Education & Tech @ posterous

Video and imagery are critical. But, still, nothing on the web flies the way text does. Words power the web. So it’s critical that every communicator know how to succinctly organize, convey and present ideas for the web and mobile so that they build up readers like nutrients do, rather than weigh them down like junk food.

This realization led me a few months ago to fall in love with text editors. I have since abandoned all proprietary systems for storing and managing what I write, in favor of using simple text editors that let me easily move my information around across platforms.

My favorite tools are WriteMonkey for Windows, WriteRoom for Mac OS X and Elements and PlainText on the iPad. None of them blink an eye when I try to edit a text file that I started elsewhere.

Congratulations to all the winners and nominees in this year's Edublog Awards. We'd like to acknowledge the library-related winners here, in addition to Richard Byrne, our Cool Tools columnist, whose blog Free Technology for Teachers was tapped in several categories.

As educator Ira Socol and others have advised, we, too, encourage you to read all of the nominated blogs - each one a worthy resource.

Questions to consider:

Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?

Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?

Number 3: Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?

Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the 80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?

Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?

Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?

Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?

Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?

Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?

People's antipathy to neo-conservative empire-building, the lies that precipitated the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the primacy of individual liberty, and the value of dissent are the values behind Paul's convictions.

La i griega será ye, la b será be (y no be alta o be larga); la ch y la ll dejan de ser letras del alfabeto; se elimina la tilde en solo y los demostrativos (este, esta...) y en la o entre números (5 o 6) y quorum será cuórum, mientras que Qatar será Catar.

The online discussion for a national education reform has caught fire nationwide. But as I said on Twitter, continuing to rely on tradition and interests groups to set education policy is like using astrology to design a space program.

I am pleased to see more media coverage of the topic around education reform. There was de Education Nation of the NBC, the Washington Post has its column widely read and lately the Huffington Post, where educators make their cases on this matter.

I love teaching. I love learning. This is why I’m a teacher.

I will teach to promote in every way a sense of wonder at the world, which is inborn in my students. I will teach in order to be overtaken by them. When I am no longer able to do that, I will release my position to one of them.

I will teach by demonstration and example. The acknowledgment of my mistakes will enlighten my way.

I will join my students in their discovery of the world around them, favouring and encouraging among each of them curiosity and inquisitiveness, questions and passion.

Being unable to convey truth to my students, my endeavour will be to get them to live in its pursuit.

I will foster in my students the commitment and will power to constantly improve themselves and to never give up when faced with difficulties. I, too, will keep updating my training and knowledge.

I will strive to make the school the world, and not a prison.

I will not convey to my students fixed, pre-packaged ideas. I will be lead by my world view but it will never be a law for them. Questioning and constructive criticism will be the pillars of my educational action.

I will promote studying for life and oppose studying for grades.

I will gather assessment factors, and refuse simplistic and mechanical approaches that do not take into account the starting point, progress, commitment and overall improvement of each student.

I will fight for the school to be everybody’s school, a school where each student can learn according to his/her own pace and path. I will see that my students choose me rather than put up with me.

I will help my students light up the future through reading about the past and fully living in the present. I will help them live in the world as it is, but not tolerate leaving it as it is.

I will remain faithful to these tenets at all moments of my educational activity, ready to face and overcome all formal and bureaucratic obstacles in my path.

Increased freedom to create means increased freedom to create throwaway material, as well as freedom to indulge in the experimentation that eventually makes the good new stuff possible. There is no easy way to get through a media revolution of this magnitude; the task before us now is to experiment with new ways of using a medium that is social, ubiquitous and cheap, a medium that changes the landscape by distributing freedom of the press and freedom of assembly as widely as freedom of speech.

Qué es lo realmente interesante o divertido que haces con tu computadora o el internet, que tu computadora no puede hacer ahora mismo? Por favor, realiza un dibujo de lo que esta actividad significa.