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Mike Richards is the author of  Notes From Millie D , and a technology teacher/integrator in Arundel Maine. He is one of seven or eight techno-geek-education types in the USA who aren’t in San Antonio this week for NECC. I only know him through blogging, tweeting, and plurking, but his writing/offerings are outstanding. He dusted off the following list over a year ago. It has gotten legs again this week. In June 2007, Mike wrote:

Trying to some spring cleaning I ran across an article from The Journal (June 2005) titled 20 Technology Skills Every Educator Should Have. Here is a listing of the 20 skills:

1. Word Processing Skills
2. Spreadsheets Skills
3. Database Skills
4. Electronic Presentation Skills
5. Web Navigation Skills
6. Web Site Design Skills
7. E-Mail Management Skills
8. Digital Cameras
9. Computer Network Knowledge Applicable to your School System
10. File Management & Windows Explorer Skills
11. Downloading Software From the Web (Knowledge including eBooks)
12. Installing Computer Software onto a Computer System
13. WebCT or Blackboard Teaching Skills
14. Videoconferencing skills
15. Computer-Related Storage Devices (Knowledge: disks, CDs, USB drives, zip disks, DVDs, etc.)
16. Scanner Knowledge
17. Knowledge of PDAs
18. Deep Web Knowledge
19. Educational Copyright Knowledge
20. Computer Security Knowledge

At that point, Web 2.0 was just infancy. Making a May 2007 edition what things would you add to the list, but more importantly, what would you take off the list?

How would you alter the list in June 2008?

I have already formulated and distributed a ’skills survey’ to develop resources and expose weaknesses based on the, soon antiquated, NETS-T: One-liners on a chart with boxes to check indicating level of ability. With the new NETS-T in hand, perhaps I can formulate a survey that may be valid, appropriate for a year.

What do you think?

Errol Morris is an innovative documentary filmmaker from the United States. I have  had an ‘Errol Morris Festival’ in my Film Lit class. His newest release, in theaters right now is ‘Standard Operating Procedure’ about the scandalous policy and behavior in the Abu Ghraib Prison:

His ground-breaking “Thin Blue Line” is still causing waves 20 years after it was created. It was the firat documentary to use footage composed by the author to illustrate the crime. If yo have seen this film, you will recognize this image-

As I said, there is still controversy boiling up about this film. Morris has recently been blogging for the New York Times and the interactions have been exaulting and harrowing. Take the time too read the blog entries and comments, please:http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/.

Three Books For Professional Development

A few weeks ago, when I wrote about the latest ISTE books to be published, one of my readers commented and followed up in an e-mail exchange about that post. This person was glad to see the reviews, however she had already picked three books to used in a Summer workshop for teachers. I thought you might choose one of her choices to add to your Summer professional development reading.

Published by Corwin Press in 2006, this book is beginning to show its age a bit already with regards to current implementations and manifestations. HOWEVER, Will Richarson’s wisdom, analysis, and understanding is not going to become outdated. If you are staying up with current developments and implementations you can apply Will’s pedagogy and practice. Get your principal, school boards, students, parents, and colleagues to read chapter nine - “What It all Means” and the epilogue, if they will sit still for it.

This another book published by Corwin Press in 2008. Alan November has been where it all happens a teacher. He is not a thinktanker or ivory tower theorista. That being said, He puts  ICT standards and practice under the microscope and in the spotlight - Critical thinking, research, source validation; finishing strategies and evaluations. You will skim it half-an-hour and read in depth in two hours.

This is the 2006 edition of this book from Penguin. Daniel Pink presents the thesis that this present age - the Age of Technology is not a left brain age as most of us would think as we founder amid a sea of hardware and software looking for a leftbrainer, fair to say, engineer type to teach us not only to swim, but to breathe under water. We don’t need an engineer we need a rightbrainer, a visionary to ease us into the next stage of human development.

Larry Ferlazzo

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/ - Larry has average almost three posts per day over the last month. I’m sure that this has gone on for ages. He started with “The Best of…” series that continues on, and he has an awesome English Website.

Silvia Tolisano

http://langwitches.org/blog/ - Silvia posts so many high quality, informative posts that I am amazed. She does her “links of the Day” and average 1.5 posts per day over the last month besdes that “links” post. She has a gift for breaking down software and is tireless in annotating images to amplifiy these efforts.

Miguel Guhlin

Miguels blog “Around the Corner” at http://www.edsupport.cc/mguhlin/index.htm - is a joy to read. He tore loose this weekend and published six posts. His interest is not caregorizeable, but whatever he writes about draws my attention. My favorite from the weekend was “Ubuntu Story”.

I just discovered Teacher Portal this morning. Suzie Vesper, a teacher from New Zealand is the central nervous system of this wiki. It is a deep, rich resource for elementary school teachers and parents.

Lee Speers, an educator from Pennsylvania, published a powerful post today: ‘Thirty Things Good Teachers Do’ in his blog named The World According To Speers.

A wonderful, royalty-free resource is the Educational Technology Clearing House. “ETC is a collaborative project of the Bureau of Instruction and Innovation, Florida Department of Education and the Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida. The links included in this clearinghouse appeared to contain useful information at the time they were chosen. If you discover that a site linked from this clearinghouse is no longer relevant, or has inaccurate or inappropriate content, please email the project director .”

Clif’s Mother’s Day Tribute - http://clifmims.com/blog/archives/310 .

Perfect

China Miéville is an English writer of both fiction and nonfiction. He’s a graduate of the London School of Economics, and, by the look of the titles in the nonfiction writing, probably a Marxist. His fiction is my focus for this short blurb.

 I saw his latest fiction ‘reviewed’ in Wired. I liked the review so I bought it and before I was a day into started ordering what turned out, for the most, a backlist of his other novels and short story collection. His newset book is Un Lun Dun, a through-the-looking-glass sci fi adventure, with a political subtext for precocious junior readers or adults who may navitate to it via the Harry Potter River. Zanna finds the entrance to this world quite improbably in her neighborhood and finds a place that is not just London’s mirror twin, but the whole world. I persuaded only one of my students to read it in my ‘Rhetoric of Sci Fi’ course, but she wholeheartedly loved it.

Some of his other work is bleak near future, catastrophic worlding and some really strange, over the edge sci fi. Some of the places he takes you have more than rough edges. Frankly, one of the novels had an ending which I found really silly the first time I read it, but it grew on me. These works include Looking for Jake: Stories, King Rat, Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council. The last was the only one I had to really stretch to embrace.

Are you sick of it - you North Americans in the Northern Tier? Winter? Ice? Snow? I need to write just to say - I AM SICK OF IT!! I have stopped using full spectrum bulbs - too expensive. I have stopped ‘going tanning’ for the Winter blues - I’m too busy, too busy, too busy, too busy - but, am I really?

-Skip