Worst practices of a GTD weekly review

Worst Practices: Letting your system get so far out of date it dies, or feels like a major effort to bring it back to life. Telling yourself you don't have time to do a review. Setting up the Weekly Review as a recurring appointment on your Calendar, then not showing up to your own meeting (good way to erode trust in your commitments).
via davidco.com

Great point about the worst practices of a GTD Weekly Review. I am in the middle of my weekly review (first one in a while) and know exactly how bad practices can lead to a lack of trust in the system. My brain was spinning last night!

Sorry, Google, I'm not for sale

via gw.iprint.com

Don't get me wrong, I do use and have used a lot of Google products in my day including Blogger, Apps, gMail, Calendar, Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Forms, YouTube, Maps, Alerts, Chrome, Earth, Goog 411, SketchUp, Talk, Groups, Orkut, News, Shopping, Scholar, Trends, Mobile, Sync, Checkout, Books, Blog Search, and of course, their search page. I'm sure I've missed a few in there.

That being said, asking me to order stickers and put them on my laptop is kind of gross. I haven't gone Google, but I do use Google products.

You're already using all of my data for your own marketing purposes and profits, don't ask me to be a billboard, too.

Sorry, really didn't like the vibe on this one.

Is there really any privacy online? Even when "anonymous," like formspring or Chat Routlette?

How do I delete/disable my account?

Ryan Dec 30, 2009

You can disable your account by going to Settings > Disable Account and clicking on "Yes, Disable my Account". You can restore your account later if you choose.

All traces of your profile page and questions users have asked you will disappear.  Questions you have asked others will still appear, as there is no way to ever delete a question you have asked another user.  Only that user can delete it.

via formspringme.zendesk.com

I was reading How Privacy Vanishes Online in the New York Times which shows how computer systems can now analyze even seemingly anonymous data to get quite an accurate idea of who you are when a parent of a student asked how she could delete her daughter's formspring account. If you work in a school and haven't heard of formspring, you will soon, so get ready. Anyway, I looked up the answer to her question and came upon the FAQ response above. Wow, what a great lesson for students to read: "Questions you have asked others will still appear, as there is no way to ever delete a question you have asked another user." There is real confusion over what "anonymous" means online, and what "delete" means. For all intents and purposes, I'd argue that neither are a realistic option when online, so consider that the next time you're pressing 'send' or 'post.'

Also given to me recently was the news that there is a new mashup out there mapping Chat Roulette ("anonymous" video chatting) users. It's pretty scary that now your image and your location can be mapped for the world to find you. More on this at Mashable. Here's a previous post of mine on Chat Roulette, for context.

How can we evaluate curricula for bias and inclusivity?

I've recently been engaged in fascinating conversations about evaluating curricular resources for bias and inclusivity. These came out of a conversation on whether To Kill a Mockingbird was an appropriate text for 7th grade students. The books uses the 'n word' many times and portrays black characters are uneducated and poor (yes, I realize I'm being somewhat simplistic in my summary). The book is also a "classic" of "American" literature - I put both of those words in quotation marks because there are real questions as to whose classic and whose America.

I've been looking at a number of resources to try and get at this question of whether this book should be read, and if so, how it should be read. I wanted to share those resources publicly as well as ask you all for help.
  • should schools read this book and books like it?
  • if so, how do we prepare students for the words used in the book?
  • how do we discuss the history surrounding the book?
  • how do we balance the inherent bias displayed in the book?
  • what other questions do we need to ask ourselves?
Here are some resources I've been using:
Here are some relevant book recommendations from Teaching Tolerance:

THATCamp 2010: the humanities and technology camp

via thatcamp.org

THATCamp is a humanities and technology "unconference" at George Mason University near Washington, DC. It seems like a great opportunity to involve history and English teachers in. The applications, however, are due today, March 15, 2010. Even if you can't make this year's conference, keep it on your calendar for next year.

On a side note, have any of you attended before? Do you recommend it?

Testing out Remember The Milk (@RTM) as a tasklist program based on @foleysquared 's recommendation

I am looking for a great tool to keep my to do list managed. I have been playing with Evernote and now am playing with Remember the Milk. Both work when I'm offline, like I am now as I fly back to New York. Evernote works offline because it is a desktop application, and Remember the Milk because it uses Google Gears for offline access via your web browser. Both sync with my phone (BlackBerry) and are available through the web. Evernote's phone implementation for the BlackBerry is very limited, only being able to search and add new notes. You cannot edit notes, which I find frustrating. Then again, Evernote is much more about gathering all your notes, images, attachments, etc. Remember the Milk is an elegant task-list manager. Related, but not the same.

My main fear? That my brain will want to use both. Gulp, and double gulp!

Evernote has a cute elephant as its logo, and Remember the Milk has a cow. I like both cows and elephants, so we've got a tie there. @petervinogradov (I think) told me that the best tool for GTD (Getting Things Done) is the tool that you come back to regularly. That sounds like great advice.