Transparent Aluminum

I've been searching all over trying to find the first place I read about this so I could thank them for the link, but apparently everyone and his litter mates has read and posted already, and I'm not in the mood to search all the way to the end of the internet to find it.

Many of the sites link the transparent aluminum to Star Trek IV, where it was used to build large tanks to haul whales, but in this case the Air Force is developing it as armor.

I just don't want to see the local constabulary sitting at the donut shop wearing bulletproof suits made out of this stuff...

Where do we find the time? Or should we?

Darren Kuropatwa at A Difference posted Monday some links about blogging and presentations, including these truly dynamic presentations:

Laurence Lessig uses powerpoint in his lectures.

this presentation on digital identity by Dick Hardt.

Go ahead and look at them. If you're used to the typical in-service PowerPoint, they'll blow your rubber booties off.

Talk about shaking my kennel with the power of technology as a presentation tool.

First, kudos to Darren for the links, then kudos to Lessig and Hardt for their presentations.

I can't help but wonder how much time it took to put the presentations together, and how that fits into the day of a teacher like Darren or any of the rest of us. Darren has at least three distinct preparations. Last year I had four, and the teacher who replaced my retired self has five this year. Is it possible within the constraints of a 24-hour day to BE that effective?

In the sense that each of us knows that to be effective we have to present, yes. I know very well that each of those 50-minute blocks of time has to be planned: we need a destination and a map, we need to choose the appropriate means of transportation, we need ways to determine if we've arrived at our goal and, increasingly, to prove to others that we did.

And certainly, a powerful presentation a la Lessig or Hardt could be one of the means of transport we might choose. But let's not lose track of the fact that they had more time to prepare an individual presentation than we have to prepare for an individual class. Hypothetically, a 50-minute planning period (if we're not using it for grading or meetings or just recharging (or a combination)) provides about ten minutes to get ready for each individual class.

But how many of us present the same material year after year? Every year for the last I-don't-know-how-long I've introduced any number of American authors and their work. I've taught narrative forms and poetic forms. How many of those journeys might have been more efficient using presentation software as effectively as these two do? So could I take an hour here or an hour there to build a carriage for my Emily Dickonson unit? Or to groom a horse for Stephen Crane? Or swab a deck for Melville? And then use those tools year after year with only fine-tuning in between?

I think that's the only way we can get the mileage out of our time that we need to.

And of course, since it's Wednesday...

It's the Carnival of Education , Week 35, A venerable institution before it's a year old. Imagine that...

Join the Party!

Brian started celebrating his second blog-o-versary yesterday, and the party is still going on. Stop by and have hors d'oeuvres with him, dance if you're so inclined, maybe have a drink. Let's see how many days we can get this party to last :)

You've got HotMail..

Once a week or so, a blog refuses a comment from me because I use my Hotmail address. I get a message that reads something about "questionable content: hotmail," and have to resort to subterfuge to post whatever brilliance I've decided to share.

I do understand, at least sort of. I mean, if I can get a Hotmail address, so could less scrupulous dogs. Dogs, for instance, that wanted to post links to their favorite doggy style sites, or just spam rude crap to choke off rational discussion.

But here's my situation: Alpha and Beta have changed ISPs four times in the last six months. As far as I know, they still have at-earthlink.net addies that work. They had an at-direcway address or two. They have two or three at-sbcglobal.net addies that may or may not work. And then they have their old, tried-and-true original e-mail address that they've had forever (at least since the week that Al Gore invented the internet). I prefer not to use that one, because most of the time that's full of family correspondence and Beta's shopping, and why in the world would I want to clutter that up? So I went out and got myself a hotmail accout. It's portable, it's easy to access from wherever I might have traveled with them, it's just convenient. So that's what I use, and that's where people can get ahold of me.

Today it was Kimberly over at Number 2 Pencil whose blog's comment filter reacted to my hotmail address. So, resourceful critter that I am, I used one of those maybe-it-works, maybe-it-doesn't addresses and posted anyway (actually, I know it's a legitimate address).

That creates a problem though, because if for some reason she decides to e-mail me to congratulate me on my insight, I'll never know. I don't check that account, Alpha doesn't check it, Beta doesn't check it. Not even ankle-biting Omega checks it.

I guess all that's just a long way of saying that I wish people would use content filters rather than address filters. Not every dog with a hotmail address is a bad dog. Now, I have to go check on that squirrel whose been bothering the leaves in the pecan tree...

Typical weekend, typical issues...

CNN reports today that under the Patriot act, the FBI has had some trouble making sure they wiretapped the right phones, and that has caused a couple of problems:

"The bureau's acknowledgment that it makes mistakes in some wiretaps -- although not specifically roving wiretaps -- came in a recent Justice Department inspector general's report on the FBI's backlog of intercepted but unreviewed foreign-language conversations.

The 38,514 untranslated hours included an undetermined number from what the FBI called "collections of materials from the wrong sources due to technical problems." "

Huh? Thirty-eight thousand, five hundred fourteen HOURS of untranslated tape??

That's over four years of 24/7 translating. Is there room in NCLB for foreign language instruction? Even in the name of the national interest?

The other thing that caught my eye was this:

"Spokesman Ed Cogswell said that language describes instances in which the tap was placed on a telephone number other than the one authorized by a court.

"That's mainly an instance in which the telephone company hooked us up to the wrong number or a clerical error here gives us the wrong number," Cogswell said."

So a teacher pulls that crap? What happens? I can hear the conversation:

"Sorry, sir. I placed the points on a test other than the one authorized by your son..."

Or better yet:

Sorry, ma'am. Someone else hooked me up to a number I didn't want. It's not really your daughter that concerns me after all...."


Here's their whole story...