You’d think since I have this fairly well-established blog (i.e. it’s been in existence for >1 year) this would be the place to share. However, I like that this blog focuses pretty specifically on education related topics, yet so much of the good stuff I find isn’t directly related to education.

Delicious (or Diigo)! Why not just bookmark it on one of these great social bookmarking sites I already use? Well…I would…but I use those tools to stash away items that I might like to revisit sometime in the future. It’s cool stuff, but I don’t really have any need to find it again.

Twitter! Of course Twitter is a great place to share this fun stuff. Yet Twitter is pretty lacking in the visual display department (i.e. pictures, videos, etc.), and it just doesn’t seem to do many of these things justice.

And so I’ve created my own tumblog: WillyB’s Schtuff

On it will be links to many of the fun, interesting, clever, and intriguing items that the ‘tubes drop into my lap. Check it out.

As an aside, I’ve tried to integrate the tumblog’s RSS feed into the sidebar or on another page on this blog, but have been unsuccessful so far. If you know how to easily do this I’d be grateful for the help.

The situation

My new school has two laptop carts per floor. That works out to two classroom sets of laptops for every 20-22 teachers or so. They’re brand new and not many teachers realize that they’re working perfectly fine (98% of the time at least).

There’s no check-out or check-in system. When I wanted them, I went to the teacher’s workroom and rolled them on down to my room. I had no way of telling if they would actually be available until I opened the door to the teacher’s workroom. I have no way of telling when other teachers would like to use them.

The options

1. Do nothing.

• Pros: I could (in theory) just keep the laptop cart in my room unless people ask for it. I’d definitely be able to use the laptops multiple times during the week. With my seeming inability to accurately plan how long things will take, I wouldn’t have to worry about not getting to that online activity on time.
• Cons: (1) I’d be monopolizing 50% of the available computers to regular classroom teachers. (2) I’d have no idea how long other teachers would be using the laptops when they did take them (if they ever found out where I was stashing them, of course!).

2. Do something (i.e. set up a shared Google Calendar or the like for teachers to sign out the laptops)

• Pros: (1) I’d know when and for how long other teachers would be using the laptops. (2) There would be the opportunity for more equitable use of the laptop carts for all teachers.
• Cons: I’d lose my potential monopoly of the carts, and would more thank likely have to reduce the number of activities in my classroom that would require the use of laptops. Boo.

The laptop cart: currently hiding in my room

The real problem

We don’t have enough laptops.

I wrote about a very similar topic in March while I was at Whitmore Lake in Michigan. Back then we had four laptop carts and a media center lab available for use between 22-25 teachers. Here I’m down to two laptop carts and essentially zero dedicated computer labs available for use for the same number of teachers.

I sometimes chuckle to myself when my vice-principal talks about how much technology is available to students this year.

So, take a guess:
What am I going to do? Something, or nothing?

geometry.mrmeyer.com

Dan Meyer has posted his entire geometry curriculum online for everyone to see. He included his presentations in PowerPoint, Keynote, and .pdf format, and has .pdfs for all of his handouts. In my opinion, this takes some real huevos (if you know what I mean). He’s opening himself up to major criticism on things he’s obviously spent hundreds, if not thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of hours creating. I’m not even really into geometry that much, yet I spent a couple hours perusing his stuff (and thinking it quite good, by the way). For all the criticism he may have received over the years for not giving homework or being to much of a smart alec, regardless of your feelings you’ve got to give him some high marks for throwing his stuff out there for anyone to use.

This raises the obvious question: Why isn’t everyone doing this? I realize not all teachers have the digital know-how to post their creations online, but it seems like an obvious thing to do. It makes me feel silly for not doing it.

I’ve created lots of material for classes in the last six years, and am constantly working on more. Perhaps I should work on finding a way to share more of that to the world.

Dan: I’m awed by your openness and dedication to sharing your knowledge with the rest of the teaching community. Bravo!