Article I might have blogged before…

I ran across this a while back, and wanted to post it here, as a food for thought kind of thing….

Successful technology use measured by student learning on standards-based formative assessment

In a nutshell, it all comes down to higher level processes. If students are just using technology for the sake of using technology, there is not much point to it.

What sparked this coming up again was a module in a current class that I am taking regarding exceptional children and adaptive technology. If it doesn’t aid in some way, and find utility, while interesting in terms of instruction, it isn’t fulfilling its purpose.

In any case, there it is as it is…. possibly more later as time allows.

So, where do the teachers fit in?

Okay, so the WordPress widgets had been kind to me and left me alone all semester, to eat the post I edited yesterday…

So here it is again, more or less.

In considering this course, and where teachers fit in with all of this new technology, well, I have to say that I think they fit in the same space I think they’ve always fit into the classroom.

For as long as I’ve been reflecting on education, especially since I first became aware of the writings of Paulo Friere (Thank you Dr. Jennings!), I have firmly believed that a teacher’s job in the classroom is not to download information into student’s heads, it is not to grant the privilege of knowledge, and it is certainly not a matter of considering students as little bitty banks in which to insert information.

In my opinion, the teacher is in the classroom to facilitate a student’s own empowerment, enfranchisement, and acquisition of knowledge, with or without particular technology. Web 2.0 is impressive, no doubt. Yes, I have some reservations about certain schemata, modes of thought and process not being internalized with these tools in play. Still, I believe that a teacher is not there to deposit those schemata, nor those semiotic constructs of meaning into students. Instead, the teacher is there to aid students in the construction of their own, to gain consciousness, subjectivity and agency.

I admit a certain attachment to real-world interaction, and so hesitate to fully endorse some of the more cutting edge technological innovations, such as Second Life and Blue Mars. Much of this is a concern for losing interaction in the real world, the incentive to go and see the Sistine Chapel in person, to visit the Liberty Bell, to see first hand the original Constitution of the United States, or an original Van Gogh in person. There is a real experiential flavor that comes with these things, that I doubt can be fully captured on a screen. Perhaps something is better than nothing, but when the substitute is so readily available, where is the incentive to seek out the original?  In this, there may even be some disconnect, and my own inability to build schema that will allow for these experiences within a virtual world to serve such a purpose for me.

Now that all having been established, who knows what the future holds. Should the time come that information, schemata, and the like can be literally downloaded into the brain, I believe that education, and in many ways, agency, will have ended, murdered by technology exceeding our ability to recognize its repercussions.

Ultimately, that is where my thoughts tend, when considering where technology is going. It is difficult enough to maintain agency in a post-Marxist capitalist world, as the work of de Certeau, Derrida, Heidegger, and others can attest. Simply being able to make a choice free of coercion and influence is often in doubt in this rapidly shrinking, and yet massively media-saturated world of ours. With this being the case, and indications being that the trend will not only continue but indeed increase, where does a subscriber of critical pedagogy go, in his attempts to open such agency to his students?

Much to think about, if nothing else. Perhaps, the key is trying to model and encourage that critical eye, the ability to evaluate bias, and (at times literally) follow the money, so that students can resist as well…. time will tell I suppose.

The Wind-up….

And here’s the pitch…

Looking over the last bit of stuff coming at the end of the semester, I have to admit feeling a bit of the crunch time. The multimedia reflection is nothing I am concerned about, and something I can do, but the unit plan is a bit of a crunch for me, though it will get done on time one way or another.

With that said, I am already planning on making use of many of the tools that we’ve covered in this course for the unit plan. Multimedia presentation, online interaction and evaluation, and the like can prove quite useful  in engaging students. The announcement that we could reuse lesson plans was something of a relief, though I have to admit I was planning on using the old engineering (and teacher, when we are being honest) trick of reusing code.

Which brings me to the question of permanence again… The main reason that I can reuse the old lesson plans and content that I’ve already created is directly because (beyond the condoned use of previous material) I have permanent copies of all of my old work, as digital and hard copy local storage, meaning, that even if the Internet itself went down, and ceased to exist, I would still have my content to work with, instead of losing it forever inside reallysimpleweb2.0.com’s servers. Granted, it isn’t as good or as cool as being able to collaborate with the world, which I know is one of the points of the Cloud in the first place, but it does allow me to always have my content.

So…. how do we bridge the gap? Is the key to allow local storage? Desktop apps? Maybe a key of some kind, a usb-based flash key application, not unlike the current application of iTunes or some such? Is these even a non-issue as most have backups of their backups, and data isn’t as lost as it seems it may be?

Time will tell, I suppose.

The videos regarding Second Life…. well, I have to admit I am resistant to this one. As wonderful as a virtual world would be, it is not the real world. The folks there are not real people, they are not real places, and a screen, keyboard and mouse is not eal sensory information.

Of course, freedom to control the world fufills a god complex, and manipulatives are great for learning, enhancing cognitive, and metacognitive processes. Still, I am hesitant to move this far from the real world. Okay, so we are talking about learners who grew up on WoW, and are generally more visual learners and spatial reasoners as a result. Does this mean we allow this to run its course, and in the pursuit of engagement, we abandon the real world interactions in favor of virtual worlds? Multimedia presentations are great, and I am all for immersive experiences, but well, where do socialization skills in the real world end up here?

Besides, follow the money? Who is paying for this, and what are the unintended consequences here? Second Life is thouroughly branded… why would these others not be?

Holy Multimedia Batman!

First, mea culpa, I already make considerable use of Audacity. It rocks! My favorite part of it, is the “what you hear” setting, which will sort of hijack your speakers for a moment, and record whatever would be coming out of them, prior to their reaching the speakers.

Okay, so, I can remember my first tape recorder, and holding it up to the radio (yes, I am that old) and recording favorite songs, to listen to later. This works kind of the same way, only without the annoying echo or the interuptions from siblings.

So, what does this have to do with education? Well, it is about what students are doing, in authentic, real-world applications. At the time, I can’t really imagine what I would have done with the ability to make a mix tape of some kind, for an assignment. Let alone video recording, mixing in effects, sounds, and then getting the chance to share it across the class, allowing for a full collaborative environment, both in the classroom and in the Cloud.

Photostory is a great bit of free software, and I’m looking forward to make use of it, and Movie Maker is fun (Okay, so I prefer Nero, but that is as it is; Movie Maker can do much the same stuff, if you aren’t trying to turn it into a DVD).

Oh, and I so want a dozen or so of those flip cameras… It’s not my HD Camcorder, but then again, it is roughly half the cost too…

Powerpoint!

First thing’s first. I think it is very telling that discussing powerpoint presentations is best done by first discussing the possible errors within a powerpoint presentation, before what makes a good powerpoint. From cheap clipart and effects, poor visual design, having the Ben Stein (“Beuller”) voice going, and creating presentations that are so boring that you can bore yourself, through creating presentations that don’t need the presenter, it seems obvious that it is incredibly simple for these kind of things to go incredibly badly.

And in thinking about this, I think this has to do with the way that we interact with visual media as opposed to written text. Written text requires decoding, meaning-making, basic literacy, and the engagement of cognitive and metacognitive processes, with error-checking and syncing up with particular cueing systems that have to do with language. Visual media, such as pictures, photos, graphics and the like, require no such filtering. More often than not, we take images at face value (even the expression “at face value” seems to indicate this), and the filters are often off. Hence, the signal to noise ratio, the ratio of content to form and significant to insignificant data within a presentation requires more fine tuning, as so much more is taken in. In language, especially written language, recursivity is built in. We expect to repeat ourselves, and clarify and hone our points down to particular meaning, shading linguistic semiotics into specific points. The same picture 5 or 6 times, with only slight changes, is just plainn boring, let alone the cheesy, cheap clipart that we all have seen hundreds of times, which is downright dreadful.

The main question really though, is will this principle only become more and more involved, as we move from a print text, to an online, on-screen world? Will we see more courses in visual literacy, in composing visual presentations? Where does content end up, as well as critical literacy? How do you teach, or better yet, develop, a critical literacy, of resistant readers, with this trend towards visual media which tends to bypass our filters, and in some respects, works outside of the ken of the vast, vast majority of literary criticism and theory?

Somwhat related, I have to say, uploading a PPTX file, with hyperlinks within the show itself, to maintain a non-linear format, seems nigh unto impossible. Translation is just not easy. Still, such is the nature of the beast; hence, it seems appropriate to mention what I did in class again. Format, program used, and the like, is not the important thing here, though it definitely a part of the composition process. Choice seems the key here; Sliderocket, Google Docs, and Glogser…..

And on that note: Ice Bear Judges You

Docs and Quizes and Wikis, oh my!

First, gotta love when you can include a Wizard of Oz reference…

Second, though I knew about Google Docs before the class, and in fact have used it before both for work and school, I have to say, the publish function is very, very convenient. Combined with the survey, which I didn’t know about, I have to agree with my compatriots and say I will very likely use it in my classroom.

As for the wiki, I admit a certain resistance, but it is one that comes from wanting to monkey around with the code too much, and remembering which codes I can, and which I can’t use. Standard text formating is simple enough, but what about style sheets, framed pages, and all that other fancy html-trickery that was put to bed with the advent of flash, java, javascript and the like? I want my embedded objects, my CSS references, my having to remember how to format the code so that when I look back at it, it still makes sense to me, back.

Alright, not really, but you get the idea.

Finally, I have been thinking about that spider backup software. What I used to use was called HTTrack or something similar, and even had a Firefox extension at one point. I’ll have to dig it out, dust it off, and see how it works in the next few days, if for no other reason than to see if I can (isn’t proof of concept a great reason for doing things?).

Admitting that this is probably not my most formal entry thus far, more to come no doubt.

Technology Integration

In the presentation today, a thought occurred to me; in bringing in these Web 2.0 apps, where does permanence end up? With written papers, or Web 1.0 applications, it is possible to maintain a local copy of a given assignment. How does this work within Web 2.0? It isn’t really possible to save an entire wiki without mirroring the site itself; and the same is true for many other Web 2.0 apps. How do issues with local storage play out in these situations? Also, what about licensing as well? How do teachers translate resources from school to school, where another license may be needed?

Also, maybe this is the MLA indoctrination talking, but isn’t a works cited list, and the inclusion of parenthetical citation, a necessity, even in a digital medium? How is this sort of integration affecting this in practice? Has the growing expectation of free online content, and the pragmatic, if not legalistic, confines of fair use being expanded and tussled over on a nearly daily basis, begun to seep into the classroom in practical usage?

Finally, where does the digital divide end up in all of this? Beyond the issues related to the use of static vs. dynamic content and level of teacher interaction, how much of this can we expect our students to be able to use outside of the classroom? Even with Openoffice, Audacity, and even the several choices in Web 2.0, how much of the limited classroom time will have to be devoted to just access to technology?

Thoughts on Today’s Class…

Legal Issues Article and Legal Issues Article 2 are found here.

First, in reading the summary of the CIPA, it seems, while well intentioned, to stop far short of providing cut and dry guidelines. Who defines what is obscene, or harmful to minors?  Perhaps there are legal thresholds I am personally unaware of?

Second, COPPA operates on the honor system; how many 12 year olds do you know who are more than willing to claim to be an adult? Who verifies this? Granted, for schools, this is easily verifiable, and obviously, the disclaimer in school sites works well for legal cya, but in terms of global or “big picture” concerns, I don’t know if this is effective…

The FERPA section is quite interesting, as it suggests that the digital divide might come into play, let alone records that are of a nature that they should never be exposed to anything beyond the intranet of a district anyway. Face to face contact is still necessary then?

The Communications Decency Act just plain seems contrary to common sense. If I build a pool in my backyard, don’t put a fence around it, and the neighbor’s child drowns in it, even if they were a terribly neglected child who never had adult supervision, parental or otherwise, I am still liable as I have created an attractive nuissance and not taken steps to prevent access of said child. Why are content providers not liable?

And, as was addressed in class, what on earth protects the one’s without the deep pockets and legal teams of school districts, the teacher? All of these districts identify acceptable use, and reference laws that would make the district liable, but they don’t have anything, anything at all, that is concerned with teacher liability, as near as I can tell. As a matter of fact, the district I looked into in detail, Lexington 2, seemed only concerned with making plain that the district had taken whatever steps they felt necessary to “protect students” which can be understood as protecting themselves from liability under the CIPA, the DMCA, and SC State Law.

Also, what about webarchive.org? Granted, it takes knowing the url, but well, there it is…

It would seem that there are some fights to be picked, maybe, because the bottom line comes down to what is this trend of dividing and putting teachers on the defensive, constantly having to police their actions to such a degree that they avoid demonstrating their humanity to their students, in terms of pedagogical concerns. What are the implicit valuations we are placing within the instructional environment by acting in this way? What are we teaching students about technology, ethics, and frankly, about being adults, by having such policies in place?

And on a side note: The Freedom Writers book sounds awesome… once the Summer II overage shows, that is getting ordered.

http://www.freedomwritersfoundation.org

Copyright…. oi. Talk about irony of using Disney to take on the evil empire of Disney. Already linked the video on Facebook…

I went looking for the source, and found this, the Fair Use Project at Stanford, which has some very interesting stuff in regards to copyright law, and the insanity of current copyright law.

Somewhat related to a previous post… zotero seems like an awesome tool, but well, what happens when the MLA puts out Handbook 7, or better yet, if Zotero goes down or ceases to be available? I am all about the MLA citation cheat sheet, but well, not learning this directly in some what seems to leave students unable to do citation formating without these tools. Of course, they probably said the same thing about graphing calculators, though as far as I know, they do still teach graphing by hand.

Random thought…

More a question really… did the MLA ever decide on a firm method of documenting web sources, or is it still catch as catch can, when related to Web 2.0 (RSS feeds are what I have in mind, but Blogs, Podcasts,  and other such things work as well) that is an “official” format?

Heck, has the MLA even really begun to acknowledge media literacy at all, let alone the myriad of formats, sources, and technologies which can be drawn from emerging technologies?

If not, how on earth do we teach citation?

APA? *shudder*

EDRD651

First day of the class, and I am happy to report finding some technologies that I am unfamiliar with.  Ning was a new one for me, and I had long forgotten iGoogle some time ago, and was glad to rediscover it, and its improvements.

I found myself intrigued by the idea of using a Wiimote for a poor man’s smart board. Of course, it uses IR sensors that can essentially be fooled with bright burning candles, so it makes a certain level of sense to take full advantage of the Bluetooth tech already present in it. The question is, how do you get color?

I am looking forward to the use of technology in the classroom, and finding applications for Web 2.0 techs in my practice, even recognizing that half of it won’t be usable within 5 years and I will have to stay on top of technology as it develops to continue to evolve with it.

Still, I am still wondering about assessment issues related to the use of Web 2.0 technologies; how do these merge with informal, formative, or discrete assessments?What still justifies local storage, as it were, inside one’s head, if the information you are seeking is available on the net? Why bother with local storage at all? So long as everything is cited, it seems that the trend towards expecting instant answers, instead of remembering some of them and inferring or finding the rest, could be bringing some troubling consequences.

Also, what about direct availability of information? Does knowing how to find hard copy sources still have meaning in this 2.0 age? What happens when the net breaks down, or worse yet, gets something dreadfully, dreadfully wrong? Also, who controls the information that is there? I am not impugning Wikipedia, or any other service directly, but when information becomes bound to a particular source, warning lights go off; who is controlling the information then, and how can one get real-world verification, outside of the virtual space of the cloud?

I admit being a little paranoid, and playing at hyperbole a bit here; still, I think these are concerns that need answering in some fashion, because the bottom line is, our students will be asking them of us in the near future.

-R