ruminations on an edublogger

I've been reading the Art of Teaching Science blog authored by Jack Hassard. In his last couple of posts he has discussed the Common Core Standards that have been adopted by Michigan, Massachusetts recently, and many other states. He points out that the same Billionaire Boys Club (remember Diane Ravitch's interview video we watched in 649) is funding both groups that are pushing for national standards, such as the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and organizations, such as Achieve, Inc., that are deeply involved in writing and advising on the standards. As with most anything that involves politics in this country one has to "follow the money". The homepage of Fordham Institute's website is covered with headlines and links touting charter schools. Could their goal in pushing these national standards be to see more public schools fail so that under Race to the Top public money would shift to charter schools and back into their pockets?

Reflections on "The Wired Life"

This week we read "The Wired Life", a chapter from the book Teaching Generation M by Cvetkovic and Lackie. This chapter examines, in more detail, much of what we already know about today's teenagers: they are more "wired" than any past generation. In fact, the authors claim they spend 6-8 hrs a day in "multitasking mode". This actually seems a little low to me, especially if you add in texting to others while in the classroom. But maybe the authors assume that most schools successfully keep students from doing this! Anyway, I question to some degree whether today's teens multitask any more than teens in the past. However, I would agree with the authors that teens today are much more connected to the large world and therefore their multitasking activities are broadcast to a much larger audience.

I thought it was an interesting point that teens today do not consider it rude to be in the same physical space with one another, but be texting, Facebooking, twittering, etc. with friends somewhere else. I think there is definitely a generation gap issue here because I've been out with friends and felt it rude when I or one of my friends is playing around with their iPhone and not paying attention to the conversation.

Developing and experimenting with one's self-identity has always been part of being a teenager. I can remember going through this phase where my group of friends, the way I would dress, or the music I listened to would rapidly change from one year to the other. The difference with today's teens is that the easy accessibility and wide variety of media outlets makes it easy to broadcast this self-identity experimentation to a much larger audience. I can remember thinking it was really neat when MySpace started becoming popular that people now had such an easy format for developing and broadcasting their individual creativity.

I do worry that the easy access of the web has made it too easy to acquire "celebrity" status, through personally demoralizing activities. I know that there is freedom of expression, etc., but it seems to me that too many teens put too much of their mind and bodies out there and that they may at some later point regret this.

So, what does all of this mean to education? As the authors point out, teens really seem to want to be involved in social activism and they want to be involved in a way that blurs the lines between local and global. So, teachers could design projects to teach core subject content through means of working on social activism projects. It would seem that such projects would engage students in a meaningful way, while at the same time helping them learn core content.

yeah! I did a podcast!

I was really impressed with myself for figuring out the GarageBand podcast software while still in class last Friday. Usually, new stuff like that requires me to work on my own after class to really "get it". But I figured out how to record myself, add in the jingle track and post it to a wiki page all before the end of class.... yeah! I look forward, now, to working on the podcast assignment for this Friday. And I even went out and better an external microphone to play around with.

The discussion of video games in classrooms is still very much on my mind. I was thinking over the weekend about how many students there are that become very good at video games, but have felt very little success in school. And instead of integrating their skills at video games into school curriculum, their parents and teachers forbid them from playing video games unless their grades improve. No wonder so many kids exhibit such little passion for their education! Similar to the way the Morrell article we read in 402 proposed using pop culture as a context for improving literacy, couldn't we use video games in a similar way? Think of how much better students who perform poorly in traditional academic assessments may feel about themselves if they could begin to recognize the sort of higher order thinking skills they use in successfully playing video games.

Video Games in Education

I would be interested to read what the naysayers to using video games in education would say. I say that because James Paul Gee makes some pretty compelling arguments in favor of using video games in education. Clearly, too many students are completely turned off by our current curriculum. So, why not try something new? John Dewey said we should ground a student's learning in their social environment. Aren't video games a large component of many students environment?

Gee lays out 16 important skills, many of which fall into the realm of higher order thinking, that students develop from playing video games. Aren't these the kinds of skills that we want our future to learn? The key thing is that teachers have to guide students in "unpacking" the skills they are learning from video games. Then, teachers must develop lessons that take these skills and transfer them to solving problems in math and science. And I'm probably missing here that these skills are transferrable to other subjects, as well.

One point that really struck me in the Gee video is when he mentioned that if our only goal is to educate students to pass standardized tests, then that could be accomplished much more cheaply in other countries. In other words, with our cost structure in this country that is a competition we cannot win. Our only opportunity to win is to produce students that can lead in "innovation".

Twitter, webinar problems, and cheating (reflections on 7/16)

Overall, I thought it was a really good class last Friday. Count me among the folks who swore they would never use Twitter. But it's like your mom forcing you to eat stuff you hate because "it's good for you" ...... sometimes she was actually right! I don't honestly see myself using Twitter for personal stuff. But I can understand (or at least would like to explore) the value in it for developing a PLN of Physics and Math teachers. One thing I've learned in life is that I shouldn't need to have all the answers, but rather I should know how to ask good questions and who to ask those questions to.

The whole thing about there being a conversation going on Twitter during the webinar was strange to me. I don't think I would except it in a high school classroom, at least at this point, that some of my students may be following Twitter instead of paying attention to the lesson of that day. Also, I would worry that this side conversation on Twitter may show some great insights that anyone not on Twitter would miss.

Finally, the different perspectives in dealing with the video difficulties during the webinar got me thinking more about what forms of communication were most important in that context. I concluded that video was really not needed for that conversation; only audio and text in the chat room were necessary. So, I feel like the lack of video did not hinder my comprehension of the school project in any way.

I guess one thing that really helped me feel comfortable about the lack of video is that I am used to audio only conferences at my engineering job. When combined with file shared-viewing software, like NetMeeting or AppShare such meeting can be very effective. And one of the best features with the webinar software was the scrolling chat that is recorded and sent out to participants later. I think I would be interested to learn how webinars could also potentially help me in developing my PLN.

Twitter, blogging, web 2.0, PLN's, NING, NetVibes, "presentation Zen" style, blah blah blah

Basically, my summary of the Media 21 project report goes like this: the kids did projects on Africa using a bunch of web tools that I've never really heard of or have any clue how to use. But the overwhelming majority of kids seemed to get a lot out of the academic content and enjoyed themselves while working on it. And the project seems like it wouldn't have been successful without a librarian literate in all the latest web tech tools. So, if I want to do something like this in my school I better hope there's tech savvy librarian or media specialist there.

And the thought of using twitter for building PLN's is a challenge for me. I think I get the concept of PLN's, but I've never had any real interest in joining Twitter. I am interested to learn how to use Twitter so I can begin to decide for myself whether it may be useful to me. It seems that pretty much everything in this course is knew to me. So, I have a steep learning curve .

The reading about cheating on multiple choice tests asserted a provocative idea: don't use multiple choice tests. This is a really good point, considering everything that we're learning about the need to move students towards HOT. And I wonder if academic dishonesty and plagiarism are truly more prevalent today than in the past (is there any research that corroborates this assertion?). I lean towards thinking kids are no more dishonest now than they were in the past. I just think the ways in which they do it have changed.

Reflections on Class (7/9)

First, I've got to say that 6 hours focused on one class is an awfully long time. But I totally enjoyed the final activity of the afternoon where we worked with our content major groups on the oil spill lesson plan. It was the first opportunity I'd had to work with or talk much with some of the other Physics majors from section A, like Pete, Kiwi, and George. And trading ideas back and forth with everyone was a sampling of the kind of experiences I hope to gain from this cohort. So, I look forward to more chances to work closely with all of you Physics folks!

Another thing I'm looking forward to is surveying our student teaching placement schools to document what technology resources they have available. I don't remember if it was Jeff or Kristin who mentioned that we would be doing this in the fall. But I'm really interested in seeing not only what is available in Ann Arbor Huron HS, where I'll be, but also what the other schools have. I really appreciate the wiki page of web resources that Kristin put together and took us through in the morning. I'm curious to see how easy or difficult it may be to make use of these resources in the various schools.

And I wouldn't have minded if the Dewey discussion had gone on for another couple of hours. The guy had a lot of provocative things to say, many of which or very much still relevant today. His strong focus on the individual child, but in the context of that child's "social life", seems to have been lost in this age of NCLB, Race to the Top, and high-stakes testing. What would Dewey have to say about all of this? I found myself also thinking about Diane Ravitch in the interview we watched in 649 railing against too much reform; isn't stability one of the most important things for the healthy development of a child? Back to Dewey, one of my favorite statements from his creed is where he said that education should be of the greatest importance to a community. I hope to contribute to that idea in whatever community I end up teaching in.

Relating Dewey to Educational Technology

I don't have much to say regarding the article on Wikipedia and Google other than to say it was really informative to me in terms of not only understanding better how they function, but also in understanding them from a more philosophical standpoint. The concept of "the wisdom of crowds" is a new one to me, but does not seem to be new to mankind. This seems to have been the model for human scholarly discourse since the beginning of time; sites, such as Wikipedia, enable the wisdom of the crowds to be shared more efficiently.

The Rich and Reeves article strives to tie the implementation of modern technology in education back to the philosophies of John Dewey. They state that Dewey saw the need for a linking science to bridge theory and practice in education. At this point in time, I'm not totally sure how to use technology to create this bridge, but I can see that this could be a very useful role for education technology. In the course, I believe we'll see how we can use technology in the classroom to emphasize the "dynamic interplay between society and the individual".

"My Pedagogic Creed" by John Dewey was a very interesting read. I always enjoy strong statements of philosophy and values, whether I wholly agree with the content or not. It really resonated with me in Article Three where he says that "science is of value because it gives the ability to interpret and control the experience already had". In teaching physics, I would like to help students see how its concepts can help describe the world they already recognize around them. However, it does seem to me that Dewey misses that, while science can be a powerful descriptive tool, the teacher also needs to help students see it as a powerful creative tool.

There are some concepts of Dewey's philosophy that I didn't understand, such as what is meant by "social life of the child" and "primitive unconscious unity of social life". He seems to be advocating for close integration of the individual child's education with their social reality outside of school. However, this reality differs greatly amongst different kids. And in the increasingly multi-cultural society that is the reality of today's America what challenges does a teacher face in trying to identify with the variety of "social lives" of children. My final thought on Dewey is that I wish more communities would take to heart that "the community's duty to education is its paramount moral duty".

A Brave New World

You may think my title was making reference to the book, but I've actually never read it ..... maybe that's why my teaching major is physics. Anyway, I was thinking more of how I feel like this class will be like stepping into a brave new world of technologies that I'm unfamiliar with. It will be one thing to learn how to use a video camera (which I've never used), but a totally different thing to learn how to use wikis, blogs, and other stuff. But I trust that this will totally be a process of "learning by doing" ....... I feel that with this class I will totally have to get past wanting to always learn things to an "expert" level. Each of us is at our own place with use of these technologies, so it will actually be a lot of fun to grow together.

As far as using ed tech in the classrooms, I can totally see that it may help me connect with a greater range of today's students, who are very tech-savvy. I hope that I can help students to see technology as an enabler in terms of learning efficiency. I'm not sure there is anything that technology can help me teach that couldn't be taught through other means. However, I would want my students to view technology as helping them gain knowledge more efficiently (I think Monte made a point in class about technology as an efficiency tool in the business world).

I look forward to not only learning how to use the various technologies, but also exploring the pros and cons of integrating the tech into curricula that strive to increase learning of all students.