Alex Salinsky

I just found out that I’m in the Acknowledgments on the new Teach Like a Champion Field Guide. Pretty cool!

It also means that my name shows up in a Google Books Search.

Some of the best novels lose readers in the first few pages with arduous and sometimes boring context setting.  But once you break through all the context you find yourself floating in a story, letting it wash over you.  And that’s what happened to me listening to the October 2nd episode of Le Show on a long drive home.

Yves Smith, the primary contributor to the blog Naked Capitalism and recent author, explains in detail a big, but somehow quiet problem with banks and foreclosures on houses. Smith explains some of the reasons that the issue is complicated, suggesting that banks have made some very intentional choices in falsifying and forging information in contracts that are coming to surface via turmoil in foreclosures, but seems to by systematic.

The show is an hour long, has a 15 minute interruption of op-ed from the Harry Shearer, and — in typical NPR fashion — the speakers laugh at jokes that are more droll than funny.  These are your barriers to entry.

On the other hand, this is the smartest and, as far as I can tell, most honest bit of commentary I’ve come across on the radio or television in… well this is it, really. It’s a behind-the-curtain look at the realities of what’s going on in the banks that we bailed out. It’s not dumbed down sound bites from politicians. It’s not overly glib and super-biased ranting from talking heads who slant information to omit the facts that don’t support their position or might confuse their listeners.

Now I don’t claim to know anything about the housing market, so I’m not going to try to comment on it. I’m just so happy to hear someone actually explain a complicated issue on a (somewhat) mainstream platform rather than simplify, slant, and trick. And I’m going to keep an eye on Yves Smith’s Naked Capitalism blog.

P.S. Yves is pronunce “Eve.” Who knew?

I’ve seen this clip of Matt Damon around the Internet to commenter acclaim, and want to share some thoughts. The opinions here are mine not my organization’s.

Look, Matt Damon is smart. He apparently wrote the screenplay to Good Will Hunting (which I love!) and he suggested that Ed Policy might be troubled by an “intrinsically paternalistic view of problems that are much more complicated…” I’m not even sure what it means to have an intrinsically paternalistic view of complicated problems, but it doesn’t sound good for Ed Policy!

He’s also at a “Save Our Schools” rally with his teacher mom. Save Our Schools is a cleverly titled lobbying group representing teachers unions who, at their heart, demand that no accountability measures be placed on public education.

An open letter to an artist nervous about plagiarism… from the world of Social Media.

Dear Artist, Writer, Videographer, or other content producer,

You are wise to consider how your work might be viewed or used. We  want to share some thoughts about being a content producer in the age of social media, and offer a solution to protecting and promoting your work…

Presenting videos via blogs is not for everyone, even if it is my favorite. Here are a couple of quick tips for non-techie presenters for showing videos.

In the video, I mention an application called VLC, but I forgot to mention that there is a portable version that can be loaded onto a flash drive with your videos so that you are ready to present on any computer.

Apparently I had a cold when I recorded this video.

How Can I Teach My Teachers to Use Moodle?

Building your Moodle course can be as simple as setting up a forum for a one-time activity, or as complex as your curriculum. The videos below walk new Moodle teachers through the process of setting up a course page for student use.

Quick Tip: Before editing your Moodle course, you must click the “Turn Editing On” button at the top-right corner of the page.

If videos aren’t playing, download the latest version of Adobe’s flashplayer here.

Getting Started

How can I teach my students to use Moodle?

NOTE: This page was adapted from a much bigger Moodle Course page. Let me know if you want more!

If videos aren’t playing, download the latest version of Adobe’s flashplayer here.

Posting a Reflection to Your Blog (Video)

Weekly Blog Questions
You can copy and paste the below questions into your blog. Watch the video below to find out how.

1. What one thing do I want to remember from the last week?
2. How did I succeed in Media Communications or in school last week?
3. How can I continue to succeed next week?
4. What technical tips did I learn that the rest of the class might not know?
5. What exciting things are happening in my life?

Video

You can embed this video into your own Moodle Course using the embed code below:

The secret is out… I’m a Luddite.

I just don’t like to use new technology until I have a good reason for it. But people keep asking me about Twitter — What is it? How does it work? And most importantly, should I use it?

I finally broke down and started using Twitter to support my “personal brand” as suggested by David Grandison at Urban :: Thinking.

Here’s what I’ve learned about using Twitter productively…