A Day In A Sentence

I spent the first 3 days of this week in software training out in western Massachusetts. Most of my day was spent listening to someone explain how to use a particular piece of software. There was no wireless or cell phone signal in the room. Needless to say, it was a tough 3 days for me. As good as my trainer was, I found it hard to stay focused.

The good news was, thanks to my Twitter Survey (please add yourself if you haven't already), I was able to sort my Twitter Spreadsheet by city and state and find out who in my network lived out in Western MA. As a result I ended up having a great dinner with Kevin (@dogtrax), Gail (@poulingail) and Maureen (@bcdtech).

Kevin invited me into his Day in a Sentence project. Horray! something I could do without internet! I started with a paragraph and whittled it down to one sentence of 25 words. You can see my progression below. It was a great exercise!

Attention
124 words
My attention wanders it is hard to hold it still. I find it difficult to focus on only one thing at a time. It is not enough for my mind. My mind wants more, more to do, more to think about, more to look at. Not very Buddhist of me. I can’t seem to just be in one place anymore. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Many say it is bad. Am I missing out on the current moment by looking for something else? Is a divided attention a focused attention? Am I learning less than I would if I could stay in one place? Is ADD merely another name for the 21st century mind? My mind is not the same.

56 Words
My attention wanders it is hard to hold it still. My mind wants more, more to do, more to think about, more to look at. Is a divided attention a focused attention? Am I learning less than I would if I could stay in one place? Is ADD merely another name for the 21st century mind?

53 Words
My mind is hard to hold still. It wants more, more to do, more to think about, more to see and hear. Is a divided attention a focused attention? Am I learning less than I would if I could stay in one place. Is ADD merely another name for the 21st century mind?

47 Words
My mind wants more, more to do, more to think about, more to see and hear. Is a divided attention a focused attention? Am I learning less than I would if I could stay in one place? Is ADD merely another name for the 21st century mind?

35 Words
My mind wants more. Is a divided attention a focused attention? Am I learning less than I would if I could stay in one place? Is ADD merely another name for the 21st century mind?

31 Words
Is a divided attention a focused attention? Am I learning less than I would if my mind could stay in one place? Is ADD another name for the 21st century brain?

25 Words (3 sentences)
My attention wanders. Am I learning less than I would if it could be still? Is ADD just another name for the 21st century brain?

25 Words (3 sentences)
My mind wanders. Am I learning less than I would if it could be still? Is ADD just another name for the 21st century brain?

25 Words (3 sentences)
My mind jumps. Am I learning less than I would if it could be still? Is ADD just another name for the 21st century brain?

27 Words (1 sentences)
My mind jumps, I wonder, am I learning less than I would if it could be still, is ADD just another name for the 21st century brain?

Finally....
25 Words (1 sentences)
My mind jumps, I wonder, am I learning less than I would if it were still, is ADD another word for the 21st century brain?

Two For Tuesday 10/28/08

1. Lexical Analysis of 2008 US Presidential and Vice-Presidential Debates — who's the Windbag?
In this post, Martin Krzywinski uses several different tools to analyze word usage in the 2008 debates. He compares and graphs noun/verb/adjective/adverb ratios, unique word count, complexity of noun phrases and what he calls the "Windbag Index" among other factors. He represents his results in a variety of graphical formats.

2. Doodle: Easy Scheduling
Have you ever tried to get 4 or 5 people together for a meeting at the same time? Doodle is a tool that helps juggle multiple schedules to find the time that is optimal for the greatest number of people in the group. One person creates a poll and sends it out, Doodle does the rest. Doodle is free and does not require registration or software installation. It also works with Facebook and iGoogle.

Growing a More Diverse Learning Network.

I read lots of blogs, I read blogs on Web 2.0, I read mommy blogs, I read triathalon blogs , and I read blogs about my favorite TV shows. My Twitter and Plurk networks include people outside the world of education. The more diverse your learning network, the more likely you are to stumble upon something that everyone else hasn't seen already. I recently blogged about 10 ways to Grow Your Learning Network. Today I found this excellent post by Chris Brogan on how to Reach Outside Your Fishbowl to Build Community. Chris himself is outside of my fishbowl and I have learned a lot from him. I particularly like number 2 and 3 on his list:

1. Go to Delicious and search for topics that are just outside your blog’s main subject, or that are at perhaps tangential. Do the same thing as step 1.

2. Write posts about an industry vertical using your blog’s perspective instead of just writing about your main focus. If you’re writing a running blog, write a post like “Top 5 Runner-Friendly Companies in Seattle” or if you’re a food videoblogger, shoot an episode called “Election Day Dinners.” In these cases, make sure you’re using tagging and that you’ve claimed your blog in a search site like Technorati.

How diverse is your network? Do you follow only educators? How do you find people to learn from? Please let us know.

Image Source: Namaqualand Wild Flower Carpet. http://www.flickr.com/photos/martin_heigan/2137729737/

Making Things Happen - Tapping In to the Power of the Network

Thanks so much to Bob Sprankle who recorded my ACTEM session and just posted it as a Podcast on his Blog.

I had an idea today..

What if a teacher asked her students to find an image each week representing their learning. Fridays the class could go through each of the images and students could share why they chose them. Students could use Flickr to find their images where pictures are tagged with words like "citizenship" and "courage."

This might also lead to discussions about tagging and about copyright and Creative Commons. It would engage students in some right brain thinking every week and I'm sure would lead to some interesting conversations.

What do you think? Please share if you try it and let us know how it goes.




Image Citations:
Day 27 - I Voted! [http://www.flickr.com/photos/ktpupp/291873348/]
Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion in Wizard of Oz at the Wax Museum at Fishermen's Wharf in San Francisco: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124324682@N01/352866534/
Light Bulb [http://www.flickr.com/photos/outsanityphotos/457461303/]

Two for Tuesday 10-21-08

1. 5 Ways to Visualize the U.S. Elections
This blog post includes links to 5 interesting graphics which visualize some important trends. It includes graphs of political contribution by industry, earmarks, election polls, the presedential election in the blogosphere and an electoral prediction tracker. All of these graphs provide a different way to look at our political climate as we approach a presedential election in November.

2. UCLA study finds that searching the Internet increases brain function
"UCLA scientists have found that for computer-savvy middle-aged and older adults, searching the Internet triggers key centers in the brain that control decision-making and complex reasoning. The findings demonstrate that Web search activity may help stimulate and possibly improve brain function."

A Spreadsheet of Educators on Twitter

(If you don't know what Twitter is, please check out this post: Getting started with Twitter)

I have seen several lists of educators on Twitter, like this one and recently I discovered this wiki which organizes us by subject area. It inspired me to create a list that could be sorted across different criteria like country, state, subject or grade level. In an attempt to create a more malleable list I made a Google form for educators to fill out. I then made the corresponding spreadsheet public, so that anyone can sort it. If you haven't already, please complete the form and add yourself to the list.

I took the data that we have collected so far and used Many Eyes to create a treemap of the results. If you click on the image below you can see the results so far.