This whole thing got started when I was driving home from the AIMS Technology Retreat 2007, listening to John Mayer's song Bold as Love--which, I know, he copped from Hendrix. I was thinking about how I could join this vibrant, relevant world of blogging about educational technology issues. My first thought was Ed Tech Zen, but that one's taken already: http://edtechzen.blogspot.com/. But then John Mayer's slightly whiny, yet paradoxically soothing voice broke through with, "But I'm bold, bold as love...just ask the axis." Ding, ding! It all makes sense. The entire weekend, I had been discussing with fellow technology teachers, coordinators and leaders how I saw our children as divided. They see technology at school as something that is separate than the technology they use at home.
They learn rules for copyright, they learn appropriate, safe information to share about themselves online, they learn how to be good net "citizens." Then it all flies out the window when they go home to their IM, My Space and online gaming. Their avatars say and do things online they would never do. And this doesn't bother them in the slightest.
It bothers me. I had in mind an image of a stick person with a line drawn down the middle. That's how I saw our children's experience of technology. Then, this word axis comes to mind. No, not the axis of evil, but the educational technology axis. I looked it up online just to make sure I was being precise. What can I say, I was an English Ed major?
Here's what it said:
They learn rules for copyright, they learn appropriate, safe information to share about themselves online, they learn how to be good net "citizens." Then it all flies out the window when they go home to their IM, My Space and online gaming. Their avatars say and do things online they would never do. And this doesn't bother them in the slightest.
It bothers me. I had in mind an image of a stick person with a line drawn down the middle. That's how I saw our children's experience of technology. Then, this word axis comes to mind. No, not the axis of evil, but the educational technology axis. I looked it up online just to make sure I was being precise. What can I say, I was an English Ed major?
Here's what it said:
- a straight line through a body or figure that satisfies certain conditions
- the center around which something rotates
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Sha-zam! That's the name of my new blog. Thanks, John. Forward, Into the Breach!
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