First off I want to say that everyone's presentations were great. The bar keeps getting set higher and higher, it makes me happy I went in the second week.
One theme that keeps coming up again and again with me is control. Usually it is about who is blocking content at school, preventing us from doing something interesting in class. I have had my own battles in the first few years of teaching. I though that it was quite restrictive at our school, until I started to talk to other teachers at other schools. I quickly realized that as far as access we have it pretty good. Then there were other issues with control in the classroom. The director of the school decided we could not position the computers where we wanted, and that we would have our backs to the classroom if we were going to use the computer. This prompted me to get my own laptop, which gives me my own sense of control.
The battle didn't end there. Our IT guy would not permit me to plug my laptop into the projector in the room or the Smartboard (claimed that it would wear out the connectors and cables), so I had to purchase my own cables. Then I wasn't allowed to plug it in to the projector because it was not a school computer, and only school computers were permitted to be plugged in (this went back and forth for a couple of months, I guess that what happens when you get a couple of control freaks battling it out) After much debate, I finally have it set up in a reasonable way.
Lana brought up the question of parental control. As a parent of a 2 1/2 year old, I thought that I had a little while before I had to worry about this. Yesterday I found my little guy with my iPod touch, which he can navigate through and play games on. He has recently discovered YouTube, and likes to watch Toy Story 3 trailers (the past searches are saved, so when he opens it up it is there). This time however he had clicked on the recently posted and was watching some random video. I now have to figure out a way to let him watch some videos, but not everything that is out there.
I have heard a number of parental tips on how to handle controls. Some have said to monitor everything, and make sure that your kids are not seeing anything bad. Others have told me that this will not foster a sense of trust with your child, and that it is better to talk to your children about acceptable use. I am not sure how I will deal with it when Liam is old enough to understand, but for now I am going to do my best to block the bad stuff.
Only 52% of parents have rules in place governing media use in 8-18 year old students. In class I suggested that a large part of this may be that parents just don't understand the media. They are unaware of what these devices can do, what content is available on the internet, and just how much time kids are spending on digital media. I still think that this is the situation for many parents, but perhaps there is another reason. A parent like me may feel that regardless of any rules that I set, children are going to find a way. It might be better to teach them responsible use and instill that trust.
Government control. Roland gave us a great overview of what is going on in the USA. Anytime I feel like our government is useless and crazy, I turn my gaze to the south and feel a little better. I find working where I am I often wonder what it is like to teach in a public school; what is done differently, what is the same, would I be happier somewhere else? I imagine many of us ask similar questions about the schools in the USA, but also asking how do they cope with all of that control. It is a little funny seeing the debate about their health care system and how people are afraid of all that government control, but their education system seems much more regulated and controlled then ours.
p.s. If you haven't seen it yet, Sicko by Micheal Moore is a good film if you are at all interested in this whole health care debate and government control. I am not a big fan of his, but I really enjoyed this movie.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
Go go Gadget
Great presentations Mike and Ben. There were several points that I wanted to talk about in class, but wanted to save something for my blog entry. First, there was something really small that Denis mentioned from the You Are Not a Gadget book. Video mash-ups, blogs, youtube, and other so called personal means of communication have demeaned personal interaction (I believe this was the essence of the quote from the book).
In the past I have not been real big on reading the comments left by people on sites, but with the Olympics I would click on links to news stories and often there was a running commentary beside the article where people would comment on the story. Watching how these progressed would often see them degenerate into a stream of patriotic bashing of others. There were racist, sexist, nationalistic, homophobic, comments made that bordered on hate crimes, yet the people posting them did not seem to have any issues putting them on the net. I have tried some experiments with students and blogs or discussion posts and have always had someone start making some mildly inappropriate comments. We do seem to lose a sense that there is a real person on the other end of an entry that we make, and that our words, while anonymous, can still be hurtful. I think that the quote from the book encapsulates this idea nicely. I will be making an effort to find a copy.
Below is a link to a youtube video on digital practices that I have let my students see. Being all girls the rating aspect of the video hits home for more of them.
Hot or Not video
When the subject of cheating came up in Mike`s presentation I really liked how the author suggested that this requires teachers to come up with higher level questions for assessments that are more difficult to copy or cheat on. With the general trend towards more meaningful assessment, moving beyond simple recall, there seems to be a natural push towards deeper questioning that many teachers (at least in my experience) are trying to fight against. I myself prefer the easy questions; they are easier to mark, explain, and justify the grading of. But this is not what is best for the students, so I have to make an effort to be less lazy. Teachers that may be less inclined to change their assessment style are getting a further push from technology.
I remember when corporate sponsorship came to my school. I was in grade 10 in 1995, and we got a new school sign board at the front of the school. 25% of the sign was the Coke logo. We also had several drink machines placed in the school at that time in the hallways. I remember it because it seemed so odd to me to have a big corporation invading my school. It felt weird, very out of place. I had never really considered school as a place of business (the quality of the cafeteria food certainly led you to believe that they were not out to make us happy as customers!), but $600 billion a year is no small chunk of change. I wonder if this move towards big business education is such a recent phenomenon, or if it was just not as blatant in the past.
In the past I have not been real big on reading the comments left by people on sites, but with the Olympics I would click on links to news stories and often there was a running commentary beside the article where people would comment on the story. Watching how these progressed would often see them degenerate into a stream of patriotic bashing of others. There were racist, sexist, nationalistic, homophobic, comments made that bordered on hate crimes, yet the people posting them did not seem to have any issues putting them on the net. I have tried some experiments with students and blogs or discussion posts and have always had someone start making some mildly inappropriate comments. We do seem to lose a sense that there is a real person on the other end of an entry that we make, and that our words, while anonymous, can still be hurtful. I think that the quote from the book encapsulates this idea nicely. I will be making an effort to find a copy.
Below is a link to a youtube video on digital practices that I have let my students see. Being all girls the rating aspect of the video hits home for more of them.
Hot or Not video
When the subject of cheating came up in Mike`s presentation I really liked how the author suggested that this requires teachers to come up with higher level questions for assessments that are more difficult to copy or cheat on. With the general trend towards more meaningful assessment, moving beyond simple recall, there seems to be a natural push towards deeper questioning that many teachers (at least in my experience) are trying to fight against. I myself prefer the easy questions; they are easier to mark, explain, and justify the grading of. But this is not what is best for the students, so I have to make an effort to be less lazy. Teachers that may be less inclined to change their assessment style are getting a further push from technology.
I remember when corporate sponsorship came to my school. I was in grade 10 in 1995, and we got a new school sign board at the front of the school. 25% of the sign was the Coke logo. We also had several drink machines placed in the school at that time in the hallways. I remember it because it seemed so odd to me to have a big corporation invading my school. It felt weird, very out of place. I had never really considered school as a place of business (the quality of the cafeteria food certainly led you to believe that they were not out to make us happy as customers!), but $600 billion a year is no small chunk of change. I wonder if this move towards big business education is such a recent phenomenon, or if it was just not as blatant in the past.
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