An Interactive Whiteboard on the Cheap (Like $100 Cheap)!!!!!!!

Wow. A Wii remote hacked into a DIY interactive whiteboard. It even works to turn your regular monitor into a tablet!

All that you need is a projector, a Wii remote, a laptop with Bluetooth, and some sort of IR light source (an easy DIY project) - oh and some open source downloads.

Thanks to Vicki Davis (CoolCatTeacher) who pointed this out in her blog and Johnny Chung Lee (the creator).

Time to start rolling my loose change to buy the parts for one.

Inspiration Comes in Bits and Bytes

Apparently it is time for the Canadian 2007 Blog Awards. Check out the nominated education blogs. The first thing that came to mind was time to add some new blogs to my Google Reader. The second thing that I thought of is that two of them are in my Google Reader and I have trolled through at least one of the other ones.

Well Patricia gave me an idea. Why not share some of the blogs I enjoy reading. So here goes. (In no particular order.)

Classroom Tech Tips
Donna's blog. Through one of her PD days she introduced me to the wonders of RSS readers and educational blogs.

Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech
Dean Shareski has some interesting things to say. I like the way he thinks. Plus he is pretty much a video guru.

Cool Cat Teacher Blog
Vicki Davis. An active blogger. A VERY active blogger. She is quite well connected and has written some insightful posts.

Dangerously Irrelevant
This guy is rapidly becoming one of my favorites. I just discovered Scott McLeod's blog recently but his posts are making me think.

Common Craft - Explanations in Plain English
"Our product is explanation." That is it right there. Simple but effective explanations.

I have lots more blogs on my Google Reader but these are the ones that I jump on reading right away. And after looking at these top Canadian bloggers I suspect I will be adding a few more to the list.

P.S. I also subscribe to The Despair Inc. Blog because these guys are just damn funny.

Since When Do Lawyers and Insurance Companies Get to Run OUR Show?

In Perpetual Fear of the Sue Sue Sue

Here is a post written by Vicky Davis. She talks about how we (as teachers) are always afraid of being sued. The lawyers and administrators insist that we be 100% compliant with the legal requirements.

What do we do with 100% legal requirements when we're lucky to get 85% in
the classroom? We know how rare (100%) hundreds are in the classroom, however
the legal professionals (and our administrators) require that we are 100%
compliant and 100% perfect.

How practical is it to be 100% compliant? Can we eliminate every possible risk? No. We can minimize it but not eliminate it. Anyone with an 80% in my classroom gets told they are doing a pretty good job.

Now I think that Vicky Davis was aiming her article towards copyright infringement. Plagiarism has been a problem since the first caveman copied another caveman's paintings. Vicky didn't just moan and complain about the problem she offered some solutions.

Automated citation building wikis and blogs that extract the links from the blog or wiki page and automatically post the citations in the proper format at the bottom of the page.

Computers have to tools to quickly and easily do this. Teach the students the legal way to use somebody elses ideas. We often indirectly take credit for someone elses work not because we are thiefs at heart but because we are lazy. So make the process easy.

Let me leave you with one last quote.

We have work to do. The nature of lawyers is to say NO. The nature of
administrators is to say NO. The nature of a good teacher is to advocate for
her/his students.

In the end it is about student learning.