Greetings and salutations, Devoted Readers.
As you've probably noticed, my posting on Number 2 Pencil has been sporadic as of late. Actually, "sporadic" is pretty generous; "non-existent" seems more accurate. I've been given the opportunity to follow an ambitious career path, and thanks to that (and other desirable life-altering opportunities, such as deciding how much of a Bridezilla to be this time around), I've had very little time to blog.
When I began N2P, my life was very, very different; in fact, I think the only constants in my life since that time are this blog and Alice the cat. In the four years and change since then, life has become much fuller and much more complicated (Alice has even had to learn to deal with a silly baby brother). I'm certainly not complaining - the changes have been almost all good. However, each new step seems to make it that much more difficult to create what I consider to be the minimal amount of blogging that is due my readers. N2P was intended to be a place where readers could come to peruse, at a leisurely pace but a reasonable depth, discussions of the basics of psychometrics and statistics, the myths and realities of testing, and the media's attitude towards testing at the K-12 and college level. I always believed that N2P should be a combination of a "linking" and a "thinking" blog; it never felt quite right to put up lots of quick links to education stories, but it also didn't feel that I was moving at quite the right tempo if I only managed, as has been the case lately, one day of blogging a week, or only one link with commentary every few days.
You can probably guess where I'm headed with all this, and you'd be right. After much thought, I've decided to cease production on Number 2 Pencil. I'm keeping the domain, the site, and the archives active, so that my posts are still out there for the reader's enjoyment, but I don't intend for there to be any future posts in this location. As much as I would like to keep this blog active, I don't feel it's the right thing to do, given the limitations of my time.
However, I do still have some time to lend my expertise and opinions to the lively discussions in the edublogging world, and I would like to stay involved as much as my life and time permit. Thus, I’ve decided to join the staff of The Education Wonks as a guest blogger. I feel very honored that they've agreed to have me in a guest spot on their site, which I consider to be one of the brighter new stars in the edublogging world. My psychometric knowledge and my general opinions will, I hope, add something meaningful to the discussion there.
Thank you to all my Devoted Readers for making N2P the lively place that is has been for the last four years. This blog has benefitted mightily from your input and would never have been anything close to a success were it not for those of you who emailed me, who started engaging debates in the comments section, and who just generally made this a more interesting place for everyone involved.
Special thanks go to Joanne, for inspiring me and giving endless good advice, and to Dean, for helping me migrate N2P to its current format, to John and Chett for displaying endless hospitality to a fellow blogger, and to those who just had to comment on everything I said (and sometimes catch me in error). Meep, Reginleif, Brian, Michael, Quincy, Walter, Chris, Triticale, DrLiz, LibraryGryffon, Mike, Stephanie, Tracy, Dr Weevil - I hope to see you all over at the Wonks blog.
(I'm going to leave comments active for a short while, so that if anyone wants to leave any general thoughts on this post, be it "N2P will be missed," or, "Don't let the door hit you on the ass," you can do so. After a while, I'll be completely deactiviting the comment/trackback functions for the blog; the existing comments will remain for future generations to enjoy. Also, I'll keep the kimberly at kimberly swygert dot com email address active for a while, but I'll be publishing my address on the Education Wonks website as swygert at gmail dot com.)
I'm currently at the annual meeting of the National Council for Measurement in Education in San Francisco. I have my laptop with me but I also have a full schedule of presentations to attend (and one to give), so bloggage probably won't resume for the next couple of days.
The Matrix meets the classroom:
Scientists have developed technology to "teleport" holographs of teachers into the classroom.Equipment which can beam the interactive image of a teacher into schools, where it can hold conversations and make eye contact with pupils, is to go on display at the BETT education technology exhibition next month.
Its creators at the Digital World Centre in Manchester believe it could be used to educate children living in remote areas, or to teach specialist lessons in minority subjets, which would otherwise be uneconomic.
Nifty, but it makes me wonder - given all the disciplinary problems I've read about, and unruly students who ignore real teachers, how on earth is a classroom going to stay under control with a holographic teacher? Or, perhaps, this is a great idea, because the schools can hire bouncers from clubs, or off-duty cops, to make the kids shut up and sit down, while the teacher can beam in from a safe distance away.
Interestingly, this article is actually 6 years old. Given that we don't have holographic teachers yet, does this mean the technology still isn't there? Or did the NEA rise up as one and block this development, seeing as how one good teacher could be beamed into many classrooms at once?