For the last few weeks we’ve been working on our ETS Annual Report … the final draft is due today and I’ve spent all day getting it into shape — the dreaded last mile if you will. There are many more eyes that will need to review all this, but after sitting down and reading over the 28 page report I am left with an overwhelming sense of pride and appreciation for all the people who have contributed to the content of this report. I’m not really talking about the document itself, but the work that this report describes. What I am struck by as I read it is that so...

As we begin to enter into the core of our TLT Faculty Fellowship work for the Summer a whole new line of thinking is emerging about how to continue to expand our network. Two weeks ago I got an email from an instructional designer at one of the other Penn State campuses looking to discuss one of the things I’ve been banging through that was really helpful and particularly insightful. What was great was that it inspired a whole string of discussions that culminated with her submitting a proposal to be part of a Hot Team on mobile learning. I’ve been really excited about the notion...

A couple of weeks ago we held our annual Symposium on Teaching and Learning with Technology here at Penn State. It was an amazing event once again — this time with just shy of 400 faculty and staff choosing to spend a beautiful Saturday with us. Our keynotes rocked, with David Wiley supplying a rallying call towards openness that has helped move our OER conversations forward. At lunch, danah boyd delivered a whirlwind of a talk that people are still buzzing about. One thing in particular was how both David and danah hung out with us not only the night before, but all day on Saturday....

It comes as no surprise that I like Twitter for lots of reasons … the primary reason for me is that it seems to solidify connections in close to real time. Facebook has surprised me in its ability to do something similar in the recent months. Both seem to be really interesting steps forward in the online conversation space. The one thing that both of them have going for them is a very powerful, “what are you doing right now” approach to status updates. This simple question pushes people to participate and to me it is the most powerful piece to coalescing community. With...

Last week I was doing some reading and came across a post that made me very happy. It is about a new project to find ways to crowd source the notion of helping out in our local schools. Dave Eggers, the author of the wonderful book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, had a dream — he wanted to find ways to connect with and help local schools. He acted on that dream. Behold, Once Upon a School. I’ve been relatively vocal here about my recent dissatisfaction with schools in general. I’m now seeing the public school system at work and I am concerned for how it is all...

Last week I visited my colleague Ellysa Cahoy’s blog to find that she was participating in an interview meme. I usually avoid these things but given I am pushing to keep moving on the One Post a Day challenge, I figured having a little extra content wouldn’t kill me so I took Ellysa up on the offer. The other thing is that Ellysa is going to spend some time with us in ETS this Summer as one of our Faculty Fellows … never hurts to get on the good side of the innovators! Here’s the part I don’t like about meme’s — the chain letter aspect Even so, I’ll...

I’ll follow along with the exploits of Alan, D’Arcy, and Jim by posting my top 10 commenters over the last year. Clearly those guys get more comments than I do, but it is nice to see that we (for the most part) appear on each others’ list — Sorry Rev, I will get better this year. The thing I notice about this list is how local it is to State College and Penn State in general. On my list there are only four people who are not PSU folks — I just find it interesting. At any rate, there it is. 222 different people left comments this past year and I can tell you that...

I’m sure many of you have seen Discovery’s advertising campaign, “The World is Just … Awesome,” in which lots of people sing a modified version of I Love the Mountains, called Boom De Yada. Discovery’s version is really inspiring, so much so that if you go to YouTube you’ll find hundreds of versions of it from people all over the world. I spent a little time over the weekend watching a bunch of them and once you start exploring it is tough to stop. So many of them are really inspiring, but the one that really made me smile is an original version...