A major factor in the audience reaction was the length of the band's sets at the time, which lasted less than twenty-five minutes, Jim explaining this with "there's never been a group good enough to play any longer".

Good point.

When you have kids you think, What exactly do I want them to learn? Most of the stuff they study in school is completely useless. But some incredibly valuable things you don't learn until you're older - yet you could learn them when you're younger. And you start to think, What would I do if I set a curriculum for a school?

God, how exciting that could be! But you can't do it today. You'd be crazy to work in a school today. You don't get to do what you want. You don't get to pick your books, your curriculum. You get to teach one narrow specialization. Who would ever want to do that?

These are the solutions to our problems in education. Unfortunately, technology isn't it. You're not going to solve the problems by putting all knowledge onto CD-ROMs. We can put a Web site in every school - none of this is bad. It's bad only if it lulls us into thinking we're doing something to solve the problem with education.

Lincoln did not have a Web site at the log cabin where his parents home-schooled him, and he turned out pretty interesting. Historical precedent shows that we can turn out amazing human beings without technology. Precedent also shows that we can turn out very uninteresting human beings with technology.

It's not as simple as you think when you're in your 20s - that technology's going to change the world. In some ways it will, in some ways it won't.

Thanks to 37Signals' blog for the link.

And amen.

I'm lucky enough to teach at an amazing place that allows me to do amazing things like pick my curriculum and textbooks and breadth of study (even though it's technically Physical Science).

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.

He rearranged himself in the chair. Winced and rotated his right arm. “Maybe that’s why they called it Cassandra,” he said. “Wasn’t she the woman who always brought bad news?”

Fantastic short sci-fi story about the moon landings and international politics. Well written, quick and engrossing. I want this in novel form now, please.

But the meat of the argument is about how the best explanation for many of the group phenomena we see online, from ICanHazCheezburger to Wikipedia, is that people like sharing with each other and collaborating. Not always, of course. But there are architectures of participation that encourage the kind of sharing and generosity that enriches us all, and by experimenting with them, we can create media and social change that harnesses millions of people to help and amuse each other.

Just got this on my Kindle/iPad/Desktops/iPhone (have I mentioned I love the type of portability the Kindle platform offers and hope that iBooks can replicate that type of cross-platform experience?) and can't wait to dig in today.

I'm a big Clay Shirky fan (click the link if you need a sample), and I'm hoping this book, along with Daniel Pink's ongoing work, becomes a pointer I can use when folks ask about the "effectiveness" of my teaching style.

I love the idea of the Teacher/Learner as an Architect. There's something inherit about teaching that lends itself to the type of mystical and very practical practices of masons-meet-Howard Roark.

We'll see and I'll, of course, keep you posted.

Save display space or appeal to your own sense of minimalism by hiding Safari's native status bar, and using the Invisible Status Bar instead. Only shows up when you hover over a link, i.e. when you need a status bar.

Kinda lame that my fav Safari 5 extension so far is one that is built by default into Google Chrome, eh?

But, I do love how Safari operates on the Mac and integrates so well into the wider Mac experience, unlike Chrome which works wonderfully with Google Web apps but not all that great with the rest of the Mac ecosystem.

So, I'll think of this as the Apple community (once again) taking something that has been tested and proven elsewhere and integrating it into the Apple-way.