I recently realized that the professional SN site LinkedIn has discussion threads. So today I was looking at this discussion about this article, and in the course of the discussion someone asked about this study, which she described as having "debunked reading and math software." Now, five years of ...

So I signed up at Top Conservatives on Twitter. Much to my shock and dismay I started out ranked in the 50's but as more folks joined I've moved down, currently 159. Out of over 1600, tough, that's not bad. Plus, I gained over a hundred followers on Twitter. Whaddya know... They've put up a Drudge l...

Senator Obama told Joe the Plumber that if Joe made more than $250,000, his taxes would go up by 3%. That money would then be redistributed to folks with lower incomes in the interest of "fairness." For the moment let's leave aside the "fairness" of the government taking money from people who are wi...

"edupunk" is an idea that's been tossed around recently on Twitter and various blogs. It seems to resonate with a lot of folks, embracing the ideas of do-it-yourself, anti-authority, share and share alike, and so on. The anti-corporate part of it resonates with Blackboard-bashers as well. But though...

For the past day or so, fellow twitterers "Peter Rock," Clay Burell, and I have been having a mostly-civil discussion of religion over at Pete's blog. At one point I noted: Just produce a corpse/set of bones/ossuary/occupied grave (with good provenance, of course) that can be positively identified a...

This is a true story. Obviously, names have been changed. Details have been reconstructed and simplified somewhat, and some dramatic license has been taken in imagining inner dialogues. But it happened pretty much this way, as far as I can tell. There are two boys. One we'll call Eric. The other, Ke...

Oh, for crying out loud. Australian educator Al Upton has been ordered by the government to shut down his class blog. Apparently a parent - despite previously giving permission for their little darling to participate in an innovative, authentic learning activity with other students and teachers from...

With Super Tuesday a few hours away (as I write this), let's look at the Presidential field as a family reunion. Imagine you're a little kid.... Aunt Hillary has that wierd laugh. She's kinda scary. And though she tries real hard to act like she loves you, you know better. Uncle Bill is great fun, a...

There's an old saying in marketing: Make it easy for your customer to buy from you. Over the weekend my wife wanted to buy a single song from a certain online retailer, renamed here as "acertainonlineretailer.com." When she went to "check out" she got a somewhat cryptic error message with an email a...

A fellow in my network is thinking about ditching engineering and going to work in a kitchen. I started out at Burger King in high school. I did 18 months in fast food. Fry station, counter, drive-though, finally A-line. "Hold the pickles hold the lettuce..." - That was me. I was in the Flow. In the...