Nathan Lowell's Blog (8)

I've been scratching my head over a twitter exchange between me and Steve Dembo (@teach42) about PLNs. It started with this tweet from Steve to Dean @shareski "Be social and personal. The social is the key." Agreed. PLN's are ineffective if social isn't mixed in with professional. To which, I replied: @teach42 i might argue that all learning is personal. it's when you apply it that it gets professional. or not. His response was: @nlowell Learning is personal, but not all n… Continue

You haven't been able to tell from my participation here of late, but I'm not dead yet. Over the last couple of weeks, I spent too much time trying to engage in discussion with dogma. Never a good idea and I've finally come to my senses and abandoned that group. (Note to self: When you see the phrase, "it's just a theory" when applied to any science discussion, consider that a red flag warning and abandon any thought of discourse. Dogma requires no logical foundation.) The Day Job has been par… Continue

While I'm on the subject of last week's convention, let me kvetch about another soapbox issue: Education in SecondLife. If you're not familiar with the place, see my post on it over at Phaedrus. The New Media Consortium piece is a couple of years old now, and it's an ad for NMC, but it does a credible job of at least giving you a sense of what it looks like. There were several sessions on SL at the convention… Continue

I'm just getting back from a week in Orlando where I attended the Association of Education, Communications, and Technology's Annual Convention. I attended several sessions on podcasting and found a situation that aggravates me. One morning a group of five educators from a large university presented the research they did on "podcasting" and student engagement in their instruction. They presented data on what kind of content they used, what purposes it was put to, and the student responses. The p… Continue

Connie left me this request on another thread:

Nathan,
You've just sent an exquisite reference site for the topic I'm delving into deeply; many, many thanks.
You're one of the most amazing information-flow processors I've ever met. From comments you've made here about how you've got your information-input setup, and from what I get to hear about how you teach your students to do the same, I'm fascinated. I'd love to sign up for private tutoring... I picture you happily mids

… Continue

As the new semester begins ramping up and my summer of fiction winds down, I find myself in an odd place, even for me. The idea has been building for awhile as I work with the educational community in Second Life and with the members of my main professional organization. It's an idea that has been building for several months -- maybe years -- and it has to do with Education. It's a simple idea, really. I don't care. I'm sure there are enough people to carry the torch and even a few who'll lof… Continue

I watched Growing Up Online this morning and it struck me how smart Danah Boyd is (again) and how little attention anybody seemed to be paying to her in the report.

It struck me how important it was to crush Autumn Edow - and how sad - but I was gratified at the end when her Dad finally seemed to get it. "You can find anything out there ... She found a world she can live in."

I was gratified that Ryan's father didn't blame the internet - but obviously the producer did. Otherwi… Continue

Greetings, Earthlings. I come in peace.

Whenever I join a group of "Educators" I feel like an alien, so the greeting is appropriate.

The reason for that feeling is that I come from "Technology" -- and only in the last ten years have I become more immersed in things Educational. I built my first computer about 40 years ago as a junior high school science fair project. Back before there was "Middle School." It was a binary adder, but it only won second prize because the math an… Continue