Happy Birthday to us!
Jim Forde :-)
It has been an interesting year since this web experiment was started. We are now out of our infancy and into our toddler stage. As all toddlers, we are sure to tumble and fumble but we hope to continue growing and learning.
I would like to address a few of the most common questions presented to us as we promote and use the site with educators, parents, and community leaders.
How did this whole thing get started?
The idea of doing a site like this had been rolling around the back of my mind for about two years. Prior to the "dot-bomb" I even thought that I might try and make money from this concept. I woke up from this delirium and decided to give it a go anyway in the hopes that it could be a useful space.
I ran the concept by Ian Jukes, who happened to be presenting to a group I worked with, in my hometown of Stamford, CT and he provided the final (emotional) kick in the pants I needed to pull it together. Thanks Ian. I then turned to my long time friend and colleague Heather Ross to help me flesh out the concept. She was silly enough to assist me and has been on board since day one. Thanks Heather.
Who am I and what is my hidden agenda?
I am currently a technology teacher in Stamford, CT. I have 10 years of teaching experience, mostly in science. I also spent 3 years as a technology staff developer and webmaster of middleschool.com. If there is a pro-technology bias at all on the site it may be due to these rich experiences. It is also true that these same experiences have allowed me to see some of the pitfalls of poorly used or implemented ed tech.
My interest is in creating a web space that provides all opinions on the use of Ed tech with kids in an easy to use format. I want to assist grad students, teachers, parents, journalists etc. by giving them easy access to great ideas on the topic of Ed tech.
As painful as this may sound, I don't have a business plan for this site. I simply want to offer this space to encourage intelligent conversation about the appropriate use of Ed tech in K- 12 schools.
How is the site doing?
There are a lot of different ways to assess whether or not the work on this site has been worth the effort. Here are some numbers that put things into perspective.
•As of 3/23/02 we have had 47,449 visitor sessions.
• The total cost for hosting the site and paying salaries for the year has been about $500, which amounts to about a penny per visitor session.
(Special thanks to Heather Ross for her faithful dedication and service to the site and also to our featured guests who were not reimbursed for their great articles.)• We have 0 sponsors, sell 0 products, and offer our users 0 ads. These are nice numbers...don't you think?
•We have been used as a link on over 30 college course websites and that number is growing steadily!
What's coming?
• More live interaction with our users through tappedin.org - join us for our 4/1 live chat at 8 PM in the after school on-line room! We will be there on the first Monday of each month.
• More mavens
• More featured guests and featured topics.
What do you see as the ultimate goal of this site?
As a science teacher I thought a lot about the ideas of Carl Sagan in his book The Demon Haunted World...Science as a Candle in the Dark. He suggested that all students should be equipped with a "bologna detection kit" that they can apply to the information and ideas they confront in their lives. It is my hope that our site may one day be rich enough to serve this role for those interested in educational technology.
Thank you for using the site.
Please let me know what you think we should be doing at jim@edtechnot.com.
