Beginning next Monday, I start work for CESA #3 in south western Wisconsin. CESA’s are Wisconsin’s answer to regional consortiums of school districts. I know a few of you work for and/or deal with BOCES in New York…similar animal. Job title: Technology and Curriculum Program Coordinator. “Supervises and mentors member school contacts and participating staff (administrators, technology coordinators, library media specialists, teachers, and paraprofessionals) with the integration of technology into local curriculum and implementation of Wisconsin Information and Technology Literacy Standards.” Like most job descriptions, it’s pretty much all encompassing, has a bunch of other stuff tagged to it, and feels like a very comfortable fit. The best part…it’s focused on people, curriculum, standards, professional development, and educational technology.
Right now I’m slowly repopulating the aggregator, dusting off the corners of the website, figuring out what has changed in the Web 2.0 space, and getting back into the conversation. Initial reactions…
1. Mmmm. Google Calendar. Finally. I need to test out a few things to see if it’s comfy with my workflow. Of course, there’s at GTD Firefox extension for Google Mail now. Time to listen to GTD again.
2. DOPA. Yikes.
3. David Warlick: Stories. I’m liking this theme. I had the chance to see Bernajean Porter last November and get a little better feel for the power of stories. I also really liked here “Technology is not optional!” attitude. These two little bits continue to bubble up in my thinking.
4. Azeroth has around 6 million active citizens. If you stack this up against US cities, it’s second only to New York. It’s bigger than Los Angeles and roughly twice the size of Chicago. Ping back to “The World is Flat“. Azeroth isn’t showing up in the geography textbooks. It is in Wikipedia though.
5. Will Richardson quit and got busy changing the world. A week after I quit, I got to have dinner and conversation with Will and Tim Wilson. I also purchased a copy of World of Warcraft that night. (Tim has a new office as well!)
6. There is much more out there. I’m just getting back of firing up NetNewsWire on a regular basis. I’ll be catching up on a bit more of the back story listening to podcasts and reading cached feeds on my trips back and forth house hunting in southern Wisconsin.
It’s good to be back. Really good.
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Congrats! Sounds like a good fit… people, educational tech… and apparently a Wisconsin theme.
John,
Google Calendar has some interesting features, but it is still a bit half-baked. No g-mail integration, etc. I have been using 37 Signals’ Backpackit.com pretty heavily and have been quite pleased. It gives me file storage, a text editor, reminders (with TXTs to the cell), and now a calendar. It uses iCal for the calendar so it should interact nicely with things. There is also a pretty robust looking API that I haven’t had time to disect and play with.
Just a thought for managing a workflow with reminders, to-dos, a calendar, and file storage (oh…and family/pet pictures for a bit of motivation!).
Welcome back, we missed ya…
And here I thought it was dinner with Tim and I that drove you into seclusion. ;0) Good to have you back in the mix.
Glad to have you back in the conversation. I know you’re looking to get your NetNewWire going again, but take a look at netvibes.com. Could be a good replacement! Congrats on the new job!
Hey John,
Do you know already about Danah Boyd? She writes some of the best and most sensible stuff regarding online commmunities, and specifically kids/teens annd how they use online communities. Much of her writing can be found here:
http://www.danah.org/papers/
Anyone interested in thhe DOPA mess, should read her interview with Henry Jenkins:
http://www.danah.org/papers/MySpaceDOPA.html
Plus, her paper on MySpace is really great. I frequently forward this to parents:
http://www.danah.org/papers/AAAS2006.html
All the Best,
D.
John,
Glad to hear about the job. I have to tell you that I was finally able to finish my Masters at UMD last winter. Part of my paper looked at how blogs could be used in AP U.S. History. I ended up submitting my topic to the AP National conference and was accepted. I presented in July and think it went really well. Teachers were very interested in how blogs could be used in the classroom. I wanted to thank you for showing me how blogs worked and rss. I remember last June (05) you emailed me about how blogs were the future and would have an big impact on education. I am really looking forward to this year and using them in my APUSH and Senior Social class. I used them last year in Senior Social and the students really got into them. Where is CESA 3? Take care.
Kyle
John,
Welcome back to the world of work! My office is still pretty much unfurnished. I hope yours is more comfortable. I’m looking forward to reading more about what’s been rattling around in your head.
-Tim
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