I’m home for six days, sixteen hours, and some change, and I’m so switched off that I just can’t get to some serious things that I’d shoved over to this seemingly mythical time at home. Mostly, I’ve been playing. Yesterday I replaced the theme of my blog, because when I saw it pulled up on a PC the other day, it looked nasty. So I started simple, with the WordPress “classic” theme, and then fleshed out the CSS file. What do you think?
Today, I’m hunting for a wiki engine to replace PMWiki. I’m still very happy with PM, but its wiki-style code editing intimidates audiences when I demonstrate how my handouts are editable. So I’m looking for a new engine with WYSIWYG editing, will aggregate RSS feeds, and has an editable skin. So far no luck. I’ve played with Dokuwiki, and Wikiwig, and am currently uploading WackoWiki. If this doesn’t work, I’ll take another look at Wikispaces and WetPaint.
One interesting thing came across my desk yesterday. While at Elwood, NY earlier this week (seems like weeks ago), Patti Novy, of eInstruction? brought in about 300 clickers for teachers to use during the convocation. The superintendent posed some questions during his part, and then I added some questions as a lead-in to my presentation. Patti sent me the data yesterday, and some of the results were quite interesting to me, now having time to reflect on them.
Do you play video games?
| 31% | Yes |
| 69% | No |
No real surprise here. A lot of the educators in my audiences are young, and I continually run into more experienced teachers who are enthusiastic gamers.
Do you text message with your phone?
| 56% | Yes |
| 44% | No |
This is one of those Twitter type questions. People who do it can’t see how they got along with out it. Those who don’t, can’t see any reason to start.
Do you have a Facebook or MySpace page?
| 20% | Yes |
| 80% | No |
I wonder if the response would have been different if I’d asked for a show of hands.
Where do you go first to find information?
| 96% | |
| 1% | Wikipedia |
| 0% | Technorati |
| 3% | Encyclopedia (book) |
Now that I see these results, I wish I’d asked something like, “How often do you go to…”
Which do you learn more from on a daily basis?
| 64% | Newspaper |
| 32% | Online news |
| 0% | RSS Aggregator |
| 0% | |
| 4% | Telephone |
Again, no surprises here, though it would be interesting to get an age breakdown — or perhaps a breakdown by discipline taught.
Of the following, which do you think is most important to success in the 21st century work place?
| 26% | Ethics |
| 29% | Oral Communication |
| 12% | Reading Comprehension |
| 27% | Collaboration |
| 6% | English Language Arts |
Probably another poor question, but this was the biggest surprise to me, in terms of what I expected to get from a group of teachers. Yet, I think that it is clear to us all that the expections of today’s and the future workplace are deeper and far more interesting than what I was prepared for. I was very happy to see ethics up there with Oral Communication and “Collaboration.”
Hey Dave,
For future reference, CPS has data slicing capabilities. If you had begun your survey with some simple demographic questions then after the session you would be able to cross reference the 20somethings with their particular answers on the gaming questions or the texting questions. And then the 30somethings with their answers to the same question. Email me or Patti if you have any questions about this. patti dot novy at einstruction.com or ltevebaugh at einstruction.com. I hope this helps!
Luke