What role do blogs play in the classroom? How do they change learning? A teacher -- and blogger -- tackles this question on his education-focused website Borderland. He writes: "Education bloggers understand that the deployment of new publishing tools in classrooms unhinges learning from the frame of the traditional classroom. When students change from recipients of information to active participants in knowledge exchange and construction, their roles as learners are redefined. The definition of classroom is opened for debate." Read the entire entry here.

Here's another post from Collision Detection, the ever-fascinating blog authored by science, technology and culture writer Clive Thompson. Clive, who writes for the New York Times Magazine, Wired, Discover, among others, is a refreshingly original and independent thinker. I highly recommend his blog. This entry was posted on 6/25/06:

Think that email you're sending off to your coworker is pretty funny? According to a recent study (PDF link), the odds are that she'll find it only half as funny as you do.

 Continue reading...

43 Folders is a blog about "personal productivity, life hacks, and simple ways to make your life better." The following excerpt, called "more good ideas," is part of a larger entry on emailing that should be required reading for anyone with an index finger and a "send" button. (Read the full entry here) This post appeared 9-19-05.

More good ideas

• Make it easy to quote -- Power email users will quote and respond to specific sections or sentences of your message. You can facilitate this by keeping your paragraphs short, making them easy to slice and dice.



• Don't chuck the ball -- Emails to a thread are like comments at a meeting; think of both like your time possessing the basketball. Don't just chuck at the net every chance you get. Hang back and watch for how you can be most useful. Minimize noise.


 Continue reading...

I came across this terrific post on a blog "devoted to all things geek" called Gadgetopia. While this entry's aimed at computer types, if you substitute the word "programming" with "writing," "marketing," "presenting," or any other kind of creative project, I think you'll find it extremely useful. I certainly did. It appeared on 05/14/06. [Editor]

Here's something I've learned: when faced with a programming project, the worst thing you can do is start coding right away.

 Continue reading...

This tiny but power-packed entry comes from an outstanding blog called Gangrey that describes itself as "prolonging the slow death of newspapers." It highlights great writing from papers across the country. The entry appeared on 03/14/06:

This Fresh Air interview with David Mamet and Shawn Ryan is instructive for storytellers in any medium.

Mamet ...

The trick is to leave everything out. That's the whole trick to drama. It's like the ability to hit the fastball, it's the ability to leave out the narration. You've got to leave the narration out because anybody can say, "Well, Jim, welcome back from Antarctica. We haven't seen you since we cured cancer together in 1985. How's your wife? Is she still an albino?"

If you take out the idea that you can overburden the show with narration ... then the question is: What information is really, really needed? And what information can we really do without?

This entry comes from the brilliant blog Noise Between Stations, written by strategic thinker and consultant Victor Lombardi. It appeared on 3/20/6.

When you have a new idea and you're not sure it will work, create a tangible version of it as quickly as humanly possible. Even if it is very rough, something tangible helps you reach a solution.

 Continue reading...