Razor's Ed
By EdReach- The Education Media Network
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Podcast Description
Putting education under a spotlight, education critic O’Hagan riffs off the most recent education news and industry goings on. O’Hagan’s unique monologue style empathizes with the plight of the educator, and puts a spotlight on the inconsistencies and hypocrisies that surface in everyday classrooms, school districts, and in the field.
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Razor’s Ed Show #17: The Death Throes of the Interactive White Board | Has the interactive whiteboard technology run its course? Is it worth the time, money and effort to install? This week on the Razor’s Ed, I look at interactive whiteboard technology and riff on if it is the right time to buy. Update: Word is the Reflection app is almost ready for PC beta testing. Stay tuned to their website for details | 5/1/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Razor’s Ed Show #16: The Media Focus Is All Wrong . . . Again. | Once again, the national media has made the focus on stuff in the classroom, and NOT on educational pedagogy. This story on NBC Nightly News focuses on The Waldorf School of the Peninsula in Los Altos, California. The Waldorf School does not include high tech devices in their educational curriculum. That I have no problem. Listen on to hear where the problem absolutely lies in this story. Show links: The Waldorf Way: Silicon Valley school eschews technology (video) Waldorf School of the Peninsula Mission & Vision Leave me some feedback! Contact me with any questions or comments- razorsed@edreach.us Outro Music Credit: Goin’ Home by Chris Bergson Band | 12/22/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Razor’s Ed Show #15: Reflections on an iPad 1:1 Rollout | This week is the return of Razor’s Ed after a long hiatus. Focus of this show is the rollout of almost 500 iPads to students in grades six through twelve, and on what has made this rollout a unique and successful experience, in particular the administration, community, teachers and infrastructure. The students are in on the act, too (as they should be). Images from the iPad Rollout Forreston Junior Senior High School YouTube Channel (One of my favorite videos) | 11/21/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Razor’s Ed Show #14: And Now For Something A Little Different | This week on Razor’s Ed I go away from the conventional talk about technology and reflect on how college athletics has changed so much over my lifetime, and how there needs to be a focus on college sports for college kids. Do away with the donor and booster seats. You would not give high school donors the VIP treatment at football and basketball games, would you? Links Timeline: Jim Tressel’s Fall Southern Methodist Football Scandal Going, going, gone: Campus’ Lost Places This week’s outro music is by the Purdue Marching Band. It is “Purdue Fanfare / Hail, Purdue.” Follow me! @jimohagan | 6/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Razor’s Ed Show #13: How I Learned To Start Worrying And Not Call Them 21st Century Skills | This week on the Razor’s Ed, the focus is on the blog post Catch-21. It looks like 21st Century Skills has become just another hijacked educational term that has been twisted and turned and misused for profit and non-profit. This week’s outro music is Someone Great by LCD Soundsystem. | 5/17/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Razor’s Ed Show #12: Don’t Be Evil | This week on Razor’s Ed we look at two topics. First the purchase of Skype by Microsoft. Is this the death nail of Skype, at least as we know it, and what does it mean for all those almost 12,000 Skype in the Classroom teachers? Second, we look at the question raised in the new book Search & Destroy, Why You Can’t Trust Google Inc. by Scott Cleland “Is Google Evil?” More importantly, if privacy is one of our concerns with Google, then why are so many schools off-shoring their critical data to companies that maybe do not have such a great track record with regards to security and safety, or possibly worse yet, keeping it in house? Ah, conundrums. * Skype in the Classroom * Author [Scott Cleland] Asks the Question, Is Google Evil? * Author Scott Cleland’s Online Business Card * GoogleMonitor.com * Googleopoly.net * The Data Liberation Front * Access Your Google Dashboard of Data * Define: conundrum This week’s outro music is is More Bounce to the Ounce by Zapp. | 5/10/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Razor’s Ed Show #11: News at the Speed of Light | This week on Razor’s Ed, I look at the difference from how we got our information on 9/11 using technology and how we got it with the news of the assassination of Osama bin Laden. I also look at how we presented and how we can present this information to our students and how to model being good digital citizens while touching on the idea that “digital natives” is a sell-out term. Links Wikipedia-Death of Osama bin Laden [first post | lastest] 2000: Motorola Startac ST7867 Wordle White House Blog: Osama bin Laden is Dead Wordle of bin Laden is Dead Speech The Natives are Revolting The outro music is Show Me by Mint Royale with Pos from De La Soul. | 5/3/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Razor’s Ed Show #10: The BWG Strikes Again | Once again, we have a BWG (Box-and-Wires-Guy) who is using their power to unilaterally block websites that may actually have educational value. The website being blocked this time is the music website Pandora. Listen to the tale and how to handle a similar situation with your own BWG. Links Pandora Speedtest This week’s outro music is Dirty Laundry by Bitter:Sweet. | 4/26/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Razor’s Ed Show #9: It’s Time to Give Up Control in EdTech | First, I was stunned at the initial response to this topic. I really do not think I understand yet how revolutionary the idea is for an administrator to give up control. And yet this very country was founded on the idea that we would not be beholden and controlled by a distant king. And while my focus is around the control of technology in education, this topic has resonated with those outside of education technology. My profession is education, not technology. I refuse to be pigeon holed into the technology wing of education. I do not want to be a niche area of education. Instead, when I speak I want there to be breadth outside of technology. And with that, I give you this week’s podcast that extends my initial blog on this topic. The links and basis for this podcast may be found there. This week’s outro music is “Float On” by Modest Mouse. | 4/12/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Razor’s Ed Show #8: Transcendent Man | This week’s podcast revolves around the movie “Transcendent Man” about futurist Ray Kurzweil. This is the same Kurzweil also responsible for technologies like flatbed scanners and software that will convert text into speech. I discuss how men like Walt Disney and Ray Kurzweil are true futurists while guys like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were more visionary salesmen. Links Transcendent Man Epcot Center Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (the REAL Epcot) Walt Disney’s Vision of EPCOT – Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Pirates of Silicon Valley This week’s outro music is The Immigrant Song by Infectious Grooves. | 4/5/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Razor’s Ed Show #7: Are There Sharks In Your Water? | Following up on my blog post of the same name, I put the emotion behind the topic of predatory consultants offering huge savings to school districts by outsourcing their information technology departments. But these savings are at what cost? Sorry for the over-modulation of this podcast. I hope I cleaned the audio quality up enough. See the RAW uStream recording of the show here. Show Links: NYS Budget Is Early But With ‘Painful’ Cuts To Education Funding Chicago Public School Deficit Up To $720 Million Stories From Main Street: Montvale School Ditches Books, Chalkboards for Laptops The exit music this week is Mucca Pazza “Bump.” | 3/29/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Razor’s Ed Show #6: Enfeeble, Me?! | ISABELLA OLESCHUK HAS BEEN FOUND! In this weeks show, I break down the article “Does the Digital Classroom Enfeeble the Mind?” by Jaron Lanier. When you put this article up against Salman Khan’s and Conrad Wolfram’s TED talks, you really begin to question is what we are doing in the classroom with technology the right thing? Does Salman Khan present a good way to teach math, or does Conrad Wolfram’s ideas fit better with how we want students to think about mathematics? Throw in what Seymour Papert had to say about math education and technology in 2004 and it is a deeper debate than what a 20 minute TED presentation shows. Other links relevant to this week’s Razor’s Ed include: Wolfram Wolfram|Alpha Evolution by Stephen Baxter The exit music this week is Fitz and the Tantrums “Breakin’ the Chains Of Love.” | 3/22/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Razors Ed Show #5: sTop tHe iPad iNsanity | This week’s Razor’s Ed looks at the hype of the iPad 2 and wonders if what is being offered by Apple is really worth the money compared to the iPad 1. One thing I forgot to mention in the show is the lack of a Retina display. If you need an example of just how much of a difference maker this is, find a person with an iPhone 3GS and an iPhone 4 and compare. HUGE difference. Links Appeal of iPad 2 is a Matter of Emotions Steve Jobs iPad 2 Keynote iPad v. Xoom v. iPad 2 Specs | 3/15/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Razor’s Ed Show #4: Do I Know What “Rhetorical” Means? | This week on Razor’s Ed we looked at the explosion of mobile data around the world, what does that mean specifically for Executive Function skills for our students, and what are some of the tools to that would support Executive Function skills in a digital world. Links Ars Technica: World mobile data traffic to explode by factor of 26 by 2015 Cisco Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Rush Neurobehvioral Center focus on Executive Function Edmodo Define: Rhetorical Question | 3/8/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Razor’s Ed Show #2: Any “Typical” EdTech Conference | A few months back in my personal writings, I took a satirical look at education technology conferences. On the eve of the Illinois Computing Educators Conference at Pheasant Run (which I will be attending) I give a theatrical presentation of any typical education technology conference. The sad part of this podcast is the grain of truth throughout. All these things have happened or been reported to me by other attendees. And this is not to say ALL education technology conferences are this way (take EduCon from what I have read incessantly on Twitter), but by and large they are. So sit back, and listen as Razor’s Ed roasts any “typical” education technology conference. To read along with the podcast, go to my prior blog post Any “Typical” Ed Tech Conference. | 2/22/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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16 |
Razor’s Ed Show #1: Beware the BWG | This is the launch episode of Razor’s Ed. Covered in this episode is a hearty welcome to the listeners. Thank you for taking the time to listen. Also covered was why Razor’s Ed is even being presented. There are five tenants to the show: Sometimes we are too enamored with the wizardry of technology. Sometimes we are too accepting of the status quo. Sometimes we are too accepting of what the “experts” say. Sometimes education is too nice. Sometimes education lacks a sense of humor. I go into my background a bit. Finally, I get into the meat of this podcast, which is to beware of those BWGs (Box and Wires Guys) and how you can peacefully co-exist with the one in your school district. Links of note: The Oregon Trail Movie Trailer The Places I Lived Beware the BWG Swag | 2/15/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 16 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
Thought provoking....
This show always makes me think outside the box.
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- Category: K-12
- Language: English
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