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Some of you may be interested in Through the Keyhole, my 'random thoughts' blog where I put stuff not directly related to K-12 technology and/or leadership issues. Recent posts have covered everything from effective lectures to White House censorship to elite college admissions to bottled water to boiling your family.
Enjoy.
Well said, Indexed.
Send Kim some smelling salts (i.e., comments) to try and revive her. We need her back.
1 year ago: Gaming, cognition, and education - Wrap-up
I don't know about you, but when I hire someone, or go to the doctor or the architect or an engineer, I could care less about how good they are at memorizing or looking up facts. I want them to be great at synthesizing ideas, the faster and more insightfully, the better.
Please don't tell me that Wikipedia isn't a real encyclopedia or one that can't be trusted. Perhaps it can't be trusted if you're prepping for a Presidential debate, but it is sure good enough to help me learn what I need to learn--which is how to quickly take a bunch of facts and turn them into a new and useful idea.
Here's what just about every exam ought to be: "Use Firefox to find the information you need to answer this question:" And as the internet gets smarter, the questions are going to have to get harder. Which is a good thing.
Until teachers get unstuck, our kids are going to be stuck and so will we.
This is a story about tools and bravery and marketing.
The tools: when you give a kid a net connection, access to wikipedia and to the rest of the world, things change fast. Things you wouldn't necessarily predict. Like a ten year old who can diagnose his dad's illness. Or a farmer that can ask his daughter to find out where to get a new part for the tractor. Or...
…
The marketing: Everything, even laptops for kids, works its way through the innovation diffusion curve. That means that most countries, most organizations and most communities aren't going to adopt this tool for a few years. It doesn't matter if it's perfect... these things take time. Smart marketing embraces the curve and doesn't insist that it must change for this project, right now.
One kid (or five kids) at a time. It's enough. It'll happen.
Rural School Enrollments: Diverse and Rising
After years of shrinking enrollments, rural school populations are on the rise. Minority students and English Language Learners account for a high proportion of the increase, and many of the poorest and poorest prepared children are entering classrooms in states with the fewest resources to teach them. . . . In the school year 2003-2004, nearly a half of all English Language Learners (ELL) were enrolled in rural schools.
Poor People are Moving to Already Poor, Rural Communities
There is a growing body of evidence that rural communities are poor because poor people are moving there.
Bill Gates says U.S. schools are "broken." Alvin Toffler calls them relics of a by-gone industrial age. Now, according to Johns Hopkins University researchers, 1 in 10 American high-schools is a "drop out factory," where 60 percent of freshman do not even make it to their senior year. What a colossal waste of human talent. The U.S. has been living off the educational investments of other countries, particularly China and India, for the past several decades. What happens if the supply of foreign talent dries up or decides to head elsewhere?
People are creative. We like challenging and creative work. Most of us do not need to spend more time in educational prisons sitting like a bump on a log in class or getting ready for the big game, the pep rally or the prom. We need to be involved in stuff that activates creativity.
Earlier this week I blogged about fighting fearmongering. PREA Prez notes that the next day his district blocked my blog:
[click on image for larger version]
Ironic timing, isn’t it, Doug?
[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]
Here is a suggested five-step conversation plan for creating greater interest in digital technologies by your school administrators…
Step 1. Acrobat
“Can I have 10 minutes of your time?”
“Sure. How about tomorrow at 3pm?”
The next day…
“I am guessing that you run across things on the Web that you’d like to save for future reference. I know I do. I often bookmark those in my Web browser but sometimes they disappear and aren’t there when I return later. I thought you might be interested in how to capture a web page in the full version of Adobe Acrobat so that you have it forever in a PDF format. I use this a lot myself.”
Demonstrate Acrobat…
“Thanks. Let me know if this is something you’d like me to install on your computer. Also, I know I went through this fast, so I’m more than happy to come back anytime and walk you through how to do this.”
Step 2. Podcasts
“Can I set up a one-hour meeting with you to go over some technology stuff?”
“Sure. How about next Thursday at 1pm?”
A week later…
“Hi I brought this CD with an interesting interview I heard with three data-savvy principals in Minnesota. I thought we could listen to it together and then talk about it.”
Listen to the CD. Have a conversation about the administrator’s reactions to the podcast and how you can help with some of the data-driven issues raised in the interview.
“Thanks. By the way, here are a few more CDs with some other podcasts related to data-driven decision-making. I thought if you liked this one you might want to have some others to listen to while you’re driving around, working out, or whatever. Oh, and there’s lots more good stuff like this on the Web. Let me know if you’re interested in seeing what else might be out there for you.”
Follow up a month later if you haven’t heard from the administrator.
Step 3. Online videos
“Can I set up a one-hour meeting with you to go over some technology stuff?”
“Sure. How about next Friday at 10am?”
A week later…
“Hi. I have a few online videos I wanted to show you. None of them are very long but they’re all really good. Some of these might be great discussion starters with our staff.”
Watch some or all of the following online videos together (make sure they’re not blocked!):
Have a conversation about the issues raised in the videos, how they might be useful with school initiatives, etc.
“Thanks. By the way, here’s a link to some other videos that may be of interest. You might be particularly interested in the administrator’s guide to cyberbullying. Oh, and there’s lots more good stuff like this on the Web. Let me know if you’re interested in seeing what else might be out there for you.”
Follow up a month later if you haven’t heard from the administrator.
Step 4. Sheetfed scanner
“Can I have 30 minutes of your time?”
“Sure. How about next Wednesday at 2pm?”
A week later…
“Hi. I wanted to show you this thing. It’s a sheetfed scanner. What you do is you insert it between your keyboard and your monitor. Then, anytime someone hands you a document that you want to save, you stick it through the scanner, give it a title and some keywords, and click on save. This saves the file as a PDF document on your hard drive. Anytime you need it again, you can open up the software and pull up the document by doing a quick search on the title or keywords. Then, best of all, you can throw the paper away! This is a great way to stay organized and reduce all of the paper that’s laying around your office. I use this all the time in my own work. Would you like to see a quick demo of how it works?”
Demonstrate the scanner and software. Highlight how quick it is to scan and save, and how easy it is to retrieve scanned documents.
“Thanks. Let me know if this is something you’d like me to install on your computer. Also, I know I went through this fast, so I’m more than happy to come back anytime and walk you through how to do this.”
Step 5. RSS
“Can I have 30 minutes of your time?”
“Sure. How about next Tuesday at 9am?”
A week later…
“Hi. I know you’re interested in woodworking and hiking. Plus you’re always raving about those pugs of yours. I wanted to show you something.”
Show RSS in Plain English. Then show the administrator the RSS aggregator you’ve created for him, with feeds already set up for woodworking, hiking, and pugs (replace with whatever the administrator’s interests are!). Show that you’ve also seeded the aggregator with some administrator-oriented blogs too, so that the aggregator can be used for both professional and personal interests.
“Thanks. Here’s the URL for the aggregator. I showed you how to open up posts in both the aggregator and the original web site, but let me know if you have any difficulty. I’ll leave this for you to play around with for a few weeks. By the way, if there are other web sites that you visit regularly (e.g., CNN, USA Today, The New York Times, ESPN), they probably have RSS feeds too and we can add those into your aggregator. Let me know if you’d like to make any changes or additions to this.”
Follow up a month later if you haven’t heard from the administrator.
And so on…
Conversations like these can go a long way toward facilitating administrator buy-in and support for technology initiatives. Too often technology workshops and demonstrations focus on student or teacher needs and neglect the very real needs that administrators have for professional growth and increased efficiency or effectiveness. The key is NOT to show administrators what you think is cool but rather what will be USEFUL to their own learning needs and day-to-day work. Remember that the most important person in your administrator’s life is herself. Once she’s engaged personally, then you have a much better chance of getting her interested in what teachers and students might do with digital technologies. Until you’ve set the hook, much of this will be abstract to her. Create opportunities to make digital technologies concretely real for your administrators. Help them feel in their gut that this stuff is useful and powerful.
Hopefully this five-step conversation plan will spark some ideas regarding your own work with administrators. If so, please share with the rest of us!
One of the biggest things standing in the way of student technology usage in schools is adults' fear.
Over at the Blue Skunk Blog, Doug Johnson posted a message from our mutual friend and Internet safety guru Nancy Willard that described all of the fearmongering that she's seeing as she travels the country. In the comments to Doug's post, John Pederson said that there's no 'sticky' message to counter the fearmongering.
So Doug's sponsoring a contest. Come up with the best 'sticky' message and win a prize from Doug. All submissions are due November 1 so get yours in soon!
From Karin Chenoweth at the Britannica blog:
Everyone in a school knows that some teachers are effective and some aren’t, but in most schools there is no organized way to ensure that students who get weak or bad teachers still learn what they need to learn. That’s not his fault, or the fault of any individual teachers who work hard; it is the fault of the way schools have been organized for generations.
and
[T]he essential issue at the heart of the controversy is whether schools should be asked to organize themselves to have student learning be at the center of all of their activities. I say they should. But the fact is that relatively few schools have done it.
I just received a note from Edutopia announcing its new Go Green initiative. Apparently they've created a database / clearinghouse designed to help educators 'integrate knowledge and awareness of Earth's fragility into classwork and community service.'
Personally, I think this is a great idea, but I wonder how long it will take before some disbelieving citizens challenge schools' use of these materials, similar to the controversy that occurred in Federal Way, Washington regarding the film An Inconvenient Truth.
I had a great trip to San Antonio. It was fun hanging out with Miguel Friday afternoon and evening. As you can see, we are not above making idiots of ourselves (one thing to know about Miguel: he has no qualms about only asking for one sombrero (for you, of course)). Like all good outside consultants should, I helped Miguel and his team move their office by lugging boxes and I got to see their new digs next to the Curriculum and Instruction department. Miguel has a great team: a shout-out to Sue, Sylvia, Josie, and the rest of the folks I met (Malinda, that means you!).
On the more serious side, Miguel videoed my opening keynote for iLEAD and also recorded my breakout session conversation about administrator blogs. Maybe he’ll post one or both on his blog. All of my materials from my visit are available at my SAISD web page. The very best part of the trip was our ongoing discussion about how to facilitate change from an informal leadership position (i.e., one without much authority or power) within a large, complex, hierarchical, bureaucratic urban school district. I hope that I gave Miguel some productive food for thought. I know that I came away from the trip with a number of takeaways that hopefully will bear some fruit over the next month or two.
I’ll be back in San Antonio for NASSP and for NECC. Hope to see you there!
It’s been a wild, wild year for me. Earlier this week I was honored as one of NSBA’s 20 To Watch and in June I was one of the cable industry’s Leaders in Learning recipients. The George Lucas Educational Foundation said it loves my blogs and today I am being honored as one of Phi Delta Kappa’s Emerging Leaders. I am a little overwhelmed at all of the attention (three national awards in one year is a bit crazy!) but I do appreciate the recognition of the work we’re doing here at CASTLE. My new institution, Iowa State University, had a really nice story on me (the news service reporter said I was a walking op-ed!). It’s fun to be at a place that appreciates my work.
I can’t attend the awards ceremony today at PDK’s Global Summit in Vancouver, British Columbia. Why? Because I’m winging my way to San Antonio, Texas to keynote Miguel Guhlin’s technology leadership seminar. It will be great to see Miguel again and, knowing Miguel, I’m guessing that he may have a few surprises in store for me!
I ran across an interesting thread on NCLB, courtesy of Joanne Jacobs. First, Karin Chenoweth notes that the good old days before NCLB weren’t so good. TMAO concurred, stating that ‘more kids learned less in the past than now.’ Cardinal Fang, a commenter on Joanne’s post, disagreed: ‘in middle class [schools] … there is more emphasis on testing, arguably making those formerly good schools more boring, duller places by focusing on tests which most of the students would have passed anyway.’
What do you think?
1 year ago: Not enough time to be data-driven
First Karl Fisch, original creator of Did You Know?, gets profiled in the Rocky Mountain News. Then he gets mentioned on the CNN Saturday Morning show (at the end). Oh, and there's the national award he received this week. Woohoo!
What's next, Karl? The New York Times? Or Boing Boing?
Congrats (and sorry I outed you)!
Check out the transcript of Will Richardson's live online chat about the educational benefits of social networking. Part of the fun at this year's T+L conference!
FYI, tomorrow is an online discussion with Thomas Hutton, senior staff attorney for the National School Boards Association, on navigating the legal landmines associated with new technologies. You know I'm looking forward to reading that!
A few months back, Susan McLester, Editor in Chief of Technology and Learning magazine, asked if I would write a monthly column on higher education technology issues. Always mindful of opportunities to spread the word about CASTLE, of course I said yes!
Here are my first few articles:
Today I'm being honored by the good folks at the National School Boards Association at their annual Technology + Learning conference. They've named me as one of their '20 To Watch' for 2007. The 20 To Watch list started last year and is intended to identify 'emerging voices that will shape the future of education technology.' Other recipients this year include Karl Fisch, Gary Stager, and Erin Reilly (who I met earlier this year at the Leaders in Learning awards).
Unfortunately I won't be able to attend the awards ceremony in Nashville, but I appreciate the recognition of the work I'm doing here at CASTLE. Thanks, NSBA!
[this post is my contribution to Blog Action Day]
E-waste is an enormous environmental issue. Digital technologies such as computers and electronic gadgets are full of toxic metals and other harmful materials. Proper disposal or recycling of these technologies is imperative.
Educators can't claim to be ignorant anymore. The deleterious effects of e-waste are increasingly well-known. As public agencies, schools have a special responsibility not to harm future generations through irresponsible jettisoning of old computer equipment.
For every school district that has a disposal / recycling plan in place, there's probably another that doesn't. There are countless stories of old computers stacked up in school warehouses and storerooms. Similarly, for every school leader that's struggling with what to do with old equipment, there are several who have never even thought about the issue.
Ask your school leaders tomorrow: "What do we do with our old computing equipment?" If they don't know, help them find out the answer. Investigate what really happens to the computers that get carted away. Even if you think they're being recycled, it may not be what you think.
My School Technology Safety and Security course at U. Minnesota included a computer disposal / recycling unit. I hope to create the same here at Iowa State. Additionally, I have begun making a conscious effort to reduce my technological footprint. It's very hard; I drool over every new cool technogadget that comes out. But, as I noted before, I've got too much stuff.
What are you doing personally to reduce your digital footprint? What are you doing professionally to help school leaders understand the scale and importance of the K-12 computer disposal issue? What are you doing academically to help students understand the technology-related environmental issues that their generation will face?
As Joel Barker notes, "No one will thank you for taking care of today if you have failed to take care of tomorrow."
Today The Economist kicks off what looks to be quite an interesting debate event on educational issues. The first debate will address the following proposition:
This house believes that the continuing introduction of new technologies and new media adds little to the quality of most education.
I believe that visitors have the ability to propose questions and add comments. Debate and commentary should be lively, so check it out!
If you haven't seen them yet, here are three must-see videos from Dr. Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University:
Other videos are available at the Moving Forward videos wiki page (feel free to add some more!).
As usual, Seth Godin nails it right on the head:
If we don't slam this door shut, then everyone will do it...
This is really why we lock everything out in schools, isn't it? In K-12, we like to rule by exception rather than dealing with exceptions individually. We're doubtful of our ability to stop the slippery slope.
Here are five great education podcasts I’ve listened to recently (in reverse chronological order), each from a different source:
I’m thinking this might be a good meme, so I’m tagging the following bloggers:
Meme guidelines
Blog Action Day is Monday: thousands of bloggers posting on environmental issues. I'm going to be posting a few thoughts on what school leaders need to know about computer recycling and disposal.
[cross-posted at the TechLearning blog]
I have been reading with great interest the conversations that have been sparked by Kurt Paccio’s post on Internet filtering. As my brain has swirled around the issues involved, it has returned to an experience I had earlier this year.
As some of you may know, I was the recipient this year of one of the cable industry’s Leaders in Learning awards. It was a phenomenal experience and I highly encourage you to nominate someone for next year’s awards (the due date is January 16, 2008). As part of that June trip back to my home town of Washington, DC, I had the wonderful opportunity to hear a presentation by Dr. Tom Carroll, President of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future (NCTAF), on teacher supply and demand. Here is a slide from his presentation (click on image for larger version):
As the graph shows, the number of ‘entrants’ into the teaching profession increased somewhat beginning in the mid-1990s but the number of ‘leavers’ rose even faster. My first reaction was that the numbers reflected the growing numbers of Baby Boomer teachers that are nearing retirement. But look at the next slide:
Although there has been the expected increase in the retirement numbers, the growth in the number of ‘non-retirement leavers’ has been much, much larger. As the first graph illustrates, the end result is that nearly twice as many teachers are leaving the profession than in the late 1980s.
Look more closely at the x axis of the second slide. Tom noted that these time spans roughly reflect the entry of Generation X and Generation Y into the education work force. As he talked with us, his basic message was that
Increasing numbers of young teachers are deciding that schools are not personally- or professionally-fulfilling workplaces and are taking their skills and talents elsewhere.
The way that schools operate is not working right now for many creative, talented young adults. They look around at how things work in schools, they might even give teaching a try because they want to make a difference in children’s lives, but then they become disenchanted and they leave. This has always happened, of course – the statistics on new teacher attrition have always been appalling – but new teacher departures are occurring at an ever-increasing rate, with the following impact on the average age of the teaching workforce:
As the third graph shows, the average age of our teaching force is getting older and older. These teachers can’t teach forever. Who is going to replace them?
It seems to me that the issues that underlie Kurt’s post and the new teacher attrition rate are intertwined. The comments surrounding Kurt’s post ultimately revolve around this question:
Similarly, is it schools’ responsibility to provide viable and palatable working environments for new employees or is it not? Whether we’re talking about schools’ obligation to meet the future life needs of students or their need to retain new, talented educators, in both cases the issue is one of duty of care. What is our duty to care for students responsively and responsibly? What is our duty to care for new staff in ways that are embracing and empowering? What is our duty to care for young adults in ways that recognize their power and potential? What is our duty of care to our communities to adequately prepare the next generation?
Schools can’t continue to have more employees leave than enter. Schools can’t continue to ignore the fact that increasing numbers of students and families are rejecting traditional paradigms in favor of alternative learning structures (magnet schools, charter schools, home schooling, cyberschooling, etc.). If schools are to survive, they have to start addressing their underlying lack of engagement for both students and new staff. Otherwise they will be relegated to the dustbin of history as something more responsive takes their place.
I’ve been hanging out with the folks from the University of Northern Iowa Instructional Technology program a lot the past two days (from left to right: Dr. Leigh Zeitz, Magda Galloway, Rob Galloway (check out his picture of Woz!)). UNI is the only one of Iowa’s three public universities that has a table here at ITEC. Rob and Magda joined me and Jen Sigrist, a curriculum coordinator for the Ankeny (IA) Community School District, for lunch at The Funky Pickle. We had some great chats about the educational technology scene across the state. As a newcomer, I appreciated hearing their insights and experiences.
I ran into Dr. Dennis Harper of Generation YES again. He and I talked with some of the GenY kids from the Nevada (IA) Community School District about cyberbullying. They were very respectful of their teachers and talked about how much trouble they’d get into with their parents if they ever engaged in hostile or harassing online behavior of their teachers or other students. It was a fun conversation with some really, really nice kids.
I then sat in on a session that updated us on the progress of the winners of last year’s Iowa Learning Technology Commission grants. Apparently the Iowa legislature allocates the princely sum of half a million dollars per year for K-12 educational technology initiatives. This depressingly small amount is divided among 5 or 6 districts each year (out of over 300) through a competitive grant process. It was a little disheartening to hear how little legislative support there is for digital technologies in Iowa schools. We’ve got a lot of work to do…
I concluded my day by co-facilitating a session with Greg Davis, Associate Superintendent of the Des Moines (IA) Public Schools. He showed Did You Know? 2.0 and then we had a lively discussion with a packed room about possible futures and teachers’ and administrators’ obligations to prepare students for those futures.
I missed most of David Pogue’s presentation this morning at ITEC because I had to first meet the folks from the carpet company who were coming to measure the rooms in my new house. I did catch the end of his session, however, when he performed a few songs for us, including I Write The Code; Don’t Cry For Me, Cupertino; I Got YouTube; and Ode to the RIAA. Fun stuff.
I had a chance to walk with him to his signing session afterward and asked him what he thinks are critical skills for students / citizens in the 21st century. Unsurprisingly, he stressed the need for information literacy, media literacy, and the ability to discern “the difference between bloggers and news journalists.” I wish I had had more time to explore that last statement of his but I couldn’t keep him any further. If you’re not a regular reader of his New York Times blog, check it out.
The benefits of ongoing progress monitoring of students on essential academic
skills (i.e., “power standards”) are well established. But, as Sherman Dorn
notes, some school districts are starting to see a backlash from students and
parents against too much testing, even when it's formative assessment designed
to increase student mastery of critical content.
Here is the comment I
left on Sherman's blog post:
I think one of the problems is that many school systems just throw a bunch of formative assessments up on the wall, hoping some of them will stick regarding their curriculum standards and/or year-end assessments. For example, I just spoke with a principal whose elementary school was doing SIX different reading assessments with its kids. When pressed to explain WHY each assessment was used (i.e., what information each assessment gave teachers that the other ones didn't), he was unable to articulate how the assessments were similar / different from each other. If schools wish to avoid student and parent backlash against too much testing, they need to have an aligned assessment strategy that clearly outlines when and why each assessment is being used. If schools can't do this, they deserve all the backlash they get.
Does your school organization have an aligned assessment system? Can it clearly articulate when, why, and for which students each formative assessment is being used as well as how that assessment overlaps (or doesn't) with other assessments?
A few notes from my day at ITEC…
How’s your state / district doing with that NCLB requirement that all 8th graders be technology literate by December 2006?
Steve Wozniak was our keynote speaker this morning at the Iowa Technology Education Connection (ITEC) conference. He may be one of the few people that talks faster than I do!
Here are some highlights from his speech, which basically recounted his life path that led to co-founding Apple:
It was a pleasure to hear his speech. He’s a great example of a self-directed, playful learner who refused to let anything get in his way and who believes in the empowerment of learners to tinker and explore.
I'm with Wesley. When I got the news that the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program was starting a 'Give one, get one' initiative, I immediately e-mailed my wife, "This is what I want for Christmas!"
1,001 1,002 1,003 1,004 1,005 1,006 1,007 …
My son’s teacher is requiring the class to write down every number from 1 to 1,000.
… 1,008 1,009 1,010 1,011 1,012 1,013 …
Instead, my son has to write down 1,001 to 2,000.
… 1,014 1,015 1,016 1,017 1,018 1,019 …
Apparently he’s in the advanced group?
… 1,020 1,021 1,022 1,023 1,024 1,025 …
On the first day he got up to 1,120.
… 1,026 1,027 1,028 1,029 1,030 1,031 …
At that pace he’ll be doing this for nearly two weeks in class.
… 1,032 1,033 1,034 1,035 1,036 1,037 …
It’s not a punishment. It’s a class activity.
… 1,038 1,039 1,040 1,041 1,042 1,043 …
He loves it. I can’t stand it.
… 1,044 1,045 1,046 1,047 1,048 1,049 …
Metal detectors. Dog sniffs. Networked surveillance cameras. Bar codes. Swipe cards. Biometrics. Thermal imaging. Wire taps and electronic communication monitoring. Blood and urine testing. Cell phone, pager, and transit card tracking. Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. Facial recognition software. GPS tracking. Correlation of disparate online databases. Microchip implantation. National identity cards. Everyware. And so on...
We are rapidly approaching a time where every move - every action - can be monitored, archived, and correlated. The right of privacy precious to many is rapidly disappearing as we trade it for safety and convenience. The surveillance society is right around the corner, if it's not already here.
On the school front, many administrators dispense with students' 4th Amendment rights in the name of 'safety.' They know what the law says, but community pressures or perceived dangers outweigh Constitutional rights. Many of these administrators are in schools with no history of violence or threats. But Columbine freaked everyone out - if it could happen there, it could happen anywhere - so anything goes when it comes to student rights.
Benjamin Franklin said, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." The United States Supreme Court, in West Virginia Board of Ed. v. Barnette, said, "That they are educating the young for citizenship is reason for scrupulous protection of Constitutional freedoms of the individual, if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes."
As leaders, we should be discussing these issues - with each other, with our communities, with our students. Do we really want to live in a surveillance society? Do we still care about the 4th Amendment right to be free from suspicionless search? What is the proper balance between legitimate concern and undifferentiated fear? What kind of world do we want to leave for our children?
Blog carnivals are a great way to find new blogs and to increase visibility of your own blog. An education technology carnival is starting up. Submit your posts!
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