Chapter 9

Well, I've come to the end of Richardson. I felt like, while I at times didn't care for his overly positive rhetoric and the-future-can-do-no-wrong outlook, his finish to the book is a rousing call-to-arms. I have a tendency lament by-gone times, when days and lives in general were slower. And I'm only 29. Yet I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he has to say in chapter 9. For instance, when he compares the wide world of business we're preparing our students for, where they "will be asked to work with others from around the globe collaboratively to create content for diverse and wide-ranging audiences," and the out-dated mode of education we still find in many classrooms, which "asks students to work independently for a very narrow audience" (p. 130). I had to nod my head.

Indeed, I liked the idea of driving home to students the notion that their work in class is by no means only meant for the teacher and their classmates. Rather, the work students do in class today can be literally "meant for the world" (p. 135). This notion may totally affect the way a student approaches school work, knowing that not only the teacher, but the whole world will be observing what he or she has to put out. Of course, this idea may be a little daunting at first, but with the teacher as a guide who believes in each student, the child should grow in confidence and be motivated to do their best work.

On the other hand, when Richardson speaks of the difference between the past - when textbooks were edited professionally and were therefore reasonably trustworthy - and today when so much of the information we're consuming is either slanting heavily from bias or is simply bad data, I realize technology has a long way to go before I will ever sign my students over completely to a medium as far-reaching and unreliable as the World Wide Web. At the pace it is growing, I think there is potential for vast improvement in a short amount of time, but first there has to a significant public call for this type of regulation. Until then, it is upon the shoulders of teachers to bear the brunt of such serious discernment. This, too, is just a little daunting.

Chapter 6 - social networking.

I'm thankful Richardson didn't have the gall to try and work in sites like Facebook and MySpace into this chapter. Those sites, to me, are strictly social, and do nothing to educate us but increase our appetite and tolerance for voyeurism. 

I've been spending the better part of the day learning to use this site diigo. It's pretty fascinating. I love how you can annotate and highlight passages of an article you're reading. In fact, I was thinking just the other day how wonderful it would be if there were a way to comment on any page you want with your thoughts. Often I read long articles on a website and afterward can't find a quote I want to use, or even the website again. Diigo seems to greatly help in this arena. It's a little confusing to look at. A little too bland, and jumbled feeling. Perhaps that will improve as it moves out of BETA.

I think a site like this could be extremely useful in a school context. We could probably use it to share our thoughts on a particular piece on a website, and students could then draw from their initial annotated thoughts to expand in a writing journal. Or students could be assigned an article to read for homework, with annotated questions to respond to in writing as they read at their leisure at home. 

I feel like there are a lot of possibilities I'm not picking up on. But as of yet I'm still only learning the site, and I'm sure more ideas will come the better I understand it. 

Podcasting

As often as I get down on the whole fast-paced wave of contemporary technology, I believe podcasts to be one of the best things to come out of it all. I used to think of podcasts as something only professionals would do. That alone was pretty great, I thought. All this free in-depth material on most any subject that might interest you was really a wonderful expression of the persistence of generosity, even among corporations, I thought.

But Richardson and this course have helped me to see that podcasting is for amateurs as much (if not more) as it is for professionals. There seems to be a lot of fertile, uncharted ground to be explored and harnessed for the educational field. Whether it's kids creating their own realm of information, in which "students [teach] other students what they've learned" (Richardson 114), or a teacher providing a podcast of each day's activities and assignments for students to reference at home (as suggested, I think, by someone in our class), I think all that is necessary is a little time and commitment to learning & teaching the simple process of podcasting. 

I'm trying to think of ways I could use this technology in the high school English class. I suspect the possibilities are myriad... 

Chapter 4: Wikis for all

I often feel I somehow missed the boat when it comes to wikis. All the sudden there existed this massive and somewhat specious site known as Wikipedia. College kids dug it and college professors hated it. I, being the good student I was, stuck with the professional opinion. Now, however, I read Richardson saying that Wikipedia and wikis in general have arrived, unencumbered by the former doubtful claims of professionals: "'Four out of five [experts] agreed their relevant Wikipedia entries are accurate, informative, comprehensive and a great resource for students'" (p. 58). I suppose you can't argue with the statistics. Indeed, I have come around to using Wikipedia as a resource for knowledge; my Safari and Firefox browsers come ready-made with a Wikipedia link in the bookmark bar; it seems everyone has come around. And yet there still persists that nagging doubt, that maybe Wikipedia isn't all it's cracked up to be. For instance, for a website that's touted to be the sum of human knowledge (Richardson p. 55), I have personally experienced how selective that knowledge happens to be. When my bandmates noticed a few years back that one of our labelmates had a Wikipedia page assigned to them, we thought to ourselves, "Why not us?" So we gathered the most pertinent information we could regarding ourselves and created a page based around the band. But what a storm of controversy it brewed! From the get-go it was disputed by Wikipedia's editors as having "nothing ... to justify inclusion." It's not that the editors thought we were just making it up. It's that they thought it wasn't important enough to include in the "sum of human knowledge." 

I suppose the editors were just trying to keep Wikipedia "respectable." If every kid in a crappy garage band had a mind to, he could create a wikipedia page dedicated to an endeavor that lasted perhaps six months and garnered no more fans than their girlfriends... Perhaps that's what I feel is the ultimate flaw in the justification for Wikipedia: you can't claim something to be the sum of human knowledge while simultaneously excluding human knowledge. The reason the editors of Wikipedia tried to exclude our page (we ultimately won the day) was that they were in the market for significant human knowledge, i.e. knowledge that many people have and care about. But what resources besides the Internet were the editors using to verify the validity that we were an established and semi-important artistic force? Isn't there still the possibility of important things happening completely outside the scope of the Internet? If so, what envoys do they commission to gather this information? 

My point here is not that Wikipedia is not reliable or beneficial for students. Rather, it's that it cannot and should not be considered a final authority. While it is true perhaps that textbook publishers are worried about the pervasiveness of Wikipedia (Richardson p. 62), but I suspect there are professionals out there other than greedy publishers who are worried as well. Wikipedia cannot be the final authority because as wonderful as it is that just anyone can create and contribute to "creating truth" (Richardson p. 57) on a page, those random individuals are not necessarily professionals in the field getting paid to be thorough. Rather, they are kids, teenagers, adults, many developing a field in which they are not competent to be considered a final authority. They are helpers, to be sure, and Wikipedia is a wonderful resource for anyone looking for a quick answer, but God help us if it becomes the definition of research.

Flickr Project

MA-EP-1.3.1
Students will analyze real-world problems to identify appropriate representations using mathematical operations, and will apply operations to solve real-world problems with the following constraints:
· add and subtract whole numbers with three digits or less

Our Flickr Slideshow.

Response Chapter 1 & 2

Richardson in this chapter has a lot to say on the speed with which technology is advancing, how students are embracing it and the school systems are resisting it, or are at least very slow to adapt to it. He makes a very good point when he speaks of children who "are 'out there' using a wide variety of technologies that they are told they can't use wen they come to school." Indeed, this seems like recipe for repression, which soon will stir up and explode in our faces. We hope to make a place kids enjoy rather than dread. But equipping every student in every school with high-end technology may be simply impossible. Individual kids with parents who dish out the dough to buy new expensive equipment (whether they can actually afford to or not) are always going to outpace a massive network of schools. It could be argued that students and their parents are helping to keep schools behind in this matter, for the faster they keep up with the new toys, companies are going to continue to develop faster and more expensive technologies, and schools will constantly feel the lack.

On the other side of the coin, however, I almost appreciate that schools are slow to adapt to new technologies. Richardson doesn't seem to have any qualms with the pace of technological advance, but I am afraid I do. Simply because it's new does not mean it is good or beneficial or more efficient. A lot of technologies kids use (and are forbidden to use in schools) are absolutely aggravating, and completely inappropriate for a learning environment. I have in mind here kids' obsession with Game Boys and the irritating tunes kids play on their cell phones, either via ringtone or mp3 player. These items are not conducive to learning, and have the potential to only hamper the process. So restricting kids' use of technology in school seems only logical, depending on the technology. But therein lies the problem. There are to date SO MANY new tech-toys with others developing SO QUICKLY that school administrators have little chance of keeping up with all of them in order to decipher which are helpful to learning and which are harmful. Hence what we end up with is a banal prohibtion of all personal technologies.

Ugh.

Synching up with I KID!!! I KID!!!

While reading this article, I had the undeniable urge to watch a clip of the insult-comic dog Triumph hamming it up with some Star Wars fanatics. 

Unfortunately, Blogger doesn't enable us to embed videos right here into the blogging field, so I'll have to simply post a link. That's very low-tech, of you blogger...

Triumph at the premier 

Now, onto the issue of the actual iKids we're to teach everyday. 

It's clear that this world we've created for ourselves is vastly different than the world we went to school in. It's telling that kids know how to better and more deeply respond to classic literature via electronic devices than with pen and ink. This could just be the fact of the matter, and if so, teachers need to get on board. What bothers me, still, is how fast it all has happened, so much so that teachers and administrators have had no say in the process. Instead, as McHugh mentions, teachers "are scrambling to figure out how to use these same tools and information-distribution techniques to reach and excite young minds." Indeed, we are scrambling, and what's scary is that as soon as we get on top of something -- say incorporating the use of wikis or Flickr in the classroom -- we will already be 5 steps behind again, given simply how fast new technology is being developed and marketed. Who's to say that in 10 years -- or even half that time -- wikis will still be relevant? And the scariest thought of all is that our kids are going to be lost in this constant shift "forward," constantly dishing out the dough to keep up with the hot new tech-items, with their teachers always several steps behind. And since it's obviously OK for new technology to develop at breakneck speed, and OK for our kids to get it without their parents testing it out and learning about it ahead of time, it seems only too easy to say educators are no longer speaking kids' "language," as McHugh's quotes Ryan Ritz to say. 

Never in history has the paradigm shifted so quickly; so quickly, in fact, that parents can't even communicate with their children, and educators can't begin to connect with their students. In the case of our ecology, scientists are alarmed at the quick shift in global temperature. Shouldn't we be just as concerned, if not more, when our kids are speeding off into the future without us, and without the safeguard of adult guidance? Shouldn't it bother us just a little when our schools are too busy learning technology for themselves to have the time or "withitness" to give our kids a more trustworthy future?

Strategies for Research

What strategies do you use when you research?

Interestingly, this question really throws me for a loop. "Research" used to be such a defined activity. It involved going to the library, checking out books, scouring catalogs and journals, and indeed the occassional Internet search. However, I've been mostly out of school for four years, and those formal means of research have largely fallen by the wayside for me. This doesn't mean I don't research anymore. Far from it, but anymore it seems my research is mostly an amorphous collection of browsing the Internet.

I feel very much like a technological migrant, always struggling to keep up with those around me who by the virtue of their very upbringing are much more comfortable with their surroundings.

The Flipside of Flickr

I like the idea of using Flickr in the classroom, but there comes a point when I wonder how it really and truly enhances the classroom experience. Let's take Sophie's annotated photo of Jane Goodall's camp. Now, the idea of it and the realization of that idea are truly fascinating. In fact, they're downright cool! However, at what point does this example demonstrate an actual improved learning experience over the "traditional" method of simply showing the class the model and having Sophie point at various items to talk about them, or placing small sticky notes with captions beside various features of the model? I don't feel like Richardson adequately explains how Flickr makes teaching better or even easier? Instead, it seems just a little like something else to add on to the bustle of class...

I realize this sounds very negative of me. I can of course see the upside of using a tool such as Flickr. The very "cool factor" it presents may be enough to get students interested and engaged, which itself often proves very difficult otherwise. And interested students are naturally the easiest to teach. Furthermore, you certainly can't argue with Richardson's account of just how fun something like Flickr can be, and people are always receptive to fun. Those points alone are reason enough to give Flickr a shot.

RSS

Chapter 7 on RSS feeds was particularly interesting to me. I've been trying for some time now to utilize RSS, but haven't had much success. What Richardson talks about as an "information overload" has been more my experience than anything. But it's helpful to know that there is an actual "reader" to help those slow to learn (like me) become avid and adept RSS users. 

For a long time my understanding of RSS has simply amounted to the long list of blogs I subscribed to, which ultimately only showed up as an actual list, and nothing regarding the content of a particular blog. So instead of seeing what my friend Justin had written, I only saw the new title, which meant I had to go to the site before I knew whether I even wanted to read it. Of course, on a fast connection this isn't much trouble at all, but sometimes the connection just isn't fast enough to keep up with the pace of my usual browsing, so I would opt out of reading Justin's blog simply because I didn't feel like enduring the wait. Very impatient of me, I know...

Hopefully this new reader will help me in this area.

The Practicality of Blogs

I resisted the use of blogs for a long time. I thought it a waste of my precious time, that I could better express myself via the old-fashioned methods of paper and pen. I didn't really care for the entire world to have access to my most personal thoughts, nor did I think myself interesting enough for the whole world to care.

However, when I went abroad I began to think differently. I considered the fact that a lot of dear friends back home might be interested in the goings-on of my altered life, a life they had once had regular access to via simple phone conversations and visits, but now would be completely cut off from, unless I did something to keep them abreast. Thus, I created my first blog at vox.com. I used it mostly to post pictures and detail the almost daily adventures I had in Austria and other European countries. I think it brought friends back home a lot of satisfaction to see just what I was doing, thinking, and that I was surviving without them. Not only that, but without a doubt the simple knowledge that I was writing for somebody helped me to keep things interesting, and indeed helped in the process of survival, since I knew I wasn't completely alone. 

I also have no doubt that blogs could be just as beneficial to students learning to write and think critically. It goes without saying that a little introspection helps a person to grow in thought and character. When Richardson writes, "[students] will surely give [blogging] up at the end of the semester unless we've shown them why it's important to keep writing and to keep learning," I have to agree. Writing via blog can be a vital tool in the development of our students' minds and integrity, but it is essential for the teacher to model the proper approach toward blogging.

I was thankful Richardson mentions something about blog safety. As I wrote in my last post, the Internet can be a big, scary place sometimes, and utilizing blogs in the classroom doesn't simply enable our students to access the Net: it wholly endorses it. Hence, we must be careful to appropriate the technology in such a way that our students understands that there are indeed boundaries in what seems at times like a boundless domain. Boundaries must be pitched to our students as means of growth, development, and even survival. Were our society entirely without laws, then it's hard to imagine the chaos that could ensue. Likewise, we must abide by, and indeed even enjoy "laws" in using the Net, blogs included. We aim for the blogs to be an important means of our students' self-expression, while keeping those same students safe from virtual predators. 

Technologically Autobiographic

My time with technology has been a long, often tormented history. I truly began the fascination around age 15, when my family plugged into the Net with our brand new Gateway computer. Windows 95 was at the time groundbreaking technology, if nothing else but for how accessible it made computers to the general public. Before that, my only experience with computers had been with the rather confusing Macs my schools seemed always to employ. (Macs have come a long way since then.)

It wasn't long after we were connected that I found my first Internet fetish, when I signed up to play an online role playing MUD, or a "multi-user dungeon." Who can say how many hundreds of hours I spent in that alternate reality? It was during those first few years as a Internet user that I developed the same annoying and somewhat unhealthy dependence on technology, and particularly the Internet. I fell prey to all the early Web phenomena, including intimate conversations online with people I had never met. I loaned my online friends money to go to college, and even ended up meeting not a few of them in "real life." 

As I've gotten older, I've tried to curb the urges for technological gratification I nourished for so many years. I've attempted to use the Internet via more responsible and constructive avenues, including a Weblog of my travels in Europe and of my everyday epiphanies. While living in Europe I used the Net to keep in touch with my actual friends back home, rather than random and perfect strangers, and since I've come back I've tried to maintain a healthy and faithful correspondence with the friends I made abroad. 

I think the Net can be useful and truly a boon to us in many ways, including enhancing relationships when they are already founded on something more substantial than virtual reality. A good example is the social networking site Facebook. While indeed I have my qualms with the site, and just how nosy it makes its users, I've found that it can truly be a lot of fun for those who use it to keep in touch. Through Facebook I've been able to keep up with friends who would have otherwise been lost to time and distance long ago, and I've had multiple opportunities to interject moments of random hilarity in the lives of friends more close in proximity. 

When it comes to education, it's hard to imagine any system of learning that does not include computers and all their adjunct technology. As pervasive as something like the Internet is in our society, and apparently growing ever more so, it seems to me that we as educators must teach our students how to use this technology expediently, but also so that it reinforces our responsibilities toward each other as humans and affirms human dignity. There are difficult conversations regarding the current trend of our Web technology, for instance, that need to happen but seem all too often to be excluded from the curriculum. I have particularly in mind here the absent dialogue regarding the role of pornography in our society and its impact on our perceptions of humanity and the respect due to every human, no matter how beautiful or desirable to the eye. Are our children being engaged in the process of learning in schools how to use technology in such a way that they will be equipped to make the right decision when they will ultimately (and inevitably) be confronted online with material that compromises their innocence, how they look at the opposite sex, or how they view their own bodies? 

This is just one example of an ongoing conversation that needs to take place when we embark on teaching our students the fundamentals of technology, which I feel is sadly all too often neglected to the detriment of childrens' mind and our common future as a society of technological consumers.

My First Post On Blogger

This is for class. This is a test.