A Year in Review

After reading Darren Kuropatwa's year in review, I've decided to write a couple of short paragraphs about my own year.

When the year began I used computers as though Web. 2.0 had never begun. I had heard the term blog, but I didn't know what the word meant. I had never even heard of the words "podcast," or "vodcast." I had used wikipedias but I didn't know what a wiki was. I was working as an educational consultant, knowing that I wanted to start another educational endeavor of my own, but not sure what to do.

In April, I attended a workshop by David Warlick at Oakland Schools in Michigan. I thought he was an inspirational speaker but I didn't immediately start blogging. After David's comment about the educational utility of on-line games, I did stop harassing my friend's children about being on-line playing so often. Indeed, I began to encourage it. I even bought her son a subscription to Runescape.

In June, I was bored and I decided one day to blog. I had little knowledge of how to set up a blog and wasn't even sure what I would write. Originally, I thought that I'd write daily opinion pieces. But, I wanted to find a way to make myself stand out. After about six weeks, I decided to write a set of daily lesson ideas. I had fun being creative and then people started paying a little bit of attention to my blog. What a great way to build a little bit of an ego. I even started a wiki on which I posted these daily lesson ideas.

After writing these lesson ideas for a few months, I realized that I might be able to turn the concept into another educational endeavor. I'd publish a newsletter. Individuals could buy subscriptions. The only problem was that I'd have to stop blogging so that I wasn't giving something away for free that I was simultaneously selling. After blogging daily since June I was ready for a break.

Soon, I realized that institutions were not buying subscriptions to the newsletter, as I had hoped. A few individuals bought subscriptions to a newsletter designed for families. Around this time I also read Chris Anderson's The Long Tale. I began to wonder if people would pay for information, when so much free material was available on-line. Finally, I decided that while I continue to sell individual subscriptions, I'd offer the newsletter to schools and hope that sponsors would support it.

Over Christmas weekend, I realized that my wiki had attracted significant attention. 20,000 people have viewed it in the last few months, not bad for a guy that didn't know what a wiki was in January. But the wiki wasn't generating any revenue. I decided that I'd stop using the wiki and instead post a living textbook on my own website. I'll post ads and hopefully sponsorships on the Living Textbook. Because I want the newsletters to succeed, I"m not going to post things in the Living Textbook until a month after I write them.

In a year, I've gone from being a guy who didn't know what the Web 2.0 was to somebody who's built a business around it. It's been a busy year. I've learned a ton in the process and developed a group of friends who I enjoy interacting with, on-line. (I enjoy leaving comments on other people's blogs as much as I like writing my own blog.) Hopefully next year will bring continued learning and continued fun.

I hope that everybody has a happy and healthy new year.

Global Warming

Maybe I'm a pessimist but global warming scares me. MSNBC is running a story entitled, "Ancient ice shelf breaks free in Canadian Arctic." Imagine if all or most of the ice in the world was to melt and a shallow layer of water was to cover the entire Earth. What would the human race have to do to survive? Remember, most types of crops cannot grow if there is too much water. It might be interesting to ask our students to blog about this issue. Even better, why couldn't they make documentaries of pollution or the fight against pollution in their own communities. These documentaries could be vodcasted. There's be no reason why schools across the world couldn't link up and publish collaborative information on the best ways to eliminate pollution.

Just some thoughts. Check out my Living Textbook.

Will Google Have Most Visitors in 2007?

The USA Today is reporting that "experts" think that Google will have more visitors in 2007 than any other website. Google's critics contend that the company is a one-trick-horse, search. But Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land Blog argues that Google's success simply demonstrates the imporance of search. The Internet is often compared to the Information Superhighway. If this is the case, perhaps Google represents the sign systems on the roads? How do you think searc will evolve in the next fifty years? You might ask your children this question.

Shapes and Sizes

This morning as I was shaving, I found myself staring at the too many objects on my basin, instead of on shelves: toothpaste; toothbrush; brush; ointment; a second razer; shaving cream; a toothbrush holder; and, more. I realized that these different things would make an interesting lesson on different shapes. Students could first draw the different objects. They could then compare and contrast them. Would one object work as well for one item as for another. For example, would a sqaure work as a toothpaste holder instead of a rectangle? What about a circle? What's the point of having different shapes?
A question for my technologically oriented friends: How could we incorporate technology into this lesson?