A Stick in the Sand is written by me, Brad Ovenell-Carter. I am assistant head at Island Pacific School, where I teach English and philosophy, and a student in the Graduate Liberal Studies program at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C.

There’s a lot of hullabaloo about technology these days and let me say I am a bit old-fashioned in this regard: I like Homer and Milton; I think Greek and Latin are fine things to know; and, were it not for the squeaks, I would prefer a chalkboard to my Mac. Unless technology lets me do something I couldn’t otherwise do with a stick in the sand, I don’t see much sense it.

Despite this, I feel that the only way to make fair assessments of emerging web technologies and the way they are shaping how we teach is to get dirty with them. I moved my whole school over to Google Apps in the fall of 2009 and over the past year have led our staff and students in experiments with wikis, blogs, instant messaging, and web conferencing. A Stick in the Sand is where I blog about making emerging web technologies work in grade schools.

If you’d like to send a me a note, please email me at sits@ovenell-carter.com.