Bill MacKenty

Technology strengthens, deepens, and broadens our learning...

I got this question from a new instructional technology specialist - I think it’s a great question, and I wanted to share it with my readers!

Some teachers have asked me about bookmarking some websites that the children are using for research here in the lab. I have two questions:
1. Do you have a policy about bookmarking in your lab? It seems to me that over time there would be a ridiculous maze of websites favorited on each machine? Any suggestions or policies for me?

yup. we don’t allow it at all in the high school. In fact, we have software installed on our lab computers that, literally, re-formats the computers every evening and restores the computer to a nice clean pristine state. Please see my answer to #2 for an idea.

2. If I do place bookmarks on all the machines in the lab, is there an easy way to update all of them at once or do I have to place the bookmarks in each browser manually?

I would stay away from bookmarking websites on the kids browsers. instead, I would put only one bookmark, something to a shared bookmarking tool, like del.icio.us. This way, you can quickly update the links only once, and all the kids see the updated link. If I am not mistaken, I think this is how our math teacher manages his links - he has his own website, and the kids are sent to the website, where they can see the links.  The nice thing about del.ico.us is you can share the links and sites can have multiple tags - so a site for math could have “math”, “4th grade”, “shapes”, and maybe “geometry”. Our librarian in the High School, uses a blog, where he updates with an assignment or some links - so all the kids need to do is go on his site.

You could also start a blog, or make a google pages site, but I think something like del.icio.us would be a good place start. The other reason I like del.icio.us is because if something horrible happens to our computers, we are not in trouble, and the kids can access the sites from home Hope this helps.

Warmly,

Bill

...because if a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine what a video can say…

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PS: I hate the new office interface, but their default stylesheet is quite pretty. 

Great article (pdf) in Salon entitled “What’s the matter with kids today?” - the byline, Nothing, actually. Aside from our panic that the Internet is melting their brains.

Some choice quotes:

“Teenagers today read and write for fun; it’s part of their social lives. We need to start celebrating this unprecedented surge, incorporating it as an educational tool instead of meeting it with punishing pop quizzes and suspicion.”

“We need to start trusting our kids to communicate as they will online—even when that comes with the risk that they’ll spill the family secrets or campaign for a candidate who’s not ours.”

“Once we stop regarding the Internet as a villain, stop presenting it as the enemy of history and literature and worldly knowledge, then our teenagers have the potential to become the next great voices of America. One of them, 70 years from now, might even get up there to accept the very award Lessing did—and thank the Internet for making him or her a writer and a thinker.”

I’m reminded of course, that technology in education is a tool. It is a means to an end.  Technology extends learning, it doesn’t stifle it. This is the central argument I make on a daily basis - technology strengthens, deepens and broadens our learning. Of course at the end of the day, good education is about good teaching. 

Today I helped one of our technicians update some laptops. We don’t have a push server, so it’s a manual job - each laptop for 25 minutes. 

I have spoken about the importance of support before, and I suppose I just wanted to say it again. Technology is more than equipment and blinking lights (to be sure, that’s the fun part for me).  However, without technical, and in-class support for the teachers, it really won’t shine.

I’ve made no secret that I want to be a director of technology. I really think I have something to bring to the table for a school who wants to get the most out of technology in education.  I also have plenty of common sense, and I really love technology and education here’s my resume

Happy International Women’s Day!.  My wife tells me when she was growing up in Poland, she was given lipstick, soap, and nylon stockings.