http://sparksofhope.org Chris Champion: teacher, father, and thinker Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:46:49 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I was inspired to create this Wordle for today's speech. No time to comment yet, just wanted to post it and get back to teaching my class:Click to see it full size.You can see the full text here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/ http://sparksofhope.org/2009/09/obamas-speech-wordle-2/ I've been thinking about Google's Innovation Time Off Model - that which employees are expected/encouraged to spend about 20% of their time working on new things that don't necessarily relate to your job functions. Quoting a New York Times article:It sounds obvious, but people work better when they’re involved in ... http://sparksofhope.org/2009/08/the-google-8020-innovation-time-off-model/ I heard about a neat website that takes your Twitter followers or those you follow and makes them into a shirt (website here) and I just had to have one.  I customized mine with the code listed there and some help from a screen capture program to pick people I ... http://sparksofhope.org/2009/07/im-following-you/ Well - thanks for checking here - sorry it's a bit sparse, but I tried to "tweak" my domain and thoroughly killed WordPress. Please check back in a day or two - I have all my posts, but I'll have to back-date them and repost. UPDATE: Thanks to a colleague, I have ... http://sparksofhope.org/2009/06/wow-crash-sob-stay-up-late/ Had a great day today geocaching with PAECT members and Keystone Technology Integrators.  It's late, but since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few thousand words ;-) Thanks to Kristin Hokanson for the camera skills. http://sparksofhope.org/2009/06/geocaching-at-mciu/ Well, it’s finally happened. Due to budget cuts, my school has decided to save a significant amount of money by reducing its power consumption - first on the list are all of the computers in the computer labs and the entire server room.  Starting today, the servers will be online ... http://sparksofhope.org/2009/04/its-finally-happened/ I’ve been quiet here for a while, letting Diigo fill up the space. But now I’m headed to EduCon 2.1 tomorrow and I’m really looking forward to recharging my educational batteries. I’ve had a tough time at school this year - everything I thought was working really well was thrown away ... http://sparksofhope.org/2009/01/off-to-educon-2-1/ I’ve always been conscientious about recycling when it comes to electronics - I take my old rechargeable batteries to Lowe’s to be recycled - I don’t throw computers out (although right now I have a LOT of computers sitting in my home office).  And when I see an announcement of ... http://sparksofhope.org/2008/11/the-electronic-wasteland/ I know I’ve been quiet lately - I’ve been taking courses as well as teaching a grad class and I feel like the end of the day comes before I’ve completed all the things I meant to.  But I did want to reflect on the grad classes I’m taking in ... http://sparksofhope.org/2008/11/on-leadership-and-being-led/ I spent the past week co-presenting at the Keystone Technology Integrators Summit, held at Bucknell University. In as many of the cases as I could attend, the presenters/instructors tried to hold the “lecture” to a minimum so that people could have time right then and there to apply new skills. ... http://sparksofhope.org/2008/08/differentiated-learning-is-only-for-children/