Ramblings

Bloviating: to you, from me. Chide me if you will. algot@runeman.org

All photos in this blog are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license, unless specifically stated otherwise. If something written seems worth your time and effort, use it under the same license.

This is my personal blog. Those interested in other blogging I do, may feel free to visit Moving to Open Source in Schools and/or openminds: Fighting Fear of Failure.

Tue, 24 Jan 2012

Car Talk Staff

Post in the Waste of Time Department section of the blog

Sent in the following suggestion to Car Talk, that radio production by Tom and Ray Magliozzi that I hear on National Public Radio

Hi Guys, Why don't you hire a technician to do some of your under-the-hood fact checking. I would like to recommend my good friend Lew Boyle Anfilter. Just don't try to get funny by trying to say his initials are L.O.F. like the guys at my local shop.

For a look at the current official list of employees at Car Talk, Gota Dislink

Sat, 21 Jan 2012

Play

I just received a catalog from LEGO Education. "Minds-On STEM 2012."

Instead of rushing to look at the exciting new and the other familiar goodies inside, I started to read the welcome message from Dr. Harvey Dean, LEGO's CEO. No reason. The message was upbeat, but something caught my eye near the end. (I added the bold for emphasis.)

"In response to teacher input, we've also decided to change the name of one of our products. Those of you familiar with LEGO SERIOUS PLAY will be pleased to hear that we've changed the name to an education-focused title BuildToExpress."

It made me stop. I didn't even flip the page to look at the product(s) mentioned. There was nothing to do but think about what that change of name suggests.

Is it really the perspective of teachers, or at least the ones who made the complaints, that "play" needs to be removed from education?

That is certainly the reaction I had. LEGO developers had given play a prominent place in the product's original name, but at least some teachers objected. Presumably, it was more than a few who complained that "play" was out of place in their schools and classrooms. Of course, it is possible that it was "teachers" who were actually administrators, but either way, it bothered me. LEGO is part of a creative childhood for many kids. This change of name makes it sound as if play, which was OK before kids entered the classroom, must be set aside as we get down to the serious job of STEM and "21st century learning."

(Wait. I'm going to check right now. What are the details of the renamed product?)

OK, I'm back. It was quick, on page 4 and 5. "BuildToExpress is a groundbreaking process that combines a facilitative teaching method with hands-on manipulatives. The result is a solution tailored for educators who are serious about developing 21st-century learners and creative problem solvers."

The catalog includes comments from Erin Hardy, an elementary school teacher who reports, from one of her students, "Hayley said, 'It is fun because we build with our hands, watch with our eyes, and think with our minds."

Well, at least that student still gets it. "It is fun", including all that thinking with the mind. Of course, the product name may not actually impact the kids. It may well be that the students still get to see their learning as fun. They might not have the play drained out of their activity.

Sadly, I'm left with the alternative conclusion, that it is the teachers who don't want to hear that their students are learning as they play. It sounds like play has left the hearts of the teachers. That makes me very sad.

How do kids maintain their love of learning if their learning guides, their teachers, are no longer having fun, no longer playing, maybe even no longer learning in a natural way, themselves?

The teachers appear to need a "solution tailored for educators who are serious..."

Thu, 19 Jan 2012

Hyperbole

Well, here you have it. Everything that could be said, has been said.

What makes an "Ultimate Guide" most intriquing, as a concept, is that the initiative mentioned was revealed just today at a presentation from Apple, Inc. That's right. The announcement was made today for Apple to support and own rights to all sorts of interactive textbooks, a digital/e-text alternative to pounds and pounds of traditional paper texts.

I feel I must stop, now. The "ultimate blog post" has been a waste of your time. Sorry. Go read the guide by following the link from the Tweet.

Thu, 12 Jan 2012

Greenhouse Gasses

Advertising placement on Web pages probably doesn't link consistently with the story content on a page, but this convergence was intriguing.

Don't you think the ad would work better if a car company were advertising a hybrid or even an electric car instead of an SUV? Of course, maybe somebody with a wry sense of humor bumped the ad into place on purpose.

Sat, 10 Dec 2011

Best Crowd

Performers love their audiences. I've heard that the sound of applause is what makes some keep working.

I've been to concerts where performers thank thier audiences and it may be common to have comments like "You've been great!" or "I love to play in Boston!"

I do wonder, though, what will people think, who have been to Amanda Palmer's earlier concerts, if they see this tweet.

Mon, 05 Dec 2011

In Touch?

There was a time that I called a friend, specifying three rings. He was on a party line phone and three rings meant the call was for somebody in his family. Of course, if his family was known to be away, somebody else on the party line would pick up and tell me. They'd even promise to pass along the message that I had called.

Today, I called my son's house to talk to his wife. She didn't answer. I left a message. Later, I tried her cell phone. She didn't answer that. Still later, I called my son's cell phone. I was redirected to an automated answering service. Finally, I tried my granddaughter's recently acquired cell phone. I couldn't reach anybody that way, either.

I would try email, but the question isn't that monumental.

I love modern conveniences, don't you?

Fri, 02 Dec 2011

Different Kids - Different Education

I was reading the Monday Morning Quarterback by Peter King. He quoted John Fox, coach of the Denver Broncos: "So here, we just figured let's try to do what Tim's comfortable with. It's just coaching. Doesn't matter if you coach JV, high school, college or the pros -- when you've got different kids, you need to do different things. Figure what your players can do, and adjust to them."[1]

While this quote is about handling a young quarterback in the NFL, it just might also apply to education in general. Education of a classroom full of students isn't an easy, endlessly repeatable application of a formula which worked once with a group of students. A classroom isn't a factory floor on which consistent actions reproduce consistent results. A classroom with several students and one teacher has been developed as a way to be efficient, though. By providing common tasks and activities to the group of students, a teacher seeks an effective path to develop skills and thought processes for more than one child at a time.

David Warlick recently wrote "[A] vision of teachers as curriculum curator is inconsistent with a central and arrogantly authoritative blueprint for everything that learners need to be doing for hours, days, and years of their childhoods and youth."[2]

No two children are the same. While they are similar, each child struggles through the early stages of life working like crazy to be part of a group and simultaneously to establish a working individual identity. Teachers play an important a role in the struggle. Effective teachers consciously spend hour upon hour seeing each child as an individual, recoginizing their unique contributions to a class discussion, a project, etc. Teachers also help children work out their differences, allowing a team to build itself in their classrooms. Being a curriculum curator and being a good coach are both valuable ways to describe the role of a successful teacher.

It is time to recognize that children deserve the dedication of teachers who see more than the "easy" goal of improving standardized test scores.

Read more:
[1] http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/peter_king/11/14/Week10/index.html#ixzz1dgozyFId
[2] http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/?p=3290

Reinvent the Wheel

"Well, in education, sometimes you DO want to re-invent the wheel!" -- Michel Paul

One of the biggest, and often overlooked, elements of education is that students need well structured environments in which they try to reinvent the wheel. Too often, society sees children as empty vessels whose brains need to be filled with approved content. Thoughtful educators understand that children need to "try stuff out" not just be told something is true.

"Here is another idea: enabling children to learn for themselves. There is a considerable literature on learned helplessness and its cure, including the fact that schools are organized to produce it. The most important fact about learned helplessness is that once one has gotten out of it, one cannot be put back into it. The second most important fact about it is that the cure is a lot of work, and seemingly nothing happens until the person reaches a tipping point, when it happens all at once." -- Edward Mokurai

Today's curricula may be too rigid, telling a child what to do and how to do it, even when to do it. What would happen to a child, a classroom, a school if children weren't endlessly put into one rigid curriculum after another? Isn't there also an assumption built into those curriculua that there is a "right" answer? If a right answer can be assumed, then, of course, it is practical to put it as one choice on a standardized test. Then, certainly, the standardized test measures a child's progress and that progress is applicable back to the classroom, the teacher and the school.

Pedagogy: to lead a learner. I'm put in mind of the image of a child moving along after a teacher in just the way a bull follows the herdsman with his hand on the rope that attaches to the solid ring on bull's tender nose.

I think I prefer the image of a teacher, one well informed and helpful, playing a flute like the Pied Piper with a score of children following, smiling and laughing, cavorting, playing, learning the dance and following the music, then taking up an instrument themselves and practicing the music with a tune of their own.

There's an important element to be injected into any curriculum. Children who learn by following an interesting piper(teacher) are still potentially only followers, just like the ones who were lead by the nose. Our society needs a kind of cohesion, being as harmonious as we can. As citizens in a society, we may continue to be followers, of a spouse, a politician (with luck not a dictator), a party. Not all of us need to be leaders, at least not all the time. Instead, a successful member of a society is a contributor, lending support to a cause, being an active participant, sometimes adding valuable notes to the symphony, but also sometimes taking the opportunity to grasp the conductor's baton to lead at least during a rehearsal, if not the main performance.

Children need the opportunity to develop an ability for self-expression, allowed to develop that self-expression in harmony with the others in their classroom, school, community, country. Part of the process also involves taking on more and more responsibility. Responsibility develops through practice of both being a group member and simultaneously, an individual. A child needs to learn how to be a self-expressed individual without subjugating, dominating or persistently irritating the others in their group. Striving to improve is natural to children. It is a shame when a society or a school stifles the joy of learning, stifling the attempt to grow into productive personal expression.

Both quotes are from email communications on the Mathfutures mailing list http://groups.google.com/group/mathfuture?hl=en , November 2011.

Wed, 19 Oct 2011

Stakeholder

I was reading an article in pre-publication today. The author used the term "stake holder" and was clearly describing a "stakeholder."

To save you from rushing to a dictionary, here's what Google's definition search revealed:

1) (in gambling) An independent party with whom each of those who make a wager deposits the money or counters wagered

2) A person with an interest or concern in something, esp. a business

3) Denoting a type of organization or system in which all the members or participants are seen as having an interest in its success

The meaning intended in the article was, I think, meaning three. Many management plans seek to involve the stakeholders so they will buy in and drive a project to a good finish.

What wasn't included in the set of definitions was: "holder of a stake, while one or more guys swing sledge hammers to drive it home" Of course, that was what my warped word sense took from the pre-publication article. I think it needs a bit more proofreading.

The extra space got me thinking though. In many top-down organizations, the various groups not in top management positions are asked to be involved. All too often, the stakeholders are present, but not actually heard when they participate. The top down approach leaves the stakeholders limited to the stake holder role while the ideas of the bosses are hammered home.

Stake holder is not a great role in any project, especially if the hammers come down just a bit off the mark. I feel sorry for those stake holders who are not really allowed to be stakeholders.

Thu, 15 Sep 2011

Winning - Football Example

I am a fan of American football. I am a fan of the New England Patriots. They won the game on Monday night, and set a team record for offense, with quarterback Tom Brady becoming the fifth all time with 517 passing yards for the game.

Winning seems to come often to the Patriots. But is winning all it seems?



"O'Brien and head coach Bill Belichick were more focused on the little things the team did wrong in the opener as opposed to the many areas in which they excelled. Belichick was unhappy the Patriots failed to score after having the ball on the Dolphins' 1-yard line late in the first half, then failed to put the game out of reach more decisively with a couple of first downs in the closing minutes." NFL.com

It would seem that the coaches are not satisfied with just "winning." Other parts of the game motivate them to do a better job, even after a spectacular win.

Tom Brady, himself, said, "I enjoy scoring points. Whatever the hell we need to do to score points that's what I enjoy doing. Sometimes we go fast, sometimes we go slow, it's just a matter of what the point at the drive is, how we're trying to execute, and ultimately trying to get the ball in the endzone." It seems, again, that winning might just be a byproduct of the stuff that really matters.

Working to get better for the next challenge, reducing the number and severity of mistakes. Scoring, scoring again, and scoring yet again.

For the part of the team on the other side of the football, the defense, scoring points clearly cannot be the goal. They focus on doing everything they can to reduce the  number of opponents' scores. They plug the gaps in the line of scrimmage, race along down the football field to stick out a hand at just the right moment, disrupting a pass catch. They stick a shoulder into the midriff of a running back trying to knock him to the ground and maybe to also knock the ball loose so there will be a turnover. Getting better at these defensive skills might be what winning teams focus on.

A recent radio talk show discussion[1] of winning included the suggestion that winning is the most important part of the psychology of amateur sports, that teaching the children or college kids to be winners was the main point of sports.

These thoughts from members of one of the current most winning teams suggest there is something more important on a day-to-day basis. Boosters of amateur sports might do well to listen to these professionals.


[1] Jim and Margery on Boston's FM 96.9 "Boston Talks"


posted at: 12:38 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Wed, 14 Sep 2011

Winning and Sports

Jim and Margery discussed this article on their radio program this morning on 96.9 Boston Talks.

"Wheelock Athletics Lauded in Boston Globe Wheelock College Director of Athletics Diana Cutaia outlined her unique philosophy toward athletics in a Boston Globe article: Winning doesn't matter. Improvement, enjoyment, character, and team building do. And, the article noted, the Wheelock Wildcats are winning more games as a result." Globe Article (PDF)

I was moved to respond.

Sports assumption: Win or be a loser!

Sports reality: Win and it is a temporary, incremental, momentary rush. That is especially true if the win was the result of a fluke, a technical issue, anything which does not reflect the concerted effort of the members of the team. Lose one game, two, three, limited real consequences.

--------------------------------------------

Winning isn't what it seems to be.

At least for the male population, winning must be put into the context of hunting. Winning for a prehistoric hunter means eating, both for himself and his family. Winning for the hunting party of subsistence tribes means the tribe gets to live another day, a week, a season. Winning means not losing hunting grounds to rival tribes. Winning means survival. In a tenuous, subsistence society, boys need to learn to hunt. They need to learn to run fast, hit hard. Girls need to learn to keep the fire going, to defend themselves, to survive raids when the men are off hunting. Tribe members need to learn to do these things better every day until they can win by "bringing home the bacon" to a shelter that isn't empty or filled with dead bodies.

As a result of that need for skills, games boys and girls play are steps toward the win of survival. For the boys, having at least one good leader, someone best at the training games and visibly successful at hunting is useful to the tribe. Boys compete to establish that leader in their generation. Adults observe the children as they develop and rationally expect success at a rite of passage to promote the the boys to the next hunting party, to productive manhood.

In a healthy tribe, the competition develops a few leaders and a cadre of lieutenants. Being a lieutenant means being able to step in if the leader is incapacitated. Winning isn't zero sum. Being second, third, fourth in line isn't being a loser. The chance that a lieutenant will need to step up to lead is virtually inevitable. Death is always just around the corner in a subsistence society. The only measure of being a loser is death, and it isn't exactly seen as a "failure." Death certainly is failure, but it is inevitable, while not desirable. It is eventually unavoidable. As a tribe, failure would be sitting down beside the game path in the event of a leader's death.

"Oh, well. The boss is gone. We've lost. Let's just sit here and wait for the lions to eat us."

I'd say that such depression of a whole tribe would be improbable in a subsistence society. There certainly might be individuals who would give up, but not the tribe. Pride of survival is the norm. Pride of living long enough to raise the next generation of tribe members to take over. Pride at winning.

In modern society most of us are far, very far removed from actually having to hunt for daily sustenance. Nonetheless, we have a genetic inclination to develop physical and mental survival skills. We learn skills in order to mature from totally helpless infants to functional adults. The problem comes in the middle. Today's adults don't have to kill a gazelle or boar to eat. Adults don't have to kill a lion which is also stalking the gazelle to avoid death. Near adult children don't need to demonstrate their hunting/survival prowess to become an adult. Modern humans have substituted something else in order to satisfy the genetic need to win/survive. We've adapted to a world in which someone else does the "hunting" and we must instead, earn enough money to buy from those suppliers. The relatively unsatisfying accumulation of money has become our measure of prowess. We win if we earn more money than our contemporaries/competitors. We can buy food for tonight's dinner. Maybe we can buy for a whole week. Wow, we could buy food for a year. Hey, what do we do now? What should we buy next? When is enough, enough? A hunter/winner isn't genetically built to shut off the drive to win some more just because dinner next week, next month, year, decade is no longer in question.

Most humans have the built-in desire to be a productive tribe member, developing skills as kids, adolescents and young adults. Most of us want to develop what it takes to be a leader or a trusted lieutenant, even just a productive member of the group. If we no longer must hunt and kill to survive. What do we do instead?

Sport is one pathway to develop and establish hunter/winner skills. Instead of being pitted against death from hunger, we have created artificial conditions by which to test our skills. Sports provide a training ground for the physical prowess that would equate to survival of the tribe. Children begin early to love to play these competitive games. Unfortunately, in our modern world, children lack the need to succeed that kids needed in the past. Today, dominant physical skill isn't really requisite for survival.

Families don't always have the need to put children into working for the survival of the family. Farm families do still ask children to do honest, important chores around the family farm. Dad can plow an extra acre if he doesn't have to also muck out the horse stall. Mom can cook a better dinner for everybody if somebody else gathers the eggs from the chicken coop and weeds some of the kitchen garden. Unfortunately(?) most of us do not grow up on a family farm, not even as part of a sharecropper family.

Parents, even ones living in a four room apartment, do still want their children to be successful. It is built into the system. Lacking after school home/survival chores that are meaningful, children are encouraged to participate in some sport, or another "valuable" extra-curricular activity. Sitting in the apartment, sitting in the suburban family room by the TV, sitting on a curb at the urban street corner with the gang isn't seen by many as good training.

In sports, the system partially breaks down at the level of adult involvement. Most kids' pickup games work fine because they are organized by the participants. When adults tightly organize the kids' activity, too often, the goal changes. The goal changes away from doing well as individual members of a team. Improved individual skill isn't enough. As a group, something more must happen. The goal changes to "winning" in a way not motivated by need. Winning is fine, but the reality in our modern world is that "losing" a sports game doesn't really have serious consequences. The losers go home to dinner just the same as the winners. The parents of the losers don't lose their jobs. The parents of the winning team don't get a raise at work. Many adults don't accept that. Maybe they cannot. Adults urge their sports team charges to ever more effort, even benching the least skillful, all driven by the urge to "win." Winning validates something in their adult survival core. Adults probably still need to identify the next generation of hunters. Humans today really aren't much different from humans 10,000 years ago, maybe even 100,000 years ago.

Getting shouted at by testosterone drenched adults isn't very motivating for most children. It matters, too, that many of the loudest shouters are parents of the players, though many coaches also think it is good to yell. It makes the kid "tough", somehow more ready for life. The question is, does the "win at all costs" survival instinct work that well in a crowded, non-subsistence, non-tribal society?

It is complete bunk that learning to "win" in sports prepares us to be effective stock boys, burger flippers, plumbers, shoe salesmen, office workers, no matter which gender.

Winning does establish the ancient pecking order, though. Winners are looked up to. They are assumed to be good leaders when that may actually not be true in today's society. In our modern world, where daily kill-or-die survival isn't really necessary, what is the value of a winner?

Winners may really just be testosterone-rich bullies who lead because their brash leadership style doesn't put them into confrontation with a lion or bear or even an enraged bull elk. Today, bullies often win in spite of their lousy leadership style. Some bullies go on to be very successful, ignoring the needs of their tribe, taking all they can for themselves with no concern for whose feet they step on along the way. These bully-winners have little doubt that they should continue to be winners, even at the expense of those around them. If they get rich, what does it matter that there are all those poor "losers" out there? "They aren't like me. They're not my responsibility. If they had just tried harder, they'd have been winners, too."

If sports are going to teach "win at all costs", we will continue to overpay hedge fund managers by seeing them not as bullies, stripping others of options. Instead, we will continue to see them as successful "winners." Likewise, corporate CEOs get high accolades because they lead their amorphous corporation's "team" to success...and make money for their investors. Do the CEOs care seriously about the others on the corporate team? I doubt it. They get their props from the corporation board. If they win in the short term, they get their stock options and golden parachutes. The corporation's investors get their short term payback. The board members slap each other on the back and affirm that they are still winners, too. When the climate changes, the CEO is dumped and walks away to another opportunity where their board-and-investor-encouraged short sighted leadership will again work its corporate magic, until the next switch. If and when these rich winners finally tire of the effort, they can retire at 30, 40, 50, whatever. Their leadership role may finally be in tatters, but they still are "winners" in the eyes of society. They are RICH. Society honors them. "They earned it!"

The job-hopping CEOs' multiple millions don't necessarily make them care a minute about the people who have to subsist on the leftovers, especially the leftovers of a mediocre career, especially the leftovers of a series of unremarkable jobs: Social Security.

Wait, don't these money hungry winners also support Social Security? They pay in, don't they?

Well, yes, without considering recent economic stimulus reductions, the social security tax (aka FICA) is 6.2 percent of salary (matched by the employer). A person making $30,000.00 pays 6.2 percent, that's $1860.00 a year, to FICA. Someone making $106,800.00 personally pays 6.2 percent, $6,621.60, FICA tax.

But, jump up to a person who makes $200,000.00. They still only contribute $6,621.60. The social security pool doesn't benefit from their financial win. And if a person makes 200 million dollars, they still pay only $6,621.60. Not only are they winners once, they are "winners" again when they retire. They get the same social security benefits as a middle class worker who maxed out over several years at about $100 grand and stayed at it until 67 years old. The winners, though, probably still have some of that one year 200 million, and the multiple millions from the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that...

I'm actually not so impressed by that kind of winner. That kind of "winner" doesn't support his community well. That kind of winner doesn't necessarily have any sense of responsibility to his tribe, the one that supported him on the way up.

What a winner.

Sports at the college level and below should serve society better than that. Sports should not be a by-product of the wish of the booster club "investors" to vicariously be winners. "Look, look. My team won this weekend. I won't say I won much money from my bet on them, but I did win."

Worse, yet are the blood suckers who bet "the spread", winning their bets even when their beloved team actually lost the game within the handicapped margin. "See, I can be a winner even if my team is a bunch of losers, this week. Maybe, though, we should be looking for another coach. At this rate, they can only get worse."

I repeat. Sports should serve us better than that.

Tue, 09 Aug 2011

Market Manipulation or Merely Market Madness?

An online article from BBC included the following information:

"People are hoping the Fed is working on a plan that will come out later today, and that, along with yesterday's sell-off, is why we're rising now," said Jeff Duncan, president of Duncan Financial Management.

Sarah Wasserman of Schaeffer's Investment Research, was also waiting for some move by the monetary authorities: "While the Fed's been noncommittal about additional monetary easing, Friday's downgrade has spurred hopes that additional assistance from the government could, perhaps, be on the horizon."

Some observers say the Fed has few weapons left.

Interest rates - at near zero since 2008 - have nowhere further to go and the bank has just completed its second round of quantitative easing, another liquidity-boosting move but one whose success is difficult to measure.

But others warned that no action by the Fed could trigger further losses: "If the Fed does nothing, it could prove to be a disappointment at this point," said one analyst at JP Morgan.

While recent months in the U.S. have seen corporate profits rise, even soar sometimes, jobs have NOT been created in the style of Regan's trickle down economics. People who can work are doing so, but many are out of work. So, how is it going to really help us if the Fed makes it easier for people to borrow money to buy and sell stocks? Is that going to make corporations suddenly see the light and begin making jobs that they have not been making during the rise of profits?

Sat, 30 Jul 2011

Anachronism

Definition: out of place in time.

We just saw "Cowboys and Aliens" yesterday. It escaped being too hokey by a narrow margin. Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford don't like each other, but team up when aliens attack the town, capturing many humans, including Ford's loopy son.

The men were grimy most of the time. The lead female was clean most of the time. The aliens were slimy almost all the time.

I enjoyed the movie, but cannot make a glowing recommendation. Don't expect too much from the star power. Craig is manly, but doesn't actually pull off the gang leader macho moment. Ford is nasty as a cattle rancher, until he's "lovable" as a redeemed parent. Lovable is improbable, and it comes through that way.

Picky details:
1) The aliens are slimy, but when an alien reaches out with slimy grippers and touches the cheek of a cowering boy, the cheeks remain pristine, smooth, unslimed.
2) Harrison Ford has a shiny knife which he gives to the very frightened boy, telling him to be a man. It is a very shiny knife. It is clearly stainless steel. Stainless steel was successfully patented in the U.S. in 1915. The movie timeframe might have been later than that year. The date wasn't specified, but the railroad wasn't present in the town. Wikipedia tells us that New Mexico got its railroads around 1880. Ford got the knife from his own father when he, himself was a young boy. That would make the too shiny knife 50 years old, at least, and made before stainless steel was readily available.

Alternate history bends facts around, so maybe stainless steel was invented earlier in the movie's timeline. I still think it is a big anachronistic "whoops!", especially when the knife plays such a visible role. Quality alternate history drops big changes into otherwise ordinary, accepted history.

One touch I did like was that the aliens flew around in some fancy airplanes (not shiny) with multi-vaned wings. The planes belched smoke as they flew. It made the aliens seem more vulnerable, somehow.

Sat, 25 Jun 2011

Wizard Reader

J. K. Rowling has announced that she's going to sell ebooks from her own website: pottermore.com.

Though there is a temporary home page, the site is scheduled to begin operating in October. There are rumors flying around, of course, and the word is that Rowling has taken control over her ebook sales which have not existed before. She's apparently going to share profits with her publisher.

Sony is providing technology support to the pottermore site and has its name on the home page. Does this suggest Sony is planning a new ebook reader?

Sources:
biggest-losers-plus-one-surprise-winner

Sat, 11 Jun 2011

Career Teachers

Is a teacher a replacable widget?

I went to a retirement party this week. One of the retiring teachers, Mr. Gallerani, was ending a carreer of 42 years, all at the same school, teaching the same subject: social studies. He stressed study skills, expected attention from students (and got it), read widely in his subject area throughout his career and engaged students in his passion for the material he, himself, loved. Through the years, I've encountered students who went through the school where Mr. Gallerani and I both taught. Most remembered having me as a teacher because I taught everyone in the school about and with computers. But, even those who didn't have Mr. Gallerani for social studies, remembered him. They had siblings who were in his classroom; they had friends who spoke of him; they went on the class trip to Washington, D.C. which he lead for over 30 years; they remembered him.

I've read that most who begin teaching also leave teaching instead of staying with it. "Teacher Career Choices", a report of the National Center for Educational Statistics [1] determined that only 31 percent of those who went directly into teaching after graduation had stayed with it for ten years. Others did enter the job of teacher later, and the study is recent, so it doesn't cover teachers like Mr. Gallerani.

Diane Ravitch, educational historian, has said, "Teacher longevity is very important. That's the way a teacher changes lives. Not in a year or two, but by consistency, making a commitment."[2]

I remember some of the teachers who helped to prepare me. The ones I remember best were not short timers. They had a style which made them stand out, a style which they had developed over many years and which created a special, individual relationship with their students. It wasn't that they were super friendly or grumpy/stern. It wasn't that simple. They engaged me in the subject we were studying. They pulled reaction from me. They made me change.

I'd have to say that I cannot always tell you the specific things they did which made the impression, though a few stand out. I do remember that Miss Erickson, a high school English teacher, returned every written assignment to us the next day, carefully corrected and marked with clear recommendations. We thought she was nuts to stay up as late as 4:00 A.M. to do it.

I do remember that Mr. Semple asked us to tell him what he was thinking when he referred to a page of the Newsweek we were reading for classs. It amazed me that we didn't get it in September, but by June, we were almost all raising our hands and it didn't matter which of us got called to give the answer. We got it. I remember my chorus/choir teacher who simply glared at us if we were off key. He was heartbroken when our choir was split by a school board decision to ship those from one of the towns to another high school.

You get the idea. These teachers made me focus. They weren't just delivering a lecture from yellowing note cards. They were educators, drawing/leading us out of our childhood ignorance and limited viewpoints. We remember teachers because they recognized what we needed and gave it to us.

Teachers who are young may come in with great skills, of course, but I challenge you to think back. Are the teachers you remember typically the ones who blazed hot for a couple or three years and then left? Are they, instead, the ones who were like my teachers and like Mr. Gallerani, a 42 year veteran, a fixture, a dedicated, beloved, respected teacher. He will be missed by the students entering his classroom next year even though they won't know it. I hope that in September, the room is occupied by someone like him, someone who isn't just filling the seat behind his desk. I hope the "new" teacher becomes a beloved, remembered veteran.

I hope public education doesn't become dominated by short time, widget teachers. Students deserve better than that. Are you listening, policy makers, educational reformers? Are you listening, teacher bashing talk show hosts and politicians?

For the record, I stayed in the same school district for 36 years. I started as a science teacher in grades 7 and 8. I finished as the district's computer coordinator.

Wed, 01 Jun 2011

Copy vs. Share vs. Rights

Janis Krums took a snapshot of the plane crash on the Hudson River in 2009. He's a Twitter user. He posted his snapshot to a photo-sharing web site called Twitpic. The photo became famous, shared widely. Krums apparently wishes he could have been compensated for the commercial use of his photo.

NOT my photo - Not cc-by license.

More recently, in 2011, Stephanie Gordon took a snapshot out the window of a plane, capturing an image of the final launch of the Endeavor space shuttle. She also put the photo out by way of Twitter and Twitpic. She doesn't care about being directly compensated for use of her photo.

NOT my photo - Not cc-by license.

Twitpic's terms of service require that a Web use be done by linking back to the original images, as I have done here. It would be inappropirate to save the photo and simply post it from the copy. Twitpic wants the traffic to go through their site. By this requirement, Twitpic also helps to ensure that the correct attribution to the authors happens.

Both photos offer us important images. Both give us a look at events we didn't see directly. Both photos have become culturaly important because people want to see, even at a distance, what other people are talking about.

Who owns the photos. The simple answer is "the people who took the photos." However, by putting the photos on Twitpic, both author/owners shared the photos with their followers. Any retweets made the sharing wider. Sensing the cultural "viral" spread of the images, the news and online media spread the word farther, often including the images as I have here.

Mr. Krums wants to be paid for the use of his photo; Ms. Gordon doesn't expect to be paid, doesn't apparently care.

I'm glad the Internet has made it possible for ordinary people to easily contribute to the common culture. I hope the trend will accelerate. In a world of short attention spans, making a contribution to the common wealth is a significant feat. Congratulations to both observant, prepared individuals.

[1] Plane on Hudson http://twitpic.com/135xa
[2] Shuttle Launch http://twitpic.com/4yg6hs
[3] Controversy over use TechDirt post

Mon, 16 May 2011

Keeping Busy

These days, retired, busy is easy. Even doing very little, I'm occupied with something, even if it is only doing these doodles.

We also walk the dogs when it isn't raining. Mowing the lawn is always available. There's puttering with wood, building stuff (with luck including square corners). For the record, I don't actually polish the car. We love Scrub-a-Dub carwash which is just down the street from us.

Sun, 15 May 2011

Exploration is Exciting
There's always something new going on in my brain. I enjoy experimenting...lifelong learning, I guess. Hence "betty 'n' bob."

I recently came across a simple cartooning idea. Basic characters in a simple comic format. Just add the dialog and...there it is, a cartoon. Thanks to Leo Loikkanen at All Filler, no Killer for the idea and inspiration. He created and released a cartoon template called "American Efficiency" using the CC0 "Creative Commons Zero" license. That makes the template essentially public domain. Anybody can use the template. Just download it to your computer. Print a copy and add your own dialog to make your own cartoon with marker, pen or pencil.

There was also the cartoon from Nina Paley which I mentioned in my last post. There are all sorts of creative people out there.

I've been exploring graphic ideas using Inkscape, a free open-source program for drawing vector graphics. I am NOT very artistic, and find that my limited talents are harnessed better by using a vector graphics tool than a freehand sketch/paint program like Krita (both on a GNU/Linux computer). I decided to try out the idea from Leo Loikkanen in Inkscape. Along with a basic template, I created a series of mood-showing characters, one male "Bob" and the other female "Betty." Here's my first effort.

Please feel free to make use of the full Inkscape "betty 'n' bob" page. I'm releasing it as CC-Zero as Leo did his.
Perhaps you could use it with students in your school or with your own children. Inkscape is a great tool for all sorts of things.

Inkscape Template of "betty 'n' bob".

If I stay motivated, maybe you'll see more of my own betty 'n' bob ideas.

Thu, 12 May 2011

Happiness

CC-BY-SA Nina Paley

For the record. I am a happy person.

I do know more than one person who would benefit from this outlook, though.

Love that song: "Don't Worry; Be Happy"

Go forth and enjoy your day. Visit mimiandunice.com for more enlightened humor.

posted at: 06:37 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Tue, 03 May 2011

All Education is Local

Common Core - Standardized Assessment

Nobody knows a child as well as his parents, teachers and friends. Learning is an individual process, one aided by support from peers, parents and professionals. A professional (teacher) is a guide. Peers and parents probably lack the tools to nurture a child through the maze of material which constitute a curriculum. A professional will focus, for example, on grammar while a parent might smile proudly when son Joe says, "Me and my friend, Bob scored goals in the soccer game today." A peer might say, "Like, dude, that's wicked cool." Joe is supported by the smile and comment, but also will benefit from the next school lesson -- Writing and Speaking in a Formal Setting.

It takes a professional set of skills to effectively adjust a curriculum to the current needs of a child. The lesson may require many repetitions geared to the moment, not a curriculum time-and-sequence alignment chart. Joe may have needs in common with many in the class, too. Those needs may not be aligned with the common core expectations for the year.

A child's experience writing and speaking in class takes him a step out of his comfort zone, a step from the streets, or maybe even a step away from a mediocre home life. Accomplishing those goals is more complex than core standards can address. No standardized test will measure a child's reaching the goals, either.

Nationwide core standards represent "a good." Local application of the standards isn't simple reiteration, though. Local, individual application of the core takes much more than publishing the standards and wanting all children to meet the them. For each child, personal context applies, and the ground isn't even. It will take more work to encourage good grammar for a child whose entire culture says "like" every third or tenth word of a sentence. A good grammar lesson will not simply need to state the rules and assign homework practice. Each child in the classroom will need valid exercises in which well spoken and well written work is accomplished. They will need to "learn" that there is a difference between informal chatting and educated discourse. The effort is complex. It takes time and much more work than a common core statement such as this one:

"L.6.1e. Recognize variations from standard English in their own and others' writing and speaking, and identify and use strategies to improve expression in conventional language."[1]

For other groups of children who don't bring as much careless language into class, a teacher's job will be easier. The grammar curriculum will flow by more smoothly and a test will be easier for the students to pass. The language environment around the school makes a difference.

For a child to learn, he must face individual challenges and rise to them. What is difficult for one child may be easier for another. An attentive teacher is the person most likely to expect good grammar from a child, to recognize the mistake and provide a targeted experience to reinforce proper expression. A hard-working teacher with experience in recoginizing a "teachable moment" is much more valuable to a child than a list of common standards. It is going to be important for a series of hard-working teachers to assist classroom groups to build the necessary series of teachable moments into a sequence which makes children eager to improve and comfortable with making mistakes along the way.

No standardized test is going to create a unique curriculum for each child. That unique curriculum will happen. It will happen whether or not there is a 100 percent effective group of teachers. The unique curriculum will happen whether Joe plays soccer, is a musician, a skate boarder. Good teaching supports each "Joe" along with peers and parents. Making final judgments of the success of each child's unique curriculum may be possible through standardized tests, but maybe not.

I was a junior high teacher for years. At one point we were re-named from junior high to middle school. It did not change our outlook too much. We took children into our classrooms at the start of their seventh grade year and helped them develop until they left us at the end of grade eight. We saw each child as unique, not always having the same skills as others of the same size, shape and age. Middle school also exposed us and the children to the wildly differing body changes typical of the middle grade years. At the end of grade eight, there were still children barely five feet tall standing next to others well beyond six feet with sideburns almost down to their chins.

A common curriculum and a common standardized test?
What is standard about a child?

We need to celebrate childrens' unique needs and accomplishments as much as we need to get all students to graduate with some common skills. We cannot expect a cookie cutter approach to work. We cannot expect all children to come out of the assembly line the same as endless sets of injection molded plastic dinnerware. Judging all students equally by one test is just plain silly, much less judging the hard-working series of teachers who helped prepare a student for the test moment.

[1] http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards/english-language-arts-standards/language-standards-k-5/language-progressive-skills-by-grade/

("All politics is local." Thanks to Tip O'Neill, former congressman from Massachusets for the inspiration for this post's title.)

(Thanks to Diane Ravitch for her article on the Education Week blog.)

Sun, 01 May 2011

Advertising Math

An Olay commercial says their competition has 80% water in its product.

Olay is proud to say that they have 25% less water.

What is the amount of water in Olay's product?

--------------------------------

But wait!

Isn't Olay's product still mostly water?

Perhaps water is a valuable ingredient of the product.
Maybe Olay is using math to trick us.
Maybe Olay can charge big bucks for the water. Selling water has worked for Fuji, Dasani, Crystal Springs, Smartwater, etc., etc., etc.

--------------------------------

For those who wish to let me give the math solution (even if the Olay product is a "suspension")...

Take a 100 ml bottle. Fill it with 80% water: 80ml. Fill the rest with "moisturizers" and other fillers and you've got the product Olay doesn't sell.

Take another 100 ml bottle. Fill it with 60 ml of water: that's 25% less water (1/4 of 80 is 20 ml of water which you leave out). Add the moisturizers and other fillers. You've got Olay's product.

Hmmm. I wonder if the other fillers take up more volume than they did before?

Bull image modified from work by Utrescu at openclipart.org

Fri, 29 Apr 2011

Arbor Day 2011

It is Arbor Day. I have not planted a tree yet. I do have a photo to share of the blossoms of a sugar maple tree at our house.

Trees do sometimes have showy flowers. Locally, Cherry, apple and redbud are good examples along with the ornamentals common in people's yards. More often, the flowers are green or other colors that don't attract much attention. The dull flowers don't attract insects either. The pollen from such trees is light and blows from tree to tree in the wind. You may have even parked a car under a pine tree and been dismayed to see the yellowish-green dust all over your recently washed car. Windborne pollen also causes some people to suffer from their allergies. Spring pollen counts are high on sunny, windy days.

We don't tap for syrup, though the maples up at Walnut Hill School along Walnut Street are tapped each year for a few weeks. The buckets are gone by now. Sap runs best for collection when the temperatures go low at night and up again during the daytime. March is typically the best month around here. The Natick Community Organic Farm has a sugar shack where they produce pints of maple syrup from gallons of the collected sap from trees in Natick. I bet it tastes extra good because it is made right here in town.

At the very least, get outside today. It is sunny here. Go for a walk and admire the buds, blossoms and burgeoning leaves beginning to show on the tree branches along your route. If you don't know what the trees are, go back later when they are in full leaf and try to identify them. One good resource is New England Trees. Of course, if you are in another part of the world, look around for tree ID guides suitable for your region.

Thu, 28 Apr 2011

Isolation

Individuals.

That's what Americans want to be. We want to avoid being seen as a faceless member of the crowd.

Two recent trends may help us reach this nirvanah. 1) Collective bargaining is under steady, nationwide assault. In the name of taxpayers, legislative bodies are steadily voting to restrict unions to bargaining only for money. Working conditions, health care, pensions, etc. are being removed from the bargaining process. Gradually, the individual contract will replace contracts negotiated collectively. 2) The U.S. Supreme court handed down a 5-4 decision which makes it more difficult to create class action lawsuits. You are going to be able to "equally" face a corporation to demand retribution for their product failures. You cannot band together with others. You get the chance to stand alone with a well paid lawyer at your side. If you win, you'll get the price of the faulty device, likely a commodity item made in China.

Who benefits? You rugged individualists, certainly. Oh, and the corporations, of course. They've recently become "persons" before the law. They can donate money to politicians just like you. They are just another individual. Does it matter that a corporation has more money to donate than you?

Good luck. Stand up and speak for yourself. It is your right.

Is anybody listening?

Wed, 27 Apr 2011

Sharing Day

I'm good at missing important events. It happens every year. This year, it was National Education and Sharing Day. In 2011, the date was April 15. The day commemorates the work of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Maybe I can be forgiven for missing the date. It is celebrated on 11 Nissan according to the Hebrew calendar which doesn't coincide with the Gregorian calendar we use in secular America. The date is different each year on the calendar I look at every day.

Nevertheless, I'm celebrating. I've made a graphic to encourage sharing beyond one day. One day of sharing isn't enough, you know.

It is posted at openclipart.org, too. You can find my graphics on the site by searching for "runeman". Search for graphics by other key words, too. Holiday graphics are always popular. If you are looking for an easy way to do your own graphics, look at Inkscape which generates images that can be easily resized. Modern browsers like Firefox 4 handle the scalable vector graphics (SVG) easily. Openclipart.org is a repository of graphics for all occasions. Anybody can get an account to post graphics. The graphics are usually original, like mine, but may also be reissues from other public domain sources. By being released directly into the public domain, our shared cultural commons grows with every donation made. Teachers are always on the lookout for good graphics to use in handouts. Public domain images are perfect. They are freely shared, allowing unlimited reuse. Teachers can confidently put the images onto worksheets and Web pages without any concern for infringing copyright.

I've also created a clipart page on this web site to show graphics as I produce them. You are welcome to make use of these, too. Many of them have reached openclipart.org, but not all.

Wed, 23 Mar 2011

Why It's OK to say LOL

I've heard people complain about the texting habits of kids and many adults, who type just "LOL" to shorten "Laughing out Loud" and such, but it apparently isn't anything today's kids should be blamed for doing.

I just read an online article from the Oxford University Press which revealed that such shortcuts were once very common in newspapers. Journalists routinely used abbreviations instead of writing out common phrases. "A.R." was apparently popular to abbreviate "all right".

Proper Bostonians, indeed.

OUPBlog

Sun, 20 Mar 2011

Amateur vs. Professional

"What I'm hearing is an argument for amateurism rather than professionalism."

(continuing the interaction with Tony Bates at his blog)

I think you and I are seeing OER from differing perspectives.

In fact, you may be partially correct. Professionalism does sometimes imply "efficient" and "productive." Unfortunately, those are really concerns of "the bottom line" and corporate success. Efficiency and productivity require a shoehorn to be seen as effective in education.

One of the most traditional packages of education is "the semester." If a student cannot get it by the end of the semester, then he/she should be failed. Just because that is a traditional package, it doesn't always work as planned. Far too many students emerge from their factory/school with an accumulation of semester packages and a GPA. They don't necessarily cross the finish line of graduation well educated.

Many students enter the world of work with the skills that make them good at listening to lectures, taking voluminous notes, arranging their notes and answering a series of questions on an exam. Not all of those students can begin contributing to a work environment where creative thought is more valuable than "knowing the answer." In spite of avoiding the semester's "F", they aren't consistently ready for a life of "productive worker."

Good instructional design describes packaging to me in a couple more ways, too.

Starting point: Raw data isn't accessible for most learning uses. It is disorganized. It is messy.

Good instructional design might do a couple of things:

1) Interpret the data so it is nicely described, graphed, repackaged as statistics, etc. (Common in textbooks)
2) Help students to read the data, organize it, graph it and create statistics from it.

Either one can be seen as a good package, I'd guess.
#1 is the common package used in professional circles where "the answer" is the bottom line.
#2 is a package which doesn't place "the answer" into prominence. Instead, it helps the learner become capable of critical judgments when, later, "the answer" is offered to them as a "fact."

By starting as an amateur, we practice the skills which can eventually make us into professionals. That certainly doesn't make it certain that all amateurs will become professionals. Children begin learning before they encounter professional, packaged education. Somewhere along the path to graduation, most of them become disengaged from the process to the point that the letter grade transcends most other learning goals.

I believe that using, and then modifying, and perhaps finally creating OER components can help teachers and even their students to take more complete command of the process of learning. The fallback assignment (after 50 minutes of lecture), "Read pages 73 to 85 and answer the even numbered questions on page 86." is all too common in classroom practice.

When teachers gather, rate, modify, and encourage students to compare OER components, it recognizes students as valued participants in the learning process. Using OER methods, teachers engage themselves in the courses they teach. They help to generate self-starting students. OER is, or could be, at the core of the "Lifelong Learning" goal. OER is a tool of engagement for the teachers. It is a tool of engagement for the students. It allows blending of the traditional roles. Yet, it is messy.

What is most frustrating about the OER process is that it is difficult to fit in a comfortable package. It is more like the raw data mentioned earlier. It takes much more time to finish. It isn't a neat semester package. It doesn't come in a pre-printed textbook. In short, OER doesn't fit well in the professionally accepted (could we say "ordained" to keep the religious thread going?) scope and sequence of the curriculum.

OER is certainly going to be difficult to accommodate in a standardized, high stakes testing regime.

Once again, I'm not advocating for sloppy OER components. I am arguing for engaged students, engaged teachers.
I am for active learning.
I am opposed to canned learning experiences, ones which are seen as "efficient."

Efficient adults are probably ones whose habits allow them to accomplish many tasks with almost no conscious effort. "Muscle memory" is often described for tasks like typing, riding a bicycle, installing a bolt, etc.

Creating such efficient, productive adults was a good goal for the education system of the factory worker society.

Today's adults in the "first world" countries are rarely factory workers. I believe statistics show that most adults will not retire from their first place of employment. Many have several employers. Adults may have many different "jobs" during a working life. That suggests that the ability to break from one's habits may be a critical adult skill.

I suspect, though evidence may not yet be available, that maintaining a certain level of amateurism and the skills of childlike exploration may be more critical to our adult lives in the 21st century than good habits instilled through well packaged learning modules.

In essence, I think OER methods are more appropriate today than professionally packaged materials.

Amateur does not equal careless. Remember, George Gershwin was regarded by critics and peers as an amateur musician. I recognize and appreciate many of his works, while I might not either recognize nor appreciate works by his professional musical contemporaries.

OER "Religion"?

Quality matters. Quality takes effort. Quality takes time.

(a response to the post by Tony Bates - http://www.tonybates.ca/2011/03/18/a-reflection-on-the-oer-debate-every-which-way-but-loose/)

All of these are true, but the third, time, is tricky. Quality takes time because it involves the mistakes of practice. We don't know what will work until we see it work. It also helps a lot to see something not work. Quality comes from refining a first effort. Practice is effective ONLY when it involes making instructive mistakes along the way. A good work may be the result of many stumbling iterations. OER has a unique avenue for that stumbling practice.

The tone of this post and the reply by Keith Hampson provide some criticism, but seem to suggest that OER is only good in a finished form, one which has been quietly run through a gauntlet of peer review in the shadows, as it were. However, one of the main benefits of OER materials is the workflow of the community. A rough cut OER product may hold the germ of a wonderful piece of work. By putting it in a visible, shared place, an OER can be remixed. After several such remix steps, the result may please even the most harsh critics. What results may be the OER product you seek and would praise. The sequence is more in the open, though, and therefore a little more "messy" than a typical educational "product."

I am not suggesting that a respected institution lend its name to shoddy work. I am proposing that the OER "movement" is still young. It absolutely NEEDS masses of contributors. OER isn't business as usual with a few experts delivering the authorized "word" to the rest of us.

The interactive nature of the Internet, with its open borders, does not rely on the old models of scarce knowledge. New contributors can join the effort at any time. Some of their work may be weak at the beginning, but the persistent contributors will refuse to be silenced. They will keep at it. They will get feedback. They will generate new OER materials which supplant the product of the traditional educational power structure.

Third world, indeed. Who says expertise is exclusively a first world holding? Individual learning has never required anyone to be a silent sponge in the presence of academic giants. The printing press spread the world's expertise to the masses (gradually), breaking the grip of the old power structure. The Internet is providing a path for even broader spread. OER simply prevents the power hungry from controlling access. If work is unlocked from the monopoly of copyright, it is available to any with the basic skill of reading and reasonable access to the network.

Any "religious" reference seems gratuitously negative. Indeed, OER proponents may be reacting to the closed status structure of the citadels of authority. OER may, indeed, originate outside the walls of the university. Does that make it a "religious" effort, or does it simply a challenge to the status of the credentials system (PostDoc, PhD, Master of Arts, Baccalaureate, whatever!) Does a person really need any of those to be a producer of "content"?

If anything, the OER "movement" might deserve "cult" status, since it bucks the authoritarian line of the "religious" hierarchy. Please note that I'm not suggesting that OER is either religious or cult-like. It does seek to wrench the world of knowledge from the hands of an educational elite. OER is an attempt to break loose from the caste system.

Wed, 02 Mar 2011

What Did I Say?

I've gotten some unexpected followers on Twitter recently.

2/28/11 - Stornoway Diamonds - Vancouver - Stornoway Diamond Corporation is a leading Canadian diamond exploration and development company
3/01/11 - Bayfield Ventures - Gold and Precious, Silver, Platinum Metal Exploration Company.
3/02/11 - Stronghold Metals - The Company is currently arranging a drill program on its flag property, the Eagle Mountain Project in Guyana.
3/02/11 - Aben Resources - (formerly Consolidated Abaddon Resources) is a Canadian gold, rare earth and uranium exploration company.
3/02/11 - Amato Exploration - Vancouver The Company currently holds a silver exploration property and an iron ore property in Northern Mexico.
3/02/11 - Golden Peaks Ltd. - Vancouver is a progressive international exploration and resource development company with its primary focus in Indonesia.
3/02/11 - Prodigy Gold Incorporated - is a Vancouver-based gold exploration and mine development company with assets in Eastern Canada.
They follow 4074.

What do they know about me that I don't realize?
What's the Canadian connection? Many/most are from Vancouver, Canada.

There have also been some educators and the occasional guy like:
Aaron
@AaronSSAA U.S.
...who sent this tweet:
"#Quit_Smoking #electric_cigarette Electric cigarette | Is it safe to install propylene glycol and the electronic.."
...along with several others of similar content.

I'd call him a troller or spammer, probably looking for me to follow him out of courtesy, since he is following me. Or maybe some Twitter process sets up recommendations based on who a person follows, and I'm on the hook for "Aaron" to get more followers because he follow me.

As of today, I have 82 followers. I follow many of them and a bunch who don't follow me, too: 116 I'm following.

I've tweeted 850 times.

My profile says that I am "Advocating: Open Source, Open Access, Open Education, Open Minds."

However, I also do some posting of random thoughts. One of my tweets:
02-11/11 - Is filling a series of potholes related to micro-pave as paving a street to ordinary pave? [pronounce as French, pavay.] #humor #diamonds
Really? Could the mere mention of diamonds have started the ball rolling? Did one company after another jump aboard my tweets because of that?

And it looks like some have already stopped following.
Oh well.

Fri, 18 Feb 2011

ABBA

Some people don't realize what should be obvious, if they'd only paid attention. Case in point, I didn't know why the Swedish popular music group ABBA was called that.

Turns out it is simple. The letters are the first initials of the group members' names.

Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny, Anni-Frid

Yes, I like their music.

They've been selling millions of albums a year since they started in 1972. I am listening, on headphones, to the group as I type this, running the KDE music application

posted at: 16:27 | path: | permanent link to this entry

Wed, 09 Feb 2011

Convenient Seating

It was warm for a couple of days with some drizzling rain. The massive snow piles are not gone, but subtly reduced. The snow visibly dropped about six inches in the bed of the pickup.

When we walked down to take Gus to get the grime out of his fur (monthly groomer visit), we passed through the park at the train station. I couldn't help thinking that the weather doesn't always cooperate with the best plans of the park department.

Snow has not cooperated with the plan for convenient seating at the park by the train station.
[This is one of those images that you can use in other contexts and is licensed cc-by].

Mon, 07 Feb 2011

Blizzard of 1978

Photo credit unknown - license unknown.

Today is the anniversary of the memorable storm which dropped about four feet of snow on Massachusetts. The forecast I remember for that day was "a couple of inches of snow."

Tonight we have a forecast of "one to three inches."

Hmm.

By the way, the photo is of cars on the multi-lane highway which was then called "Route 128." (Now Interstate 95). Digging them out was the effort of about a week.

Sat, 08 Jan 2011

Bees-"Where's the Buzz?"

I contacted Ed Markey, John Kerry and Scott Brown today, January 6, 2011

Some pollen floats through the air helping many plants to reproduce while causing some humans to suffer from allergies.

But, unlike the grasses and plants like ragweed, many very valuable crop plants reproduce with pollen which is heavy. Heavy pollen cannot float from plant to plant (and doesn't cause your sneezes).

Photo: Sal Petruzelli-Marino

Heavy pollen needs to be carried between flowers so plants like beans, peas, carrots, apples, pears, grapes among many others, can reproduce. Children probably wouldn't mind if vegetables were almost impossible to buy, but most do like fruit, not to mention loving honey as much as Christopher Robin's pal, Pooh the bear.

Adults need to avoid being childish and take serious steps to support all possible studies which may find a way to stop the decline of bees.

Please track the science behind the current striking decline of bees, 96% of some species are gone.

Please, especially track impacts of insecticides whose impact may be going beyond intended targets.

"Where's the buzz?" may be today's "Silent Spring" and needs serious attention and effective action, both scientific and legislative as appropriate.

Please contact your legislators to remind them how much science needs to be done to find the causes of bee colony failures and to develop ways to solve this critical issue.

Wed, 05 Jan 2011

Followed!

As of today, I have 67 followers on Twitter. That's a tiny number, of course, but wow, today I got the notice that NEA Today, the magazine of the the National Education Association is following me. That's cool. I am an educator, even though retired. Maybe they'll drop me, but for the moment, I feel pretty good.

Of course, then I noticed that I'm one of over 9,000 they follow on Twitter. Still, there are a lot of teachers out there that they might follow.

I hope I'll say something valuable enough to make following worthwhile.

Thanks NEA Today and all the rest who follow, and those who don't follow but have read anything I've written.

Mon, 04 Oct 2010

Massachusetts Weather

Long ago I read a book about weather forecasting in which the author said all TV meteorologists don't much care for the jobs on the US west coast. They like the challenge of an east coast job, especially one in New England.

I wonder if the following map of precipitation (from the National Weather Service - recorded on Monday Oct. 4, 2010) is any indicator of their enthusiasm. Normally a weather system which produces rain cycles counter-clockwise around a low pressure system. Watch as this radar loop repeats a few times. How would a TV weather person explain the way the rain branches to the east AND to the west as the air flows north?

Please be patient. The image file is a bit over 2MB and will take time to load.

Are we looking at a pair of storms?
Is the right branch actually being "torn off" and moving around a clockwise high?

I admit, I'm not sure what's happening.
Does anybody out there know?

NWS Radar Mosiaic - Northeast Sector

Sun, 15 Aug 2010

Native Americans

Sister-in-law, Evelyn sent a link to some photos posted on the Facebook site of one of her friends. I'm posting one which has her standing near the restored monument to General John Sullivan. Sullivan fought in the late 17770s against "Tory-Indian menace".

It made me wonder whether the alliance between the British and the Native Americans helped to create the conditions which caused the almost unending battle between troops of the U.S. and the various tribes which were encountered as European immigrant families spread westward from the east coast. Perhaps there would have been a greater desire for live-and-let-live if the fighting hadn't begun so early, well before most of the expansion by the pioneers.

Thu, 03 Jun 2010

Web Site - Website

AP Stylebook has "gone with the flow" and now recommends the usage of "website" instead of "Web site" which was the former recommendation.

If nothing else, it very clearly shows that the Internet, as modified by Tim Berners-Lee, has really entered our consciousness. It was only 1991, just 19 years ago that the main use of "web" was spider webs. Sir Tim's first server went online (formerly: "on-line" and "on line") in August of 1991. The World Wide Web protocol has changed that, obviously, but unlike many technology ideas, this one isn't the province of just geeks. It isn't a term stuck in some server room or in use by just role playing gamers.

The Web is a basic element of our speech and writing. We are comfortable with it, enough so that print dictionaries which "just" recently added the Berners-Lee Web to their pages are already out of date. The tendency we have to contract and compact our language has taken a mere linguistic blink of the eye to process and accept website as the proper style. We didn't even need to bother with the intermediate step of making it "Web-site" or some such.

Associated Press Press Release: Link
Huffington Post Article: Link
Wikipedia Berners-Lee Article: Link

Wed, 28 Apr 2010

Meat under Patent?

My understanding of the Kosher laws is very poor, but I checked, and Pig (pork, ham, bacon, etc.) is on the list of animals which should not be eaten. And, it is clear that the patent application by Monsanto isn't going to make much difference to those who adhere to Kosher rules. I wonder if it will matter much to the rest of us if Monsanto gains a patent on the meat of pigs, though. Thanks to the Jewfaq.org descriptions of Kosher dietary rules.

The world intellectual property organization (WIPO) has in hand a patent application from Monsanto which wants a patent granted by them to effective "own" any pig meat which make better human food by "incorporating healthy lipids containing stearidonic acid into swine feed products". WIPO Link

I don't think I have anything against genetically modified (GM) food products, per se. What troubles me is that the corporate patents related to these modified foods give unreasonable control over food chains. Think about it, food chains controlled by corporations. Saving harvested seed for subsequent planting is against the law when seed patents are granted. "Buy seed from me or don't plant at all!" seems to be what the GM patents say.

gmwatch.eu>

Tue, 27 Apr 2010

Voice of the People

The state legislature of Oklahoma recently voted an override of the Governor's veto of bills requiring women considering an abortion to undergo an ultrasound and a description of the fetus' condition. The senate vote was 36-12 and described by Senate President Protempre Glenn Coffee, "The voice of the people has spoken, twice now this session in the Senate and twice in the House, and I sincerely hope those who would reverse the people's voice would think twice before acting."

I guess 36 senators are "the voice of the people" because it is their vote that draws his description.

Since I'm not from Oklahoma, I put my Massachusetts legislators on notice that they are not "my voice". I'll voice my own opinions, thank you very much. Sometimes I'll even approve of the votes you take. If I am sufficiently moved, I'll notify you of my opinions. If I am disgusted with your performance as representative of my interests, I'll vote against you in the next election.

My primary expectation of you is that you work to craft laws which will lead to the benefit of the state's citizens, and those who are just passing through. Do that by carefully reading the bills put before you and actively seek advice from those who will be impacted by your vote.

CNN Story

Fri, 23 Apr 2010

Doughnuts

My family legends include the invention of the doughnut (doughnaught, donut) by "The Widow Joralemon" who opened the first doughnut store in 1673 in New York City. The legend is also repeated online in a Geneology of the Joralemon family.

I dont make doughnuts, though I've no doubt eaten many. It did come as a real surprise, seeing these donuts. The ones on the left of the photo are large ones, bigger than Dunkin' Donuts serves.

Though I was tempted, I was in Washington, DC as a chaperone for the King Philip Regional Middle School, and I didn't think I should display such gluttony as to eat a foot wide donut. Maybe all six of us chaperones could have shared it. Maybe all 60 plus students could have shared a bite. If you go to DC, check the cookie shop at the Union Station food court.

Wed, 14 Apr 2010

Bus Stop Ratios

This morning, I saw a new high in adult-to-child ratio at a bus stop for young children waiting for the morning bus ride to school.
4 adults : 3 children
Enough, already.