PatSine

In my earliest professional days I was a middle school and then a high school social studies teacher. One of the things that was hard to teach to kids was just what differentiated a primary source from a secondary source. We had the then correct answers comparing diaries and letters to newspapers to our own textbooks. Little did I know that it was actually pretty easy then!

The world has been abuzz since last weekend about the Iran election, especially on Twitter. Many learned about hashtags this week with the news about #CNNfail and #IranElections.

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Today one of my colleagues sent a link to "How One Teacher Uses Twitter in the Classroom," the story of University of Texas at Dallas History Professor, Monica Rankin's use of Twitter.  The included Youtube video has a number of interviews with students describing why this is a such a useful tool.

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Today I launched my new blog.

I've been blogging since 2001 and have maintained my website since 1996. Over those years (how did so much time go by!), I've published student lessons, teacher training materials, presentations of various levels of professionalism, and random thoughts.

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I've been sitting in a wonderful session today at Princeton called The Future of Children. This is all focused around the latest edition of the journal Children and Electronic Media.

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Last night, I think I finally started to "get" Twitter! I had my window open and just randomly commented on whoever I saw say something interesting. Kind of the "bull in a china shop" approach. Had some wonderful exchanges with Mindelei (who I only know from last night's conversation), DMCordell (who I've followed on Twitter and worked with online), and many others.

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Last night I spoke to a parents' group about Social Networking and balancing the opportunities and dangers on the Internet for kids of varying ages. By the end, we started to get to the fact that we really are at the very beginning of all of this when we look at things like Club Penguin or MySpace. Today, I came across this slide show from Cory Ondrejka . Mr. Continue reading...

Today, I'm attending the final day of the Internet2 Spring Meeting in Washington, DC. Right now, the main session is going on, but I hate sitting at the back of the room straining to balance on one of the chairs and trying to see over everyone's head to squint to view the PowerPoint slides. Instead, I'm in a comfortable chair in the lobby, watching the whole thing via the live stream, which of course will be available long after they finish talking. Continue reading...

A few weeks ago, I put in a proposal for our state conference called "How Do We Know?" My intent was to focus on how we glean truth from the information we find online. This is a burning issue for teachers as they plan research assignments in this age of Wikipedia.

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Just finished reading an interesting blog post from Wes Fryer of Oklahoma entitled Blogs, Wikis, District Polices, Walled Gardens and the Open Web. Continue reading...

I'm starting to really think about my conference presentation for this year's Delaware Instructional Technology Conference. My topic and blurb as submitted.

How Do We Know?

When we were in school, the question was "What do you know?" Now, for most of us, the question is "How can I know this?" and "how do I know it's true? " This presentation will go beyond searching to discuss some real-world dilemmas in Knowing in the 21st Century.

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