls a Tail a Leg…
There was yet another Andrew Keen inspired article last week bemoaning the age of “wikiality” — an age of supposed gullibility of us internet sorts. It begins with shocking news — people are getting quotes wrong, and Web 2.0 is at fault:
Truth: Can You Handle It?
Better Yet: Do You Know It When You See It?
By [...]