CHAPTER NINE ENTRY

"Google is currently attempting to scan and digitize more than 50 million books from five of the largest research libraries from around the world." (pp. 129)

I did not know this. I don't really like to read book online. I don't think I could read an entire book online actually. I prefer to carry the full text in a bound version. But I will agree, that this technology is certainly changing the world.

"For more than a hundred years we have defined being literate as being able to read and to write. And although those sore abilities are still central to learning, they are no longer enough to ensure understanding."

So true, so true. This is the world we live in and the world the next generation is continuing to shape. Educators MUST stay on top of technology in order to generate literate students ready to compete in the modern world.

"If we fail to graduate students who are not able to create, sustain, and participate in these networks in safe, ethical, and effective ways, we've done them a disservice."

I like the Internet as a mode of publication that moves the classroom out into the real world. SO more than a teacher and perhaps a classmate sees what students are creating. It is a collaborative environment and an inspirational tool.


"Big Shift #4: Teaching Is Conversation, Not Lecture" ---Well, DUH--This is how is ought to be whether the Internet is being used or not! Out with the days of endless boring lectures!

CHAPTER 8 ENTRY

All right, it is the next to last chapter. There is nothing like some good text book reading to get you going. (lol) --And I've done a great deal of text book reading since I've been in this program. UGH.

OK, so back to Chapter 8. "Podcasting is basically the creation and distribution of amateur radio, plain and simple." (pp. 110) I'm not really into the creating Podcasting thing, but I'm not going to dismiss it because I think some students might really enjoy it. I'd really like to learn more about screencasting and live streaming. They sound much more engaging and involved to me. I did like the idea of being able to download new programs "like Meet the Press and 60 Minutes, and many radio shows like Fresh Air from NPR" and then listening to them later on an Ipod. Of course, I don't actually own an Ipod, but if I did this would definitely be something I'd want to learn to use.

YouTube has invaded nearly every student's Internet use. Teachers really need to know about this just to keep up with what kids are doing. I've used YouTube video as part of a lesson, but I really frown of surfing YouTube to kill the last ten minutes of class. I know this happens a lot when teachers choose to abuse their special YouTube privileges. Oh, I've also used TeacherTube, but most of the time I don't have much luck with this site.

Screencasting and Live Streaming--Now this sounds super cool! I student taught at North Oldham High School and they used to have a weekly screencast/ live stream show put on by students about school news and the morning announcements. They put a lot of effects into it and the students watching were really into it. They definitely paid much more attention to the screencast show then to the usual morning announcements over the intercom. Even after reading about this in the book, I'm still confused about how it actually works--but given a few hours and some techie students to help along this would be something I'd like to attempt.

CHAPTER 7 ENTRY

OK. So it is the last class and I've noticed that no one is reading by entries. So I've decided to truncate them down a bit. Also, this is the last class!!! Woo hoo!!! and I'm ready to be done.

Chapter Seven was all about Flickr and since I just completed my H.A.T. lesson plan using Flickr I'm feeling pretty comfortable with this tool right now. Did you know "Flickr members self-police the 1-2 million photos that are uploaded daily, and content filters keep the most troublesome photos at bay." (pp 100) Pretty cool, huh. That is a staggering amount of pictures! Richardson also tells us that "The vast majority of the photos on the site are appropriate for all, and there are some absolutely wonderful photos on just about any topic that you can find there." Being that Richardson is SO pro-technology I'm going to hesitate on "the vast majority" part and probably only use Flickr as a personal search tool. I will allow students to view my photos and each others, but I don't think I would want to set them loose on a Flickr photo search.

I like the idea of setting my photos to only invited friends and family because I was a photojournalist for eyars and I shot a ot of work I'd like to sell one day. I really don't like putting too much work out that may be copied for free. Of course, with all that is available out there I guess the odds are slim that someone would want to steal my work, but still, I like to think I'm at least trying to protect valuable work.

I sort of use a version of "Fliction" in my lesson plan. This is when "students pick a random photo from Flickr and write a story about it. (pp.107)

CHAPTER 6 ENTRY

"The social Web says that we have many friends out there just waiting to be found and connected to, and those friends have other friends (friends of a friend or "FOAF") who can just as easily connect with us and point us to new and interesting information for learning." (85)

A "FOAF"? What? I'm coming more and more to the shocking conclusion that I am old fashioned as the technological dark ages! Well, almost anyway. As I sit in a dark basement typing this to whatever faceless person may end up reading it I can't help but bring up a moment of recollection.

It was a pleasant day when I arrived far to early on campus for a class in the Humanities building here on campus. I had some reading to catch-up on so I thought I'd sit in the building's waiting area and read. It wasn't easy to find a comfortable seat because apparently I was not the only student with no place better to go on a pretty day but inside a dull building. Not really feeling enthralled with my reading I decided to observe people as it is one of my favorite things to do. As I looked around I noticed four students with head phone attached as they listed to ipods, MP3's and laptops. Several students had laptops out. One girl was busy texting, while another talked loud enough on her cell phone for all of us to hear her side of the conversation. There was a young guy playing with some sort of technical gadget I can only guess was a game and another guy looking like he was working with some sort if digitalized planner.

I sat back and watched them all. I must have sat there a half an hour as students came and went and nearly every person I saw was plugged in! I'd never stopped to notice this before, and in that half an hour I witnessed what can not possibly be the ordinary, but we sure are heading in this direction--I did not see a single conversation take place between two people that were physically present in front of each other. I watched all these people come and go and not one of them looked at me, or anyone else. Sure many of them were communicating, but they were communicating through technology and not in person.

I thought, if I tried to spark a conversation with anyone around me right now I would just be invading whatever it is they are doing with their technology and how sad is that. I tried to imagine this same room years ago before the cell phones and the Internet. I bet friends were made on the spot and relationships formed. Those friends probably introduced them to their "FOAF's" in person! and you were able to decide immediately whether to spend any more of your time on the people you networked with becuase you were able to see how they were raw and IN PERSON.

I do not like to use the Internet for my social life and it worries me that as people turn more and more to the Web for social interaction they will eventually become dependent on it and stop trying to meet right on the spot and in person entirely. Everyone will have to screen each other online first.

I guess I'm a real pessimist when it comes to this, but the social Web makes me long for days gone by.

I do like the idea of the social bookmarking services though and I wrote about this in my Choose Your Tool Assignment blog.

Oh, and Twitter just sounds kinda creepy to me.

CHAPTER 5 ENTRY

Ugh "(which we will get to later)" frustrates the heck out of me. I don't know about you guys but it always bothers me when a teacher does this. It is even more irritating in a book. I'd rather he wrote something like: (which we get to on page .... if you want to read ahead, but for now...).

This RSS sounds interesting, but really who has time for this? I already delete practically everything the NCTE emails me because my time is spread so thin. Unless it pertains to what I need at the moment I need it, I'm not going to take the time to read through it. I'm thinking this is a tool I will appreciate more a few years into my career when I don't always feel so rushed for time. I see how in the long haul it could be beneficial and even a time saver, but when it comes to immediate results I'm not sure. I guess since I've never used this it is difficult for me to imagine.

Richardson even says, "Don't be surprised if at first you think RSS is adding to your information overload instead of easing it." (73) Then he tells us we will soon "begin to understand why pretty soon RSS will be a household tool..." (73) I don't know I'm a little leery
of this one.

I guess one rainy day when I have the time to spare I may set one of these up. I suppose the worst that could happen is I would hate it and decide not to use it anymore. There really is nothing to loose and it does seem to have some potential for helping to stay on top of the most recent information.

Choose Your Tool Assignment

Principal Administrator Person:

I have just been made aware of an online resource that has great potential for serving the teachers at this school as a resource sharing tool. It is a site called http://delicious.com. Teachers can join this site, set their membership to private, and then share educational Internet links with each other. The site is free and provides us with a valuable tool by bookmarking URL's we have saved to the site. So a new English teacher, such as myself, could peak in and follow links marked by other teachers in the English department that have taught the same subject matter as myself. I think Wikipedia provides a great and more thorough explanation of how it works:

Delicious uses a non-hierarchical classification system in which users can tag each of their bookmarks with freely chosen index terms (generating a kind of folksonomy). A combined view of everyone's bookmarks with a given tag is available; for instance, the URL "http://delicious.com/tag/wiki" displays all of the most recent links tagged "wiki". Its collective nature makes it possible to view bookmarks added by similar-minded users.
Delicious has a "hotlist" on its home page and "popular" and "recent" pages, which help to make the website a conveyor of internet memes and trends.
Delicious is one of the most popular social bookmarking services.[2] Many features have contributed to this, including the website's simple interface, human-readable URL scheme, a novel domain name, a simple REST-like API, and RSS feeds for web syndication.
Use of Delicious is free. The source code of the site is not available, but a user can download his or her own data through the site's API in an XML or JSON format, or export it to a standard Netscape bookmarks format.
All bookmarks posted to Delicious are publicly viewable by default, although users can mark specific bookmarks as private, and imported bookmarks are private by default. The public aspect is emphasized; the site is not focused on storing private ("not shared") bookmark collections.[3] Delicious linkrolls, tagrolls, network badges, RSS feeds, and the site's daily blog posting feature can be used to display bookmarks on weblogs.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delicious_(website)

I'd be happy to type-up a memo directing the school staff on how to get on board and sign-up for this helpful teacher tool. Please ask me more about Delicious and I will be glad to discuss the site with you.

Sincerely,
M......McD

CHAPTER 4 ENTRY

"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing."
~Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder (Wales, 2004)
-----I just think this is a great quote!

"So when mistakes occur or vandals strike, the collaborative efforts of the group set it straight, usually very quickly. University of Buffalo Professor Alex Halavais tested this by creating thirteen errors on various posts on Wikipedia, all of which were fixed within a couple of hours (Halavais, 2004). Pretty amazing I'd say." (56)

I'd say so to. It is really incredible when you try to imagine how many people are online and all the links they will hit. To think that mistakes on random topics could be fixed within hours is unreal. I would have not even considered editing a Wiki before taking this class.

"edits appear at a rate of about 400,00 per day." (57) --again--just unreal.... I love the sentence that follows this one. "Every day, thousands of people who have no connection to one and other engage in the purposeful work of negotiating and creating truth." I mean that is what this is ALL about after all isn't it? Getting to the bottom of the truth, creating it, and having faith in the overall inherent goodness and intelligence of humans to be able to do this.

I will have to say, however, that after reading this chapter it is SO positive that it is obviously bias. The author is COMPLETELY for Wikis and I found this a bit annoying, even though I agree for the most part.

This is a good idea: "The early consensus among educators seems to be to tell students to use Wikipedia as a starting point for their work, but not as a sole resource." (60)

"Should we be encouraging them to contribute what they learn and know to the Wikipedia entry on the topic?" --YES!!!-- What a great way to show real world application!

Pgs. 66-67 give some great information on places to go to build a classroom Wiki site. I hope to use this information one day in my classroom. After I get a classroom that is. :)

CHAPTER 3 ENTRY

• "Middlebury College professor Barbara Ganley, who uses Weblogs extensively in her courses, asks, "How can a teacher expect her students to blog (or to use other tool, strategy, or technique) if she doesn't use it herself, exploring the impact it has on her thinking, writing research and creativity?" (Ganley, 2004b)." (pp43)

--My students will have grown-up in this technological age. I did not. I have fear. I will have to overcome it. I doubt I will ever be comfortable with posting any sort of personal information on the Web. Just including my name always makes me feel uneasy.

• "I would start small." (pp45) ------YES!

• "The more documentation and backup you have from students, parents, and administrators in terms of clarifying the use of the tool the better. Bud Hunt, an educational technologist in Colorado ....a great resource for documents of this type...(http://tinyurl.com/5y919n)."

--I plan on checking this site out. I definitely think CYA is the best policy. CYA= Cover Your Ass for anyone that doesn't already know.

• "If students will have access to the sites, you may want to send a note home informing parents that this is the case. If you plan to take the sites down at the end of the year, give students a chance to save their work or perhaps transfer it to another service of possible."

--I had not even thought about this. I'd think it would be best to take the site down at the end of the class. If the students continued to use a site I created, or assigned them to begin contributing to what would my liability be if they continued after the class without my monitoring?

CHAPTER 2 ENTRY

• "Remember, two new blogs are being created every second, and that pace shows no signs of slowing down." (19)

This is mind boggling.

"They found that blogs can:

• promote critical and analytical thinking.
• be a powerful promoter of creative, intuitive, and associational thinking.
• be a powerful medium for increasing access and exposure to quality information.
• combine the best solitary reflection and social interaction (Eide Neurolearning Blog, 2005)"

(pp20)

--I can see how all these things are possible through blogging given a guided education. This list is very much like one I wrote in a research project about classroom discussion, except blogging opens the classroom up beyond its boundaries and presents a more meaningful and interactive audience.

"Fifth, the use of Weblogs can enhance the development of expertise in a particular subject." (pp27)

--I've been of the opposite opinion because the plethora of information makes it SO easy to research multiple subject areas for a student. I worry that this could cause it to become more difficult to discover interest in a particular area. At the same time, I can also see where the Internet could help a person understand a subject form multiple perspectives, or become exposed to an interest the person did not know existed. I suppose I see good and bad aspects to this.

--I like the list on page 31 that goes from is not blogging to what real blogging is.

--Pg 38-39 gives a great list that begins "You might like to start a class blog to..." *I may refer to this as I write one of the lesson plans for this class!

CHAPTER 1 ENTRY

• My memory was jogged on page one when I was reminded that "in 1993 with the development of the Mosaic Web browser...Seemingly overnight, the Internet went from a text numbers-based research tool for the few to a colorful, graphical world of information for the masses."

In 1993 I went from my junior to senior year in high school. I remember hearing about the Internet, but I don't remember getting online before college. I absolutely hated it. I thought this was just another tool for making my life more complicated and would end-up making my college work load worse. I could not imagine the potential the Internet had for research and did not discover this for years to come. When this "information" became available "for the masses" I was not a happy camper.

• I rarely visit YouTube, although, I have used it to look for videos that will enhance lessons. I'm not really into YouTube for personal entertainment, but I know the students I taught this past semester loved it! Reading about the "YouTube Campaign" (3) really made me think about how wide spread and powerful this site actually is.

• "Traditional media outlets such as The Washington Post, the BBC, and others are scrambling to respond to this trend, creating interactive spaces for readers, buying on-the-spot news photos from people with camera phones, and running amateur video of news events.

Being a former member of the media I struggled with online media because the small newspapers did not seem to benefit from online readers. The sites are free and advertising is kept to a minimum. So why do papers keep these sites? I really do not understand how this works. I remember sitting in on a meeting at a small paper where the publisher was really excited about making the papers site better and wanted us to spend more time on this. As soon as the publisher left the room the editor told us how minimal the online profits were; that this was causing the paper to loose money because people were cancelling subscriptions because they were reading online. Basically, we were then told not to worry about working on the Web site.

As far as the amateur video and cell phone photography goes--I love this. Giving the readers authorship is awesome, but it makes me wonder how the financial system will support this. I was a newspaper photographer. It was a great profession.

• I marked sections on pages 15-16 under "Blogging Terms and Conditions" and plan on using some of it for a blogging contract in my classroom in the future. It is a thorough list.

Response to: "Syncing Up with the iKid: Connecting to the Twenty-First-Century Student"

The difference is startling. Using the software, the students' responses "were deeper than with pen and ink," Hamstra says. "The focus was really sharp. There's something about changing over to an electronic medium, something about that screen. It's psychological. It's a generational thing."

I completely agree with this and I don't think this is a trend. Technology is changing the way people think. It is phsycological as well as physical. I believe students are more comfortable IAMing than they are handwriting a response to a quick write.

"This generation of students is more likely to be armed with cell phones, laptops, and iPods than with spiral notebooks and No. 2 pencils."

I used to have a student that asked me for a pencil nearly every day and I told caught him texting on his cell phone several times! This is so true.

"According to Blackmore, today's brains are shaped by various information streams -- sometimes referred to as memes -- constantly popping and sparking and competing for attention. This new generation of digital learners -- call them the MEdia Generation -- take in the world via the filter of computing devices: the cellular phones, handheld gaming devices, PDAs, and laptops they take everywhere, plus the computers, TVs, and game consoles at home. A survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation found that young people (ages 8-18) mainline electronic media for more than six hours a day, on average. Interestingly, many are multitasking -- listening to music while surfing the Web or instant-messaging friends while playing a video game."

Maybe, I just need to get with it, but I get really concerned that the way technology changes brains is not entirely healthy. Mutli-tasking has becom essential in the work world, but what will happen to being able to do one thing really well? I know when I want something done I want an expert, not a jack-of-all-trades. I also worry that people have become addicted to quick and easy stimulations and rewards in response to very little work. The old addage about the pride of completing a job well-done will become more about clicks and Internet research than about physical labor and challenging your brain.

"Of course, there's a price educators pay when they open their classes up to the world: Power tends to move from the center outward, an exact duplication of the effect of the Internet on many institutions. In March, the principal of Proctor High School, in Rutland, Vermont, banned access from school computers to MySpace, a blogging site popular with students, saying blogging isn't an "educational use of computers" and citing concerns about Internet predators."

I do think MySpace and Facebook can be dangerous and given the social connotations that are associated with these sites I do not feel they belong in the classroom. I know many teachers communicate with students through these sites and I just don't think it is appropriate to converse with students on a plain that is often used to build intimate relationships. I do think that when a blog is set-up for a class--such as this one--it holds the expectations and possibilities of the blog into the educational field. The lines between what is socially, educationally, and morally acceptable will constantly need to be redefined and monitored by educators.

Story Idea

I have a ton of pictures of my daughter. SHe was born on March 15, 2007. I will actually probably have more of a problem with having too much material than with not being able to come up with enough. I''ve never attempted to use anything like MovieMaker before, so I'm pretty nervous about this.

Actually, after a little thought I think I will limit the story to the anticipation of her birth and the day she was born.

Teaching Writing using Sensory Details Flickr Project

My group consisted of Marcie McDowell (me), Jenna Bush, Krista Boyer, Greg Perram, and Jaclyn Hayes. Because three of us will be certified in teaching Language Arts, we decided to focus our project on teaching writing incorporating sensory details when describing a scene.Core Content 4.1: Middle School Language Arts (Writing)WR-M-3.5.0Language: Students will exemplify effective language choices by· Incorporating strong verbs, precise nouns, concrete details and sensory detailsLink to Flickr Project:http://www.flickr.com/photos/38381118@N04/sets/72157618105640770/

Copy and pasted from Jaclyn's Blog.

May 12 How I do research

When I do research…
I generally begin with google and then look for anything published by a university or recognizable magazine. I also tend to use WebEnglish a lot and Greece for lesson plan ideas.
A good old fashioned library is my second resource. I use the Ekstrom library and my local library. At Ekstrom I am usually able to locate a professional journal or book on what I am researching by utilizing the online catalog. When I go to the local library I tend to rely on the librarians to help out. My local librarians are great about looking-up what I want during a quick phone call and then holding materials for me.
Then, of course, I ask everyone I know for materials they have used in the past. What they found useful and what was not useful.

May 11/ Marcie McDowell

My first experience with a home computer was in elementary school when my dad brought home a Texas Instrument computer. I only used it to play TI invaders, which is basically just like Space Invaders. I'm guessing it was probably around 1982 and Atari was the coolest. Technology in the classroom was pretty much unheard of--at least in the small Michigan town I lived in.

I first recall learning about technology in a middle school computer lab when we went to play "Oregon Trail". I loved playing the game, but I still did not see computers as any more useful than this. I did not have cable television at home and cell phones were these huge weird things rich people carried around in brief cases.

In high school I took a typing class--on a type writer! Imagine that!

When the Internet came out everyone was jumping on board, except me. Even my parents had email addresses before me! I was also the last person I knew to get a cell phone. It took m0ving across the country and being cut-ff from any hope of accessing a land line to get one.

A passion for photography finally lead me to embracing technology. I obtained a bachelor's degree in journalism and became the photo editor for my university newspaper. After many hours with instructional manuals I taught myself how to use Adobe Photoshop and how to manually operate a digital camera.

Now that I am pursuing a career as a teacher I avidly believe that technology is a gift in the classroom, but that it can also detract. I've seen teachers play around with students surfing on youtube and all kinds of inappropriate behavior. Personally, I've created several PowerPoints and used email to contact parents, but other than that I have not used much technology in the class. I'm looking forward to learning more about it!