A millennial uses his voice, a little ingenuity, and Youtube to get his name off their wait list.
I love it.
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Another one I love, this one coming from a Gen Xer. Here is a parent's blog on school. What a great idea. Not only should teachers blog, but why can't parents blog too (about their child's experiences at school)?
This blog is about how this parent sees NCLB and the insanity of high stakes testing it ushered in actually limiting his choice as a parent.
Just look at the comments and look at all the dialogue that is generated. Wonderful.
The blog came to the attention of one of my favorite people in education, Diane Ravitch, and she mentioned it on her blog.
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I wish I would have had this story in time for my Honors speech last spring.
The title is laughable now: "iPhone Set to Struggle."
Here are the opening two paragraphs
Apple's much-anticipated iPhone, which goes on sale in the US today, will struggle to break into the mainstream because of a lack of a 3G connection and low demand for converged devices, according to research.
International research conducted by media agency Universal McCann has concluded that Apple's goal of selling 10m iPhones by the end of 2008 is too ambitious.
Why do I wish I had come across this earlier? Because it perfectly illustrates one thing: people just don't know what the hell they are talking about!
Name any innovation or invention (the iPad, the iPod, Skype, Facebook, Twitter) and somewhere there was someone saying "It'll never work. It's bound to fail."
Likewise, there are just as many products that came out where people thought they were going to be the next big thing, yet they flopped.
The important thing to remember is to be creative and innovative and put a great product out there, and, with a whole lot of luck, you'll be set.
The key there is to be innovative. As Thomas Friedman put it: "invent the products that we don't know we couldn't live without."
Take this section from the article
Apple's iPhone combines a phone, music and video player with web and email capabilities, but researchers found demand for these converged devices was lowest in affluent countries.
Only 31% of Americans surveyed said they wanted a device with multiple capabilities, and that dropped to 27% in Japan.
Again, in hindsight, that is completely laughable. Who wants a single function device anymore? Certainly not the millennials!
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Raising Your Game
I liked this blog post so much, I copied it in its entirety and posted it below. It's so true.
This past March, I said goodbye to my basketball team for the offseason, having exit meetings with each player before they headed out for their exams and then their summer. I told them that every off-season of college basketball they have, the should make it their goal to add one more skill to their arsenal. Whether it was a new post move, a higher vertical jump, a new attack from the perimeter, they need to add one more tool to make themselves into a more complete player. I explained that if they play four seasons, and have three summers away from the team, they should be able to add 3 new aspects to their game and be the best player they can be in their fourth year.
There is no reason that this philosophy can’t work in our teaching careers either. If we teach for 25 years, that’s 24 summers to develop 24 tools to make us better educators. For me, this summer I plan to learn about video capture and editing, using my computer, iPad, iPhone and video camera. Our school wants to look at making the learning in our building more public, to share what is going on at Greystone with our parents, colleagues and our community. That is one tool I can definitely make good use of and will sharpen my game as an educator.
What part of your teaching game are you going to work on this summer? What weapon will be added to your educational arsenal? How are you going to come back stronger and model for your students the ideas of lifelong learning, goal setting and self improvement? Please share them with me, your summer improvement plans may inspire others to follow your lead!
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This should be outside of every school.
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I think I've found the topic for my first College Comp II essay, which is due on the first day of class. It will be a response to this wonderfully blunt statement from Branford Marsalis' take on his students. I especially think the final 10 seconds are the most important.
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Finally, Five Things You Won't Believe That Are Making You Dumber
I don't know how well-research it is, but it's interesting.
And no, listening to or watching Michael Moore or Bill O'Reilly did not make the list (too obvious perhaps).
Here they are
5. Meetings (and group projects in general) slow your brain down.
I'm all in for the meetings part of this, but I'm afraid group projects is how our industries function. That isn't likely to change.
4. Jet lag gives you permanent memory and learning problems.
At least I don't have to worry about that one!
3. Getting Spanked as a Child Lowers Your IQ
As the baby of the family, I never had to worry about that one either!
2. Junk Food Ruins Your Brian
Uh-oh. I'm screwed.
1. Living in a City Makes you Dumber
I wonder what Stephen Johnson would think of this, as one of his core theses of his book Where Good Ideas Come From is that cities increase your creativity and production.
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