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Tech-savvy Lawyers Needed…

January 19th, 2010

: Image by $ydney via Flickr

?The Legal Profession has witnessed a change much like the Automobile industry. The invention of the Automobile permitted only three color choices according to Henry Ford; black, black, or black. Today, Auto manufacturers compete among a myriad of choices available to consumers. Law practice has likewise changed, according to the recent 2009 ABA Summit held in Scottsdale, AZ. Competition for choice has arrived and Lawyers must become nimble navigators of change.

In the techno-rich world in which we live, speed trumps size. The “billable hour ponzi scheme” (ABA Summit, 2009) is toppling. To gain and maintain a big and fast competitive edge requires technology investment. Because the consumer controls the marketplace today, technology is needed to stay abreast of data. Simulation and interactivity are the norms, not the exceptions.

The main skills needed are » More: Tech-savvy Lawyers Needed…

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Posted in Critical Thinking, Education, Internet, Technology

Tags: Add new tag Electronic discovery Henry Ford Law Law Practice Support Lawyer lawyers legal profession ple personal learning network Practice of law professional development Services Technology trends

The decade according to 9-year-olds. Watch this video for an educational perspective of technology

December 28th, 2009

Tue Dec 8, 8:51 pm ET

So much has defined this past decade, but imagine what it would be like if the past 9 years were the only years you had lived through. Yahoo! News editor Allison Louie-Garcia spoke to fourth graders in Orange County, Calif. to get some perspective on the ’00s from those who have only experienced it. From naming the biggest celebrities, to discussing computer habits, to explaining 9/11, these 9-year-olds’ answers–often funny, sometimes sobering, always candid–offered a clear snapshot of life in the 21st Century.

(For best quality please click ” target=”_blank”>here).

Special thanks to Ms. Lim and her wonderful 4th grade class.

via news.yahoo.com

Here’s a nifty interview of some West coast children and their ideas of the world from their 9 year old perspective.

A great lesson plan idea for teachers, no? Students consider what questions to ask, interview their peers, and record their answers. Would be interesting to map the trends of greatest hopes and biggest fears among various age groups.

Posted via web from Dallas’s posterous

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Posted in Critical Thinking, Education, Environment, Futurism, Internet, Media, Social Media, Sustainability, Technology, environmentalism

Tags: 21st century learning children perspectives Technology

Polar Sea Ice Cap and Snow – Cryosphere Today – iPhone friendly puts data in your hands

December 17th, 2009

recent Arctic ice area N. hemispheric ice area N. hemispheric anomaly seasonal sea ice

via arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu

Before jumping on the ice-melt bandwagon, we should arm ourselves with the facts. This university science center website offers visual data, both historic and current.

The adaptation to the iPhone demonstrates how education is being changed by hand-held devices. Just this past week, a school in the U.K. gave iPhones to every student. Imagine trying to argue and debate with ubiquitous access to data in the palm of our hands.

Of course, critical thinking skills are still needed to sort through the vast array of opinion and conjecture and to skillfully help others release their death grip on old ideas without losing face.

Posted via web from Dallas’s posterous

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Posted in Conservationism, Critical Thinking, Education, Environment, Internet, Social Media, Sustainability, Technology, environmentalism

Tags: apps global warming iphone polar ice cap Technology web2.0

Teaching Futurology…

December 12th, 2009

: Image via Wikipedia

The jobs for which our children will be educated do not yet exist. Technological change is emerging faster than we can adapt. The most needed skill is critical thinking. Students need to be challenged to think about their thinking. What makes good thinking and what constitutes poor thinking? Thinking out loud enables groups of learners to hear the reasoning process of others. Higher order thinking is engaged when students extrapolate from given information to consider future possibilities.

For this reason, Future studies (Futurology not to be confused with the artistic Futurism movement) will become an important branch of study in higher education settings. Futurology teaches students how to extrapolate from major trends, what might or could happen in the future. There are many trend researching techniques, many birthed as a result of World War II “what if” scenarios studied by war time analysts.

Today, Futurology techniques for research are used for disaster planning, energy shortage considerations, job market predictions, and the like. The bottom line for those considering becoming a Futurologist? Develop your critical thinking skills. Without quality thinking, futuring will be more dangerous than useful.

Google’s Famously Difficult Job Interview Questions (neatorama.com)
Tough Economic Climate (slideshare.net)
Should schoolchildren be made to listen to a President’s speech and analyze it? (althouse.blogspot.com)

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Posted in Critical Thinking, Education, Futurism, Internet, Technology

Tags: Critical Thinking Education Research Technology

Everything I needed to know wasn’t available in Kindergarten… – The Future of Education

December 12th, 2009

via futureofeducation.com

However, although information may help reduce risk, genuine learning increases capability. Education needs more information as badly as a certain golfer needs endorsements.

Posted via web from Dallas’s posterous

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Posted in Critical Thinking, Education, Futurism, Sustainability, Technology

Tags: Education learning society values

VoiceThread – Group conversations around images, documents, and videos

December 12th, 2009

via voicethread.com

Very likely VoiceThread is one of the best Web 2.0 tools for classroom use to come around in awhile. Very powerful and embeddable just about everywhere. Check out this short explanation and try one yourself. Family reunion? Old family pic you wanna post and encourage some comments from others? Too much fun.

But can it improve learning? Certainly fits the constructivist paradigm. How about a self reflection on a themed unit? Or a review of best practices for tech integration for diverse learners? Listening to others think aloud can boost our own critical thinking skills.

Powerful tool with lots of potential. Worth the time and effort to become skilled therein, don’t you agree?

Posted via web from Dallas’s posterous

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Posted in Critical Thinking, Education, Social Media, Technology, pedagogy

Tags: learning tools lesson plan ideas online education pedagogy resources voice thread web2.0

Congressional Mathmatics…

December 8th, 2009

I rec’d this email today…

How many zeros in a billion?

The next time you hear a politician use the
word ‘billion’ in a casual manner, think about
whether you want the ‘politicians’ spending
YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend,
but one advertising agency did a good job of
putting that figure into some perspective in
one of it’s releases.

A billion seconds ago it was 1959.
A billion minutes ago, Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
A billion hours ago was the Stone Age.
A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.
A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our mind, let’s take a look at New Orleans. It’s amazing what you can learn with some simple division.

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking Congress for
250 BILLION DOLLARS to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number…
what does it mean?

A. Well… if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans
(every man, woman, and child)
you each get $516,528.

B. Or… if you have one of the 188,251 homes in
New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787..

C. Or… if you are a family of four…
your family gets $2,066,012.

Now do the math yourself and figure out how much every man,
woman and child in the U.S. would get if we split among us,
the $800 Billion allocated for the Health-care bill*

*(which requires the formation of 118 new government agencies to manage).

How is your math?

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Posted in Critical Thinking, Futurism, Government, Health, Simple Living, Sustainability

Tags: billion Government health care spending

Free google doc spreadsheet template for research writing #etcnau Useful to synthesize your thoughts.

December 8th, 2009

The beauty of this spreadsheet mapping tool* for writing papers is that you end up with all your major points at-a-glance and can truly synthesize your research. It also comes in handy if you have to defend your writing.

via spreadsheets.google.com

Copy and paste to your liking. Share as you like. This tool has saved me countless headaches when organizing literature reviews. Makes writing papers a breeze and revisiting them for a defense, much less stressful.

Posted via web from Dallas’s posterous

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Posted in Critical Thinking, Education, Internet, Technology, pedagogy

Tags: google docs research reporting spreadsheet synthesis map

What are Educational Technologist Leadership Competencies?

December 1st, 2009

The cool possibilities about the more than 200 real-time web 2.0 tools under development (Like Google Wave) is that sync and async are being melded together along with multi-dimensional communication tools such as voice, text, image, video, etc.

When semantic web becomes the standard (searchable text becomes recognizable object) then tagging and bookmarking values will be reduced and personal and group collections will become more useful.

Such collections will not simply consist of some items “saved” to another location, but more likely will consist of “searched” items and “pointed to” results. http://popurls.com is demonstrating the real-time value of aggregating crowd sourced and theme specific topics. Studying such real-time results can be a great source of discussion for critical thinking development.

The most important quality for Ed Tech leaders is to understand trends and adapt their craft to emerging innovations. Higher education may do students a disservice by focusing too much on tool techniques and too little on trend research.

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Posted in Critical Thinking, Education, Futurism, Internet, Media, Social Media, Sustainability, Technology, pedagogy

Tags: Critical Thinking Education future pedagogy Technology web2.0

Arabic Fastest Growing Language Users of Net…

November 16th, 2009

Always great to get up to date charts and graphs that visually represent unique views of who, what, why, and where on the world wide web 2.0.

Thanks to Internet World Stats for this graphic representation of language users on the Internet. Great tools for teachers and educators needing to teach critical thinking skills to students. Note the percent rate of growth. This is important when considering future trends.