Technology in the White House

During all the pre-inauguration hoopla one thing, which caught my attention was that Barack Obama was going to have to give up his Blackberry. Apparently all presidential correspondence has to be archived for future generations. Also, there was apparently some worry over what might be intercepted by hackers. I liked the fact that Mr. Barack was unwilling to give up his e-mail opportunities to communicate with family and friends. When asked by CNN's John King whether he would have to give up his device

Obama responded. “….I think we're going to be able to hang onto one of these. Now, my working assumption, and this is not new, is that everything I write on e-mail could end up being on CNN. So I make sure that — I think before I press ‘send.’”

It makes me think this is the lesson we're trying to teach our students. Think before you post something on Facebook, think before you e-mail something, think before you publish something on the Internet. What a wonderful role model Mr. Obama will be for today's generation.

Web 2.0 technologies give us the chance to create, to share, and to connect around the world. According to Tina Brown, during the presidential campaign the web savvy Mr. Obama could:

deploy his web army to distribute his leaflets, raise his funds and sell his policies, he could speak directly to them whenever he hit a snag.

Here is a world leader who wants to be able to connect with friends and former co-workers who can give him immediate feedback on his decisions and new ideas. Isn't this what we're trying to teach our students?

Mr. Obama's whole election campaign was widely debated using blogs and other tools. My Dad had me take him on a tour of Mr. Obama's blog and explain why a tool like this was useful and powerful. It is a new way of thinking for older, and even not so old generations. Is it second nature to our students? I'm not sure it is yet, not for all of them, but the possibilities are there and they are endless.

My Mobster Nickname

I found a fun blog The Generator Blog, which has tons of links to websites which generate fun things. Below is my Mob Nickname which was generated at Nicknamester.

Seven Things You Probably Don’t Know About Me

This post is in response to being tagged by Donna. Of course the title is dependent upon who is reading this but I’ll go with the idea that most of you are professional colleagues I’ve only known for a short time.

1. I used to buy a lot of books but now only buy a handful each year, teaching materials not included. I have not stopped reading but now prefer to patronize my local library. I request a lot of books and read most of them. The books I buy now are ones, which I’ll read over and over. Other than gifts the last major purchases were the “Twilight” series by Stephenie Meyer and “Brisinger” by Christopher Paolini. Ironically, kids, my niece and a student, spurred both purchases.

2. While I buy fewer books my purchases of DVD’s is increasing. In a rough calculation I own about 300 books and 125 DVD’s, plus probably 125 VHS videos. Over the holidays I bought about seven DVD’s including Season 4 of “Lost” and “Mamma Mia”. The second one doesn’t really count as a purchase though as was a present from my Mum.

3. Yes, I did spell Mum with a “u”. I’ve always spelled it that way. I think it has to do with my Dad’s Scottish background. On that note I only met two of my parent’s parents. My Mum’s Mum and my Dad’s Dad both died before I was born.

4. I never considered not attending university and was part way through my first year before I realized that not everyone actually went to university. I’ve attended three universities so far. I spent my first year at the University of Georgia when we lived in Athens on a sabbatical year. I actually studied Business there but one accounting class convinced me to go into Education. I finished my BEd and my Masters at the University of Saskatchewan. While studying for my BEd I also spent one year at the Universite Canadienne en France in Villefrance-sur-mer, near Nice on the French Riviera. I lived with a French family for my second term and had a wonderful year.

5. I’ve taught in six different schools. I started teaching grades 7, 8 and 9 in Senlac, spent two years teaching English in 3 Junior High Schools in Japan, returned to Senlac, moved to teaching grades 1, 3, 4 and 5 at a Hutterite Colony for one year, and finally ended up teaching grade 3, Computers, and French at Unity Public School.

6. I’ve traveled a fair bit in Europe, Asia, Australia, North America, and a little bit in Northern Africa. Some of my favourite trips were with my Mum. She brought a backpack and two Eurorail passes when she met me at the end of my year in France. We had an awesome trip around France, Italy, Greece, Turkey (by accident), Yugoslavia, and Germany. We also had a super tour around Hong Kong and China. We make each other laugh and that is a very good trait to have when traveling.

7. My most unusual Christmas was spent in the Okefenokee Swamp. On Christmas day we canoed by trees covered in that hanging Spanish moss and a variety of alligators. For Christmas dinner we had a meal cooked, by my Dad, on our Coleman stove and we spent the night in out tent trailer. It was fun and oh so us.

I think I'm supposed to tag some fellow bloggers so here goes:
Michael
Mavis
Alison
Priscilla
Byrna
Terrel
James
Mark