Technology

Camry electronics

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After our eight-year-old Ford Taurus bit the dust, Barbara and I bought a 2012 Toyota Camry. I love the car, and I’m still learning its ins and outs. In particular, I have been pleasantly surprised by its electronic capabilities, especially in… Read More ›

BYOT

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It seems that we will soon be following in the footsteps of other schools that have adopted a “bring your own technology” plan. Many of our students already bring MacBooks, PC laptops, or iPads to school, so the idea is… Read More ›

Dropbox

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I don’t want to sound like an ad…but Dropbox has changed my life. Really. One problem that I used to have was that I would have different versions of a given file: one on my desktop computer at home, one… Read More ›

Just My Type

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What a cool book! Simon Garfield’s Just My Type, subtitled A Book about Fonts, will tell you all you want to know about fonts, in a readable and mostly non-technical style — all you want to know, but not more… Read More ›

Khan Academy revisited

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Khan Academy used to be a good idea. Maybe it still is; I haven’t made anything like a thorough review of their hundreds of offerings, so it’s impossible for me to tell. But I’m skeptical. Before examining the reasons for… Read More ›

The WWW Trilogy

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Yes! If you want to read a science fiction novel that holds your attention and makes you think, you should definitely read all three books in Robert J. Sawyer’s WWW Trilogy: Wake, Watch, and Wonder. Like much of hard science… Read More ›

Excellent tech support

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I know, I know, the title sounds like an oxymoron; no one ever gets excellent tech support. Mostly we like to grumble about how bad it is, and justifiably so. Mark Bernstein wrote an apt observation about this matter (on… Read More ›

The age of distraction?

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A recent article in Salon opens with the conventional view of “kids today”: They live in a state of perpetual, endless distraction, and, for many parents and educators, it’s a source of real concern. Will future generations be able to… Read More ›

Inverting the classroom

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Several different threads have recently been coming together under the heading of “inverting the classroom.” The basic idea is that modern technology has let some of us come to the conclusion that the traditional model of the classroom has it… Read More ›

The helpful RMV

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My inspection sticker expires this month, so I took the car to our dealer this morning (in case any work was needed) and discovered that our registration had expired two months ago! The current registration was nowhere to be found…. Read More ›

Don’t dismiss Wikipedia!

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The Weston High School Library recently posted a slide show from Rutgers University explaining why students shouldn’t use Wikipedia. This carefully produced polemic deserves a thoughtful rebuttal; I have endeavored to write one here. Be sure to watch the slide… Read More ›

Facebook “friends”

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Listen in on this conversation: Teacher 1: I hear that you friend your students on Facebook. Teacher 2: Not exactly. I accept friend requests from current and former students. But I never initiate them. Teacher 1: Even so, it’s a… Read More ›

Comic Sans Redux

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If you’re a long-time reader of this blog, you will recall that I wrote a post four years ago entitled, “Ban Comic Sans!”, in which I linked to the ban comic sans site. Now Gizmodo has a new take on… Read More ›