Book Review – Digital Citizenship in School

While at NECC, ISTE was promoting its newest volume, Digital Citizenship in Schools by Mike Ribble and Gerald Baily. Yesterday, I received my copy after ordering it at the conference and have had a chance to give it a first reading. The authors argue that it is essential that school districts and schools to take stock and begin to create their definition of digital citizenship. Once defined, they present example activities that will help all members of the school community, students, faculty and staff, and parents gain a better understanding of the definition which was created by the community. With […]

Book Review – Spider and the Starfish: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations

Upon the recommendation of Joyce Valenza, in her NECC presentation Information Fluency Meets Web 2.0, I reserved the following book from my local public library. Picking it up last week, I got a chance to read it and was amazed how quickly I got through the reading (two evenings) and how thought provoking it is. In this book, the authors, Ori Brafman and Rod Breckstrom outline how a decentralized organization can be stronger than an centralized heirchy. Using examples from history (the Apaches vs the Spanish) through modern technology (the emergence of wikis and craigslist), the authors use the metaphor […]

Back in the Saddle Again

I have returned to the work after an eleven day mini-hiatus since I have returned from NECC. Unfortunately, the projects that I left undone did not complete themselves, so this week, I am playing a bit of catch-up. I have five work days in which to complete a number of these projects before I travel to the Laptop Institute which is being held in Memphis. I am looking forward to this conference and have been in contact with the organizers to see if there is a way that an area, similar to the Blogger’s Cafe, can be set up in […]