Author Archives: David Truss

Two old but not too old links | Year-end Food for Thought

I have two sources of inspiration for you.

One is a video… Brave New World Wide Web.  It compares 20th century learning with 21st century learning.  It was originally posted in 2008, but is still relevant today.  I hope it gets you thinking about one small change you can make to bring yourself forward.  I can help and support you in that process.

 

 

http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/

The second is a blog post from December of 2009, but it’s still fitting and good food for thought…

21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020.

via dasdlisd.wordpress.com

I was planning on sharing the link to Shelly Blake-Plock’s, @TeachPaperless’, post (a year old today and still very insightful), ’21 Things That Will Become Obsolete in Education by 2020′ anyway, but here it has been put together with my Brave New World Wide Web video on the DeDorest Area School District blog.

It amazes me that on blip.tv where it was first posted, the video has never in 2 years and 2 months had a ‘zero’ day… it has had a long-tail audience and every couple months it gets a spike in viewings as someone else shares it. All told, at several sites, it has probably been viewed over 40,000 times and downloaded over 500 times since I put it online. I realize that a cat sneezing on YouTube can get 150,000 views in less time than that, but this story of a personal journey into the world of edtech, and what it offered to me as an educator, has a very specific audience and I’m humbled by it’s reception… even 2 years later.

What do you want to know about teens and social media?

Danah Boyd asked this very question, last June, and here was my response: 

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I’m interested in knowing more about:

1. Gaming: As it relates to socializing with others vs isolating & playing on their own.

2. Friendship: Actually two things here, first, definitions of online friendship by teens, and second, more about the duration and quality of friendships teens are creating. I know that as an adult I have created some very meaningful online relationships (in my case with other educators) with people I have never met f2f, is this happening with teens as well?

3. Content creation (trends): What are teens creating and sharing online? Here I’m actually interested in the bleeding edge, where are they taking content creation to a new level? How are they ‘mashing’ things up?

4. Learning: How are teens taking learning into their own hands, what are they doing outside of schools to educate themselves and learn new things?

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I’m still interested in these things… who can help me learn more?

Been there, done that…

via sports.yahoo.com

Well, not on a highway, but we’ve had some interesting adventures while here in China. The weird thing about events like this is the lack of horn-blowing from oncoming traffic. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of horns going off here, but not for things like this, or for a left-turn into oncoming traffic.

Instead a horn comes from:

1) A driver passing on the left in the lane of oncoming traffic, to let the car on their right know to squeeze over as it is being passed.

2) A driver passing a slower car that’s on the right and then making a right-hand turn in front of the car just passed.

3) A driver passing two cars, on a two lane road, down the middle white line of the two lanes between the cars.

Which one of these has happened to me?

All of the above!

Twitter EDU

UPDATE: This post has been vastly improved on, and made into an ebook.

Click here to access a free copy of Twitter EDU.

Below, you’ll find the material that just one chapter of this ebook is based on. The ebook is much more comprehensive, just as easy to read, and engages you with Twitter while you read.

Pick up your copy here. 

Update: January 8, 2017

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Some simple advice to set yourself up for success on Twitter– BEFORE you start following people:

1. Add a (tasteful) image.
2. Put something in your bio that says you are an educator.
3. Add a link. Don’t have a blog, use your district/school website, (this is the most optional of these 5 points).
4. Actually tweet a few times. Find a resource or two and share them.
5. Before following other people, add a tweet saying, “I’m an educator from (Country/City/State/University/Course/choose 1) trying to get started on Twitter.”

 

Do that and you’ll get WAY more follow-backs than if you follow someone with no details and a rookie egg image that Twitter gives you.

 

Follow me: @datruss (Do the 5 things above and you have a guaranteed follow-back from me!)

 

And follow some of these great people… I do!

 

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Related: The complete guide to building a digital footprint.

Twitter is a game-changer

ECMP 355 Summary of Learning « Learning All Ways by Katie Rosenkranz

via krosenkranz.wordpress.com

Congrats to Katie @krosenkranz Rosenkranz!
She didn’t just finish this course with Alec @courosa Couros. She also transformed herself into a different kind of teacher and learner by getting through the early stages of Twitter, and finding it’s real value.

Watch the video, then go and comment on her blog! Welcome her to a new era in teaching, one far more engaging as a co-learner and a digital – teacher, than what was possible just a few years ago.

ps. Just watched the video again… I’m actually in it! 🙂

 

 

Comment of the Day!

I’m reading over report cards and came across this comment:

“With a strong moral compass, he frequently does the ‘right’ thing and encourages others to do the same.”


What a wonderful thing to say about someone! It tells me a whole lot more about the kid than any letter grade ever could. 

In China we count to 10 using only one hand

via vimeo.com

A fun fact about every-day life here in China: People will use these gestures (6 to 10) while saying the number, not even realizing they are doing it… like nodding when you say “Yes” or “No”… it’s done subconsciously. For 10, they’ll also use 2 hands and make an “X” with their index fingers.

It can be fun to barter and not actually say anything, and locals appreciate Expats using these hand gestures as much as they appreciate attempts at speaking Mandarin.

Subject-Verb Agreement

2010-12-02_09

I think posters like this… student generated, are great!

There is something to be said about it being a hand-crafted project as well… It is easy enough to share it digitally after-the-fact, as I have.

I shared this: http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/great-things-in-the-classroom/ which has all kinds of student work posted. I think much of it can be then shared with each other and with the world after-the-fact… after putting ‘pencil to paper’.

We need to stop seeing technology as an either/or thing and start seeing it as useful tools on a spectrum of tools that includes pencil & paper, Skype, blogs and wikis, and everything in between!

William Ury: The walk from “no” to “yes”

via ted.com

William Ury wants us to walk together, to take a shared journey to peace.

In my Two Wolves post, I look at the last chapter of Thomas Freidman’s ‘The World is Flat’, and I ask ‘How do we move from being stuck on History to looking forward and finding Hope?’

Ury says we need to travel a path together:
From Hostility to Hospitality, and from Terrorism to Tourism… wonderful!