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.