Students Lobby for Smart Phones in Class

This falls under the Changing Times category. It also falls under the "I'm feeling older" category. These suggestions may sound strange to people in my generation, but will it be the new normal?

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Smart phones can equal smart kids — that’s what a group of Chicago Mikva Challenge students say.

Kids should be able to use now-banned cell phones in Chicago Public School classrooms to look up definitions, do on-the-spot internet searches, record lectures for later review and conduct surveys, among other things, kids said in a 53-page white paper of CPS technology recommendations released Friday.

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The 15 student members of the Mikva Challenge Education Council also recommended that other Net Generation staples — such as YouTube, Skype, and online games — be woven into CPS lessons. In a report to be presented to Chicago Schools CEO Ron Huberman on Sept. 1, they even offered suggestions for teachers and principals:
• Let teachers use now-banned YouTube for educational purposes, such as showing kids videos of veterans describing their experiences in World War II.
• Use videoconferencing to allow kids to take classes offered at other schools or to hear guest speakers.
• Allow kids to use personal laptops in class for note-taking purposes.
• Create a website for teachers to share technology-savvy lessons and educational online games.
• Let teachers videotape lessons, to help them improve their delivery but also to allow kids to review them later. Teachers also could videotape special lessons for small groups of students stuck on the same concept.
• Require principals to create an annual report on technology spending, so students can see where the money is going. One Mikva Education Council member said her school was spending technology money “frivolously’’ on flat screen TVs.

The Problem with Unlimited

From Seth Godin

If you work out on a weight machine that has a limit--where you have to push the bar until it stops--you're far more likely to to hit that limit than if you had left it to your own initiative to figure out how far is far enough.

People enjoy going to the max (or in the case of Spinal Tap, a little farther than max, to 11). But if there is no max, no limit, it's much easier to satisfy yourself and declare that you've done enough.

If you want your best users to do more, one way to do it is to announce the most they can do. While this may dissuade a few people from pushing ever farther, it will in fact motivate a large number of people to up their game.

"The maximum number of times a week you can dine here is three."

"The maximum bonus paid is $100k."

"The maximum number of tweets per day is 30."

Great quote on pilgrimage and humility

“I do not apologize for admitting to being on a pilgrimage in theology, as if it were in itself some kind of weakness of intelligence or character. Feeling our way toward the truth is the nature of theological work even with the help of Scripture, tradition and community …. A pilgrimage, therefore, far from being unusual or slightly dishonorable, is what we would expect theologians who are properly aware of their limitations to experience.”

- Clark Pinnock

Found this on blog of Jeremy Berg.