RyanCollins.org

According to a recent study, names really do make a difference:

Parents are being warned to think long and hard when choosing names for their babies as research has discovered that girls who are given very feminine names, such as Anna, Emma or Elizabeth, are less likely to study maths or physics after the age of 16, a remarkable study has found.

Fascinating research. They even examined twin girls and found that what they were named could put them on two entirely different career paths. Also, naming a child with a ‘lower-status’ name, spelled in an unusual way or including punctuation, lowered exam scores by 3-5%.

One more thing for new parents to worry about.

Tags: Op Ed by Mr.Rcollins
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photo credit: jigpuAfter I first read this story, I thought that it was a pretty cool:

When Victory Baptist School, a small private school in Sherwood, Ark., was struggling to keep its computer network together last year, an 11-year-old student named Jon Penn stepped in as network manager.

Upon reflection I realized that this story is a big reason why IT departments are looked down upon as less than professional in organizations school districts today. For example, replace “network manager” with “1st grade teacher”. Would this student receive accolades or would the district be singled out as harming the educational experience of their first graders? What would fellow teachers think of an 11 year old attempting to do their job?

Unfortunately for IT people, if you’re doing your job well, it appears that you’re not doing anything at all. Everything just works and people question why you are getting paid.

Articles like the above do not help promote the professionalism of IT. Your boss, upon reading that article, could believe that they could just hire people off the streets and save money.

As IT professionals, we need to promote and market ourselves, separate the wheat from the chaff. Anyone can install an Internet appliance, but it takes a little more knowledge and experience to run the IT department of a school district.

P.S. I don’t want to belittle Jon Penn’s accomplishments, I wish I would’ve had the opportunity at his age.

Tags: Op Ed by Mr.Rcollins
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photo credit: javYliz

In the technology world it seems we’re continually confronted with new products, services, software, hardware, etc. And for those of us who have a tough time focusing on one thing at a time, this dizzying array of choices can easily distract us or keep us from finishing previous tasks.

In The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz it describes why this is a problem:

“We normally assume in America that more options (”easy fit” or “relaxed fit”?) will make us happier, but Schwartz shows the opposite is true, arguing that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being.”

As a technology coordinator, I’m constantly trying out new things, and it’s very hard to decide whether to actually implement something. Will this new product be easy enough for staff and students to use? Is the learning curve mild enough that my users will learn this product and use it?

When you ask others in the educational technology community what’s the best wiki, blogging software, operating system, etc. you’ll get a ton of choices. So many choices may ultimately lead you to either never be satisfied with your final choice, or worse, never make a decision.

In this blog I am going to try to only give one or two choices for solutions to specific problems. They may not be the best choice, but in the long run, they will be good enough to be of use (I hope).

Tags: Hardware, Op Ed, Software, Time Management by Mr.Rcollins
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A very cool article descibing what is possible and what isn’t possible in Star Trek:

So, what are the features of Star Trek that a person interested in science can enjoy without guilt, and what features rightly tick off those persnickety critics? Well, many of the star systems mentioned on the show, such as Wolf 359, really do exist. Usually, though, the writers just make them up! There have also been some beautiful special effects pictures of binary stars and solar flares which were astronomically accurate and instructive. The best accuracy and worst stumbles can be found among the features of the show that have becom e constant through all of the episodes. Here’s a list of the standard Star Trek features, roughly in order of increasing scientific incredibility:

Tags: Op Ed by Mr.Rcollins
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