Can Teaching Be Outsourced?

You may recall I am reading Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat for an online PLU course. In chapter six, he describes the kinds of people who will be “untouchable,” that is their jobs will be safe in the flat world. I admit to thinking that teaching is one of those “untouchable” jobs. However, I am also taking this course online and specifically sought out an online masters program in Instructional Technology to apply to because I did not want to schlep downtown to classes two nights a week or go to a weekly professional development class at a school across town. I wanted the convenience of learning at my own pace, in my own home. And it’s not difficult anymore for adults to find an online program of study. What about K-12? Can teaching be outsourced? If it can, what do we as teachers need to be able to do in order to remain viable in the field of education. If it can’t be outsourced, why do you think that is the case? How will education change in view of the prospect of outsourcing?

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Five on Five: A Dialogue on Professional Development

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a podcast about technology professional development. The interviewer was Matt Vilano, editor at THE Journal. Matt said afterwards that it went so well that it might become an article, and sure enough, it has!

Five on Five: A Dialogue on Profession Development

A quintet of educators gathers to sound off on what works and what doesn’t in the ongoing mission to train teachers to use technology in classroom instruction.

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$1.2 billion MPS budget on the table

$1.2 billion MPS budget on the table Enrollment dips below 80,000 for 1st time in decadesBy ALAN J. BORSUK
aborsuk@journalsentinel.comPosted: April 14, 2008

Enrollment in the schools you first think of when you think of Milwaukee Public Schools is expected to shrink another 4.7% by September, Superintendent William Andrekopoulos said Monday as he released a $1.2 billion budget proposal for the coming school year.

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Twitterfox - dangerous for your cognitive health

I do enjoy twitter, and often find myself perusing the past posts at twitku, my twitter/jaiku posting tool of choice. Recently there was a bunch of activity regarding twitterfox, formerly called twitter notifier. It allows you to embed a twitter notifying popup in your firefox browser so you are immediately notified when someone updates (of course you can select how often, and you can decide to turn off the popup).

Personally, I keep a twitku tab open and check in when I want to. Which means, I am not interrupted. This works well for my productivity when I am sitting in foreign countries with slow internet connections. Sheesh.

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