Performancing for Firefox

Performancing for Firefox has been updated to add Technorati tags to posts and can also post on blogs for Drupal, TextPattern, and MSN Spaces.

Blogging via Flock

In the beginning, the internet was unenlightened,
but in time Flock came along,

a web browser with a blogging editor built in.
And it was good.

Performancing for Firefox

Performancing is a new blogging extension for Firefox 1.5. See my post at ESL Writing Technology.

School of Blog

I just came across the School of Blog this morning, a blog on immigrant and bilingual issues. Quite interesting.

Love: the basis of education

Recently, I have been looking at the Fethuallah Gülen educational movement. The more I think about it, the less confident I am that schools will change for the better. The difference between Gülen-inspired schools and most others (not all, of course) is sacrificial love. Other teachers and staff "model" character, Gülen teachers live it. Students are not deceived, and surrounded by a culture of individualism, corporate greed, and political scandal, there's little reason for them to become any different. It's great to master content knowledge and teaching strategies, but to motivate students to want to master knowledge and develop character, teachers must love them.

None of this is new. Schweitzer, Russell, Fromm,Huebner, and others have all said the same: living a life worth living requires knowledge and love. As Russell (1961) put it,

There is only one road to progress, in education as in other human affairs, and that is: Science wielded by love. Without science, love is powerless; without love, science is destructive. (p. 158).

Blogger plug-in for Word

This is my first posting using the free Blogger plug-in for MS Word. Pretty easy.

English up but foreign languages dow

BBC News reports that the number of teenagers taking "GCSE language exams has fallen sharply," physical education and religion rising the most, and math and English having the most entries.

Essential and free software for PCs

Sudeep Bansal has a great list of free, essential software for PCs.