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…that I haven’t taken yet, but patience! (I do have well over two thousand images on my flickr account. Check it out by just clicking on any of my photos.) India is three weeks away and the destination is just as thrilling and revealing as the voyage. I’ll be in Delhi, Agra, Jaipur and Pushkar on a friggin’ camel! In the meantime, let me catch you up.
In the news:
I don’t know if to hang my head down in shame as one of the most advanced nations only graduates 70.5% of its students. Although Houston has done great job in increasing its numbers above the national average, as a whole, Texas is having serious issues with this.

On the professional horizon: Can your boss ever get dooced? (Dooced meaning fired for blogging.) Well, not if they never keep one. Considering just about every teacher is being forced to head that direction, already there with a personal blog, built one for their class’ e-portfolios district mandate…well shouldn’t the boss blog too? My take is that being an administrator is not easy and dealing with a small school of 500 students really means that the administrator affects the lives of 2,000 people or more. A blog can only increase sensitivity and liability for that person. However, as a teacher, I really have no respect for a someone who has no idea the amount of work a blog requires and will therefor not compensate accordingly or have realistic expectations. Via Education & Tech

FREE: You gotta love it, and not just for educators only! Ever wanted to go to college for free, yes I said FREE, well check this out Universities with the Best Free On-line Courses. While it wont give you your degree or prepare you for the massive amounts of writing you’ll happily do, it will remove much of the anticipation, give you a good heads up on the class and make learning a reward onto itself.

FOR EDUCATORS: Giga pixels is here, hurray! Remember those really cool pictures from Mars? Well the people who made the camera at Carnegie Mellon University are hoping to preserve the images of the world’s heritage sites by partnering with schools to take pictures of them. They hope the technology will be available for the public on a later date and at a far less cost than your mega pixel camera. Check out the giga sexy visuals from learning.com. Can you imagine movies with this technology? While you’re there peek in on the Grock It debate of the overhaul of the educational system. I both like and dislike the idea of peer learning because it changes class sizes but even now as a graduate student, I feel like the instructor is copping out when I get this kind of work. The educational experience then depends on the students if they are able to contribute to the class and make it worth while…so why am I paying the university to teach? It has worked for the people at Carnegie Mellon’s IT and education department but that’s a very extraordinary example. The jury is still out on this one.

Spiritually:
Has your mind on your money got nothing but money on your mind? Then you’re missing out on 6 important things in your life, according to Dumb Little Man, like self-esteem, self awareness, and happiness. Talk about a heated debate on this one! Although I’m leaning toward the “money is great start to happiness” camp, a lower paycheck may not mean less when additional fees for things like a good health care package go away. Health care….that’s another post.

Well folks, love to hear your input! Remember, you’re never lost, you just don’t know where you’re going yet.

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