Almost, but not quite a follow up to my last post about stages, this snippet from Spark’s latest podcast sheds some interesting light on why people choose to lurk rather than participate. If you’re one of those who tries to persuade others to invest in social networks and embrace them, perhaps this might help, or maybe you would challenge the premise....

I had one of the strangest events of my professional career on Tuesday night. Coming back from 10 days in Europe I checked my calender to see I was schedule to speak at a Parent night at a high school in a neigbouring district.  I remember being asked a few months early about speaking as part of a 3 person lineup on Internet Safety. I was very up front with the...

I’m just back from the IT Summit conference. In general, it was an outstanding conference in many respects. People Without trying to list the names of everyone, it’s apparent for most users of social media that face to face gathering times have changed in the past few years. I used to go to conferences and mingle with local colleagues and a few others...

So that fact that your birthday is splattered in any number of places means some interesting things.  We get all kinds of well wishes from different spaces. It’s nice. It’s part of the glue of social networks, little bits of sharing to build community. My life is pretty much an open book. For some that’s just too weird, dangerous or stupid. It...

Growing up, my parents had a very active social life. A huge part of this involved the “pop-in”.  This  was the spur of the moment visit to friends with simply a quick phone call to say, “we’ll be over in 15 minutes, put the coffee on”, or sometimes just showing up at someone’s house. This worked both ways. I clearly remember...

While I know that like any profession, there are good teachers and bad teachers, I don’t see many bad ones. My work usually has me working with passionate, caring teachers who truly want what’s best for kids. They dislike bureaucracy and red tape (doesn’t everybody?) and will try anything if they think it will help students learn. I do know of a few...