Learning Curve

She was the heart and soul of the department she headed and the course she taught. She was the epitome of LifeSmarts. She took a concept, an idea only roughly sketched, and polished it to perfection. She is Beth Hutchinson Barber, and we will hold her in our hearts forever.

Beth is off to her Virginia Beach home, and as we send her on her way, we want her to know how much a piece of each of our hearts she carries with her. God speed, Beth, and enjoy the sun, sand, and freedom a new life brings. You were loved and you will be missed.

Beth Barber’s Retirement Party from RJ Stangherlin on Vimeo.

Some tools, like people, are cooler than others. Like any Web 2.0 user, I admit there are so many cool tools that it becomes difficult to keep up with the proliferation of tech concepts. Still, one often just reaches out and grabs you, sometimes filling an unstated but recognized need. So it was with box.net. Popping up in my Google Reader, there it was on a tech post by a friend I follow. I never need an excuse to try a tool on for size, usability, and classroom applications, so I gave it a spin.

You need to register (less than a minute), and you will get a welcoming email, but no need to verify the account. Up and running in under 60 seconds. That’s a huge plus point in my digital book. Another plus point is that box.net is a very simple aggregator of whatever you want to house in one place. But what I LOVE about this tool is embeddable code. If after working with an app, I cannot embed it so people can see it (who clicks on links anymore), then why do I want to use it in the first place. And with this tool, you can, as always, edit your code to size your box, just like you adjust height and width in an image, YouTube…you get the point.

Today one of my colleagues, Jennifer Brinson, and I were discussing technology and pedagogy. I liked her comment about how technology does not drive pedagogy, but rather, properly used, it is quite the opposite. I couldn’t agree more.

So, here it is, my first foray into a tool I will continue to use as a great go-to tool–and its application.

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Image by Daniel F. Pigatto via Flickr