In all this, the one variable I wish could control is the difference between my pedagogy and that of 90% of the edublogosphere. What I’m saying is that, on any given day, I read five endorsements of school computing swiss-cheesed by faulty assumptions and, since the revolution demands solidarity (ie. “at least the message is on the streets”) they go unchallengedeg. Nesbitt’s video. Why don’t you regulate your own propaganda?.

A lot of the time they’re innocuous cases of irrational exuberance but other times the conclusions drawn are on the order of, “If you still use handouts, you’re a deficient educator,” conclusions which long ago heaved out the bathwater and now have the baby halfway through the drain.

Or elsewhere, I find absolute prescriptions, solutions which work great in magnet schools unregulated by standards with tablet PCs for every student and a fat pipe sucking down the Internet, but which don’t come close to acknowledging the realities faced by, say, an educator working with 37 students assisted by one campus computer lab running 17 blueberry iMacs, a single home DSL connection split across the entire school. Those prescriptions strike me, at best, as hopelessly out of touch.

What I’m saying is that it’s much easier in this tech-enamored ‘sphere of ours to write those posts than it is to criticize them. I’m not saying my rejoinders don’t demand a more objective tone (I’m saying the opposite) just that, having exhumed a lot of dusty blog posts the last few days, a lot of people seem less offended by my tone and more offended that someone bothered to contradict their majority opinion.

What I’m saying is that you can expect my tone to change around here but we will still challenge each other. It’s still open season on your sacred cows.

To come to work here in Clayton County, a failing school district in Georgia, former Pittsburgh superintendent John Thompson wants $275,000 in salary, a $2 million consulting budget, a Lincoln Town Car with a driver, and money to pay a personal bodyguard.

–Patrik Jonsonn, citing many good reasons for me to take up the district admin track. [Christian Science Monitor]

I’ve been a Diigo user for two years come July. Seems like everybody and their grannies have adopted it in a Twitter-induced stampede over the last two days…. I’ve been evangelizing Diigo on these pages since day one.

–Clay Burell, who would like you to know that, between the two of you, he found Diigo first. By two years come July. [Beyond School; OLDaily]

I used to think that blogging had the potential to have a huge influence on how education could unfold in this country, and by extension in other systems around the world.

–Graham Wegner, experiencing either a crisis of faith or a moment of clarity. [Teaching Generation Z]

Forget the stuff about belonging, generational inertia, cultural identity, fitting in, and living in no-choice neighborhoods, E. is drawing a clear connection between his increased gang-affiliation and resulting beating with an inability to construct and conceive of fun.

–TMAO, recoding generations of gang affiliation in one powerful anecdote. [RoomD2]

First, there are far too many sessions. The conference program they give you is the size of a phonebook. Seriously, it’s huge. Maybe not a big phonebook, but it’s bigger than the books you buy at ed tech conferences by popular speakers. It’s big and heavy.

–Chris Craft, defining “session glut.” [Crucial Thought]

So in looking at session selection policy, is it any wonder that this method leads to homogenous, cookie cutter selections that represent the acceptable norm? Shouldn’t we be concerned that in times that call for radical change, the standard method for conference session selection is biased against radical proposals?

–Sylvia Martinez, explaining why K12 Online Conference repeatedly rejects my keynote proposals. [Generation Yes Blog]

Dina:

If you’ve got a dozen well-trained educators on this blog asking double the amount of critical questions about this cute little NAEP Excel doppleganger, most of which questions completely debunk not nuanced “implications,” but the very parameters of one’s x (math curriculum being assessed) and y (use of technology) values– I mean, come on. The *X and Y* values?!? Doesn’t that indicate on its face that we should throw out the whole damn graph?

She’s right, though the questions undergirding this sketchy data still intrigue me:

1. What constitutes computing use in fourth-grade math? Rote repetitive drill software? Number Crunchers?
2. What elements of math’s 12-year plan are outmoded, concessions to universities and textbook publishers? Does it lack coursework? Does it comprise too much coursework?