http://blogs.ucls.uchicago.edu/labdit A look at K-12 IT management and leadership issues Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:26:33 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Today, I complete ten years as the school’s IT Director. What a wild ride it has been! To start this new school year, I thought I’d share a few reflections on this decade of change in this and upcoming blog posts. First things first: let me start by thanking those who’ve blessed ... http://blogs.ucls.uchicago.edu/labdit/2008/08/29/ten-years-on-the-job-gratitude-and-the-dit/ I've enjoyed starting to use Tumblr, a moblogging tool with some more capabilities than Twitter and the cleanest, easiest interface I've seen. It doesn't integrate with WordPress (yet?), so it's in my blogroll below. Its title is "In the Moment: Hailstones from the Infostorm." I use it for those quick ... http://blogs.ucls.uchicago.edu/labdit/2008/04/10/tumblr-link-added-in-blogroll/ @ Educause regional in Chi, higher ed tackling many issues we do in K-12, uisng web 2.0 tools in teaching, risk/reward of using web apps. http://blogs.ucls.uchicago.edu/labdit/2008/03/18/educause-regional-in-chi-hi-2/ at CoSN: Int'l Symposium reveals whole world wrestling with 2.0 power, opportunity, challenges, some remarkable successes http://blogs.ucls.uchicago.edu/labdit/2008/03/10/at-cosn-intl-symposium-revea/ Big fun wiki: obsoleteskills.com http://blogs.ucls.uchicago.edu/labdit/2008/02/22/big-fun-wiki-obsoleteskillsc/ Dueling with inevitability is, well, inevitable when managing IT. There is a relentless logic to many technology developments, which I suppose is, well, inevitable when dealing with zeroes and ones. You can see the endgame coming, and you're still amazed by the speed with which it arrives. So there is ... http://blogs.ucls.uchicago.edu/labdit/2008/02/15/dealing-with-inevitability/ A lot of good things come in threes: Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker made Cream a supergroup for the ages. Celery, bell pepper, and onion, the "trinity" of cajun and creole dishes. Larry, Moe, and Curly (sorry, Shemp fans). Tinker to Evers to Chance. Shake, rattle, and ... http://blogs.ucls.uchicago.edu/labdit/2007/12/28/a-tech-trio-for-the-new-year/ “We want to watch the show, not be the show.” -- Miles, the river guide A couple of weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of rafting the Upper Gauley River again, one of the great whitewater trips in the world. There are five major Class V rapids in this stretch of ... http://blogs.ucls.uchicago.edu/labdit/2007/10/29/watch-the-show-dont-be-the-show/ One of the more provocative voices in educational technology belongs to Gary Stager of the Thornburg Center. In a recent presentation at an Anytime, Anywhere Learning Foundation workshop, he expressed dismay with many educators’ seemingly intractable resistance to recognizing the instructional power of thoughtfully applied technology.Gary mentioned that not long ... http://blogs.ucls.uchicago.edu/labdit/2007/09/15/game-set-match/ I always loved teaching kids about writing. Helping them figure out how to say just what they meant and watching them discover they could entertain, inform, provoke, and create with their words was wonderful fun. How ill prepared I was for the wasteland of techspeak. Something bad happens to intelligent, caring, ... http://blogs.ucls.uchicago.edu/labdit/2007/08/21/notes-from-meatspace/