New Blog. New Digs. New... Bligs.

Hello internet. Let's be honest. You're probably on my blog because of Harry Potter Monopoly and not because of my educational philosophizing. That's ok. Maybe someone involved with education also happened to be a Harry Potter and Monopoly fan, they found the blog, and then they accidentally read one of my other posts and found it insightful.

Anyway, I've decided to move on. From Blogger, that is. No, internet, I'm not done with you. In fact, I consider it to be leveling up. Instead of using a subdomain of Blogspot, I actually have my own domain with what almost looks like a legitimate website. Check it out: CollettCreative.com. I've already transferred all my Design + Tech Ed posts, so those superfans out there can re-experience my oldie-but-goodie posts without leaving my shiny new website.

With this new legitimacy I plan on blogging more. You can look forward to rants posts about education, technology, design, and/or multimedia. Basically what I've been blogging about here, I guess, but now there's a dedicated page for the tutorials I've made, and a page with my resume information, so employers who read my blog will have an easier time hiring me.

Yep I think that's it. My last post using Blogger. So... bye.

Audacity Tricks + Podcast

You may have heard of Audacity, the free audio recorder and editor that you can download from a website that looks like it came from 1996. The interface of the software itself isn't much better.

But what it lacks in style, it makes up for in power. (I already mentioned it's free, right?) I created a podcast highlighting three features that I think are rad. You can listen here:


Or you can read on for text and pictures.

Remember Picasa?

Another week, another assignment for school. This time: Picasa. In this post I'll share photos that have been edited and uploaded through Picasa.

Somewhere in Arches National park.

There was one time, back when I used Google Sites to manage my classroom website, that I had visions of using Picasa albums to share student best-of work. After all, Google Sites had a widget you could throw on a page, select an album, and instant slideshow. But since Google Sites and I parted ways when I left it for Weebly, so did Picasa and I split up.

Unnecessary Skills: Keeping Order and Commanding Attention

Keeping order and commanding attention are important for drill sergeants. Soldiers need to follow orders. But students? They're going into a world not to follow orders, but to think creatively and solve problems.

If you're involved in education to any degree, you should read Disrupting Class by Clayton M. Christensen. Almost everything I read nearly drives me into an agreement rant, but for now I'll just share this quite regarding what teaching used to be, what it has become, and what should be unnecessary in the future:

A profession whose work primarily was in tutoring students one on one was hijacked into one where some of the teacher's most important skills became keeping order and commanding attention.

I'm serious. Read this book.

Four Skills for Teachers of the Future

I'm taking an online HTML/CSS class over the summer and almost of all of it is taught via video and textbook. So it makes me wonder: how hard could it be to simply teach myself all of this?

As I discuss the future of education with other educators, especially regarding how technology is changing it, we almost always end up at the same question: if this works, will it put us out of a job? But there are a few skills that might be irreplaceable by technology, and we'd be wise to develop them now.