Estonia by car

Since the museums were still closed on Tuesday, the LWW and I rented a little car and drove to Lahemaa National Park about 70 km from Tallinn. Stick shift, confusing maps, and snowy roads - vacations just don't get better than this!

Once of the major highway, we saw about six other cars all day, the roads narrowed and the trees grew close to either side of the road. The villages that popped up every 10 km or so seems sleepy.

The frigid coast of the Gulf of Finland was always close by.

Delighted to see a few thatch-roofed villages. Houses here tend to have names, not numbers.

This part of Estonia reminded me so much of northern MN. Does this look the North Shore of Lake Superior or what? I'd always wondered why my ancestors settled in the northern part of the U.S. Didn't they know it was a lot warmer a few hundred miles south? Well, I understand now they that found a "home away from home" in the snow.

I suspect I will always feel comfortable in a place that values earflaps as a fashion statement.

Closed Monday and Tuesday

Greetings from Tallinn. Go ahead, look it up in Wikipedia. I had to. The LWW and I are playing touristas for a few days prior to the beginning of the CEESA conference where I will be doing some sessions and a keynote.

Once again, I'm in a place that is more or less "off season" here in the cold and snowy capital of Estonia. We took a guided city tour yesterday that combined riding a bus (I hate tour buses) and walking which was lovely but damn cold. Every museum in the country seems to be closed on both Mondays and Tuesdays in Estonia which rather limits one's sightseeing options, but the buildings and city itself are quite interesting.

This beautiful view is from Toompea Hill down into the lower Old Town. Tallinn had the good fortune to be too poor to tear down its old city walls in the 18th century like so many European towns. It is now one of the world's few cities (like Xian and Rothenberg) that has these magnificent reminders of what were surely more symbols of security than any true deterrent to havoc. (Sort of like today's Internet firewalls, I expect.) I found it interesting that the wall existed to keep the nobility (upper town) apart from the merchants and craftsmen (lower town). Sort of early version of keeping the coach class cabin from using the first class bathrooms on today's aircraft.

Dead Cat Well in the heart of the old city gets its name from the probably apocryphal story that in order to appease a water spirit who threatened to dry up Tallinn's water supply, medieval citizen's tossed sacrificial animal carcasses down the well including, it seems, an inordinate number of stray cats. Tap water tastes OK to me.

The Fat Margaret Tower sits facing the harbor and once held a bunch of cannon, but now holds a maritime museum that I did not get to see since I was there on a Monday. I just loved the name of the place.

Russian Orthodox Church is as lovely inside as out and comes complete with a priest that looks just like Rasputin. The bulk of Estonians tend to be a-religious, but those who are tend to be Lutherans - just like in Minnesota.

Today we rented a car and drove along the northern Baltic Coast on small snowy roads. More when I get the pictures downloaded.

Having a lovely time. Wish you were here.

The changing role of tech support

When the platform changes, the leaders change. - Seth Godin

Can technology workers be as reactionary as others in education?

Most of us, I believe, have the reputation for doing our best to push the envelope, to create change, to foment revolution in our schools. Ot at least reading educational technology writers and listening to popular speakers at technology conferences would certainly lead one to that conclusion.

But at heart, might we be actually deeply reluctant to change as well?

I get this feeling most strongly when I hear about technology departments raising barriers rather than creating possibilities about new resources -  especially when the objections seem rather spurious (security of GoogleApps, bandwidth for YouTube, predators on Facebook, licensing of Skype, etc.). Are the concerns real or just because the way of doing something is different?

Why, I suppose, should tech support people be any happier about new directions that may significantly change their jobs, their skills, their power, their usefulness than anyone else? What happens:

• When individual workstations can maintained by restoring a common, simple image since settings and individual files will all be store online?
• When security and backup becomes the responsibility of an application server provider not the district?
• When voice and video become as (or more) important than data flowing through the networks?
• When our filters can be easily bypassed or students get Internet access using their own accounts, not the school's?
• When network reliability, adequacy and security become mission-critical for all staff and students?

I rather doubt the need for tech staff will decrease in the immediate future. It seems that just as the need for some tasks diminish, new tasks crop up. But some jobs will increase in value while others decrease. Anyone wish to suggest some job security strategies for techs?

I don't think blocking progress is one of them.