ElliotAndCathie's blog

Elliot: Are you ready for the storm of protest that will rain upon us when we critique the un-revolutionary Apple announcement about textbooks?

Cathie: We were called iPad haters (even though we each have one and we develop apps for it), now we will be called iBook haters. Elliot, this is not a good reputation to have.

Elliot: But we are not haters! The Age of Mobilism empowers the world's youth as never before.

Cathie: Flowery, very flowery. But, let's talk about the iBook; bring it on.

Cathie: I am not sure you noticed...

Elliot: Oh, I am sure I didn't ... but I'll bet you are about to tell me what it is that I missed!

Cathie: On the Myers-Briggs you are off the scale "intuitive..."

Elliot: ... and you are off the scale "sensor" and that's why we work well together... that is, if you don't clobber me first!

Cathie: ... as I was saying... have you noticed that we are zero for two with respect to the getting our letters published in the New York Times.

Elliot & Cathie: We would like to nominate the ISTE SIGML wiki's for the EduBlog "best educational wiki" award. http://sigml.iste.wikispaces.net/Main

(International Society for Technology in Education, Special Interest Group in Mobile Learning

http://edublogawards.com/nominations-open-the-2011-edublog-awards-are-on/

Elliot: Ok, faithful readers, here is our rejected Letter to Editor of the New York Times Book Review, Children's Special Section. This is the second letter that they haven't printed that Cathie and I have sent in.

Letter to the Editor: New York Times Book Review – Children's Section

November 18, 2011

Elliot: Back in the day, we called it "payola."

Cathie: I remember: DJ's would accept money from promoters and surprise surprise the songs that the promoters were pushing got lots of airtime.

Elliot: ILLEGAL. JAIL.

Cathie: And from reading the papers on a daily basis payola is still alive and well in corporate America. But the sad thing is that it appears to be alive and well in public education.

Elliot (speaking loudly): YAR, YAR, YAR! Yet Another Rant in the New York Times about the lack of technology's impact in America's K-12 schools.

Cathie: Yes, and highly visible; smack dab in the middle of the front page, above the fold, of Sunday's New York Times.

Elliot: Did you read the article about the Khan Academy in Wired Magazine? Cathie: Yes; about a thousand colleagues sent me the link!Elliot: The Khan academy has clearly touched a nerve. Cathie: Yes, and it worth analyzing why.

Elliot: There must be something in the water; how else can we explain the sudden growth in mobile learning “events”?  For starters,  within a span of a few days, two other bloggers(Blog#1, Blog#2) have pointed out the coming “revolution” in K-12 due to mobile technologies. Why now?  WHY ALL OF A SUDDEN?

Elliot: Someone in Korea has been reading our District Administration column!Cathie: How do you know that?Elliot: Well, Korea just announced that they will provide a mobile learning device for each child by 2015 and they will require all educational materials to be in digital form and thus accessible on the MLDs. Cathie: Yes, we did predict that by 2015 every child in the U.S. would be using an MLD…

Context: While Cathie and Elliot were attending a UNESCO-sponsored meeting in Paris (no, not the one in Texas, but the one in France) the Museum d’Orsay was also holding an exhibition of Eduard Manet, the Father of Modernism , the first such exhibition in 30 years in Paris. While it wasn’t an easy process, they bought tickets and spent about 3 hours at the show.