"Preschool children, on average, ask their parents about 100 questions a day. Why, why, why—sometimes parents just wish it’d stop. Tragically, it does stop. By middle school they’ve pretty much stopped asking. It’s no coincidence that this same time is when student motivation and engagement plummet. They didn’t stop asking questions because they lost interest: it’s the other way around. They lost interest because they stopped asking questions."Amen. Made me tear up when I read that portion as I reflect on my incredibly inquisitive preschool daughter and her 1,000 questions-a-day rate compared to the resistance many of my 8th Grade students have to asking questions. I hope she never changes. Ever. Nullius in verba and all that. However, out of the ruins that have become our nationalized education system at large, I see tiny daisies of local promise sprouting up. We're on the verge of a major educational reform that will occur from the ground up. It won't be an overnight process, but my childrens' children will grow up with a very different system of education that is based on creativity, critical thinking and sustainability. Viva la revolution and here's to the crazy ones.

Even though I don't plan on buying another eBook anytime soon, I don't place much importance on this study (and I use that word loosely since the data set was 32 people and there were many undefined variables not nailed down). Nonetheless, some people will point to this as yet another reason print is better than an iPad or Kindle, especially in the education world. We can't necessarily do that with this information, but it will provide good tidbits for cocktail party chats. Also, it's just interesting to see the difference in reader experiences, even in a small data set. In my current opinion, print is optimal at this stage in our human story because of these points made so well by Nathan Schneider. As a Middle School Teacher, I'll gladly assert all day that speed means nothing when it comes to reading. The key to a reading platform's success or failure is its ability to provide interaction (or get out of the way of that interaction). Now if only we could gauge critical interaction with texts in a test format that didn't involve shading in bubbles...iPad and Kindle Reading Speeds (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox): "The iPad measured at 6.2% lower reading speed than the printed book, whereas the Kindle measured at 10.7% slower than print. However, the difference between the two devices was not statistically significant because of the data's fairly high variability."
Well reasoned luddite ranting aside, the essay is full of inspiration for those of us looking to creatively resist the commercialization and commoditization of our own personal data. I'm off to rearrange my bookshelves. I've neglected my own Memory Theater for far too long in exchange for the ease of a googled life.In Defense of The Memory Theater | Open Letters Monthly - an Arts and Literature Review: "Until these companies take seriously the needs and, above all, the rights of readers (the human beings, not the machines), they deserve ruthless suspicion. Just because the Kindle and iPad might seem to work relatively reliably now, and because Google tells itself ‘don’t be evil,’ we shouldn’t keep from entertaining darker, more paranoid, even Orwellian fantasies."
If you're upgrading it really is worth your read. I've certainly picked up a few good tips from the post.Ars reviews iOS 4: what's new, notable, and what needs work: "Despite its flaws, the iOS 4 update is certainly a solid one with enough new features to make it worth upgrading for pretty much everyone. Trying to live without even the most basic aspects of multitasking (notably state-saving) can be frustrating once you have used it for a while—during the time I wrote this, I continually switched back and forth between an iOS 4 phone and an iPhone OS 3.x phone, so I know from experience."

As I mentioned earlier, I have been blogging regularly on samharrelson.me. I’ve also had my email hosted through an @gmail.com address, have been reading feeds through Google Reader, keeping my calendar on a free @gmail Google Calendar, keeping my documents dispersed through that associated Google Docs account as well as my Dropbox account, precious family photos on Flickr, Facebook, Posterous, Picasa and SmugMug and notes on Evernote.That initiative lasted a solid month or two but then things fell apart. Here I am trying the same process again. This time I mean it (seriously). - I've moved my blogs (this one and adverb.fm) to a self-hosted account with BlueHost. Now that I have my OpenID setup with my domain (so I can sign in to comment or access apps just by typing in "http://www.samharrelson.com" without having to have a slew of logins and passwords), it's a win-win. - Like last time, I've primarily been using the sam@samharrelson.com email address lately. I still have my sam@adverb.fm account for adverb, my advertising blog and my school email (hosted by Google Apps) for school communications. But everything personal is going through that @samharrelson.com address and it's independently hosted (not through Google). Sure, I miss the Google Mail interface, but I've always loved Apple Mail's functionality (esp for high volume email), so that wasn't too painful. I actually enjoy being free of the Google chain there. I might run this mail through MobileMe's new interface, but not sure. I like SquirrelMail too much :) And if there's any problem with sending mail through Apple Mail, I've always got Loa Power Tools. - Speaking of being free of Google, I've also moved my calendars to iCal/MobileMe. This is incredibly painless since I have a Macbook Pro, an iPad and an iPhone. Being beholden to MobileMe rather than Google gives me a little more independence while still keeping things synced up across the board. - I'm back on OmniFocus for getting things done. Again, not difficult given the built-in sync via MobileMe and my predisposition for Apple products. - Documents-wise, I'm keeping most things in Pages/Numbers/Keynote via MobileMe so that I can have access on my Mac, iPhone or iPad relatively easily. I'm also keeping everything backed up via Dropbox and Amazon S3 via Jungle Disk. - I do most of my feed reading via the awesome Reeder app on the iPad and iPhone. On my Macbook I'm using NetNewsWire, but I rarely read feeds on the Mac anymore. The iPad is just an insanely good reading device, especially with Reeder. Of course, I also use Instapaper and Delicious when I have time to dig deeper. - Socially, I still use Twitter as my main conduit. Having been on the service for almost four years now, I find it just as useful and revolutionary today as I did back in 2006. I've pretty much moved off of Facebook but still keep a profile (with limited info) there just as a) a pointer and b) a way for friends and students to connect. I'll echo what I said last October:
I love the social web and the incredible apps that have come along these last five years. However, I also love my independence. There’s something to the “Coral Reef” idea that Dave Winer spoke of in regard to Twitter a couple of years back that appeals to me in terms of net identity. I like to think of samharrelson.com as my digital coral reef that provides the biosphere and anchor for all the species of web apps that make up my online content ecosystem. That’s the hope here.That's still my sentiment. I'm loving not being chained to a Google account or another third party service for my digital coral reef. This time I'm planning on making that sentiment stick.
You can use Note Taker HD to take notes, sketch diagrams, quickly and easily jot down names, phone numbers, to-do items, directions, and more. Pages are flexibly organized by date/time last modified, tags, favorites, and more, with thumbnail images of part of each page to help you find them later. Pages may be grouped together as multiple "sheets". You can also email one or more pages as a single PDF file. VGA output is supported with zoom and pan.
I've been using Bricklin's Note Taker app on my iPhone since last December, but the Note Taker HD app on my new iPad is simply extraordinary.
I cannot wait to get into the lab with my 8th grade students and jot down notes and observations that we can use to better communicate their findings in our Physical Science class next year.
Thank you again for all you do, Dan.