I can’t believe Barbara Ganley only has 8 subscribers on Bloglines. She’s a constant source of good thinking about education in general and in specific the use of these technologies with kids:

It’s what we’re talking about with blogs in the classroom–how their very mutability and the fact that they are socially based allow them to adapt to whatever learning situation we are in–bending to personalities, tasks, disciplines and goals–and move students to think in terms of community instead of in terms of self. The blog is a catalyst for emergent behavior in the classroom, and even though we rarely arrive at where we thought we were going, isn’t that the point when communities convene to discuss the pressures of development, say, or students explore contemporary Irish literature, or fifth graders engage with a local issue?

Today’s theme is obviously “local.” (Check out this “Hyperlocal Citizen’s Media” study from Northwestern as well.) It’s another part of the direction this all takes…more local…more collaborative…more participatory.
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I’m looking for a tool to measure the technology skills of our teachers and students, one that would cover basic hardware operation stuff as well as ability to manage files, do basic functions in Office type software, and use the Internet. Preferably it would be something we could offer online.

Anyone using or know of a tool like this that they would recommend?

Kevin Jarrett has converted his site to Blog CMS and he says it has some edu-features (new word!) worth checking out. The big news is that you can approve comments before they are posted. It runs on PostNuke and requires PHP and mySQL. Anyone else out there using this as a school solution???

They may not look that excited, and there were more than are seen here, but I think the group that came to our first “Boro Bloggers Meet-up” last night left with their brains buzzing and some real energy for our project. Shoot, just the fact that we got 25 interested people to show up was enough for me, but the questions they asked and the comments they made were more than enough proof that they were thinking hard about the potentials here.

Jeff’s natural enthusiasm didn’t hurt, of course.

There were three community bloggers in the room, and all but one or two of the rest said they at least understood the concept of blogs. There were questions about promoting businesses, about libel, about access…it was all good stuff that really showed their interest. We had representatives from Kiwanis, the Women’s Club, the Computer Club, and assorted other groups. Really a nice mix.

But I also realized, once again, that there is a long road to hoe for people just coming to this technology. I want Flemington to turn in to blogwikirssfurlville and be the most information literate, Internet savvy community in the country that becomes proof positive to the potential of these technologies. But, as in my previous post, that’s going to take a while.

Still, there’s a neat feel to community blogvangelism. September 15 is our next Meet-up, and we’re hoping to have some bloggers up and running at nj.com by then. Stay tuned…

(More pics here, here and here.)

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I was showing Wikipedia to one of the supervisors this morning and he said, “Hey, a wiki would be great for articulation.” Yes! Since our high school is a district unto itself, it’s a struggle to communicate very well with our sending districts. A wiki could be a very cool tool for this…

…in about three years. Let’s say this supervisor wants to give it a try. The first articulation meeting is in November. Maybe I sell the district supervisors on the idea. Training happens in February. With any luck, those supervisors play and add to it in the spring. Next fall, they set up training for their teachers. Spring of 2006, everyone is required to work collaboratively on one “project,” say aligning the ways we teach the Core Curriculum Content Standards in say, Life Science. (Go on, click the link. It’s great reading…) Maybe that’s successful. Fall of 2006, other such projects covering the rest of the curriculum are divvied up and maybe, just maybe by summer of 2007 we’ve got something usable up and running.

Not to say it’s not worth the effort, but I’m just trying to be realistic about the pace of change and the amount of educating that’s going to have to happen. I’m way too impatient…