Check out this article about using video games in the classroom. Of course it immediately made me think of Matt (check out his post on the NYSEC conference--informative and funny) our resident viedo-games-in-education guru, but I think that it's noteworthy for all. This came from Yahoo! news, and was the first thing that I saw when I opened my browser this morning. Which, to me, signifies that the whole thing is going kind of mainstream. And what's particularly interesting is that the article is about scientists, not educators, touting the benefits of using video games in the classroom: "The Federation of American Scientists — which typically weighs in on matters of nuclear weaponry and government secrecy — declared Tuesday that video games can redefine education." And they are calling for more research on the issue, which all of us 663 alums know is essential for good pedagogy. Maybe with these "big guns" in the corner of educational gaming, the federal government would be willing to spend some money on curriculum development and teacher training... Of course, that would mean spending tax money on education instead of war, so...
Something else that caught my attention while surfing was this great post from Will Richardson's blog about his kids spreading the blogging gospel to some new friends. Many of you may have already seen this if you read his blog regularly. I just thought it was so adorable that I had to share. And blogging does seem like a perfect tool for kids who are homeschooled and may feel a little left out of the kind of social network that going to school with other kids provides. And who knew that Richardson was so crunchy-granola? What a cute family.
Now, everyone can congratulate me for finally including some links in a blog post! Yay for synthesis!
Friday, October 20, 2006
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Pink is the New Black
I am really enjoying Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind. Maybe because it's something that I would read in my free time. It addresses some of the same issues as Friedman's book, but for some reason it doesn't scare the crap out of me like Friedman is apt to do. I don't know, it's not as dark or something. Pink makes all of these changes seem more manageable than Friedman, which diminishes its "doomsday" quality. I love the way he breaks down the right and left halves of the brain and how each contributes its particular "expertise," if you will, to the cognitive task at hand. When he talked about someone whose right hemisphere is damaged and so they have to rely more heavily on their left side, this immediately made me think about my nephew Zach and his Asperger's Syndrome. He takes everything literally and has a hard time understanding figurative language because it just doesn't make sense to him. And he is so detail oriented that he notices and remembers the most minute detail of every single thing he sees. He could probably tell you the color and style of shoes that someone who walked past him in the mall last week was wearing. It made me wonder if people with Autism and Asperger's use the left side of their brains more or have some problem with the right sides of their brains.
I also love the way Pink uses humor in his book. I laughed so hard when he talked about the designer toilet brush because the last time I had to buy a toilet brush for my new apartment, I literally stood in front of the selection of toilet brushes for about 20 minutes trying to decide which one to get. And there's this little voice inside me screaming, "It's a toilet brush! Something to clean your GD toilet with!! Just pick one!" But there are just too many choices, and of course I must get the right toilet brush, what if I get it home and realize that I should have gotten another one? And it's exactly the same scenario with every little mundane thing that I buy. Seriously, it takes me forever to pick out everything--a stapler, a binder, a wastebasket, a blender. Whatever it is, there will be fifteen different ones to choose from in various colors, styles, and features, and I will stand in the aisle forever trying to weigh the pros and cons of each and feeling utterly ridiculous. Because what difference does it make in the end? As long as it's not some cheap piece of crap that's going to fall apart the next day (which the "designer" broom that I purchased from target actually was and I now detest it and wish that I had bought one of the twenty-five other designer brooms available), everything functions in much the same way. Life is too short to spend it standing in the aisle of target trying to decide which shower organizer would look best in your bathroom. Yet, somehow I can't stop myself. Is this what the modern world has come to?
I also love the way Pink uses humor in his book. I laughed so hard when he talked about the designer toilet brush because the last time I had to buy a toilet brush for my new apartment, I literally stood in front of the selection of toilet brushes for about 20 minutes trying to decide which one to get. And there's this little voice inside me screaming, "It's a toilet brush! Something to clean your GD toilet with!! Just pick one!" But there are just too many choices, and of course I must get the right toilet brush, what if I get it home and realize that I should have gotten another one? And it's exactly the same scenario with every little mundane thing that I buy. Seriously, it takes me forever to pick out everything--a stapler, a binder, a wastebasket, a blender. Whatever it is, there will be fifteen different ones to choose from in various colors, styles, and features, and I will stand in the aisle forever trying to weigh the pros and cons of each and feeling utterly ridiculous. Because what difference does it make in the end? As long as it's not some cheap piece of crap that's going to fall apart the next day (which the "designer" broom that I purchased from target actually was and I now detest it and wish that I had bought one of the twenty-five other designer brooms available), everything functions in much the same way. Life is too short to spend it standing in the aisle of target trying to decide which shower organizer would look best in your bathroom. Yet, somehow I can't stop myself. Is this what the modern world has come to?
Monday, October 09, 2006
Potpourri
I am here going to attempt to capture the mishmash of various thoughts that I've been having in the past week or so, as they relate to the class, the flat world, technology, etc. etc.
So, as it turns out, I am not the world's best blogger. And I've kind of been musing lately about why that is. Because I have a lot of thoughts that would probably make interesting and at least somewhat relevent blog posts. And I certainly do a lot of reading of others' blogs, and I read the course blog at least once a day. I try to keep up with current events as much as I can stomach, and there's certainly fodder for blogs there. But for some reason, I just don't blog very much. Maybe because these thoughts come to me while I'm doing something else, like driving (I spend a lot of time in the car), or during observation or other classes, while working on other assignments, or watching TV. By the time I get to my computer and get it warmed up and check my email, it's like the moment has passed. Or, what I've been thinking about pertains to something that was addressed in class weeks ago and just doesn't seem as pertinent anymore. It's the lightning speed of this flat world. If I don't capture something in the moment, it feels like it's too late. And then there are blogs like James's, which is just a shining example of blogging at it's best, complete with the synthesis that Richardson cites as true blogging rather than just online journaling, which is my blog to a T. But the thing is, I don't really surf the web. Like, ever. When I get on the computer, it's for a specific purpose: to check email, look something up, get directions somewhere, do a class assignment. I have specific sites that I go to in order to accomplish something, but I don't really just browse around to see what's out there. Which obviously limits my blogging ability, especially my "true blogging" ablility because I don't have links to other interesting sites that I want to comment on. I guess I should make a conscious effort to work on that and to explore what's out there a little more so that I can improve my blogging skills.
I think that I'm sort of an interesting breed of digital immigrant. I have pretty decent skills when it comes to computers, at least PCs (macs are another story, but I'm working on it). I know how they function, and I can usually figure out how to use programs just by playing around. I pay my bills online, I use email and message boards to keep in contact with family and friends, I even know a teeny-tiny amount of html. I use a computer every single day. But I don't have a "digital mindset." My first instincts about how to go about something fall in line with the 2.0 world. If something interests me, I jot it down on a piece of paper--with a pen! I would rather sit down with a copy of Newsweek than go to newsweek.com for the same stories and photos. And the thing is, I'm not that old, so it's not a matter of, "Oh, I grew up without computers so I'm not used to them." We had a Commodore 64 and a Colecovision. I literally cannot remember not having some kind of computer in the house. So is it just my temperament? Hmmm...
Moving on, I finally have a placement for Kennedy's class (yay!), and did about 12 hours last week. I am in 11R and 11 honors, as well as journalism and SUPA, both for 12th grade. The teacher is less than inspiring, but that's a subject for a whole other blog post (coming soon). One of the things we had to do was give the students a reading/writing attitudes survey, which I did on Thurs. Anyone who took the class last year might remember this. The survey asks them about how much reading and writing they do outside of school, what they enjoy, what kind of writing activities or projects they have enjoyed in school. Reading their answers and discussing it with the kids a little bit really made me think about "What Does Reading Look Like Anyway?" So many of the students said, "I don't read outside of school," because they don't read books. I prompted them to think about other kinds of reading--blogs, comic books, emails, magazines, etc (there's a question on the survey that addresses this specifically)--and you can probably guess their response: "That's not really reading." Like the students that Kajder discusses, they think that only certain types of literacy "count." And, it seems to me, that they think the more likely they are to enjoy something, the less likely it is to count as true literacy. When, actually, the opposite is true. If the students enjoy something and find it meaningful, it is closer to true literacy than something they do because they have to or just for a grade.
Okay, I am going to close here, as this post is getting incredibly long, but there are still a lot of thoughts floating around, so stay tuned. Oh, but one last little anecdote in response to Karen's comment about the flat world and Outback Steakhouse (where I have the pleasure of bringing people steak for a living for those of you who didn't know). If you had asked me a week ago what Outback has to do with the flat world, I would have said "Probably nothing" because we are kind of low-tech as chain restaurants go. I mean, we still hand-write our tickets and physically give them to the cooks. How 2.0 can you get? But now, even the old Outback is going 3.0 with the introduction of our new online safety survey. All of the restaurant's employees are required to go online and listen to a safety presentation and then take a quiz about what we have learned. This is not available in paper format. The results of the test are sent to Outback Central or something electronically, and everyone is required to take it and pass. I'm wondering if they are going to face some of the issues with access that we teachers have been discussing, as I'm not sure that everyone toiling in the kitchen for $7 an hour has a computer with internet access. I think I'll ask my boss if that's an issue and how they're addressing it. In the immortal words of James Beach, technology marches on...right into the Outback.
So, as it turns out, I am not the world's best blogger. And I've kind of been musing lately about why that is. Because I have a lot of thoughts that would probably make interesting and at least somewhat relevent blog posts. And I certainly do a lot of reading of others' blogs, and I read the course blog at least once a day. I try to keep up with current events as much as I can stomach, and there's certainly fodder for blogs there. But for some reason, I just don't blog very much. Maybe because these thoughts come to me while I'm doing something else, like driving (I spend a lot of time in the car), or during observation or other classes, while working on other assignments, or watching TV. By the time I get to my computer and get it warmed up and check my email, it's like the moment has passed. Or, what I've been thinking about pertains to something that was addressed in class weeks ago and just doesn't seem as pertinent anymore. It's the lightning speed of this flat world. If I don't capture something in the moment, it feels like it's too late. And then there are blogs like James's, which is just a shining example of blogging at it's best, complete with the synthesis that Richardson cites as true blogging rather than just online journaling, which is my blog to a T. But the thing is, I don't really surf the web. Like, ever. When I get on the computer, it's for a specific purpose: to check email, look something up, get directions somewhere, do a class assignment. I have specific sites that I go to in order to accomplish something, but I don't really just browse around to see what's out there. Which obviously limits my blogging ability, especially my "true blogging" ablility because I don't have links to other interesting sites that I want to comment on. I guess I should make a conscious effort to work on that and to explore what's out there a little more so that I can improve my blogging skills.
I think that I'm sort of an interesting breed of digital immigrant. I have pretty decent skills when it comes to computers, at least PCs (macs are another story, but I'm working on it). I know how they function, and I can usually figure out how to use programs just by playing around. I pay my bills online, I use email and message boards to keep in contact with family and friends, I even know a teeny-tiny amount of html. I use a computer every single day. But I don't have a "digital mindset." My first instincts about how to go about something fall in line with the 2.0 world. If something interests me, I jot it down on a piece of paper--with a pen! I would rather sit down with a copy of Newsweek than go to newsweek.com for the same stories and photos. And the thing is, I'm not that old, so it's not a matter of, "Oh, I grew up without computers so I'm not used to them." We had a Commodore 64 and a Colecovision. I literally cannot remember not having some kind of computer in the house. So is it just my temperament? Hmmm...
Moving on, I finally have a placement for Kennedy's class (yay!), and did about 12 hours last week. I am in 11R and 11 honors, as well as journalism and SUPA, both for 12th grade. The teacher is less than inspiring, but that's a subject for a whole other blog post (coming soon). One of the things we had to do was give the students a reading/writing attitudes survey, which I did on Thurs. Anyone who took the class last year might remember this. The survey asks them about how much reading and writing they do outside of school, what they enjoy, what kind of writing activities or projects they have enjoyed in school. Reading their answers and discussing it with the kids a little bit really made me think about "What Does Reading Look Like Anyway?" So many of the students said, "I don't read outside of school," because they don't read books. I prompted them to think about other kinds of reading--blogs, comic books, emails, magazines, etc (there's a question on the survey that addresses this specifically)--and you can probably guess their response: "That's not really reading." Like the students that Kajder discusses, they think that only certain types of literacy "count." And, it seems to me, that they think the more likely they are to enjoy something, the less likely it is to count as true literacy. When, actually, the opposite is true. If the students enjoy something and find it meaningful, it is closer to true literacy than something they do because they have to or just for a grade.
Okay, I am going to close here, as this post is getting incredibly long, but there are still a lot of thoughts floating around, so stay tuned. Oh, but one last little anecdote in response to Karen's comment about the flat world and Outback Steakhouse (where I have the pleasure of bringing people steak for a living for those of you who didn't know). If you had asked me a week ago what Outback has to do with the flat world, I would have said "Probably nothing" because we are kind of low-tech as chain restaurants go. I mean, we still hand-write our tickets and physically give them to the cooks. How 2.0 can you get? But now, even the old Outback is going 3.0 with the introduction of our new online safety survey. All of the restaurant's employees are required to go online and listen to a safety presentation and then take a quiz about what we have learned. This is not available in paper format. The results of the test are sent to Outback Central or something electronically, and everyone is required to take it and pass. I'm wondering if they are going to face some of the issues with access that we teachers have been discussing, as I'm not sure that everyone toiling in the kitchen for $7 an hour has a computer with internet access. I think I'll ask my boss if that's an issue and how they're addressing it. In the immortal words of James Beach, technology marches on...right into the Outback.
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