Learning Paths

So, I saw this on TechCrunch this morning and it got me interested.  I wouldn't suggest watching all of the video posted there; it's kind of boring, but I think the idea is sound.  So, I thought I would give it a try.  If anyone else signs-up, let me know in the comments.

Scoutle.com

A good friend of mine, Jethro, had a great post on his blog about a situation he faced with Twitter and his students.  What's impressed me is the amount of comments he's received on this post.  And, I think what brought the comments out is that he was unguarded.  He just posted about the situation and tried to talk about a real situation in a real way.  So, kudos Jethro, you're doing a great thing here.

1. You're talking about a relevant and current issue; i.e. 'Students see twitter post from teacher about students in class.'  These are what Education Administration textbooks are written for.  The funny thing is, those textbooks should probably be re-written, because today they would probably suggest teachers not post to twitter-like services because Murphy's law says the students will find it.
2. You've also created a great forum here.  You have a lot of like-minded people from different groups and areas talking together.  I don't know any of the other people who posted comments, but I bet you I'll run into them again because of this strong community that's been developed.
3. You've spurred other blog posts, like this one.  Anyone else blog about this post?

So, I'm sure they'll be other topics, but this one is still so interesting.  I've had a couple other thoughts that have come out of this:

• Should/could a school be managed like a business?
• What is the social agreement in public education?  Do the teachers, students, and administration support these non-verbal agreements?  Should the agreement be verbal--or written plainly?
• What can an instructional designer learn from this?  Most of the clients I work with come from public education; what baggage do people carry from the United States public education system?
• Do I dare go against the expected; is it really worth it in the long run?  (No cheap answer here, like 'it depends'.  I want truth!)

Cool stuff this blogging/twitter/social web thing.

The only thing that worried me when I decided to use BlogEngine.Net was the lack of extensions.  I mean, WordPress has more extension than you can shake a stick at (same with TypePad), but I wanted an ASP / C# blog.  And, even though I knew that BlogEngine.Net had an extension architecture, I hadn't found a good collection... until today.

Technically, I didn't find these, they found me.  The BlogEngine.Net team posted this list made by Paul Tumelty.  All I have to say is that I'm super excited to get LightBox and a few other extensions (Silverlight, YouTube, etc.) working on this blog.  So much of the media I consume is wrapped in video that it's always the blog topics I want to cover.

Anyway, good job Paul, and thanks to the BlogEngine.Net team for posting this.

So, I've managed to start this blog three times and kill it twice.  Hopefully I don't have a loss like I have the last few times.  I promise I'll stop tweaking too. 

That's really my problem; I love to tweak.  I tweak my desktop constantly.  I hacked my iPod Touch.  I can't seem to leave well enough alone.  But, I'm learning my lesson.  I'm going to leave this blog alone for awhile and let GoDaddy manage the upgrades and stuff.  Hopfully that will make my job easier (and anyone else that decides to subscribe to this blog).