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A [quick] Tribute to Twitter

Hey All,
I don't know if anyone is still actively blogging (I won't lie, I haven't checked mine in August), but I thought I'd share a few interesting teaching reads and information for the back to school mind set.

First, CNN is currently doing a "Fix Our Schools" focus during the back to school season. So... if you're still in need of an advocacy issue, you can tweet them, write them, ect. I don't know if they're actively trying to fix schools, or just reporting about it. But, it's nice to know that they are starting conversation about the issues we are about to face every day. (also, a shout out to John: the cnn reporter used wordle.net to compile the comments people were twittering)

Secondly, if you are an active twitterer (which I'm not, but there are some interesting things on there) i recommend you follow phsprincipal He has been posting several articles that are really great, so I'll share them with you know!

An article about 5 Big Teacher Misbehaviors:


A parent friendly school:
http://www.parisbeacon.com/articles/2010/08/29/news/doc4c769afe5735a778124662.txt

Leaving A Legacy?
http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/25/legacy-reputation-rules-ryan-leadership-managing-ccl.html?feed=rss_business

He also reccommends a special education focused blog (http://pamfranklin.blogspot.com/2010/08/too-accommodating.html?spref=tw) which gives a shout out to an article:
http://bigthink.com/ideas/22915

Anywho... I'm going to stop procrastinating. If you're back to school today or, like myself, tomorrow: Good Luck!

Generation M

I actually laughed out loud as I read the first page of this week's readings. I was texting Molly, an simultaneously watching NCIS and reading the PDF on my computer screen. I probably would have been surfing the internet, but I am in the process of moving, so I didn't have internet when I read the chapter.

The whole time I was reading, I kept thinking about how true it all was. I used to work at a leadership camp for incoming college freshmen, and each year, I would preach to my participants about the importance of facebook censoring and privacy settings. And each year, their eyes would glaze over. One year, one of the girls actually said: "Why does it matter, it's not like people are looking for me... only my friends look at my facebook pics." I reminded her of the fact that she had no idea if that was really true or not, but most of my participants just responded with something along the lines of, "I'll change my settings when I apply for jobs in 4 or 5 years." I think that attitude is partially the feeling many teenagers have of invinsibility. The I know it happens, but it won't happen to me attitude. But, with the phrase "google it" becoming so common place, people actually are beginning to recognize their digital footprints by googling themselves.

All I know is... it's a whole new ballgame of tech out there.

If you saw John or Farrah laughing on tuesday... here's why:




Oh, PS,
The AARP just put out a stop sexting add to help ensure the privacy of its members and promote safer sexting and texting. What a crazy world it is!

Useful tools= successful secondary learning?

So, I must admit, I think we are slowly but surly gaining to many tech tricks to keep in our back pocket. And, it was absolutely fantastic to learn about google reader, I was truly getting overwhelmed with all of the different things we had to keep track of. Reading Erin's blog , I totally agree with her about the potential risks of attempting to use tech in poorly funded areas. I think it would be nice to talk about other ways to get funding for technology in class- be in grants, librarians, or public funding.

The podcast activity was very interesting, and quite enjoyable. I couldn't believe we all managed to do that in such a short amount of time. Like Kristen predicted, the music was a little distracting, but I think there could be real value in this. For some reason, I see it being most valuable in the middle school classroom. I am also really interested in seeing the point-counter point information, because I feel that a lot of the time, we just touch the surface of many hot topics, and it will be nice to learn more about each of those subjects.

Also, I'm super pumped we're almost done for the summer. It's been great, but I can tell everyone is getting burned out and ready for a break (before the even more crazy time of the fall occurs).

That's it and that's all :)

Baby Boomers and Halo... Awesome!

Ok, let me start out by saying that the not so secret nerd in me loves the fact that the author of Good Video Games and Good Learning enjoys half-life and halo and zelda! It reminds me of an intensely nerdy conversation I once had with a lot of my quote 'gamer' friends. We were discussing the highly successful and obsessive qualities video games have in our lives. Point two in the article sort of touches on the idea of our conversation. The idea was that many current high intensity video games require an intense level of commitment and socialization. These games deal with loyalty, problem solving, long-term strategy, and passion. I mean, let's be honest, you can't commit to a raid in WOW and then leave half way through. You'd detrimentally ruin long-built relationships with fellow gamers. Which, to some, may sound ridiculous... long term relationships with people you don't even know? But hey, you share common interests and passions- the beginnings to any friendship.

As my friends pointed out- if you applied these characteristics (loyalty, problem-solving, passion, strategy, and intense time commitments), any other field would greatly advance. Imagine a business world in which business men and women are willing to spend many hours solving a complicated problem with strangers overseas... and enjoy every moment of it! Or, students that want to learn at such high levels that they love collaborating with other students for many hours a night- problem solving and working together to reach a common goal! If we could infuse that gamer passion into the educational world, imagine the power and joy student would have with knowledge! It's an intriguing idea.

Ok, so now that you know how much of a dork I am... I'll leave you with this (because you wish you could pull this off wearing a white tux!):

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today's Big Thing.

Blog's followed:
Chris Lehmann (http://practicaltheory.org/serendipity/index.php?/authors/1-Chris-Lehmann)

Monday Reflections

I think Monday's class was an excellent insight into a lot of things about teaching. It was an excellent demonstration of the idea that there needs to be an alternative lesson plan when using technology (incase it doesn't work). Our class ended up going quite well, but it's good to realize that there is the potential for technology to be unreliable, and it's best not to stand unprepared.

All the tech issues aside, I think the webinar was interesting and quite informative. I'd never actually seen one, so the process, in and of itself, was quite educational. But perhaps even more interesting was observing our class hold an informal socratic seminar completely unaware. Student run, student participants, we pretty much had ourselves an informal seminar. So many valid points about teaching were raised, and I really liked hearing about it from all different subject areas and experiences. I believe the most effective way to deal with issues is to get multiple perspectives.





So, I'll try to relate this video to teaching... Some of the best things come from old formulas...

***Warning: it swears 4 times***

Cheating in the 21st century

After looking at the picture of potential cheaters in the lecture hall, Molly, John, Scott and I have been discussing our own personal histories and worries about cheating in our classrooms. I think that cheating in the 21st century is a whole new ball-game, one that has potential to be difficult to regulate, difficult to identify, and difficult to prove. With the internet and messaging systems in many people's pockets, cheating is changing. I remember in high school, someone sent the answers to the exam to the class printer, and students would just get up to sharpen pencils and look at the print out near the sharpener. I vividly remember this because the teacher caught on when many of the lower performing students suddenly did so much better on the exam that was most difficult. But what if it's not that obvious? I hope we get the chance to discuss cheating in class, since we don't have a classroom management course, and I'm interested to hear what other people have to say on the subject.

For your enjoyment:

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today's Big Thing.

TGIF

I think that Friday's tech class was quite interesting, it was not only helpful, but also engaging. It is so refreshing to have courses that are interactive, it's a nice change from the 300 person lecture halls of my undergrad!

Anyway, that was my random sidetrack moment. So I think that the most interesting part of Friday's class was listening to all of the interdisciplinary aspects of the activity. It wasn't until around my junior year of college that I really started to appreciate the true relatedness between different science courses, and science and other academic disciplines. I mean, everyone knows that the body is made up of living cells, but I wonder- does everyone know that cells are really just a bunch of chemical elements and molecules that are interacting together through chemical reactions? To the science people, this is obvious, but it's also so important and rarely mentioned. One of my favorite scholarly books "Armies of Pestilence" is a look at how diseases have shaped the world's stage- everything from the fall of ancient Rome to the current economic states of many third world countries is shaped by microorganisms. These relations fascinate me, and so it was great to see that the class could take one real world problem and apply it to every teaching major. I can't wait to see how I can make biology an interdisciplinary subject, and I'm excited to learn more about it through our research and activities.

Here's the video Dana showed our group in class on friday, it's hilarious, so if you didn't watch it, you totally should!

Dewey and Wiki and Google- oh my!

I have to be honest, I was a little confused when we had readings for Tech- I was totally (and lazily) hoping for videos and music. But today's readings didn't disappoint. I think the most profound thing (and something that directly relates to past discussions in Tech and our Reform class) is that Dewey's pedogogical ideals seem so obvious to me. Yet, I suppose they'd be really difficult to assess (the common theme with ideals, standards, benchmarks, etc). I think an interesting idea would be to compare our own personal teaching creeds and see how they relate, differ, and how they can incorporate technology.

For example- I believe that the classroom is a safe-place and home for individuality. A student should be challenged, but not made to feel in danger at any time. Each student, as an individual, learns and grows differently. These differences can only be acknowledged after the teacher gets to know the student, and the student can only grow in a safe environment.

First- how do you measure this? Well, I don't have an answer, but I do know that it would be quantitatively difficult. But more importantly, how do you incorporate tech into this belief? I suppose I would do so in realizing that every student comes to the classroom with different knowledge of and access to technology. Therefore, to assume that all of the students could follow me during a lesson, or later download a video for homework (see PS), then I would be assuming too much and not focusing on individuality. So, it would be important to include instructional handouts and offer time outside of class or during class in which I could help individually. Also, students might not have the same technology at home, so I would have to keep that in mind when establishing homework.

Now, how's that for a random and long tangent that only sort of correlates to the reading? Hope I didn't loose you.


PS- check out my favorite educational music video (its about oxidative phosphorylation) although I'm afraid future students may have no idea what the song "Californication" actually is...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqqYIgY40OE

Tech Day One

So, I believe the most interesting, noncoursework aspect of our coursework is the diversity of age and experiential influences. We all seek the same overarching purposes- to learn to teach, to educate ourselves, to change our futures. Yet, in the process of attending classes, we end up learning so much more.

For instance, Wednesday was a day full of reflecting on our past technology experiences, and I (as I hope many others) had to begin to rethink a lot of my current views on technology and teaching. I mean, cell phones were always the teacher's enemy in my high school- a distraction, nuisance, an object that had to be removed upon site. This, in and of itself, was always a worry for teachers- if they took away a cell phone, would there be repercussions? It's interesting to look at a cellphone as a tool.

But perhaps the most interesting thing about it all is that the true importance of technology is not its use- the value lies in the effectiveness of use. I think this is an exciting, important distinction- one that I look forward to exploring further!