Posts filed under 'Law, Policy, & Government'
This has been an amazing summer. In fact, the last year has been pretty darn cool. I left teaching to attend Boston University Law School last fall, and to say that I’ve been busy would be an understatement. CommunityCOUNTS did it’s part in the election, and I’d like to think that its Ask The President forum helped nudge the administration into launching its first online town hall. My work even got a nod in the ABA’s Student Lawyer.
Overall, law school has been quite enjoyable. I participated in the ABA’s client counseling and negotiation competitions, and I’ve made many good friends. I developed a code-based study routine I call the LawBot. Basically, I codify black-letter law into if-then statements. I figured, that since you never learn anything as well as when you teach it, I should teach a computer how to take my tests. My notes may have looked like computer code, but they were darn useful.
My favorite part of law school, however, has been the summer. I’ve gotten the opportunity to work with my favorite professor (Ward Farnsworth) on a new text, and I’ve had the chance to get my hands dirty interning with the Navy’s Criminal Defense Appellate Division in DC. For those Futurama fans out there, no, this Professor Farnsworth does not own an intergalactic shipping company. He is the author of The Legal Analyst: A Toolkit for Thinking about the Law and a really great guy. In fact, The Legal Analyst was recommended to me before I even decided where I was going to law school. It’s a great read, and I wish more of my classes were like those taught by Professor Farnsworth.
Anywho, I’m back in Boston and working for Farnswoth finding cases for a criminal law text he’s writing, and in a moment of down-time, I thought I’d remedy my long silence. I’m such a bad blogger. I blame twitter.
August 3rd, 2009
So for those of you curious about what I was doing down in DC the two weekends ago, here’s a little highlight video put out by the organizers. If you look very carefully, you’ll see me in the B-roll.
Also, you can find more videos here.
March 11th, 2009
Okay, this is just getting wicked awesome! Twittervotereport.com is soooo winning the Golden Dot this year. My hats off to the entire team. It’s just the coolest thing I’ve seen in so long. Be sure to make a twitter vote report today, and while you’re at it, why not Video You Vote too? Also, if you see any problems at your polling place in need of immediate assistance, call 1-866-Our-Vote.
November 4th, 2008
So I’ve made it to Lincoln Center for this week’s Personal Democracy Forum. Later today, I will be on a panel entitled “Building a Better Debate, With and Without TV.” I’m really excited about the conference, esp. since I think commuintyCOUNTS has a lot to offer this crowd. I’m particularly excited about the ability of small media outlets or community organizations using communityCOUNTS to engage local politicians in a meaningful discussion around issues that concern them.
June 23rd, 2008
Admittedly, I’ve been a little absent on the blogging front lately, but since returning to the states I’ve taken on three jobs and what seems like and endless number of committee appointments at school. However, one of them is getting me some recognition. My partners and I over at 10questions.com are up for a Golden Dot Award for Poli-Tech Innovator of the Year. The voting is open to the public, and I’d really appreciate your vote (second to last category).
Vote here: http://polc.ipdi.org/GoldenDots/voting.htm
Here’s the lowdown:
Ending days before the Iowa caucuses and garnering participation from then leading candidates, including Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee, 10questions.com was the first truly people-powered forum for the 2008 presidential candidates. We allowed the public to post and vote on questions for the candidates. Candidates answered the top ten, and the public then voted on whether or not these replies actually addressed the questions.
10questions proved a valuable proof of principle, establishing viewer-chosen questions, not just viewer-produced questions, as a legitimate means of candidate interaction, and produced a good amount of earned media including coverage in Wired and the San Francisco Chronicle among many other print and digital outlets such as the political blogs of both the Washington Post and New York Times. Furthermore the participation of first-tier candidates in this format helped demonstrate such a structure’s ability to compel meaningful answers from the candidates.
February 16th, 2008
My apologies for not posting in a while, but I’ve been swamped. I first drifted away from the keyboard when a good college friend came to visit me here in Edinburgh. It was great getting to show her around town and introducing her to my friends and new adoptive home. Then of course there was the end of term. That’s right, the school year is finally over, but as you can imagine this presented some bookkeeping and the like surrounding my return to the states. However, the biggest “distraction” by far has been my involvement with Community Counts, culminating in a bit of a vindication last week when I found myself talking with a reporter from the New York Times. In fact, Community Counts was blogged about at both TechPresident and the New York Times last week. Pretty exciting eh?
That being said, I’m starting my summer holiday. I don’t know if this means you should expect more or less frequent postings. I would like to turn out some more episodes of the Tabletop Explainer (esp. the relativity series), but I’m not going to beat myself up over self-imposed deadlines. So fair readers, be sure you’ve subscribed, so that way you’ll be sure not to miss a posting when it comes.
July 2nd, 2007
The following is an abbreviated version of the final narrative report I submitted for my Fulbright Teacher Exchange. I have taken the liberty of adding hyperlinks where appropriate. For those of you who didn’t know, I am currently on exchange from Lexington High School in Massachusetts to Broughton High School in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Over two years ago I decided to apply for the Fulbright teacher exchange. Having taught for several years and already holding a Masters in Education, I was looking for new ways to improve my craft. Absent a clear predictive model of human learning, teaching remains more art than science. So I’ve come to believe that beyond a mastery of ones subject and minimal educational training, collecting diverse professional experience remains the surest path to improved teaching. We teachers learn by doing. I applied for an exchange confident teaching abroad would improve my professional skill set, expanding both my experience and perspective. I am happy to say, the exchange has exceeded my expectations. (more…)
May 27th, 2007
I started blogging about work back in January, and despite previous whole-school emails pointing to my website, yesterday’s triggered my first visit from senior management. It was an unfortunate case of differing interpretations, and I’ll get to that soon. First, some background. Feel free to skip ahead if you’re a subscriber.
Background: Several months ago, Edinburgh schools upgraded their IT infrastructure as part of a new contract with BT Synergy. (more…)
May 24th, 2007
A few months ago a colleague told me about Brain Gym. She had been to the first of two training sessions. So I tagged along for the second, were I was told tracing a figure eight in the air would improve my students’ reading comprehension. Brain Gym is a trademarked set of exercises “designed” to promote learning skills in students. At its heart is the idea that directed low-impact physical activity can help foster focus and improve student attention. This is probably true. Working with eleven year olds, I have found getting them up and moving is an important part of the day, without which attention suffers. Brain Gym, however, is in the business of selling this idea, and they push the claim that their activities can do more: improve spelling, memory, reading comprehension…. After a little digging, we’ve established a lower limit on how much money is being wasted by Scottish schools on this pseudoscientific snake oil. Over the past five years, it’s been at least £127,579.45, and the real number is likely a couple of times larger. Below I’ll discuss how we arrived at this number, and I’ll even suggest a free alternative to help prevent future loss. (more…)
May 23rd, 2007
I’ll get to my thesis in the second paragraph, but first some background. Two weeks ago I was involved in a rather interesting discussion surrounding American education. It all started with a posting I made in response to YouTube’s Spotlight ‘08 posting from former Massachusetts Governor and presidential candidate Mitt Romney. He wanted to know what we thought was America’s greatest challenge and what we would do to face it. I said “adaptability in a changing world” and suggested improving public schools. To his credit, he posted a reply to my video, using it as a starting point to provide his own thoughts on adaptability. He didn’t, however, have much to say in relation to my suggestion that we improve public schools. You can judge the quality of the exchange for yourself. I’m putting all of the candidates’ Spotlight ‘08 postings along with my replies here. This is so I’m not tempted to blog every time I upload a reply. Check back weekly, as I intend to respond to each of the candidates.
What struck me most about the conversation was the impression I got that most people mistakenly think it’s a simple matter. Perhaps the largest misconception (more…)
April 27th, 2007
Previous Posts
