When it is not appropriate, it is NOT appropriate

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0217092samsung1.html
Briefly, a 14 year old student was arrested.  She refused to stop texting in class.  When school security was called, she hid her phone and denied that she has one.  Police was called and a female officer frisked her and found the phone.  She was charged with disorderly conduct.
While we like to call out the [...]

Who is “educating” our kids? Who is our kids learning from?

Little girl (she’s 6) had half day yesterday so my wife dropped her off at the office after school.  Of course, she was shy at first but then she opened up, start talking to people, sharing candies, etc.  If you were to meet a child for the first time, what do you say?
The 4 most asked [...]

George Lucas on education

http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/the-change-will-happen/
“We need to get kids asking ‘why does that happen?’ as opposed to ‘why am I learning this?’”  I think that sums up my childhood.  I was old school British style as far as education is concerned.  For most of my K-13 life, school occupied a tremendous amount of time.  Beside the 8-9 classes a [...]

Smart Table hands-on by kids

http://www.engadget.com/photos/smart-table-hands-on/1115045/

World of Warcraft as an education tool

http://www.livescience.com/technology/081003-school-games.html
Every time I discuss this topic, whether with peers who agree or with those who don’t, I always felt the need to establish my “qualifications”.  For those that question my knowing of the game, I have 5 level 70 characters.  Before I left the game, I raid 2-3 nights a week and run instances almost [...]

Spore and a 6 year-old

Like most 6 year-old, my daughter learned about animals that eat plants and animals that eat meats long before she was in school.  Like most kids, the the brutality of the so called circle of life didn’t quite kick in until after The Lion King.  Actually, I don’t think it kicked in for most kids [...]

Somewhere between paper and Web 2.0

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/06/24/kindle
One of the often-used reason for the failure of information dissemination is that paper-based medium (e.g. books) cannot be updated.  Once published, printed, and bought, there is no way to update it.  If there is any mistake, there is no way to update it.
This is one solution: don’t use paper!  Publish textbook in electronic media and [...]

One Laptop Per Child not working…

Just read through this article in Business Week (http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/08_24/b4088048125608.htm).  Basically, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative is struggling.  I’ll practice what I preach by NOT giving you the reader a possibly incomplete summary, so go ahead and read it yourself.
Those of us in IT often asked ourselves, why does it take $500,000 dollars to [...]

Spore in the classroom?

During one of the presentations in the Education Technology Conference I attended, Spore was introduced to the masses.  For the avid computer gamers who have been paying attention to the industry during the past year or so, Spore is old news.  But for the educators, Spore is probably a stranger.  Rather than me explaining what Spore is, [...]

Another new beginning…

Technology has many wonderful attributes.  One of them is that it is so easy to start over again.  Here I am starting another blog.  This time is different (<– reads: cliché).  I had a purpose.
I spent two days (6/9-6/10) in Kūkulu Kaiaulu 2.0, the education technology conference hosted by Kamehameha Schools in Hawaii.  Before anything else [...]