Tech training — A partnership

Columbia County Schools have partnered with the National Science Center, the local Manufacturing Alliance and the local Technical College to raise interest in tech careers.  Sounds like a strong partnership.

Where are the partnerships with local colleges?

More languages for K12

The bottom rung of the programming ladder by ZDNet’s Dana Blankenhorn — How would you get, say, a fairly bright 9th grader to put down their computer game and start climbing around inside it?

He also comments that he sees few pushing to integrate programming into High School curricula. I can point to one such proponent — Rich DeMillo, Dean of the Georgia Tech College of Computing. They are currently working with the Atlanta Public School System to ensure that their graduates do understand programming.

Tech devices used in class

Some teachers are adapting Nanos, other MP3 devices, and handhelds into their instructional toolkits.  Bravo.

That reminds me.  I saw a neat demo of technology on a blackberry that makes reading a “stream” — literally — up to 400 words per minute.  Imagine cramming for class reading using something like Vuit.

I wonder if we are teaching any of these emerging techs in our colleges of education?  In fact, I wonder what emerging techs are actually being employed here in Georgia?

We are losing our edge

Higher Education here used to be unrivalled… no longer.  And, we are losing access to global brainpower just as a true global economy revs up.

The Right Hand Giveth and the Right Hand Taketh

While President Bush is promoting funds to spur more foreign language studies, all the way down to Kindergarten, Georgia officials are looking for data to justify the complete removeal of language programs in the K12 system.

Go figure.

Emerging Technology Transfers

Georgia Tech is among 7 leading universities signing on to a new model for tech transfer.

Tim Berners-Lee has a blog

See the blog here.

A ‘doh!’ moment

I am cleaning my desk, organizing files for the new year in preparation for the General Assembly which meets beginning January 9.

So, I am looking at tasks, projects, information, and contacts that I need accessible, searchable and organized in such a way so as to cross-link over categories.

That’s when the ‘doh’ hit me — a blog does just that — and since I need info kept private — a client side blog (e.g. Radio) will fit the bill.

Who is blogging in the public sector?

I was asked that question in an email — but it is more appropriate to answer in a blog — as it will serve more folks who are asking the same question.

The University System is exploring hosting its own, or using a hosted service. We see applications in help desk support, program management, media, and employee training. More to come on that as it develops.

Looking around the public sector landscape, I find:

My Efforts

• Homeland Security and Education
• Education Blogs
• Public Policy

Georgia

• Public Libraries – a project management blog
• Georgia State University Library
• Public Journalism Network
• Education

• Anne Davis, GSU
• Tim Merrit, GSU

Utah

• Homeland Security
  
• David Fletcher’s Government Technoology Weblog
• David Flethcer’s current blog
• Phil Windley, former CIO of Utah

I will fill in more later

A little time to write

We got a new Chancellor today— Erroll Davis, formerly of Alliant Energy.  Yep, a CEO is now running one of the largest higher ed systems in the country.  Should be interesting.

But, of more important note — I read a piece in The Chronicle from Oct 7 entitled “The Blogosphere as a Carnival of Ideas” (sorry, subscription required).  So, I point out the conclusion:

Both group blogs and the many hundreds of individual academic blogs that have been created in the last three years are pioneering something new and exciting. They’re the seeds of a collective conversation, which draws together different disciplines (sometimes through vigorous argument, sometimes through friendly interaction), which doesn’t reproduce traditional academic distinctions of privilege and rank, and which connects academic debates to a broader arena of public discussion. It’s not entirely surprising that academic blogs have provoked some fear and hostility; they represent a serious challenge to well-established patterns of behavior in the academy. Some academics view them as an unbecoming occupation for junior (and senior) scholars; in the words of Alex Halavais of the State University of New York at Buffalo, they seem “threatening to those who are established in academia, to financial interests, and to … well, decorum.” Not exactly dignified; a little undisciplined; carnivalesque. Sometimes signal, sometimes noise. But exactly because of this, they provide a kind of space for the exuberant debate of ideas, for connecting scholarship to the outside world, which we haven’t had for a long while. We should embrace them wholeheartedly

Yes, that’s why we should do it.

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I need to point to Anne Teaches Me, a blog written by my friend Anne Davis.  She continues to do good work expanding the use of blogs in k12 education.