There are a bunch of pretty interested Twitter applications available. I've recently started using TweetDeck, which I really love. Thanks to Beth Knittle, I came across Twitter Mosaic. As you can see below, this site creates a mosaic of your Twitter friends. Here's mine.

Get your twitter mosaic here.

I saw this post the other day from Steve Dembo about the redesign of his blog. Steve's a very knowledgeable guy in the world of educational technology and one I've learned quite a bit through with my involvement with Discovery Education. I like it. I like the tech influence all over. It's cool. It also started me down the road to picking a new template for my blog. I didn't want to use one of the existing templates offered by Blogger, so I did a little search for free blogger templates and found BTemplates. There were plenty to choose from and simple directions for uploading so I figured what the heck - time for a change.

I followed the directions, uploaded the new site, and now have a new look. I think it's an improvement over the old one, but I did notice one thing - the widgets I had on my old blog were gone! Oops. I didn't realize I was going to have to set all of those up again. Oh well. I did add back most of the stuff I had taking up space on my blog, but still have a few more widgets to go.

Like I said, to me, it's a better look. Is it perfect? Not a chance, for several reasons. Due to the way this template displays the blog title and header, I had to make a few changes to get it to look half way decent. Because of these changes, I think the official title of my blog is no longer IMC Guy. The posts themselves seem to be okay, but the layout of the time, labels, and comments isn't great. Maybe it's the template I've chosen, but even if I go into the layout section of Blogger and edit how the posts should look, they are still locked into a certain format. It's kind of annoying, but I'll deal. Also, I'd like to get rid of the "Edit" link near the top, but I have no idea how. It came with the template and when I'm in the edit mode on Blogger, it doesn't let me get rid of the link. The sidebar items are a work in progress and I'll be updating those soon, but I wish I could center some of the information.

So, what do you think? Good, bad, indifferent?

UPDATE: I changed the title/header. I like it better now.

UPDATE #2: I figured out how to edit the code and remove the "Edit" tab.

I've been on this educational technology adventure for years now and I've realized that there are some pretty amazing schools and districts out there, not to mention amazing educators. It seems to me, some schools and districts are moving forward much more quickly than others. Some are quick to adapt to new technologies and some are much slower. Are leadership and funding the critical factors in determining the direction schools and districts take with how fast they move with technology? Are there others?


Is your school/district one who has a "Let's go for it and see what happens" mentality? I think it would be very fun to be working in an environment where new ideas were given the green light. I realize we're teaching in a world of No Child Left Behind where schools are judged by test scores, where funding levels aren't where we'd like them to be, where professional development may not always be up to us, but why aren't teachers given the opportunity to try something new? Why can't we experiment a little?


Or, is your school or district taking a very cautious approach? If they are, why? Is the time we have with students too valuable to "waste" on something that isn't research based? Are we risking valuable book time with students on topics directly related to "the test?" Is there simply fear with what could go wrong? How will this mentality change in a school or district? Can it happen quickly or do you think it must happen slowly? I'm not sure I have the answers.



Photo Credits: http://flickr.com/photos/alexajaye/2256556628 and http://flickr.com/photos/iirraa/93216696/

Before you continue reading, I must admit that my thoughts are running all over the place and it probably shows in this post. Getting everything in order so that it makes sense is somewhat challenging right now. I apologize if this seems scattered.

Does your school or district have a Technology Curriculum? Is it well defined or fairly broad? Is it broken down by grade level? (By the way, if you have an electronic copy, please share). I was thinking the other day about the skills and programs I'm supposed to be teaching my students related to technology. From kindergarten through fifth grade, we have a short list of skills our students need to know by the end of each school year. Many of the final "projects" include the using some of our district purchased software, such as Kidspiration, Inspiration, and KidPix. With technology changing as rapidly as it is, I wonder if these projects need to be reevaluated and perhaps linked with some of the new tools that are out there. Are we preparing kids by having them create some sort of web using one of these products? I don't know. Are we really looking at thinking and problem solving?

Beyond the basics of opening and saving files, launching programs, proper use of web browsers, etc., what do kids really need to know? It seems to me, a big part is communication. Regardless of the tool involved, students need to communicate their thoughts and what they've learned.

I'm sometimes stuck because there are so many exciting tools available that weren't available several years ago. I'm sure the same will be said 5 years from now, but I wonder if we should just focus on skills, and use whatever software we want. I want to use some of these, VoiceThread for example, but am not sure the best way to go about it. What do you think?