Online charter schools -- not such a good idea

A New York Times report reveals damaging evidence that online charter schools, while earning profits for Wall Street companies, are actually failing students.  Here's the link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/education/online-schools-score-better-on-wall-street-than-in-classrooms.html.  My two cents?  It's pretty obvious that classroom instruction is important to most learning.  Weaving in online education with classroom education is important, but going all-online is a bad idea.  Virtual learning may be the wave of the future, but classroom education is not going away because it's difficult to reach kids in an online environment.

Historical Note - 25 years ago this week, Microsoft went public

I found this article while browsing late tonight.  It's interesting to note how much has changed in 25 years, both because of and in spite of Microsoft, and how much hasn't.  It's also interesting to see how Microsoft came to be so admired and respected -- it wasn't out of greed, necessarily, that Gates took Microsoft public, but rather, because it was demanded of the company in order to attract and keep "excellence."

I like the cover art, too - very 1980s to focus on the dollar signs.

Anyway, if you're interested, check it out!

Ain't tech grand?

I am writing this entry using a new toy, the iPod touch. It's so fun to use that I don't mind typing with my finger on little tiny letters.

Get your own at apple.com.

Obama Iraq speech

I have added a new feature to my website -- a del.icio.us link. It's on the right under the "What I'm Reading" section. This is an effort to make the stuff I'm reading on the web more accessible and up-to-date, as I haven't been pleased with how "google reader" has been working for me lately.

Anyway, today I read the full text of Barack Obama's Iraq speech on September 12, 2007, and I have to say I found it pretty persuasive. The speech includes some straight talk about what should have been done a few years ago and what can be done now. I admire Obama for maintaining his opposition to the Iraq war throughout the past six years, even though I initially supported the war in Iraq. I was misled, as much of the country was, by President Bush. I didn't believe there was an al-Qaida link, but I believed there was a vital national interest in going to Iraq. I wasn't sure about the WMDs, and I know I didn't believe the Hollywood types when they all said there weren't WMDs, as if they are experts, and it still grates on me that the Sean Penns of the world are gloating right now. The WMD issue is a moot point at this point. The question now is, how do we get out of Iraq with honor and without giving terrorists in Iraq a chance to claim victory? I think Obama lays out several promising ideas in how to do this. Calling on our regional allies is one of them, as well as getting the U.N. involved in the nation-building and spending more money on humanitarian aid to help stabilize the region. The call for an immediate troop draw-down may be a bit premature, but it's hard to resist Obama's reasoning on this -- if we shouldn't be there in a first place and our presence is causing much of the unrest, let's start to get rid of some of those causes. That's all for now. Read the speech, not the punditocracy that surrounds it.

"Everything is Miscellaneous"

If you've got a half hour or more to invest in a tech talk, this is an interesting talk on the history of thought and how it's changing due to technology. I don't delve into this subject much, but I stumbled across it and found it engaging and accessible, as well as funny and insightful. The key concept is that knowledge itself is becoming less hierarchical and more user-driven because it is less limited by the physical world and more digital. Any type of knowledge can now become meta-data to use to find other information, the author asserts. Check it out!