Digital Nation

I’ve seen parts of this program before but really did not think much about it as I had much less interest then.  Now, as I watched the chapters, I thought there was little that was really new about the stories.  These are the same old complaints from older people about younger people.  Yes, kids are addicted to games and my sister-in-law is addicted to gambling.  My parents became addicted to the ding, ding, and ding of the Casino too after retiring.  That, I never understood.  But then, I am cynical and I think I am savvy.  I know that I am naïve sometimes.  My brother used to drive his kids to a video game store on Saturday about 9:00AM and pick them up at about 9:00PM.  I never understood that either.  However, as a teen, I played pin ball for hours on end.  So what is different?  Well, we didn’t have pinball machines in school for one thing.  I think the reason that we don’t ban games from school computers is because we want to have something to keep bad kids from driving us crazy.  So, we let them and their bad behavior win.  What choice do we have?  It’s hard to expel them, right?  There is little we can do to control them otherwise, right?  If that is so, then why is it that when bad kids are placed in alternative programs as a last chance for schooling, they generally exhibit near perfect socialization?

I think when they get to this point students experience a catharsis and finally understand the real long-term consequences of poor behaviors.  We are making terrible mistakes with kids in some schools.  We are teaching bad behaviors.  Elementary teachers work so hard to socialize little kids.  Then, when we get them to middle school, they are allowed to revert to selfish, disrespectful behavior.  Watch a cat with her kittens.  Swift, harsh correction works and is a salvation. 

An analogy of the way we wrong kids is when we drug them after making them overactive with sugar.  Kids don’t need these drugs and I believe they hurt way more than they help.

I also do not agree with the teacher interviewed in the video report who said that kids should be allowed to multitask, and that they should be trained to multitask.  Evidence to support my opinion is the following portions of the video discussing the decline in reading and writing abilities of students.  And, a quick perusal of our class blogs supports the contention that the younger generation is less able to carry on a sustained train of thought and write about it.  If I were like them, I would have finished the course last week.  How many of our class blogs can really be labeled as essays?

Does the I add to longevity?

No, it does not!  Any activity that keeps a body interested and happy in life extends it.  Have you known people who just gave up?  My friend, Bob Jones, died one night when he was not ill (he was 88).  But, he was lonely because all of his friends including his wife had died.  He was not particularly entertained by his children and only had one grandchild.  I drank the whiskey that he had hidden under his bed after he was hauled away and after we all came in from deer hunting.  Now, my neighbor is in her mid-80s and you would never know it because she is so active.  She knows little of the I.

Is the fantasy world new?

I really don’t think so.  As children we all had our games and other ways to escape and rest our minds from worries.  People played cards at night either at a friends house or at the club.  Others seemed addicted to soap operas on TV.  But, they were not available 24/7 like the I is today.  If there is something new, I believe that it is the extension of childlike fantasy into adult years.  Science fiction writers warned us of this in the 1950s and 1960s.  We were also told that the U.S. economy would go to hell about 2010.  See, these dire predictions never come true.

Virtual Worlds, Etc

I do not believe that video games are emotionally safe learning environments.  The video tried to convince that children really know the difference between reality and fantasy.  They do not.  Many adults do not.  If you kill somebody in a fantasy world and do it over and over, your subconscious can develop dangerous illusions.  This is a form of brainwashing and it’s successfully practiced in many forms such as TV advertising, the socialization of children in public schools and in political messages where people vacation such as the Epcot Center.  In military basic training soldiers are socialized to obey their commanders without questioning.  These examples are not all bad, certainly.  But, how many people have you killed for real?  Or, how many times have you watched people die for real?  These events are usually very sobering and virtual worlds can not simulate it accurately.  A game that did would not be fun.  During the 1960s, there was a sneak preview of a movie in which John Lennin starred playing an English soldier.  This was a very effective anti war movie which the U.S. government banned within 5 days of its release.  You can rent it today, but you can not see what I saw because the scenes that made the movie so effective have been removed.  These were scenes made from real footage of people being killed.  The cameras recorded their faces up close and very personal.  The cameras captured the light leaving their eyes and the terror.  In our society we are removed from these scenes in movies and in reality.  We live in a pseudo-reality where most of us are shielded from the horrible consequences of violent acts.  Several months ago, I watched a computer screen as some of our soldiers unleashed a barrage of 20mm cannon fire from an aircraft in Iraq disintegrating the bodies of several unsuspecting people on the ground below.  Were they guilty of something?  We’ll never know.  For me, the experience of spectator was both sobering and disturbing.  It was not virtual.  It was real!  Think about the word, sobering.  Have we been raising successive cohorts of stupefied youth who will be incapable of handling reality as adults?  Interesting, Cicero has written significant thoughts about this very subject in his letter to Terrentia.  He, as a youth, was protected from the ugly realities of evil men until his father died when he was a teen.  Then, when forced to face evil from unexpected places, he suffered emotionally in ways that he never fully recovered from according to his letter.  His recommendation to us is to teach reality and not to allow children too much fantasy.  Children must be prepared to face realities that they are certain to encounter later in life.  Embrace the good in people but beware of the evil.   

The Digital Nation video highlights and whines about several concerns regarding the use of new technologies and then misses the point.  Does the Internet give people, especially youth, a false sense of reality.  Is virtual reality, fantasy and gaming keeping youth from getting a real education regarding real issues?  

Exit Slip II

Thsi week I learned that it is what the students do that is important; not what the teachers do.  I also learned not to buy flash drive gift cards from a company whose representatives have Indian or Pakistani accents.  You can't redeem your gift cards and emails to them crash your computer email file.  And, I learned that kids need somthing to do, period or they should be split up and movesd to classes where there is somethiong to do.  If you can't hire an auto shop teacher, then disband the class.

Reflection on 5th Reading Assignment

What It All Means – Chapter 10

            I reviewed submissions to professional scientific journals for a lot of years, and I professionally edited research papers for 4 years.  One of my concerns about some writings such as Richardson’s little book is that authors start with a bang and burn out toward the end.  I think that Richardson did too based on the brevity of Chapter 10.  I believe that some of his “Big Shifts” are not really big shifts.  For example, “Teaching is Conversation, not lecture” is the way good teaching has always been and the I had nothing to do with it.  Maybe he never heard of scientific letters, edited publications and responses from readers that were published.  What the I has provided is a forum for unedited thinking similar to prepublication.  People can now be more flippant, less precise and more prone to make technical and language mistakes.  For example, people are not that’s; they are whos.  Horton learned that from Seuss, for goodness sake.

I do believe that the I is a potentially good place to collaborate, that it is a real equalizer and that it certainly is a freedom fighter as we have recently seen in North Africa.  Hopefully, we will also be able to use it to rid ourselves of our repressive government.

I am neither advocating violent revolution, nor am I advocating the Chevy Revolution.

See, it allows people to be flippant too.

I consider many issues that Richardson did not write about.  Why is his book not an online resource if he thinks so much of technology?  What about that?  Also, a printed refereed, professional journal has a defined audience.  Who is the audience for your web page?  In class it’s students, but there is no known level of probability that anyone will ever read your blog.  It might be better to publish videos to YouTube, Vimeo or some other place with a following.  If we teach students to publish to the web and nobody reads their stuff or if those who read it post bullying comments, will students commit suicide.  That might be extreme.  What if somebody posts hurtful comments and this causes students to never write and share again?  I know a professor who would not publish because he was hurt by editorial criticisms the fiorst time he submitted a manuscript.  Think about how youger, sensitive students might react.  We have to protect them from that and teach them to accept constructive critisms for what they are.

I am not trying to be dark today but Richardson reminds me of me.  He has been so positive in his promotion of technology, that he has ignored the potential evils.  He should really think more about those aspects if only to be fair.  He could do his own SWOT.

Anyway, I just agreed to do the bad kids at A-F HS for at least the next 2 weeks on M, W, and F.  I don’t know why I agreed..  Their regular teacher (a veteran of many years) left with an emotional breakdown because of the way they treated him.  He might not return.  The kids are pissed and started out the same with me.  I had to expel one in first block because he was trying to take over the class and do Issac says games instead of helping me lead the class to something of value.  Over half the class has 3 blocks of the same class.  They don’t even leave the room.  I don’t have the license to take them into the shop which is where they want to be.  And, they are mad about that. I can’t blame them but I don’t like picking up 50 or more paper airplanes and paper ball.  Eventually, I told block 4 that they were not allowed to miss the basket and I (they) used the smart board to learn GoAnimate.  They settled down with that.  The only problem was that they made a racial cartoon or I would have saved and linked it here.  I deleted it instead.

Epilogue – His and Mine

Richardson makes it sound so easy.  The ideas are and maybe all of this is easy for some teachers in some places.  In other places, there is no time to do these things, or teachers lack time management skills.  In other places faculty who send all these notes and ideas to other faculty are likely to be shunned.  In others they will be readily accepted.  Have you ever watched a teacher read e-mails?  Most often this is recreation time and not for business really.  Some teachers lack the technology that others in the same school have.  I like the technology and want to use it all of the time.  I can get away with more than the youngsters because of my age.  It must help me with teachers but I can tell you that in some situations it does not help me with the students.  Sometimes it does.  By combining my age with technology, I just might make things work. 

Reflection on Fourth Reading Assignment

Flickr- Chapter 7

Who cares?  I do not, generally.  I have always been a non photographer.  I realize that lots of people like taking pictures.  And, I see a lot of youth, especially girls, sharing photos with their friends either by e-mails or on face book.  Many of their photos are taken with their cell phones.  I remember wanting to take a photo of the Sure/Dummer wedding sign to send to Jay Leno.  I had forgotten that my cell was also a camera.  I have never usedit for that.  I feel that it’s a waste of time, for me.  And, I feel that photos are often personal and I don’t want to share them. You go right ahead.  On the other hand, our Vuvox was OK and might be a great way to get to know the students and get a feel for their home lives.

However, I was attracted to the page 106 description of interacting with Google Earth.  Not so long ago I was looking at my mother-in-law’s ex-house in Boulder Colorado and discovered that it is now a bicycle shop.  That’s not surprising since it is on Broadway and only a few blocks from University of Colorado.  So, geotagging is sort of nifty.

The other aspect I am thinking about is the use of a flip cam (or similar) to publish short videos on the web.  So what?  What advantages are there here as opposed to posting a video on You Tube as a podcast?  I really don’t know at this point.  I also still find my attitude about social media somewhat negative.  Why do I want to share anything personal with strangers, out-of-control secret police, or criminal elements?  I don’t.  I think of it more like, “I’ll pull my pants down after you pull yours down, OK?”

So, other than my positive attitudes for using Flickr and Google Earth for mapping and teaching what places look like, my attitude about sharing photos has not changed.  But, if you want to post a lot of photos showing your home or property and what is around it, and maybe include photos of your valuables and pretty children, go ahead.  If they disappear some night or day when you aren’t home, don’t blame me.

Social Networks- Chapter 9

If you believe that Pakistan did not help the United States military find Osama Bin Laden, let me know where you live, what you have and when you won’t be home.  Also, please post your ID, Soc Sec, passwords and bank statements on your Facebook.  I met a young kid from New Orleans who said that a person (######) couldn’t live in NO on an income less than 60K per year.  He showed no remorse for stealing credit card account numbers from clients in the restaurant.  They take them to the back and swipe them in a black box that they later sell to a fence who sells it to another bad guy.  At the federal law enforcement school we were also taught how to steal your cell phone by walking or driving past when you are talking on the phone.  This is so that undercover officers can have cell phone access that the bad guys can’t trace.  We need to have deep covers sometimes for protection.  And, we need to get untraceable income also sometimes.  Sorry.

 FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center

 FBI Internet Fraud Report

Social networks are great places to get information, to share information and to find information for illicit purposes.  They are certainly good places to network for jobs and to find out what your competition is doing.  Suppose the competition tells the world about a great job opportunity on Facebook, I might beat that competition to the job.  Hey, anybody naïve enough to tell his competition about his opportunities deserves to loose them.  It’s OK to steal from people for government purposes too.  At least that’s what your government tells its agents.  Or, maybe they tell themselves that.

Private social networks might be very useful to educators.  But, how do they differ from a class Wiki or a BlogSpot?  When information is published for public viewing, kids can live their fantasies.  Is this good or bad?  It does open up the possibility that a person can be inappropriate with impunity.  The FBI agent who visited the middle school in Portage made a strong case for being real careful with the information a person puts on Facebook.  Parents can’t control their children and children might jeopardize the whole family.  Who Likes You?

I am being facetious because of the hazards and because they are real.  As a teacher, I would put a priority on teaching kids about the dangers of using social media.  School districts are banning teachers for Liking students on Facebook to protect the teachers.  Ask yourselves why. 

I don't feel that the reading impacted my thinking much but it did remind me of the Google Earth application that I like.  It might have opened up my mind a little.  But, I think the earlier chapters hooked me in positive ways.  I don't mean to be negative relative to chapter 9 but I recently saw a news show about the negatives and that has certainly colored my thinking.  In the show a young girl posted provocative photos of herself under an alias so that she could act out fantasies in front of the world.  In front of the morror is OK but not through a portal to the world. 

I could use social networks in positive ways to share sites and resources with students, to monitor their progress and to set up class communications that might even be anonymous.  I would find those useful for assessing my teaching performance and to identify content that I need to either re-each or reinforce.

I could keep my thinking and writing going on this for hours.  Stop, already!

Reflection on Cool Tools Screencast Task

GoAnimation

Jing

Screencast.com

Webcam by Logitech

A lot of practice and preliminary takes

In order to complete this task, I had to sign up for GoAnimation, Screencast.com, install Jing and a webcam with microphone and do about 100 takes, it seems.  I think some of my experience was similar to that of a movie or television actor.  So many times when I tried to do my screencast I was interrupted by pop ups.  Also, I learned that if I spoke too soon after launching video capture, my first few words were not captured.  I also found that learning a new program can be difficult because there were no directions foe GoAnimation.  None of its tutorials specifically explained how to start a new cartoon.  I finally discovered that there are two ways and they are easy.  I was lucky with the timing of the assignment because Staples had a webcam that interfaced well with my operating system on sale for $20.  And, it had a built in mic.  During the process of doing all of this I also signed up for and downloaded Skype and I learned a little Prezi because I was lucky enough to be on a team in EDUC 337 with Tara Gillette who helped us learn it for a class assignment.  Although not directly related, I also installed Smart Notebook and it really slows down my computer.   In fact, at one time my computer made me wait while it reconfigured because I had run out of memory while capturing video.  I might need to use my wife’s newer machine for the podcast assignment because it has more memory space.  I spent about 30 actual hours doing all of this.  I used a significant part of that time discovering how to get into the Go Animate studio where cartoons are made( I used my screecast to train Marcia Roelke, a HS teacher in biology, to use GoAnimate and she was making her own cartoons within the hour proving that a little help learning the tool increases efficiency), and I spent a lot of time (about 10 hours) making the screencast because I had to do so many takes.  I finally accepted the post you see here but I intend to add Camicast so that I can learn to edit and improve my screencast. All in all, I did make my first little cartoon and my first screencast.  Since then I have made additional screencasts to add content to other reports.  Specifically, I made a screencast that briefly reviewed an online textbook and inserted it into a text analysis for a Science unit plan that I constructed for an assignment in Dr. Cook's EDUC337 course.

.
b>GoAnimate.com: Cool Moms by mkjohnson

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

Cool Moms

I also had students at A-F HS use the IWB and GoAnimate to make cartoons in class.  I have a suggestion for GoAnimate.  Set it up so that teachers can get all of the black characters off the system.  My white biggoted students immediately found the black character and started making racist cartoons.

 Screencast of GoAnimate

Classroom Uses

During the tenure of my effort it the obvious applications came to mind.  Simply, I can use the free version of GoAnimate to highlight the content I am teaching  However,  even better, students will have a ball using the program to create cartoons using the academic content I am helping them learn. In fact, Marcia Roelke and I will be teaching high school students to use GoAnimate and they will create cartoons relative to their own research on biomes in North America. Considering my potential uses of screencasts, I have 2 categories in mind.

First, I remember watching Michelle Johnson leaning over another teacher’s desk while Michelle was teaching her how to make a class WIKI.  Michelle has tried to help several other teachers do this.  If she had a screencast to share with all of the faculty, it would save her a lot of time.  I can envision showing my colleagues how to do a number of class projects by making screencasts, and I can envision making screencasts quite often to help students learn a variety of tasks from making calculations to performing laboratory tasks.  Can you imagine how much more efficient students would be (and safer) working in laboratories after they watched a screencast or podcast that demonstrated their hands on lab before their hands were actually on it.  I bet students would enjoy helping to edit the screencasts, especially if videos were embedded in them in which they were the stars posted on You Tube?

Yeah!

Second, I would use screencasts that I could archive for substitutes to use.  Then , I would not be totally absent, students would know they are responsible for the content and life would be better for all, especially for the substitute teacher.  Say, how about a scrrecast to train substitutes?  Cool!

Also, during the process, I watched the 20/20 show on the YouTube Generation.  It, of course, gave me ideas because it got me thinking about how I could also get rich by posting good stuff on YouTube.  Why not?

20/20 Friday Nights

While I was working on the IWB project I wanted to have students find photos or videos of animals in different biomes around the world and maybe climate events too.  Then, I realized that most short videos are on YouTube and most schools block this.  Then, I got an idea.  I wondered if I could play the video, use jing to capture it, send it to screencast.com and recover it in a classroom for students to see even if they could not do it from school themselves.

Video of Gobi desert from YouTube.       Ha! Ha!

 

Reflections on 331 Third reading Assignment

 Chapter Ate

            This chapter contains more information on more subjects with more references to more web resources than any of the 7 chapters that I previously read.  As I reflect on my interaction with the reading, you should get a good idea as to how I consume a reading.  When I read a chapter for the first time I get little out of it.  But, I gain a perception of its content.  As the second reading proceeds I underline, circle or in some way identify parts of the book as to important big ideas and as to what content represents labs.  Then, I do as much lab work as possible and read the chapter again looking for more details in the content that relate to things I did in lab and to the things I will do in the future.

The Labs

            So, for the lab part of my reading, I installed Skype, got a webcam, learned to use it, downloaded Jing and Screencast and practiced making short screencasts to get ready for my screencast and podcasting projects.  All in all, this took about a full day.  I finished at about 300hrs.  I viewed video tutorials and I explored the podcast collages in teachertube, tinyurl.com/6aalqr and tinyurl.com/qqg4kg.  These gave me a good look at what I might be able to do as my skills develop.

I also examined Jing Pro and Camicast programs where screencasts and podcasts can be edited.  These cost about $500 per year each but Camicast does give a 30 day trial free.  So, I will be able to edit.  At the same time another partner is teaching me to use prezi for a project and within prezi is the capability to embed video material (http://prezi.com/6skfzaudebyu/whats-in-the-black-box/).

Another Look

            So, then I read it again looking for more specifics of interest.  I identified things like video streaming that I am not ready for and saved its lab for a future date.  I also saved Educational Podcast Network for later because therer just isn’t enough time right now to do everything.  Finally, I looked for the sales pitch.  What I mean is that I looked for substantive arguments that explain why I should care.  These boiled down to ways to use the technology to enhance student learning.

Why Should I Care?

            I watch kids during 4^th block at Adams-Friendship HS.  They roam the halls with a video camera either looking for neat stuff or they are on assignment for their technology class filming the script for tomorrow’s TV broadcast during second block.  They like it and what they are learning.  I like it because its fun.  The final product instills a certain level of pride in every participant and even in the other nonparticipating peers.  They are learning and the average student scores 40 points above Wisconsin means on tests like SAT and ACT.  Their product is evidence of their accomplishments that I can see.  More important it is evidence that they can see and that makes all the difference because it makes it all so relevant.  In my professional life it was the thrill of having papers accepted for publication through the peer review process.  It was the game, the fight and the success of winning.  It’s a hoot; it’s a thrill; it’s bragging rights!  Just look at any professor’s curriculum vitae.  What do we highlight?  Our bragging rights relate to the number of refereed publications and the amounts of money we secured from grants and donations.  They are tangible and they are cool!  So, it’s no wonder that kids who have hands on use of technology learn more content.

Cool Moms Animation

                                        

                                                                         Insert: 

I had to leave this for an hour to watch 20/20 show about how people use YouTube to become very successful and very wealthy.  What a neat coincidence.

Take a Kid Hunting

            So, anyway, sportsmen say, “take a kid hunting” and this is supposed to help them grow up without getting into trouble and hanging with the wrong crowd.  Maybe doing exercises with technology is the new “hunting” experience.  When I worked at Louisiana State University, I took every student in my wildlife classes hunting.  I prepared them to do it correctly and successfully.  Every hunt was individual and no student ever missed their deer.  Every student got a deer.  This might sound a little impossible.  But it really happened because I had the resource and developed the skills to make it happen.  I was the best deer hunter and the best hunting guide (for neophytes).  I attended to the details and made it happen.  So, technology is the new gun and students are the young hunters.  Teachers are the hunting guides who must be able to use the gun with such expertise that they can ensure students will be successful in their hunts.

Reflections on 331 Second Reading Assignment

Wikipedia

           

            When the Internet first got really popular during the late 1990’s, teachers preached against using it for library research because they did not trust information unless the source was an unchangeable, peer edited and/or professionally refereed primary source journal.  So, I did not trust Wikipedia because it was often altered.  However, the way Richardson explains and defends it, I am now willing to accept its content, generally.  However, I am not always satisfied with Internet sources.  Sometimes there just isn’t much published, or it is too superficial.  I can make that judgment but students might not be able to.  On the other hand, I found great sites to that I used to review chemistry, ionizing radiation and physics when I studied for the praxis II test.  It was faster to go straight to the Internet compared to trying to look something up in my old text books.  It paid off.  I passed with a perfect score on the general science test

(0435). 

Will traditional textbooks fade into the background?

            I hope so.  They are so Archie Bunker, after all.  Don’t you agree?  Production of paper versions of texts is wasteful of natural resources and production causes pollution of air and water.  I don’t want to carry them around.  I had Michael Ritter’s online geology course and we used his online text ( Table of Contents for Ritter's online Physical Geography).  I bookmarked the table of contents and was able to quickly find, read, review, use interactives and watch supporting video presentation by highly respected sources.  It was much better than a traditional text and I still use it.  What could be better?  In David Grabski’s 8^th grade science class (David Grabski's Class Wiki) students also use online texts that seem to be similar in design to Ritter’s but which are supplied by traditional publishers.  So, even they see the light. “Come into the light, Children, come into the light”, (from Poltergeist). 

Wiki Tools for Schools

            My first introduction to the use of a web blog in school was probably Ritter’s online geology text.  I didn’t know what it was when I used it.  My first awareness of a teacher who used a Wiki was when Michelle Johnson at Adams-Friendship middle school showed me hers.  She stressed that parents could view it to see what their kids were doing and whether they had and were doing their homework.  Kids often tell their parents that they don’t have any homework.  Mr. Grabski also has guest and parent access on his site.  I can see what the kids are doing before I attend his class.  So, I can be better prepared to help in class.  Now, I see that the Wiki can be much more than a place for parents to see what their kids are doing.  It is a great place to engage students with content.  I am watching different kids closely in Mr. Grabski’s class to see how much variation there is in different student’s levels of engagement, enjoyment and success with the class wiki.  My question is whether all kids can use it equally and whether it actually enhances their learning.  I already think it does.  It is as hard to be objective about these things as it is difficult to be me.  Ha! Ha!  Yes, but seriously, it is hard to be objective.  I must try to be.  The problem is that I really want to teach this way.  To me it is more fun than traditional pedagogy.  Been there, done that, I want something new.  I want class wikis, blogs, etc.  I can’t say that the reading makes me want to teach differently.  I can say that my experiences with online text and in classes that use high levels of technology that have opened my eyes.

RSS Feeds

            I read the chapter before we started our class and subscribed to 4 feeds.  They are Certification Map (a blog about getting teachers certified and related stuff) which had 3 new feeds posts since I looked at it last, a NY Times blog about teacher pay (it had 5 new posts), Science News (it had 22 new posts) and USGS Earthquake Notification (it had a whopping 268 posts).  Based on my neophytic (another new word I made up) experience, I am certain there are more potential classroom applications for RSS feeds than I have thought of.  This is because the potential application depends on the specific blog and its content.  I can use the USGS feed to impress students regarding the frequency of earthquakes.  I can use certification map for myself and colleagues.  I can use Science News to start each day (or maybe each week) and to generate discussions.  I can use it to show the relevance of science.  I can make the case that it’s not just crap we are trying to teach in science classes.  I think that I would like to use it to get students involved in real world conversations.  They can start to feel a part of the learning community that is world wide.  Maybe, RSS feeds can help me build fires under the butts of teens.  I just need that burning permit.

What?

            What will I do differently?  I think it depends on who hires me if anybody.  I like the students in Wisconsin Dells and the staff because they got it right regarding managing student behavior.  However, they don’t have the best computer system and they block nearly everything I want to use.  I was able to get to vuvox and to delicious.  But, I could not get to blogger, You Tube or Wikipedia.  The faculty even complains about how many pages they block.  My home e-mail service is even blocked.  One faculty could not log on to her online bill paying stuff.  In the building most cell phones and androids won’t make connections.  A lot of the students know how to get around these blocks and they showed me, but I forgot how.  So, if I have a choice between working in Wisconsin Dells versus in a school with bad kids and better computers, I’ll take the bad kids.  Hey, Wisconsin Dells, there is a world out there past Columbia and Sauk County lines.  You’ all don’t have good jobs for all of your kids.  So, you’ all need to get with the program.

Growing up on-line

Big Ideas

            While viewing chapter 1 my attention was drawn to 3 “Big Ideas”. 

1.      “The Internet is the new Wild West; nobody is in charge.”

2.      “It is where they learn about life.”

3.      “Schools are struggling to keep up.”

            I think these statements hit the mark with great accuracy.  I mentioned in class that some schools like Portage HS are promoting technology by allowing students and teachers to have their own devices in class for educational purposes.  However, yesterday (Sept 16, 2011) I was substituting in Wisconsin Dells and while I was preparing to show my vuvox biography to classes, which I did, I discovered that almost all of Google was blocked.  Access to all blogs was blocked, Wikipedia was blocked and many other sites that we use in class every day.  When I am in Portage, I can use any tool on the Internet and so may students.  Filters monitor what people are doing on their system such as the filters do at P. J. Jacobs in Stevens Point, but students have free access to use the Internet as a learning tool.  In these schools teachers are teaching students how to get more from their Internet.  Sometimes, I do watch the students stretch the rules but I only see them playing games and looking at tattoos.  Adams-Friendship is more similar to Portage but some sites are blocked, particularly You Tube.  I compare this with putting a fence across the southern border of the United States.  I have been there in the spring when along the Texas border hundreds of people walk back to San Antonio to embark for all points north in Estados Unidos,  Hey, they are coming and you can’t stop them.  I don’t want to stop them.  They (and It) will improve our economy and enrich our lives.  I wish people would get out of the way and let the Progress Train roll.

Questions

            My viewing of other chapters raised several significant questions for which I have no real answers but they deserve a ponder or two.

1.      Is using the Internet for shorter ways to information cheating?

2.      Is privacy a thing of the past?

3.      Does going on-line stimulate people to open up?

4.      Is the Internet the new pinball machine?

5.      Do teens use social sites to come of age?

My thoughts on these questions tend to insignifify (another new word I made up) any serious concerns these questions might arouse.  After reading about wikis, I don’t think using the Internet is cheating.  However, I think we need to teach students about editing and using primary literature.  I like to share publishing experiences with students so that they can learn that writing is neither right nor wrong but that it can always get better.  James Michener has a good book describing his publication experiences, “The Novel”.

I find the book to be quite poignant because I realized while reading it that he was writing this novel autobiographically.  However, it would be a tough book for most HS students.  On the other hand, parts of it could be converted into plays that students would understand quite easily.  Privacy is not a thing of the past because the Internet is a new kind of privacy or at least it provides illusions of privacy.  That is why one narrator in the video said, “They can act out and be fantasy people on-line.”  I do not agree with the statements in the video that, “There are no more small towns and no more safe places.”  I know that television and adult stores took care of that long ago.  Children have always gone to places their parents knew nothing about.  Regardless, the 1960’s ensured that sin was available to all in the United States.  When kids play games on-line, the Internet is the new pinball machine but I still like those old pinball machines.  I have vivid memories of a certain machine that was easy to win free games on.  How many of you knew that pinballs were used widely for gambling when it was legal to do that?

Child Predators

            The video did good to point out that this subject relative to the Internet has been exaggerated.  I agree that children do things to themselves that are more dangerous such as drinking too much alcohol, driving too fast and experimenting with a variety of things.  But, the video could have mentioned that there are many kinds of predators on the Internet.  I suppose the producers did not because the subject was about youth.  The video stated that parents don’t know about their children’s private lives.  I say, “So what!” Parents never have known much about the private lives of their children and the Internet has nothing to do with that.  It is just another way to talk to friends secretly.  I also think that in relation to the privacy issue mentioned previously that most young people and many older folks are dangerously naïve today.  A friend once told me that the difference between us is that I always looked for the good in people while he expected the bad.  He said that was why I was frequently blindsided and disappointed in others.  Answer the following questions and think about them; really think about it.  Did the government of Pakistan help the United States locate, monitor and kill Osama Bin Laden?  What makes you think what you think?

Cyber Bullying

            Many of us grew up with the jingle;

                        “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me”

Who would have thought that this was a logical fallacy?  So, words can hurt people, especially those who are sensitive and the young.  As presented in the video, the way e-mail and Internet bullying can seriously harm others relates to the most simple brainwashing techniques that are used by governments in criminal or military interrogations, and that we use all the time to socialize children.  If you tell a person something often enough for a long enough time, they will come to believe it.  People loose the ability to really think independently.  For example, every day, every child in the United States on every school day says the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.  How difficult is it for you to consider the possibility that your country might engage in criminal activity against other people?  Can you think of another country that might be a better place for you to live?  During the Viet Nahm War we learned to think about such things.  I, however, was a slow learner.  I was really brainwashed by the system.  That is why I am so disgusted with Governor *******.  And, I am so very disappointed in the Wisconsin Teachers Union.  Most of you will start new jobs at less than $10/hr with poorer benefits than the Union had previously gotten for teachers.  You have been told over and over not to expect a lot of money.  Educators make a big mistake by telling you that.  Part of your professional health is being able to be financially secure.  We need to teach more about that whenever we train professionals.  Medical schools have long taught their students about making and managing money, for example.  So, I am not being a rebel in this.  So, brainwashing and bullying are one in the same and each can hurt people in different ways.  I think the real danger associated with cyberbullying is that it is silent.  So, there is less chance that another person will hear it, especially a parent or teacher, and be able to intervene before there is an everlasting hurt or worse.

The Big Message

            Can the next generation live without the Internet?  Yes, of course. It is not the addiction that it seems.  I know this because I have friends who have stopped having television for financial reasons.  I don’t use it much anymore for other reasons and I don’t miss it.  How should schools regard the Internet?  I say, embrace it.  Rise above your fears and get with the program.  Learn to be better at using it than the youth are so that you can teach them how they can use it to make their lives better.

     http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/

Exit Slip

As I was reading other students' blogs, I realized that the course was more complicated than my first impressions ansd I got the feeling that few students were getting it.  We are not just learning to use various technologies and how we might employ them in our own content area teaching, but we should also be learning and thinking about how we can teach students to use the technologies effectively to improve their own lives and competitiveness.

Reflections on 331 First Reading Assignment

Chapter 1 The Read/Write Web

            My original impression of the learning that I would do in 331 was to become more proficient with new ways (and old) to deliver content to students, and to help them become computer literate.  I focused on the idea of meeting teaching standards in a fairly simple view.  I was not considering teaching them to be life long self learners, and that is one of the “Big Ideas” that I have taken away from the reading in between having tech frustrations and filling out my student teacher application.  When I first got the book, I read it through and signed up for blogger, twitter, RSS feeds and used Delicious to find a few web sites but I still didn’t fully understand why.  I read about using class WIKIs and had previously been introduced to them by Michelle Johnson who teaches in the middle school at Adams-Friendship.  Michelle showed my how she uses a WIKI to allow parents keep up with what the kids are doing in class.  She also teaches her peers how to set them up and how to use them.  Michelle has an MS degree in educational technology.  At that time I did not get the message that I could use the WIKI for student projects, investigation and collaborative projects with people in other places.  That is such a neat idea.  I also thought, from my first read, that only about 10% of the text had substance.  I liked having the tool box list and I think I should copy and file those pages for reference.  I would use them like strings on my fingers to remind myself of all the options I have.  On the other hand, I felt a bit disappointed with the chapter because I was looking for something to tell me how to do stuff.  In other words, I wanted the laboratory part of the course which is what I (we) are doing right now.

Chapters 2 and 3 Weblogs

            I think that chapter 2 confused me.  I really did not previously know what a blog was.  I did not know that it was a published web site or that it could turn into a conversation.  I understand some aspects now but I remain a bit leery of it because I still wonder why anyone would want to blog.  I understand the teaching applications now at least a little.  However, it seems to me that some people would use the blog to show off with impunity, or as an attempt to communicate in frustration. 

            But, then I got to chapter 3, my favorite chapter, and started the lab part of the class.  I did this during August and I posted a blog called teacherinwisconsin  (http://teacherinwisconsin.blogspot.com/).  I have learned some things from doing this, actually.  First, nobody has ever looked at it.  So, my question is, “How do I get people to look at it?”  My second finding happened when I looked for blogs with similar subjects.  The subject of my blog is low teacher pay and public impressions about that.  I found a couple from 2009 that had not been commented on either.  So, my conclusion at this point is that few people care about the topic.  Maybe and most probably I just don’t know what I am doing yet.  I have some other ideas for blogs such as foreign student workers, ice cream recipes, and to use it for gathering information about substitute teaching.  I really want to write a small book about it so that I can get rich and famous like Esme.  Ha! Ha!  But, I don’t want to publish it on the web so that people can read it for free.  It would probably be a good way to share jokes.  Having some good (clean) jokes would be good for any customer service profession in addition to teaching.  How about a blog entitles “Clean Jokes”?

Chapter 6 Social Web

            Before I got to the social web, I thought that this meant facebook and although I have an account, I don’t use it much because I think of it as a super e-mail.  So, why not just e-mail.  Why do I want to share everything with everybody when I know that few. If any, people care about me.  Of course, my attitudes are colored by my life experiences, and a little reverie about party lines on our early telephones.  And, I know that the FBI and Homeland Security (the modern Gestapo) are continuously surfing the web to find targets.  They have a big computer center that uses key words to look for people who they might need to further investigate or to monitor targets already identified.  This has been going on long before 911.  I have had some training in undercover operations at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, Glencoe, Georgia.  FBI agents train at Quantico with the Marines.  So, we aren’t supposed to like each other.

           

            Also, before I read chapter 6, I had read chapter 5, set up Google reader and subscribed to some RSS feeds.  I have one that is OK, and 2 that are cool.  One tells me every time there is an earthquake anywhere in the world.  Wow, I can use this for teaching and one is science news with teacher resources.  So, then I read about delicious and I did not sign up initially.  I used it to look for sites but did not understand how I could use it as a personal place to file resources.  So, I held off.  Then, I started using it.  Now, I combine it with RSS to make a net to catch ideas and information.  So, some sites I might just want to bookmark while other sites I might want to have the RSS feeds, if they do that sort of thing.  It seems more and more are.  So, I ask myself,” How will I use this in teaching?”  Well, I will use my RSS feed to show students that the tectonic plates are really active.  There are about 90,000 earthquakes per year.  I didn’t know that either a couple of weeks ago.  And, I will use Delicious to find more cool lesson materials.  I can also combine use Delicious as a class project to monitor whether students are looking for appropriate materials on the web and to stimulate students to “want” to learn more. 

Conclusions

            So, after actually doing the laboratory part of the class, my thinking has changed from wanting to use the Internet for delivering content to wanting students to use the web for learning.  My pedagogic philosophy has evolved from needing to teach students to compute to wanting to teach students how to learn.  What I will do differently?  I am not certain at this point.  It will depend, in part, as to a school’s policies and on it’s technological capabilities and on what it refuses to unblock.  I already used my digital biography in classes that I substituted in.  And, I used RSS in EDUC 337.  The ability to keep informed about science news and new lesson materials will help me to revise lesson plans often.  I will involve students more in constructing their own learning by using blogs, sites like delicious and other things I have already learned and I will look for other similar sites.  But, I ask myself the following question.  When will all of these free sites try to force me to pay?  Years ago there were free internet telephoning sites and certain sites where I would store files in cyberspace.  Then, after a year they started charging for their services.  So, when will delicious start asking for $29.95/year?  I hope never; I know better.

Digital Autobiography

I put long hours into producing my digital biography.  I started at about midnight and sort of finished at about 6:00 PM the next day.  But, I did some other things also during that time.  First, I had to find a select photos.  Some were in my computer files but some were in albums I inherited after my parents died.  I recognize the people in most of the photos but many people's names escape me.  They were friends of my parents and military friends of my father.  Unfortunately, none of the several hundred photos was labled.  There was one exception which was grade school photos of classes at Halstrom Elementary in Rockford, Il.  I found my father's 6th grade class photo and my own from the same school.  Of course, none of the students names were included.  I found the vuvox site to be pretty user friendly.  I had trouble initially trying to import music files.  First, I had never ripped music from a disc before and when I did vuvox would not load mine.  Vuvox did not like windows media player.  So, I called Steve at the Help Desk and he told me to down load a free MP3 ripper, rip the music I wanted again and so I did.  However, before I could make that work, I had to delete the music that I had ripped from my file.  Then, everythng worked.  And, I like what I came up with.  There was a lot of emotion involved because I was looking at hundreds of photos of people who are deceased and I miss them.  Some of them were buried this last year.  Two young women died during August and their deaths were unexpected.  My father was the youngest of 8.  So, the demography is just what it is.  To top all that off I was gone for over 35 years (out of sight-out of mind).  So, I see my brothers seldom and my sister now lives in Florida.  I saw her briefly about 10 years ago.  She has been back to the area several times for weddings and funerals on her husbands side.  There has been no extra time.  We had a reunion for my siblings and I planned last Christmas in Rockford but a sneaux storm foiled our plans even for those close to each other in Rockford.  Anyway, after I wrote this post I looked at the digital biography and found glitches.  I added hot spots and found out that you can edit my vuvox college if I am logged in at the same time that you view it using the link below.  I also saw that placement of the hot spots can be important because when the window of the hot spot opens it can highlight a feature that is not complimentary.  So, I will do more editing for sure.

There were 2 values in completing the course task related to teaching.  First, I now have another weapon to use in class.  I am a little more competant with technology and have a greated desire to go farther.  I also have more to share using distance technology like e-mails and facebook.  The second value was that it made me think about the lives of students and how they vary.  Some have great families; others have none or bad ones.  Professor Boyer will visit Adams-Friendship this fall and I hope he meets Michelle Johnson and her husband who both teach in the middle school.  I substituted for Michelle several times; she is a technologist too and a wonder with the students.  I have never seen better classroom management.   In a way Michelle and her husband serve as surrogate parents for a fair number of students who do not have real families.  They don't like Thanksgiving or Christmas vacations because they won't be fed well again until they are back in school.  Michelle told me that.  So, in thinking about my family and childhood, I had to reflect on those of students who are not as fortunate as I was.  I think they need extra teacher support and empathy, and they are not likely to have ready access to technology that I might want to use in class.  I will think of ways to overcome that obstacle.
Whether vuvox is used or an alternative, I have a way to interact with students to get to know them better.  I think having them do a similar exercise at the beginning of a term is a good way to help them become more tecnology savvy (as per DPI performance standards), engage their interest and capture their imaginations.  We already have students making video productions in most high schools.  So, why can't all of the students catch up to their peers?  The exercise is like the old show and tell that we all enjoy.  So, we can honor students by giving them a show and tell they can enjoy sharing with the class while they learn new stuff.  And, I don;t mean just biographies.  How about exercises like a digital project report, or a digital book report?  The digital collage can be adapted to a variety of class assignments where students discover new things and simply add their findings to the collage.  So now I need to find other similar web sites that they and I can use.

Mark's Digital Biography on Vuvox