The Last Chapter of the Summer Semester

Well six weeks has pasted with no casualties reported!

Friday's class was a great way to end the summer semester. Hearing from past MACers and how they're incorporating technology into their classrooms was very informative and in some ways surprising.

It was nice to hear that they have found ways to not only work technology into the classroom but use it to enhance their students' learning. For example, Larry telling us how he uses Facebook posts as an extra way for his students to post links to articles, websites, or blogs that they find are relevant to the lesson they're doing. Or how Kevin uses a moodle to ensure his kids have access to assignment information as they need it.

I did however hear a few things I wasn't sure on. The first was Larry using Facebook. I know, I know..I just said it was a great way to enhance his students learning, but I'm still unsure of it. With kids nowadays posting EVERYTHING they do on Facebook, legal and illegal, it seems like an unnecessary risk to have them as "friends" on Facebook. I dunno, I guess I always think of the worst-case scenario.

For example, what if a kid post something about doing something bad right before he/she does it. The parents know you're "friends"  with their child on Facebook and they blame you for not saying anything about it. Ultimately that is just not a necessary risk that I am will to take.

The second point that caught me off guard is the idea of allowing kids to have their cell phones in class. I think Larry made a good point when he said if you take them away kids will just shut you out in resentment, but how do we then get them to voluntarily put them away?

When these kids grow up and get real jobs, they won't be able to whip out their cell phone in the middle of a meeting, or while talking to their boss. If we don't teach them the appropriate/inappropriate time to use a cell phone now, they never learn! Case-in-point, my old co-worker. Long story short, kids was a recent graduate and thought his s*it didn't stink. He'd ask me a question about something and as I'm explaining it to him, he'd pull out his cell phone and check his email!! So, 3 months later he was fired.

I don't know if I agree about catering to these kids' technological addictions so easily. I think there are still a lot of things these kids need to learn the "old fashion way". Integrating Technology into the classroom can become a very sticky situation if not done with discretion.

And the TRUTH...Shall Set you FREEEE!

Hands down these articles are my favorite to date! Yoffe, Klapperstuck, and Kearns make very good points regarding children today and their perceived "addiction" to technology and the never-ending want for information.

When I was reading these articles, especially Yoffe's, I couldn't help but think about a few friends of mine who have sever cases of addiction. The first one, my friend's wife, is probably the worst. Not only does she update her location on average three times and hour (and no that's not an exaggeration, I just check her Facebook over the last 12 hours to ensure I had it right), she never misses a chance to "like" any and everything her husband posts! I mean ANYTHING! Two weeks ago he posted "My wife is insane." on his status.... "LIKE"D!  WHAT!? COME ON! Not only do you "like" a insult aimed directly your way, you two are probably sitting in the same room!!!!! Can't you just tell him you like his post, for whatever God-forsaken reason?

Oh I could go for weeks about similar occurrences, but I'll save you my diatribes... plus I don't want my blood pressure to go up too high.

So why do people feel this need to update the whole world about every single thing they do? Well, it could do with the fact that... people actually read it! And comment! AKA- They do it for the attention they know they'll get...

In Yoffe's article, she discusses how people's brains are designed and structured to be ever seeking information. Whether that information is about how to make a rocket ship, or about what color your friend painted their toenails that day, people always want more information. Of course, this is nothing new, it's just nowadays social media sites, the internet, and smartphones make it extremely easy  for people to feed their need to search.

I'm not going to lie, I'm guilty of the "deep Google" every once in a while. Occasionally I look into stuff that is either just obscure, or completely irrelevant. For example, before I started typing this blog, I spend about a half our on movieclips.com (GREAT website by the way) watching clips from movies including Karate Kids, and Liar Liar. Did I need to be doing that? Nope.

So here's my point in all of this: As future teachers, how do we get kids to turn off these distractions and focus on what we're teaching? Klapperstuck and Kearns note that kids today always have more then one thing going on. If they're at the mall with some friends, they're texting other friends. If they're at the movies, they're tweeting about how stale the popcorn is. They're never content with just being where they are! They always want to be doing something else, or talking with someone different.

I think we're gonna have a challenge on our hands for sure. We need to find a way to get kids to voluntarily turn everything distraction off, and engage in what we're talking about. Sure, we can make them turn off everything, but won't they just ignore us to be spiteful? It's going to be a tough job my friends... but hey, at least it will never be dull!

Podcasting and Leeroy Jenkins!

Unlike the topic of Twitter, after discussing the use of gaming in education in Friday's class, I have become more concrete in my assertion that the negatives of gaming do not outweigh the positives.

Sure, gaming CAN build team working skills and CAN increase trust between players, but this isn't always the case. Take for example, Leeroy Jenkins: 

Before Leeroy's defection, we do see the players working together to increase their odd of success to approximately 32.33 (repeating of course) percent chance of survival. So we cannot refute the team building and trust building skills gaming can provide.

Despite these positives, I still hold that the negatives far outweigh the positives. Increasing the amount of gaming will lead to a generation of socially awkward, ill-prepared and far undereducated adults. Instead of having children focus their energy on solving real-world issues in the gaming world, why don't we have them focus on SOLVING REAL WORLD ISSUES IN THE REAL WORLD!? What if we took the idea of making computer games about solving real world issues, and apply it into lesson plans where students work as teams to come up with ideas on how to solve them?

But enough about the gaming... Let's talk about the second part of the class: Podcasts.

I'm not going to lie, before we discussed what a podcast was I had NO idea what they were! But after learning what they were and how easy they were to make, I thought this would be a great tool for kids to convey their understanding, and for teachers to provide additional support when kids need it.
Instead of making powerpoints and handouts all the time, teachers and students can create a podcast containing the information they want to present in a fun, and easily-accessible way.

An added bonus to this is the fact that I can FINALLY have a platform to show-off all the different "characters" I've been practicing all these years! Just like Sweet Dee does here:

World of Wishful Thinking...

"GENIUS!!! Let's use games to help our kids learn! How could that NOT work!?"

What are you kidding?!?!

Yes, in theory the idea of using games to promote learning sounds fantastic and I agree with a few points they've made. Such as that games challenge the player to quickly learn and adapt in order to complete a certain objective. But that's about it!

Let me address my concerns about certain points made in the video and article:

"We should make games with real world application, or based on events that may occur, such as 'the world without oil'"

           Well the first thing they fail to realize is is that people don't play realistic games! They play games in which they can do things they can't do in real life. The main reason people are intrigued World of Warcraft is because you can build up a person who can do magic and crap, not because they can be a used car salesman in it. Even with The Sims, a game about building an avatar and controlling their life, they do it because they feel they cant do it in real life! (Or if you're like me, you used to play for the twisted fun of destroying you avatar's life.)

"Gaming hours need to increase." 

         Oh this is a GREAT idea! Let's try and make the next generation even more socially awkward then they teens we have now. Maybe if we increase the gaming enough, they won't even need to learn to talk, only to type! 

         Yes, gaming provides problem solving techniques. But they're specific to gaming and don't transfer to real life. If we tell kids they need to play video games more, there's no way they'll learn the interpersonal skills they need to function in the REAL WORLD. Trust me, I lived with a kid that did nothing but go to class then play World of Warcrap, or has he called it "WoW". The kids had no interpersonal skills, hated interacting with others, and still lives at home with his parents playing that game. But man, his avatar was wicked powerful!

They provide good ways to build trust between people."

        I'll admit, I play Call of Duty when I'm bored... but it's only when I'm bored! I don't pass up on other things in order to level up on CoD, because it's just a game. One thing I've learned from playing online is that playing games does NOT build trust! If you start talking on while playing, 99% of the chat is people insulting each other, each other's mama's, and each other's "whack skillz yo". Hardly building trust I'd say.

If you haven't gather already, I actively deny the notion that game play does any good in advancing our society or our student's knowledge. You have to be off your rocker to think sticking a kid in front of a computer nearly 40 hours a week to play any type of game is a good idea. The best way to help children build trust and interpersonal skills is to expose them to situations that require it in the real world, not the virtual world!

Big Waves in The Brandon Center

             It's totally understandable that people have differing views on using technology on classroom, but I think one point we all can agree on is having class in the Brandon Center was AWESOME! Being able to break out into groups where each group has their own space equipped with large displays and a quite environment allowed us to hash out our ideas without having to huddle around a 13" screen and play "which group can talk the loudest?"

            Not only was the environment enjoyable, but so was the lesson and it's discussion. FINALLY we got to practice not only making lesson plans, but using a teaching theory! Being able to use backward design to  construct a lesson plan, as opposed to just talking about the theory itself was a great help. I think it's safe to say the group I way in (RJ, Curtis and myself) must be more backward-oriented then most. And yes, I'm admitting that we may be a little "bass- ackwards". We were able to hash out our overall goal relatively easily, and use it to form an effective lesson that would help us arrive at our intended goal.

           Adding to the ease of this lesson was the help we received from our personal librarian. She was able to to not only offer suggestions about the lesson plan's design, but was able to show us different avenues on the computer we could explore to enhance the lesson's effectiveness. She was able to show us tools ranging from research databases, to presentation tools such as VoiceThread and Ustream. I believe incorporating these tools and others like them into the designing and presenting of lessons will provide great new ways of presenting information in a manner which will keep the students interested.

So here's a thought: What if every class was in the Brandon Center, all lesson plans are done in groups, and we have access to our own personal librarians whenever needed? Is this possible? If not, I definitely think it should be considered in order to maximize our "learning experience". BOOM! What up now, Anderson & Krathwohl!?

Backward Thinking!?! I Just Got Used To Forward Thinking!

Ok so the title's a bit misleading, I mastered forward thinking WAY back... like, 3 years back!


Moving on to "Backward" design. Let me just start by saying I'm happy to see some level of common sense does exist in teacher education! I was beginning to think teacher education only consisted of "you'll always be wrong" theories like Bloom's Taxonomy and impossible questions such as "How do we reform the American school system?"

"Backward" design has renewed my faith in teacher education, and at the same time save my brain from overheating for the night. It's such a common sense theory! Start with what you want the kids to know, figure out how you'll assess that knowledge, then formulate a lesson that will allow them to be successful on that assessment. That's it! (well, its the generalized version.)

Despite being a straight-forward, common sense theory, I can definitely see how it can be overlooked. Most of our lives we are told, "this is what you need to accomplish, get it done." Whether that be in work, school (for myself at least), or sport, the emphasis was not focusing on how you assess if you know it, but simply to get it done. Therefore you focus on your first step and move from there, hoping to reach your goal.

But as teachers we need to be able to not only see the steps, but also the whole picture. "Backward" design helps keep the big picture at the forefront of your mind, helping you determine the most effective and efficient steps to take to reach your overall goal (which in this case is your students obtaining in depth knowledge on a certain topic). From what I've read it seems like a very straight forward theory, and one I look backward to test driving!
                                                                                                             Fun Fact:

       











                                                                                                     

Ok.. So Twitter May Not be AS Worthless As I Originally Thought....

       After Fridays class on the uses of Twitter, I've concluded that Twitter is less like a social media site, and more like a weapon: In the right hands, Twitter can be used for good. But in the wrong hands... we're all screwed. Constant tweets that begin with "Dear (insert inanimate object here)...", updates containing no pertinent or even relevant information, and ultimately leading to the loss of friends.

But back to the "good" things Twitter can provide. Before Friday's class I had no idea the wealth of information and links people post on Twitter, let alone about teaching! I always viewed Twitter as more of a reaching out website, as opposed to a receiving website. Once setup though, Twitter can bring news, research, answers, and advise to the user, as opposed to the user having to go find it.

So to keep it concise, and to save my ego from the painstaking tasking of admitting I wasn't COMPLETELY right, I will say this: I MAY use Twitter for keeping up on trends in my subject field, but I will NOT use it to let everyone I'm clipping my toenails. Which I am not right now.....ish.