1. What is the one major point from this work that you would like to
remember?

I need to remember that not everyone that I deal with was born digital and that soon I will probably seem out of touch with the newest technologies. One day I will be like my mother and ask my child, “But exactly what is the point of an iPad?” As Palfrey writes to Gasser “this book is part of an ongoing conversation, not a conclusion to anything” (274). I think that is the most important part of this book. Technology will always be changing and new generations will adapt to it much more quickly than generations that are already in existance. While older generations might not understand all of the use for that technology, it is up to them to impart knowledge to the new generation about how to harness it.

2. What are the educational implications of the work?
They believe that educators and parents need to teach kids Internet highway street smarts. But involves creating a structure and forum where youth can help each other.
“The hard problem… is how to balance caution with encouragement: How do we take effective steps to protect our children, as well as the interests of others, while allowing those same kids enough room to figure things out on their own?” (pg 9)
Palfrey and Gasser do not expect education to fundamentally change. They just expect the Internet to play a bigger role inside the classroom.
“Television didn’t transform education. Neither will the Internet. But it will be another tool for teachers to use in their effort to reach students in the classroom. It will also be a means by which students learn outside of the classroom.” (250)

3. What are the personal implications of the work?

As a Digital Native, I need to make sure that I don’t get overloaded. Overloaded with trying to play with two gadgets at once. Overloaded with too much information.  “In 2001 alone, 1.8×10^18 bits, or 161 billion gigabytes, of digital content were created, stored, and replicated around the world. In lay terms that’s 3 million times the amount of information in all of the books ever written, or twelve stacks of books reaching from the Earth to the Sun, or six tons of books for every living person” (pg 185).

4. What questions does this work raise for you in your present situation?

How do I not get left behind in the technology age?

How do I balance keeping my identity safe when every day I put more and more information out there?
5. If the author were available for dialogue, what question(s) would you
ask?

How do you continue to keep up with technology?

1.    What is one major point from this work that you would like to remember?

Postman talks about how technology is taking away our religion, our culture.  I don’t think it is taking away so much as altering.  We now have a culture where the geeks shall inherit the earth. People can read and learn so much stuff on the Internet that it is becoming more popular to be knowledgeable. Steven Colbert ran for president, The Big Bang Theory won a people’s choice award, and sites like Cracked.com are making a living writing about weird science and history stories. People want to know, they want to read. If this is where a technopoly is leading us, sign me up!

2.    What are the educational implications of this work?

Postman refers to “two great technologies confront each other in uncompromising aspect for the control of students’ minds” (pg 16). He sees the printed word and the visual world battling it out till the end for their ubiquitous presence in a person’s interactions with information. School is on the printed side, and we’re loosing. While oral teaching is class cooperative and stresses social responsibility; learning through computers is personal, faceless, and for yourself.

3.     What are the personal implications of this work?
As someone who is very attached to technology this book was an interesting read because I had never really heard these arguments against technology before. I had never heard of King Thamus who, when shown the technology of writing said “ Those who acquire it will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely o writing to bring things to their remembrance by external signs instead of by their own internal resources. What you have discovered is a receipt for recollection, and not for memory.”(pg 4)

I see this clearly in my life. I remember life before cell phones and because of this I had my parents work number, my friends’ home numbers, and my own home number memorized. Now that I have a cell phone I no longer have remembered numbers. I have been dating my boyfriend for two years and I could only tell you his area code. What if something happens to me and I cannot use my cell phone, and I need someone to come get me? The only numbers I know are in another state!
4.    What questions does this work raise for you in your present situation?

How do I assist my students who are left behind technologically?

Do I assume every one has a computer at home?

Do I even teach how to do slideshows anymore?
5.    If the author were available for dialogue what questions would you ask?

If he was still alive, what would he think about where technology has taken us almost twenty years after this book was published?

Do Da Dipity

As we started to work on our project, we realized that we would often be working together, but in separate locations. Thus we needed to create a way where we could both communicate our ideas. After looking at different collaborative software we settled on making a Google Document because it is an easy program that easily fits our needs. Here are snippets from that Google Document:

“LIBBY: Here are a few things that Galileo researched that were the most controversial->

• He found that bodes of different masses fall at the same rate (gravity).
• He laid the framework for relativity.
• He defended heliocentrism.
• He created telescopes (very profitable).
• He found three of Jupiter’s moons. – Ties back to heliocentrism.

I think the most controversy came with his astronomy findings and his gung-ho-ness for heliocentricism

KATIE: Libs–what form of tech do we want to use? These ideas sound great!

LIBBY: I really want to include not only the facts, but why people are so adamant about why this  was controversial.—KATIE: yes yes of course!

LIBBY: So we like the idea of a timeline, lets look up timelines. Dipity is a great timeline maker.
KATIE:  I really like Dipity from first glance, let’s check it out in more detail together!
LIBBY: I added his birthdate and found a pretty comprehensive timeline that we can use to get ideas on what to look up.”

It was great because not only could we easily collaborate on our project, but Addy could monitor our progress and answer questions as we went along.

We created our timeline using Dipity. Dipity is a free timeline maker that formats all of our information into a usable timeline or flipbook. There was little to no learning curve.

To create our website we downloaded a free template from Adobe DreamWeaver. Adobe was kind enough to add the Photoshop documents necessary to make the website our own. Once we changed out the text in the website and embedded our video and timeline, we uploaded our site onto BearWeb. The whole process was quite painless.

Luckily there are a lot of sources over this topic so it was not hard to research. We found a more detailed timeline that we used as our guide. We also used other sites to help find more specific dates.

The inspiration for this topic sprung from finding an interesting intersection of history and physics. Libby’s eleventh graders will study Galileo’s contributions to science and Katie, who is teaching tenth grade world history, will surely cover the Inquisition.

We covered three areas of the Technology Cognate with this project. We used data technology when we created the timeline using Dipity and filled out the web page using DreamWeaver.

Using the Computer to Make a Website and TImeline

“Data (Computer) Technology provides interactivity and control. Data technology provides interactive (input/output) functionality to previously linear and/or passive processes. Interactivity dramatically alters knowledge construction and acquisition.”

We made an introduction video to our web page using iMovie and that directly correlates to the video technology area of the framework.

“Video technology provides ‘presence’ and ‘affect.’  The ability to simultaneously capture, modify, store, and transmit visual images is video technology’s potent contribution to the technology spectrum.”

When we uploaded our website onto the Internet, we essentially started a conversation between us and the world. We shared our new knowledge for other people to learn from and in turn we inserted a Google Survey so that the viewer can communicate to us how to make our website or assets in the website better. This follows the spirit of Web 2.0 because we are adding to the cloud of information, repackaging it for further consumption.

“Communication Technology  provides  connectivity  and  shared  meaning…in an attempt  to  make information  available  to  anyone  without  the  usual  constraints  of  time,  distance,  or   location.”

Here is a link to our project. Enjoy!

This reading from Gwen Solomon’s and Lynee Schrum’s (2007) Web 2.0 Chapter Seven, was about how to keep our students safe from online traps. We need to teach our students how to behave on the Internet.

Students are finding it easier and easier to just copy and paste ideas, images, or other products from one website and call it their own. Students must learn about copyright laws before they break them in a serious way. There is a website called Creative Commons which houses media that is under a special copyright law called Creative Commons license.

“Creative Commons is a system built within current copyright law that allows people to mark their creations with a creative commons license. The license allows others to use their music, movies, images, and text online for specific purposes, such as classroom use.” (Solomon and Schrum, pg 139)

Technology

Today we all video-conferenced in to class. It was great! I still woke up at the same time but I was able to get so much done before class started. First we started at DimDim which is a meeting website that allows attendees to see slideshows, pictures, and websites at the same time all around the world. You can also see a video feed of the presenter. The presenter can choose people who get speaking privileges. I think this would work well as a worldwide way to share information and to give talks. Think of how much a university would save if instead of flying in a presenter, they just sold the link to the DimDim.

After DimDim we moved to Tokbox. This allowed everyone to see everybody. It worked great except for I didn’t have headphones. If someone doesn’t have headphones then they create an echo for everyone else. I eventually muted myself until I had something to say. To me Tokbox is more for face-to-face time with loved ones and DimDim is better if you have an agenda.

Here is an activity that involves DimDim. Ask An Expert

Today we covered Video and Communication Technology, and Ethics in the Technology Cognate Framework. Through presentations given in DimDim or Tokbox people can “witness global events, microscopic or time-sensitive processes…. Expertise, previously limited by physical constraints of time and travel, can be available to wider numbers through an electronically transmitted ‘presence’” (pg 7). With our talk about copyright laws we discussed that “while technology provides choices, the human operator is accountable for responsible use” (pg 9).

Today’s reading for class was Ivan Illich’s Deschooling Society Chapter seven: Learning Webs (1971).

Here Illich states that “a good educational system should have three purposes: it should provide all who want to learn with access to available resources at any time in their lives; empower all who want to share what they know to find those who want to learn it from them; and, finally, furnish all who want to present an issue to the public with the opportunity to make their challenge known.” (Paragraph 16)

I think that Illich thinks that Web 2.0 is going to replace traditional education, because in his standard, traditional education has failed to offer its students theses three things.

We also watched a video on YouTube that uses Illich’s own words.

Illich thinks that the hidden agenda of the bureaucrats are implemented into schools and makes institutionalized robots out of all of us. I don’t like this idea, but I do see his points. As an educator I like to think that I’m focused on learning; that I’m teaching students how to think critically using the tool of physics. But as I start my first year teaching I’m starting to forget this idea as the pressure of the TAKS sets in before school even starts. Overall I don’t think that the doomsday approach is too much and that there are good reasons for our traditional educational set up.

Technology

We discussed different ways to hold meetings through the Internet today. We looked at Skype, tokbox, dimdim and even Second Life. The first three applications are ways to video chat and share documents with many people at one time. The third.. I can only explain it as a mixture of the Sims and World of Warcraft. At first I was doubtful that there was any reason to hold meetings on Second Life and I was even bored that we spent so much time talking about it. But after I heard a classmate’s comment about how that would help students that have severe social disorders or fears, I reconsidered. I still think it’s weird to use Second Life as a place to hold meetings, but now I know that there are exceptions to that rule.

The Sims

Plus

World of Warcraft

Equals

Second LIfe

Here is an activity that involves Skype. Talk to a Researcher

Today we covered Video and Communication Technology in the Technology Cognate Framework. Working with Skype as a communication technology “provides connectivity and shared meaning.” (pg 5) and Skype also is a video technology because it involves sharing your “presence and affect” (pg 6). I think it is more productive to have a face-to-face meeting versus multiple emails because there’s no response time. Every response is immediate.

Today’s reading for class was Gwen Solomon’s and Lynee Schrum’s Web 2.0 Chapter 6: Leadership and New Tools (2007). It was about being an administrator in the digital age.
While new technology is making some aspects of life easier, there are “complexities peculiar to this digital age” (Solomon and Schrum, 2007, pg 117).  Yes technology is wonderful and schools can write grants to purchase these great tools, but who pays to have them updated and repaired? In this ever-updating world of software and hardware, do you stay content with the tools that you have, lagging behind the rest; or do you spend all of your money staying up to date? These are questions that plague administrators.

There is some software that is free to use and download and update. These are open source software. The problem with open source is that many students might not know how to use this off brand software. Administrators must weigh their choices.
Luckily there is a way to cut cost with technology: have teachers set up a blog for student and parent use and that will eliminate newsletters sent home!
“Because of syndication, everyone can get updates, so teachers can post homework, long-term assignments, explanations, events, and other information. Students and parents can ask questions, react to an idea, or make suggestions in the comment box. This really matters to parents. “ Solomon and Schrum, 2007, pg 121
I think this is a really simple thing that teachers can do, especially if they already make a newsletter.

I did not win this (yet)

Technology

Today we discovered Photoshop. This is important especially for us as grad students because we will be asked to put pictures up on the Internet and we need to learn how to edit our students’ faces out. I choose instead to whiten my teeth and take out my niece’s red eye in a picture of the two of us. It was really simple to do this.
Here is the original image

Then I selected around my teeth and added an adjustment layer to that selection. Then I adjusted the hues and saturation to make my smile pop! I did the same to my niece’s red eye, only I desaturated it.

Here’s the Photoshopped image

Adobe Photoshop can be expensive, but that’s ok because there’s Tux Paint, an open source paint software aimed for children.

Here is a lesson that involves Tux Paint: Drawing Machines

Today we covered Data Technology in the Technology Cognate Framework. Working with data technology “provides interactivity and control … Interactivity dramatically alters knowledge construction and acquisition.” (pg 4)

Today in class we discussed Web 2.0 Chapter 8: Systematic Issues.  Different students have different needs and using multimedia helps reach those needs.

ESL Students

ESL students greatly benefit from blogging. Blogging gives students “authentic language activities”. (Soloman & Schrum, pg 162) Blogging can be used in three ways. Firstly as a tutor. The teacher posts reviews of the lesson. The ESL student gains reading practice as they review the material. Secondly, blogs can aide as a way to bump up the student’s reading and writing capabilities. The student can create his own blog about questions he had in the classroom, extensions on the lesson, or even his thoughts on the day. Having him write and read for fun will help with his English. Thirdly the class could set up its own blog. This way the ESL student can read conversations and add to them.

Learning Disabled Students

With the onset of open sources schools can get applications that are directed to helping them work through their lessons. Some schools have a laptop specifically for a single student, equipped with software and applications that help him learn his way.

Foreign Language Students

Through tools like Skype, iChat, and Google Chat, students in foreign language classes can communicate with people from countries that speak the language they’re learning. Some school districts also have partner schools in different countries so entire classrooms can share a lesson together. Or students can have a buddy and the buddies can edit paragraphs for their partner.

50 Ways to use Skype in your class

Migrant Students

Migrant students are at a disadvantage because of how often they move. Luckily mobile technology is becoming omnipresent. With cell phones students can get lessons straight to wherever they are. Here is an example from the Anchor Project.

Time Frames

We also looked at Scott McCloud’s Time Frames which is a look at space and time in comics. McCloud shows us the many ways space and time are intermingled in comics and how comic artists can use the elements of a traditional comic strip to show time passing.

Class Discussion on Wiki Spaces

My class watched Doug Engelbart demonstrating the NRS. We then went to our wikipage to discuss it. It was interesting having a discussion on a wikipage because I had always thougtht of wikis as a place to colminate information on a topic, and that the discussion would be on another forum. I was not a huge fan because it was hard to tell who was saying what. The page had be updated by multiple people having a converstation yet it looked like one guy was talking to himself.

What the keyboard looked like in 1968

Flip Cams and iMovie

In class we played around with Flip Cams. We were let loose to film around the library. The flip cams were easy to film with. I was playing with a HD Flip and I was impressed with the quality on the little screen I saw. The lens was wide so it would work best as a point and shoot, versus getting really artistic with it. But that’s not really the point of the flip cam. I didn’t like the zoom buttons on the camera. Whenever I zoomed I felt like I was jilting the camera. I feel like the zoom buttons should be on the side much like the volume controls on my iPhone. The Flip used with iMovie does make it really simple to suck in footage. Gone are the days of logging and digitizing, and speaking as someone whose job it was to log and digitize, that makes me happy! iMovie is a very simple editing program that is very user friendly. The lack of real control can be frustrating, if you’re used to more robust editing software. Overall I think it is something that high school students could easily master at school if they haven’t already played around with it at home.

Lesson Plan

I made a lesson plan for my high school engineering students with flip cams and iMovie which you can see here.

Pitch Video

Today we covered the Data Technology, Communication Technology, and Video Technology.

Gratuitous YouTube

Since we disused video today I thought I would post a video of my favorite Astrophysicist: Neil Tyson

The Face of the New Teacher?

New Schools is the title of chapter nine in Solomon and Schrum’s (2007) Web 2.0. It’s called that because with the massive influx available technology, schools are changing. We as teachers need to change with it. We need to realize that our role has changed. We now equip students to manipulate the new technology and how to be adaptable themselves. We teach them to think for themselves and to use tools to make their ideas easier to share and test.
With tools like the Kindle and iPad teachers can create textbooks tailored for their students. They can take a bit from this book, some problems from that book, and voila, they have a textbook that works best for their style. Teachers can also customize tools just for students. This requires teachers to be extremely knowledgeable about their subject.
Instead of jumping on these new technological opportunities, classrooms have not adapted.
“Most schools continue to educate kids in the way they always have, most teachers continue to teach in the ways they always have, and most administrators remain in their offices focusing on the things they focus on. There is a gap between what is and what should be.” David Jakes, “Gap Analysis” in Web 2.0 pg 180

Visual Story Telling

This is a group on flikr that tells stories in five frames. I think it’s very interesting how some people can tell very moving stories with just five rectangles of color.

Lesson Plan

This is how I will have my students model one of Newton’s three laws with only five pictures.

5 Pictures and Newtons Laws

This covered the data technology and communication technology.

Gratuitous YouTube

Speaking of taking random frames and putting them together, and tying with yesterday’s GarageBand theme, here is a video that spliced old Masters of the Universe cartoons into a clever-dance-fun-time music video extravaganza. It is the best viral video you will ever see. I’m not at all partial just because my boyfriend made it.

According to the (Urban) Dictionary Open Source is

These were taken off of Urban Dictionary, a site where users upload their definitions for popular words or phrases. I thought it would be interesting to use this site to get the definition because, while it’s not an open source, it is a free place where users can modify information for others to use freely. Notice the use of free? I was listening to an interview during NPR’s Science Friday and Steven Levy, the author of the book Hackers, said that the original hackers held the philosophy that information wants to be free. I think that’s really poignant in the Web 2.0 era.

The Original Hacker

This effects schools because if a district adopts software that can be downloaded for free, then students can download that software at home and be able to follow along when home sick, or be able to do their homework at home. Also, with Open Source it is easier to tailor applications for students. Administrators might think “well it’s free now, but when it gets popular they will start charging me for it”. That is simply not true!

“If it’s open source now, it will always be open source. the open-source copyright forbids anyone from withdrawing open-source software and making people pay for it. that said, you may want to pay someone who bundles open-source software into a convenient package, but there will always be a free option” Web 2.0 pg 51

Podcasts

I am a huge fan of podcasts. I have a handful that I shuffle through on any given week. Lately I’ve been loving The Bugle, This American Life, Radio Lab and The Ricky Gervais Podcast. I also really like the more heavy science themed podcasts like Nova Science Now.

Today we learned how to make podcasts on GarageBand. I really like GarageBand, and I think it’s really simple to use. I’ve used it mainly for splicing songs together for mixes and making ringtones so it was interesting to learn how to use it for making a Podcast. I hadn’t previously known how to add artwork to my GarageBand tunes.

Lesson Plan

This is not so much a full lesson plan but an activity that you can do to help your students think scientifically or expand on prior knowledge.

Podcast Friday

Gratuitous YouTube

To me, open sourcing means constant revisions for everybody’s benefit. So here’s a revised science song after the band  They Might Be Giants found out Why the Sun Really Shines

This class started about social networking in schools. Social networking is becoming omnipresent in both professional and personal circles. Got a facebook? Do you tweet? Are you linked in? I have a social networking site just for my sorority!  This can be a great tool for collaborating with your faculty and even with your students. This provides for continuous growth as the learning and growing doesn’t end with the school bell or after a professional day. You can communicate with your peers through blogging and keeping in touch through professional sites like Linked in. You can create a twitter account for your classroom that tweets homework help, quiz reminders, and links to websites that elaborate on what was discussed in class.

In class today we all got on a Google Document and wrote different classroom management techniques. It was hard for me at first to start because I could see the document light up with different cursors and text coming from nowhere. The document was updating in almost real time. It was mesmerizing. Then I got accustomed to it and I was able to add to the document myself. People started adding links to different websites that went in depth about the technique listed. Now I have a long list with extra websites saved for me to go back to later for reference.

The next technology we were introduced to was an online poll service that people can text answers to. I think this is really cool because as people texted in, the answers showed up on the page anonymously. This could be useful in the classroom if it was a test review day, then students could text in questions without being embarrassed that they asked a question.

After that we looked at creating web quests. We looked at some templates online and then opened up Adobe Dreamweaver to start creating our own. At this point my mind was in technology overload as we talked about different things we could add to our web quests. The possibilities are endless! One thing that I’m interested to find out how to do is to embed a Google Form into the web quest to quiz participants over what happened previously. I like the idea of Google Forms because it sends the results back to you all sorted in a Google Spreadsheet. I want to use these to email parents as surveys through out the year.

This was a technology heavy day!

_________________________________________________________________________________________

The assigned reading for this class was J.C.R. Liklider’s “Man/Computer Symbiosis” (1960). Here Licklider talks about how man has the capability to hypothesize and can apply knowledge but cannot go through tasks quickly; while computers can run through tasks quickly but cannot hypothesize nor really apply the end result, it can merely spit it out. Working together man and computer make a team, which reminds me of teams in the animal kingdom. How this applies to education is that students quite possible will have computers who can do long arduous tasks for them, without the teacher teaching the task. In this model the teacher turns towards teaching to hypothesize and to apply. I think that teachers should focus on teaching to hypothesize anyway. Who knows what technology current students will encounter in their professional life that hasn’t even been invented yet? They need to learn how to use their brain now.
______________________________________________________________________________________

This class covers Data Technology, and Communications Technology,

I created a lesson plan that includes working with Google Docs.

Google Doc Lesson Plan

This video was the motivation for the lesson plan