EricHoefler.com

Herdict.org

Sunday, March 1, 2009

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This looks like a useful service for schools, and Tom Hoffman’s notes here are helpful. It’s important to know what sites are being blocked in which schools. I’d be very curious to see what patterns might emerge from this and whether they follow types of schools, socio-economic status, etc. I also think schools should have to provide [...]

Interface Design, Cognition, and Creativity

Sunday, April 13, 2008

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I just finished watching Bruce Sterling’s speech at the “Innovationsforum Interaktionsdesign” conference. Though a science fiction writer by profession, he’s become more and more immersed in the world of design, first as a vehicle into his fiction and eventually as the direct object of his study and thinking. Primary Point: Reducing Cognitive Load The main thesis [...]

Of Lovecraft and Bibliographies

Saturday, April 12, 2008

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Setup: Part One One of the requirements for my Masters in English1 was the standard scholarly research course. The major assignment of the course was to create a bibliography on a subject or author and then compose a bibliographic essay from the findings. I chose to research H. P. Lovecraft because I’d been interested [...]

So Much Wrong

Monday, April 7, 2008

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I don’t even know where to begin with this recent article from New York Magazine, “Testing Horace Mann,” about the fallout (or lack thereof) from offensive student postings on Facebook. It’s at the center of the current technology-related problems schools face. Part of this has to do with new problems the technology makes [...]

Plugging Our Ears

Sunday, March 30, 2008

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This morning, Doug Noon shared a post entitled “The Fiction of Intellectual Property.” The post and the comments are thoughtful, but ultimately frustrating. What follows isn’t a direct response (hence, I didn’t leave a comment), but just some thoughts that have been kicking around my head for a while related to that post [...]

Rough Draft 3.0

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

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I’ve just dumped Word for RoughDraft,1 at least when it comes to stories and scripts. So far, RoughDraft is much, much better than a typical word-processor for writing prose and scripts, and a decent replacement for (and certainly cheaper than) FinalDraft or Movie Magic Screenwriter.2 I haven’t worked much with FinalDraft, but MMS does have [...]

Working with Blackboard Presentation

Friday, February 15, 2008

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I delivered a presentation last night to teachers who work in a county that only allows them to use Blackboard. Given that, I saw no point to going in and talking about the possibilities that other tools and services make available, or complaining about the limitations of Blackboard.1 That’s a presentation for the administration. Instead, [...]

Notebooks & Textbooks

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

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I mentioned the notebook/textbook approach in my previous post, so I thought I’d take a minute here to explain it further. The idea is pretty basic, and something a lot of people already do without necessarily calling it that. To me, it’s just an approach to these tools that integrates blogs and wikis [...]

Zotero + IA

Monday, December 24, 2007

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If you haven’t already heard, some exciting news (and two clarifications) from Dan Cohen: I’m pleased to announce a major alliance between the Zotero project at the Center for History and New Media and the Internet Archive. The Zotero-IA alliance will create a “Zotero Commons” into which scholarly materials can be added simply via the Zotero client. Cohen’s [...]

They Don’t Know

Friday, November 9, 2007

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Gary Stager, in a few recent posts, has been stirring the pot by confronting some popular “Web 2.0″ ideas, like the digital immigrants/digital natives divide, the concept of the flat world, and the latest Michael Wesch video. Ultimately, Stager is serving as the voice of caution, warning pro-tech educators not to become enamored with [...]

Lesson Plans for Google Docs

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

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Google and Weekly Reader’s Writing for Teens magazine have put together a few lesson plans to help teachers and students use Google Docs for collaborative writing. The lessons provide instructions for using Google Docs, student-oriented suggestions, tips, and checklists for working through an online, collaborative revision process, and an educator’s guide. Helpful stuff. The [...]

Overstuffed

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

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I’ve been giving technology presentations for about five years now, and most of them have been successful. Not today’s, though. This is a quick self-inflicted debriefing. 1 The main problem was that the presentation was way too full. I wanted to focus on theory. I wanted to discuss the ways in which [...]