Wondering About Ads

So I've been thinking a little bit about experimenting with ads on the blog. I've been approached quite a few times over the last couple of years with offers to advertise and have always said no (for all the obvious reasons). The reason I'm thinking about it now is not to make money but rather just to see how it all works. I just finished reading Free by Chris Anderson (worth your time, btw, and free audio download at that link) and am feeling the need to understand a little bit better how this actually works. I figure the best way for me to understand it better is to actually experiment with it, and this blog is the natural place to do it.

So, if I do this, I was thinking of using Google AdSense and Amazon Affiliates. Those seem relatively safe, easy and tame, and Amazon Affiliates is something I've been trying to talk my school district into allowing us to put on our school web page (no luck in convincing them so far), so this would be a good way to see how it works. I would donate all proceeds from the advertising to my school, so that would hopefully alleviate some concerns. (Note: If it turns out I can make hundreds of thousands of dollars from this, all bets are off and I reserve the right to pocket all the money and retire. If, however, it turns out I make $23.80 a year from this as I suspect, then I'm good with the donation thing.)

So, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject. It still doesn't quite feel right to me, but I can't really articulate why. Would it bother you to see AdSense or Amazon Affiliate ads on the sidebar? Do you think it "cheapens" the blog? Do you think people might assume it "taints" what I write? Is there some other reasons it's a bad idea? Or a good idea?

Be The Change

(Note: This post is a departure from the regularly-scheduled content of this blog.)

Here's the present we got ourselves this year.











It's not quite active yet, as we're waiting on the county to inspect it (hopefully next week), Xcel Energy to come out and switch out our meter with a net meter, and then Standard Renewable Energy can come out and flip the switch. With the rebate offered by our utility, and the Federal Tax Credit, SRE predicts we'll break even in about three years. (I think that's a little optimistic, as they assume a 10% increase in rates each year which I think is a little high, so I'm guessing it will be closer to four-and-a-half years.)

It's sized to provide between 95% and 100% of our electricity needs, although SRE says that most folks start reducing their usage once they have the real-time usage monitor in place (plus we installed a solar attic fan, which should reduce our air conditioning use, which will reduce our electric use further). We anticipate that as Abby gets older we'll start using a little more electricity, but we were shooting for about 100% of our needs. (Unless and until plug-in cars come along, in which case we could possibly add on to the system.)

If you live outside of Colorado, considering check with your local utility to see what incentives they might have (or contact SRE if they operate in your area). If you live in Colorado I'd suggest you contact SRE and they can provide you with information (whether your utility is Xcel or someone else). Xcel is currently in the process of reducing their level of rebates, but that is partially offset by the cost of the panels themselves continuing to decrease. The sooner you start, the higher your rebate and the sooner your break-even point is likely to be.

And, yes, we have one of these as well.


We've had it since April of 2006 and our lifetime miles per gallon is approximately 47.8.

Be the change you want to see in the world.

Update 12-23-09 (from 31,000+ feet - free wifi on the plane!): @ScottElias asked for some charts and graphs in the comments. Here you go (click on the images for a larger view). Once my system is up and running, I'll see if I can track historical info on usage and periodically post that as well. Note some of the assumptions they build in - like a 10% per year increase in electricity costs - which as I said previously I think is a little high, but this still gives you an idea.

Thank You

Well, this is an awkward post to write, but it would also feel ungrateful if I didn't write it, so here goes. Thank you to Edublogs (and Sue Waters) for all the work that went into the awards, Elluminate (and Steve Hargadon) for hosting the awards ceremony, and the folks that nominated and voted for this blog for the Edublog Lifetime Achievement Award.

It seems a little strange to get a "lifetime" achievement award for a blog I've been writing for just over four years and that started simply as a way to continue the conversations in the staff development efforts in my school. As I've said a couple of times before, it's an honor just to be nominated, and what I like best about the Edublog Awards is being able to look down the list and find some folks that I hadn't been reading before.

When I look at the list of nominees, particularly in the Lifetime Achievement category, I see so many folks who've inspired me and have been my teachers, so it was really unexpected to get this thing. I think the fact that I "won" over those folks illustrates how suspect the results are. (While I don't necessarily agree with the category even existing, or believe the results are valid, you better believe I'm going to rub it in to Will every chance I get.) So I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you to everyone who's contributed to my learning throughout the past four years and I appreciate you putting your ideas - and yourselves - out there.

Tis the Season

Just like the last three years, I can't afford the postage to send this to all of you in my PLN. If you celebrate a holiday this time of year, then I wish you a good one. Thanks for all you do. And I wish all of you peace and happiness.

Blogging for The Huffington Post: I’m Gonna Need Your Help

In the next week or so, The Huffington Post is going to add some new "blog topic" pages within their existing Technology section. One of those topic pages is going to be "Tech + Education," and I've been asked to be a contributing blogger to that section.

(Update 12-16-09: They've decided to delay the Tech + Education section until January 11th, 2010, so that it doesn't get lost in the holidays. This is perfect, as it gives me almost four more weeks to lose sleep over this.)

This was not an easy decision for me for a variety of reasons. The Huffington Post is a different space than this blog, and that brings with it both some good things and some not so good things. One of my concerns is that the conversations on that blog can get both off-topic and somewhat uncivil at times. Not only do I not have a very thick skin, but I'm not particularly interested in contributing to something that generates a lot of noise but doesn't actually move the conversation forward.

The Huffington Post is also generally considered to have a political bias, and – while I realize everything has a political aspect to it – I don’t want what I write about (and what we’ve all been talking about these last few years) to be viewed as being on one political "side" or the other. I'm not very much interested in "sides," I'm more interested in solutions. I know it's naïve, but I don't view any of this stuff through a political lens, I just want to write about and think about and talk about learning. And students. And teachers. And technology. And how best to do this thing we call school. And I want it to make a difference.

So I thought about this for a while, went back and forth with myself, and finally decided to give this a shot for a couple of reasons. First, it's an opportunity to take this conversation to a wider and different audience than typically reads this blog. We've all talked about "preaching to the choir" and the "echo chamber," and how we need to engage with folks that typically are not present in our spaces, and this is an opportunity to do that. I've written more than once about teachers and students being willing to take some risks in their teaching and learning, so I guess I better walk the walk and take a risk myself.

Second, and this is the main reason for this post, I'm counting on a secret weapon to help me out with this.

You.

(Stop looking around, I'm talking to you.) I figure if I can bring all of you with me, then I have a much better shot at making this work.

So, here's the deal. Whenever I post to The Huffington Post I'm going to cross-post here, and I'm going to both ask and count on all of you to get involved in the conversation there as well as here. Now, I'm not asking you to always agree with me (although, you know, it would be nice if you occasionally did). What I'm asking is that you bring your perspective as thoughtful people that have been thinking and writing and commenting and struggling with these issues for a while now into a space where many of the folks reading and commenting are coming at this from a different perspective. That doesn't mean their perspective is wrong or that we can't learn from it, it simply means that we need your perspective as well. If you'll join me there, then maybe, just maybe, we can do some good.

What do you say?

Which Campaign is More Effective?

Both LG and MTV have current campaigns centered around CyberSafety/Bullying/Sexting/Ethics. Alec Couros tweeted about the LG Give It A Ponder Campaign which stars James Lipton from Inside the Actors Studio fame. Here’s one of the videos:



I like the spots, but tweeted back that I wondered if this campaign would be effective with the target audience – presumably pre-teens, teenagers and young adults. Did I like them because I know who James Lipton is and can appreciate the context?

Then a day or two later I came across MTV’s A Thin Line campaign. These videos are very, very different than the LG ones. I’m sharing one below, but fair warning that some folks might find these offensive and, if you plan on showing these in your school, you might want to clear it with whomever you typically clear controversial things with. Now, I think this is appropriate at least for high school students (otherwise I wouldn’t share it on this blog), but others might disagree.



My first thought was that the MTV videos would be much more effective at stimulating a class discussion, and also grab the target audience’s attention even if seen “in the wild.” But then I wondered if any public service campaign on this topic (or any topic, for that matter) can really make a difference. I certainly think that most high school students, if you sat down and talked to them about these issues, could tell you the perils of sexting or cyberbullying, yet obviously some of them are engaging in these activities anyway. If that’s the case, then can/will a PSA convince them otherwise?

What are your thoughts? Would you use these in a high school classroom? Do you think these videos can be effective – either on their own, or paired with classroom discussion? And, no matter your opinion on those questions, are you addressing this topic in some way in your school?

I Read (?) The News Today, Oh Boy

Just a quick post to share this concept video from Sports Illustrated (digital breadcrumbs: Scott McLeod, Judy O’Connell, Daniel Pink, Apple Insider, Peter Kafka).


More evidence that the way we interact with “text” is changing. To combine and paraphrase something I’ve heard David Warlick say more than once with something Jason Ohler says:

We need to stop paper training our students. We should spend less time training our students how to use paper, and more time helping them use digital tools to interact in meaningful and productive ways with the media forms of the day.

Also reminds me of this post:

Note that this is additive - no one is suggesting that words don't matter, that what we traditionally think of as "writing" is no longer important, but that the very nature of composition is more complex now, and that our instruction, our pedagogy, our learning spaces need to reflect that.

. . . Writing (composing) is no longer exclusively a solitary activity. And we need to expand our definition of composition beyond only text and beyond only a specific medium (book, research paper, academic journal).

"Text" is changing. Is your classroom?

Google Goggles: Why Didn’t I Think of That?

So, Google Goggles is now in beta in Google Labs and available on Android phones.

Humorous name aside, the product looks to be a huge leap forward in the field of visual search — by which I mean, you point a camera at something and Google figures out what it is.

Here’s a little video explanation.



As the Tech Crunch article mentions, it’s somewhat similar to ShopSavvy. I’ve used the ShopSavvy demo video in my last couple of presentations, replacing another video I had been using of an iPhone app called Bionic Eye. That made me think of an earlier post of mine where I said:

This is a nice little app for what it does, but imagine what it’s going to evolve into: a portable heads-up display for everything. Yes, right now it lists restaurants, subway stations (in certain cities), and wifi hotspots, but it’s not that hard to extrapolate a few years into the future where this app – or something like it – connects you to all the available information about whatever you’re looking at.

It doesn’t really matter whether it’s on an iPhone-type device, or whether it’s mounted on your eyeglasses, it’s going to be with you effectively 24/7/365 (only “effectively” because you can still choose to turn it off), have 99% uptime, and is going to get better every hour of every day as more information is added to it. Practically every urban location will be geotagged and infotagged (think Google Street View on steroids), extending further and further beyond urban areas with each passing year. In fact, I imagine the app will evolve into a two-way app, with users adding to the database as they go about their daily routines, constantly adding more locations and more data to the database.

Perhaps a few more years down the road artificial intelligence object-recognition software will be embedded, maybe even with some simple sensors to analyze the material it’s looking at, so that the app will be able to peer into just about any object and return information about it’s chemical composition, various useful facts about it, and ways the object can be used.

Huh. Maybe I shouldn't have changed my major.

Seriously, though, the truth is ending up stranger than fiction . . .

Shift Happens Statistic of the Day 12-2-09

From the December 7, 2009 issue of Time Magazine:

In 1979, GM's U.S. employment peaked at 618,365. Today it's at 75,000 and falling fast. GM's U.S. market share, once about 50%, has fallen to about 20%.

That's about an 88% decline in U.S. jobs at GM in 30 years. Interestingly, it's only a 60% decline in market share, which illustrates the automation/productivity portion of the shift.


Flickr Photo Credit: two GM dealerships out of business, originally uploaded by marina.

A Shift in the Digital Divide?

NPR has a short, but interesting story on the use of mobile devices by young people. Citing research by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the story states that in regards to "robust" uses of mobile devices, "most of those hyperusers are young Latinos and blacks."


Chart from NPR, source data from Pew Internet and American Life Project, refers to above uses on mobile devices only

Now, the story is certainly not saying that the digital divide is no longer an issue, but it does bring up some interesting points. It attributes the higher and more sophisticated use of mobile devices among Latinos and blacks to four factors:

• Networking teens that spread the use to older members of their ethnic group (happens in all ethnic groups, but faster among blacks and Latinos, perhaps due to the relatively higher proportion of young people)
• Cheaper than a home connection (mobile upgrade cheaper than buying a computer and broadband)
• Communication across borders (easier on both sides)
• Convenience (the phone is always there, always gets a signal, no need to worry about wifi or battery)

I see some similarities to the cell phone versus landline access in countries like China and India, where lots of folks have gone straight from no phone to cell phone, skipping the landline phase. I wonder if we're seeing a similar leap among the traditional "have-nots" that have been on the "losing" side of the divide, where they are skipping the home computer/broadband phase and going straight to the mobile Internet phase.

If mobile devices (think phone, not laptop) become the dominant way of accessing the Internet - and I think that's still very much up in the air (pun intended) - then this just may signal a coming shift in the digital divide that might mirror the demographic shifts in the United States. We still have a long way to go in eliminating access issues, but perhaps this is an encouraging sign that the divide might be narrowing.