As I’ve mentioned previously, this site in one form or another has existed since 2006. Through multiple platform changes and changes in focus, I’ve shared thoughts and insights here for the past decade and a half.
As we all know, change is the only constant. With my job responsibilities and beginning my doctoral work, I knew I needed to find a better way to share my thoughts and things I find of interest that you might enjoy.
So, here’s my plan:
On Mondays and Fridays, I will share posts with links to things I’ve found that you may also find useful.
Tuesday – Thursday, I’ll be sharing links with my own commentary and hopefully making some connections with other sources. I may even have multiple posts these days.
I’m doing my best to build an online database of connected topics and thoughts that, I hope, will help me better formulate my own thinking around different subjects I’m passionate about.
Sometimes it will be education, sometimes technology, sometimes life. Whatever I find interesting is game for this blog.
Who knows? Maybe I’ll build something you’ll enjoy.
Thanks for taking the time to read this post. If you’ve enjoyed the insights and stories, consider showing your support by subscribing to my weekly newsletter. It’s a great way to stay updated and dive deeper into my content. Alternatively, if you love audiobooks or want to try them, click here to start your free trial with Audible. Your support in any form means the world to me and helps keep this blog thriving. Looking forward to connecting with you more!
In case you haven’t heard, an assistant principal was recently fired because he chose to read the children’s book “I Need a New Butt” to a group of students.
Toby has shared his thoughts on this announcement in a thread of Tweets, posted here for your enjoyment.
On April 28th I had a chance to speak in front of the Hinds County School District Board. The following thread contains a story that sums up what happened. Thank you – Toby Price 1 of 22 pic.twitter.com/VOHtxVIK8k
I’ll just say this right now: with the content of most children’s books out there, to fire someone over a book about butts requires a special kind of an asshole.
There is a spot reserved in hell for administrators, parents, and members of the general public who think it’s ok to fire a teacher over reading a wildly popular children’s book that is available everywhere books are sold.
I would rant more on this but I can’t. It’s just dumb.
Public education is facing an unprecedented level of hatred from conservative Americans right now. New laws are being crafted to punish teachers for teaching content that is not “approved” by parent groups or might be offensive and entire curricula and books are being banned.
Now, some schools are banning access to digital books from repositories like Overdrive and Epic, removing thousands of resources from the hands of students and families.
Thousands of schools and public libraries use these services to provide a much wider array of books than they could within the limits of the physical space in their buildings. During the COVID-19 pandemic, families easily accessed books from home comfort to keep their kids engaged and learning while sheltering.
Enter the fear mongers.
With new laws in place requiring that any book used in a school be reviewed and chosen by a faculty member, the number of books available will drastically decrease.
With over two million titles, trying to get someone to review every book in Overdrive is not only an impossible request, it’s downright foolish.
No one could review all that content and approve it for student usage.
How much longer will we abide by such unsubstantiated fear and hatred?
“That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also”
Heinrich Heine
Colophon
Latine non loquor
Currently writing:
Volume 1: The Heretic Chronicles – a fantasy story about a girl, her sword, and extreme fundamentalist religion (WC: 15,457)
Untitled Sci-Fi novel – a group of students race across the stars, avoiding an evil empire (WC: 275)
Sci-fi short story – earth as a farm for aliens (WC: 492)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Mike Paul, and include a link to pikemall.tech.
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Cory Doctorow’s work at Pluralistic inspired the layout, focus, and work displayed here. Hat tip to Cory for all his fine work.
Fake news. Disinformation. Misinformation. We see it all and so do our students.
We can choose to ignore it or we, as educators, can help students see what is real, what is fake, and what is somewhere in-between.
Kimberly Rues writes as she tries to get a better understanding of fake news herself:
Eating the proverbial elephant one bite at a time seems like a great place to begin, but which bite to take first? I would propose that we might begin by steeping ourselves in definitions that allow us to speak with clarity in regards to the types of misleading information. Developing a common vocabulary, if you will.
In my quest to deeply understand the elephant on the menu, I dug into this infographic from the European Association for Viewers Interests which took me on a tour of ten types of misleading news—propaganda, clickbait, sponsored content, satire and hoax, error, partisan, conspiracy theory, pseudoscience, misinformation and bogus information. Of course, I recognized those terms, but it allowed me to more clearly articulate the similarities and differences in text and images that fit these descriptions.
My first instinct is to keep bringing us all back to the subject of digital citizenship (which is just good citizenship in a digital world) but I know I’m still a small voice in a big world.
