My never-ending writing project continues

Now that I have had a COVID vaccination, I feel safe enough to "hit the road" and find a nice warm place to sit outdoors and write for a week or so. While I have gone to the Dominican Republic in the past for this writing retreat, I am still not 100% confident of air travel and international destinations.

So my plan is to follow the Mississippi River south, eventually steering toward Atlanta to visit my son and his wife. From there I'll head toward the Gulf Coast, checking out small resorts along the coast. (Any recommendations for cheap places to stay for a week would be appreciated!) My plan is to visit my daughter and family in Kansas City on the way home. I miss my children and grandchildren very much.

My writing project is more personal than professional. For some time, I have been compiling portions of Blue Skunk entries that might be considered "keepers." Originally I planned to write a sequel to my "back of the room book," Machines Are the Easy Part; People Are the Hard Part that I wrote and my son illustrated in 2004 (free download here). Unlike my other books, published by respectable national companies, this little 126 booklet I self-published, allowing me to be a bit more personal, less formal in sharing my pithy insights and riotous humor. (Hah). Its primary audience was teachers, librarians, and technologists. I’d bring a few print copies to my workshops and give them as door prizes. It was, and still is, a fun little book. And did I mention it is a free download?

But I am changing the audience for this yet-to-be-named sequel. To help me focus on what writings might have a better shelf life, my grandsons will be my target readers. (Not that I actually expect them to do so.)  I doubt either will go into teaching, educational technology, or librarianship, so my thoughts need to be sufficiently generic to have meaning to engineers, doctors, and post-hole diggers.

Writing about education - especially when it comes to technology and librarianship - has always been tricky - being relevant without soon being dated. I felt my professional books really only had a shelf life of about five years before they needed a revision. Nothing like a reference to Myspace to have readers question your work.

To sort of put myself in the mood for writing, I will be posting chapters from Machines Are the Easy Part over the next couple of weeks. 

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From Machines Are the Easy Part; People Are the Hard Part. 

Illustrations by Brady Johnson

Forward: the true miracle of the pyramids

I once visited the Great Pyramids of Giza and have always remembered an observation made by the Gaddafi look-alike tour guide:

“Most people marvel at the engineering and building when looking at these ancient wonders. But the true miracle was the sophistication of human management 4,000 years ago. How did this early civilization feed, house, train, organize and motivate the workers in order to complete these giant undertakings?”

Many books and articles on educational technology focus on the equipment itself – what software to use, how to create and manage networks, how to write lesson plans that incorporate technology, what technology skills all students need – all sprinkled with a generous dose of TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms). Heavy on the machines; light on the humanity.

This little book takes a somewhat skewed approach to educational technology. It’s focus is on the human elements to which attention must be paid before technology can have an impact on teaching and learning.

The book is designed to be read in one sitting or in lots of little sittings. (I know where I will be keeping my copy!) It doesn’t replace anything already available. It’s not definitive on any topic.

But it is my hope it will make you think, give you an insight or two, appeal to those of you who wish to think about technology only a healthy amount of your waking lives, be reassuring to those of you who are top-notch educators without being technology gurus, and perhaps give you a chuckle or two. No “feature creep” here.

Comments

[Jim]

Safe travels. Let me know if you need anything when in ATL.