A stampede of baby steps
Last Thursday I was listening to segment called China's Technological Leap Forward on NPR's Talk of the Nation. They were discussing China's technological future with John Seely Brown, former director of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center; co-author of The Only Sustainable Edge: Why Business Strategy Depends on Productive Friction and Dynamic Specialization.

During the show a caller who was working for a technology consulting firm in China stated that the groups he worked with were pretty far behind and were relying heavily on US technology. John Seely Brown agreed that was often the case, but said all over China businesses were taking baby steps and a stampede of baby steps leads to inovation.

After returning from NECC I have been frustrated by those who continue to tell me that I can't push our staff too hard in technology - baby steps, just have them take babysteps. Now I am okay with that. Baby steps are fine, as long as I can start a stampede.

Back from Canada - back at school and ready to talk.I just got back from a week in Canada on an island in Ontario. While I was there I read Raw Materials and Classroom Blogging: A Teacher's Guide to the Blogosphere. Fortuantely, both have many screen captures as I was sans computer.

I did want to share with you all my favorite piece of techonology of the week. Pictured to the left is an incinolet. This is the high tech version of the outhouse/composting toliet/outhouse. You do whatever into something that looks like a large coffee filter, step on a lever to drop it into the incinerator where it heats to 1,200 degrees F and disappears into ash - the marvels of modern technology.

How do I choose?

When I got Raw Materials for the Mind, I was preparing for a web design class, so I started at that end of the book. David talks about the opening page of your website as the "most important six inches". He goes on do discuss good clear web design, which is simple and direct but can be difficult to achieve. Our design has a few seconds, at best, to deliver the nature of the site as the viewer decides whether to move on.

I began to think about how we choose sites in contrast to how we choose books. I know the Dewey Decimal system, I use the card catalog, but in the end I browse the shelves. I pull books from the shelf, flip pages, scan, and check out the table of contents for nonfiction or the back cover for fiction. I am sure that I am affected by the color, typeface, layout and illustrations.

On the web, I search. I may not even view a site until I done a couple of different searches, scanned the results, and refined my search. When I think I am close, I click open multiple sites, quickly flip through them, and, in most cases, X them out into oblivion. I very seldom click a link unless I have already deemed the site as worth pursuing. All of this confirms the importance of the "most important six inches", on most sites that is all I ever see.

Raw Materials for the Mind: A Teacher's Guide to Digital Literacy

In preparation for David Warlick’s visit to New Hampshire in September we have chosen Raw Materials of the Mind as our first discussion book. David says this book “continues to focus on the technology, its operation, application in teaching and learning, and, most importantly, the why, for modernizing our classrooms for a rapidly changing world.” (page 6 Raw Materials of the Mind) You can purchase a print - $15.69 or pdf - $5.31 version of this from LuLu Hope you will join us.

Welcome to the NHSTE Book Club.

Our vision is that this will be a open discussion of books that inspire us, challenge us or just amuse. I will serve as facilitator, rather than "sage on the stage". What I would love to have is more people to post. Anyone can enter reponse comments, but if you would be interested in posting observations rather than responses you need to be a member. If you would be willing to be a member, just email me at dboisvert@sau53.org and I will set you up.