Every time I turn around I see more and more VERY cool things that you can do with an iPhone. I WANT ONE!!! Come on, Apple. When will you let other carriers handle that phone, too? If we can't get a signal where we use that phone we can't use it!! Just IMAGINE how many of those phones you'd sell if you allowed other carriers to sell it!

Yes, I do teach at Harrisburg University, so this will come off sounding like a University promotional post. But, I really DO wish I could take this class. If you live in the Harrisburg area and the notion of educational games interests you, you might want to take a long look at it.

"Central PA ASTD is offering a FREE broadcast of an eLearning Guild Online Forum - "Let's Get Serious...Games." The event will be broadcast at Harrisburg University and is sponsored by JPL.

Games are intriguing as a learning solution for many, but they question whether games really are effective, whether games can really be developed without a huge budget or complex tools, and whether stakeholder support can be found for implementing serious games as part of a learning strategy.

Take a look at different approaches for designing, developing and implementing gaming strategies as part of your organization's learning initiatives by attending a broadcast of the eLearning Guild's "Let's Get Serious . . . Games" Online Forum at Harrisburg University on Thursday, April 2 and Friday, April 3.

This is a two-afternoon event. You can register for only a single afternoon or register for both afternoons. If you want to attend both days you will need to register twice. The agenda for both days is from 10:30 am to 4:45 pm.

Learn more and register at http://www.centralpaastd.org/events.asp

This FREE event is a $495.00 value!

This central PA ASTD event is hosted by Harrisburg University of Science and Technology and sponsored by JPL."

http://wp.nmc.org/horizon-k12-2009/

We all know about the Horizon report, right?
"Each year, an Advisory Board considers the results of these dialogs and also looks at a wide range of articles, published and unpublished research, papers, and websites to generate a list of technologies, trends, challenges, and issues that knowledgeable people in technology industries, higher education, and museums are thinking about."

But I hadn't known about this version of it - the K12 Edition.
"Each edition of the Horizon Report introduces six emerging technologies or practices that are likely to enter mainstream use in the educational community within three adoption horizons over the next one to five years."

I think this is an important document. I think you should download this pdf version (once you've read the web version, maybe) and send it to your Principal, your Superintendent, and your Curriculum person - and you Tech Director. Then suggest that the five of you meet to discuss it. Far too many of our districts operate without proper context, focused solely on test data, or attendance data, etc.

Wouldn't this be an excellent conversation to have with those stakeholders? Wait - invite some parents, as well. And some students. And some other teachers. If they don't know about a particular trend, educate them about it. Talk about them. What do they enable? Why is that important?

This COULD be exactly what is needed to help spark real change in your district.

A friend just pointed me to this excellent video about how money is made. It's called "Money as Debt." It's 42 minutes long, animated, but it could/should be broken into two or even three viewings in order to facilitate the conversations that are sure to arise from it.

I'll embed it here, but you'll still likely have to "work with it" at home since Google Video is probably blocked at your school.

Great stuff!

OK, Kristin. I'll admit it. Yes, I was VERY wrong about twitter. Kristin kindly reminded me of this post in which I said that I just didn't "Get" twitter. But there are two things to factor into account here. First, it was August of 2007. Second, I *did* point out that it might take me a while, saying it took a full six pack before I could stand the taste of Schlitz. :-)

Since then, however, I've learned to ignore the noise and embrace the learning that comes from it. Most recently I wrote about the experience with trying to find a teacher in Vietnam, or this post about images of the global recession, or this one that pointed me to the GE Smartgrid site, (Have you tried that yet?), or some of these posts about twittter.

So, I will gladly eat my words. I DO get it, now, and I LOVE it! I just wish I had THOUGHT of it first.