apple juice

we’re planning to make a bench out of old skis. preparations started this evening with the removal of the bindings:

we’ll see how things go this week.

minnesota monthly just named their top 18 burgers in the state.

i want to try them all.

it’s on my list of todos.

since they haven’t heard of the internet yet though, they haven’t posted the top 10 online. here’s a hint: they pick Matt’s  number 1.

have you been to Matt’s? waaaayyy too many hipsters. pretty decent burger though.

i’m trying to come up with a grand unified theory on social networking. i signed up for friendfeed on a whim the other day, after coming to the realization that using google reader was not designed to keep track of your friends on the 27 different services they use.

poking around on friendfeed, i started to run through the list of services they aggregate. let’s see, my blog. check. flickr, check. youtube, check, last.fm, amazon wishlists, netflix, twitter, it goes on and on. i tell myself that i sign up for these things in the name of research, to see what application they might have for education. but in reality i’m just curious. i’m on the fringes, really, in terms of being social. i don’t go to that many shows or events, i really just prefer hanging out with my close friends and family more than anything. i don’t really need to meet new people. i don’t need to network.

what’s all the frenzy about then? at necc, seeing people get all worked into a froth about how we need to be twittering with students is kind of funny. (actually, to be fair, i think that died down significantly this year). but certainly the movement exists amongst some in this tech-focused crowd that we all need to be hyper-connected with our students.

and amongst this larger group of people, all the people on friendfeed, brightkite, twitter, pownce, tumblr, etc, etc, there is the implicit acceptance that a large circle of people want or need to know your thoughts and whereabouts.

do they? i don’t know. i do know that i want to stop signing up for services. i think there are a number of problems with all of the current situations:

one set of friends reads my blog, another set looks at flickr, another set is on twitter, a pretty big group is on facebook, there are all of the people on my AIM, Yahoo, Google, and MSN buddy lists, and on and on.

it should be easy to integrate all of these things together and produce one site and one feed that puts it all together? is that desirable? or are the people who look at flickr a fundamentally different set of people than those who want to read my blog and post on my wall on facebook? besides, since I do utilize the privacy features on services such as facebook and flickr, the one unified feed would be pretty tough to pull off.

who cares where i am, what i’m thinking and what i take pictures of anyways?

sorry, i’m getting less clear. maybe if you have a thought about this, leave a comment. help me straighten this out in my head.

just attended my first session at necc2008, 1:1 Laptops and Seamless Integration: Peek into the Frontier presented by Howard Levin of Urban School in SF.  I visited his school two years ago, as we were preparing to roll out laptops for all of our students. the key message that we learned at the time was (in the words of mary) “it’s not about the technology“. it became our mantra, spoken with gusto and an undetermined east coast accent.

now, two years later, i was quite interested to hear about Urban’s thinking, now in their seventh year of integrated laptops. many of the messages are the same, “making the laptops disappear”, “enhancing writing is enhancing thinking”. i think the mantra holds true, it is really not about the technology.

i watched as questions were flying at Howard afterwards about this specific technology and that specific technology, and i remember how we must have sounded when we visited. probably asking many of the same questions.

there were a number of ideas presented, many were the same ideas as before, still as strong as ever for enhancing learning. using audio+email to enhance language learning and music. using video and still cameras as inspiration for art. using inspiration to brainstorm and outline. good ideas never get old. the challenge is simply doing it. getting teachers to shift their model. as i reflect on how far we’ve progressed in just the past two years, i am very excited about the next couple years. we’re not doing all of this yet, but we’re on the road.

two things that howard presented that were shifts for me. first was his statement that they were going 100% on their smartboards. he said that this represented a shift for them as a school, that he was a previous critic, and he has changed his mind. he showed a quick video of a math teacher using great use of her smartboard.

second was the voice recognition software. i wonder what the reaction would be if we outfitted some students with this technology? would the teachers or other students think differently about the work that was produced? personally, i don’t think that it should be viewed any differently, but i just wonder. I will have to discuss this with the others in my group and see what they think.

wall•e is one of the best movies I have ever seen.

the day before josh and jane’s wedding, matt and I walked around the property for a while taking pictures of the farm.

here’s one of my favorites:

more over at my flickr page.

went to the twins game with matt and madeline, jason and nathan today. first one of the year, it’s hard to believe. i’m so excited about that new stadium, i think it’s just especially hard to head to the dome on such a beautiful night.

the real reason for our attendance though was to celebrate madeline’s visit to mpls and her first twins game. in honor of the occasion, a message was purchased by some stranger friends

great to finally get to a game and enjoy the sights, sounds and tastes of the game. (off my health diet again — it was dollar dog night)