Final Thoughts on This Technology Course

Our professor asked us for final thoughts on this tehcnology course and here are mine. Blogging was a great part of this experience. Thank you readers for your attention and your comments.

My initital reaction to this course was skeptical. I wasn't sure I would get much out of it but I thought the work load would be fairly light. Besides, I liked the idea I wouldn't have to trek to Jersey City on Wednesday evenings after a long day of student teaching. How bad could it be if you could do everything onloine and on your own time?

My initial reaction changed around the time I started actively blogging. The course is convenient, but not easy. It takes time and energy. Of course, the flexibility of working from a remote location and at unconventional hours was indeeed a real positive. But flexibility is not the same as being able to take short-cuts. I wasn't stressed or nervous; but I felt a strong desire to complete the assignments conscientiously and took a great deal of pride in anything I was going to share with the professor and other students.

Regarding computers in the curriculum, I have learned to raise my expectations and gained a new sense of respect for the possibilities. Technology in education is an extremely complex subject and we have only begun to explore potentials. I won't underestimate the importance of computers in the curriculum the way I may have in the past.

Suggestions for improvements? Nothing significant. I question the value of the textbook, which was very expensive, very "low tech" (!) and the least interesting or informative part of the class.

But all else was first-class, demanding, challenging and fun. This course leaves you with a very real sense of accomplishment. It gives you that satisfied feeling of having learned something unexpected.

Thanks you to my fellow students (particularly those of you who exchanged ideas by blogs and chats) and to Prof. Luongo for creating one of SPC's most innovative and interesting classes. I look forward to seeing more of you in the semesters ahead.

Well, Excuuuuse Me

A family member who very kindly reads my blog and provides me with unvarnished criticism (both positive and negative) tells me that in my eariler posting about Improving Graduate Education I sounded like quite a snob. My first thought was to take down or revise the posting. Instead, it seems more in the spirit of blogging to leave it place.

Let me just say briefly that I did not mean to be a snob or to sound arrogant. Perhaps I was just being too defensive about reading the newspaper knowing that this is a blog about the merits of technology (of which there are many).

In any case, please excuse my unintentional arrogance or snobism. Joking aside, I mean that sincerely. And thanks to the family member for his honest criticism. (Thank you too for delivering the criticism privately instead of posting it for all the world to see!)

Techology Enhanced Lesson Plan

Well, I did it! I completed a technology enhanced lesson plan for teaching elementary school phonetics.  This was an interesting exercise in seeing what's available from the web to make a traditional lesson plan more dynamic and interesting for the students.  Unfortunately, many of the resources I explored required website memberships or required purchase of materials (music for example).  With a little effort, however, I located some free materials including a good video for teachers and an interesting online game for the students to play.  As a result, I was able to limit my technology enhancements to free materials.  Sometimes I wonder how teachers survived before the Internet!

Using Tech to Improve Graduate Education

“Do not do what I do; rather, take whatever I have to offer and do with what I could never imagine doing and then come back and tell me about it.” - Professor Mark C. Taylor, Columbia Universiy, to his students

As perhaps you know by now, I am an avid reader of the New York Times Op Ed pages. Every morning I receive the paper in its old-fashioned print format and read the news and Op Ed page while I sip my coffee. I also read blogs (thanks mainly to this course) but I think the newspaper Op Ed pages (in either print or electronic format) provide more thoughtfully considered analyses of current topics.

Today’s New York Times featured a very relevant Op Ed piece entitled End the University as We Know It by Mark Taylor.

Professor Taylor, chairman of the religion department at Columbia, points out that most graduate programs in American universities are producing candidates for teaching positions that don’t exist (i.e. a product with no market). While this might not be true for SPC’s Graduate Education Program since there are arguably very needy markets for well-trained elementary and seconday school educators, the suggestions he makes for improving graduate education in America are, in my opinion, right on target.

His suggestions are also relevant to our study of technology in the classroom. Consider, for example, these ideas as to how to transform the modern graduate university program:

• Restructure curriculums so that they are cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural “like a web or complex adaptive network;”

• Abolish permanent departments and create problem-focused programs;

• Use technologies like teleconferencing and the Internet to increase collaboration among departments and institutions;

• Replace traditional dissertation formats with analytic treatments in formats including Web sites, films, and video games.

I encourage you to read the article, but if you don’t have time at least consider these ideas. They are relevant to us graduate students and they are particularly interesting in the context of our studies of technology in school curriculums.

I look forward to receiving comments on this. In the meantime, I am going to close my blog pages, log off my computer, pour another cup of coffee, get comfortable in my overstuffed armchair, and finish today’s New York Times!

Searching the Internet with CLN

It is striking to me how many of the useful technology tools for education are about the ability to search for content. The CLN Network is another example of this phenomenon. I recently signed up and I think the site is a great search engine for educators. The utility is in its ability to find things according to different criteria. I esepcially like the feature where you can identify a Core Curriculum Content Standard and CLN identifies educational resources related to it. Very clever!

When you think about it, our webquests and teacher webpages are similar searching resources. They are convenient and well-organized links to other content.

Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised that so much utility resides with the search function on the Internet. After all, remember the early days of the Internet? It wasn't so much about the content as about the search engines. Remember Netscape and Ask Jeeves? Google understood the extent that the value (and the renumeration) is in the search.

Observations on Social Networking

Before I blog about social network sites, I need to make an important disclosure: I don’t belong to any. I was on AOL for a time (and still have an email account there) but AOL is so “has-been” as a social network that it doesn’t really count.

My friends have asked my why I’m not on Facebook while they extoll the fun and convenience of networking. But I tell them I’m not interested. It's not that I'm anti-social or anti-technology. After all, I read the alumni news when my schools mail them to me; I send birthday emails and Christmas cards to friends and relatives; and I enjoy the occasional contact from a long-lost friend. For me, that’s all nice and it's enough. I don’t need more social chatter in my life.

You might tell me I can’t judge social networking sites if I haven’t tried them, but I disagree. In April, New York Magazine published a cover story about Facebook that I read with great interest. (Do You Own Facebook? Or Does Facebook Own You?). It's a good explanation as to why I'm not interested in Facebook or sites like it. The article starts out talking about privacy and the uproar that ensued when Facebook tried to change its TOS to say that Facebook owns whatever you upload to their site, even after you close your account.

But, the article is about much more than privacy and ownership issues. It is about social networking as a social phenomenon. Take this quote for example:

“An uncanny simulacrum of your life has been created on the web. It may not be too hyperbolic to talk about a digital self, as a fourth addition you mind, body and spirit. It’s not the kind of thing you want to give away.”

Yes, I may be missing out on something by not belonging to Facebook or MySpace or otherwise engaging in "social networking". But, for now I’ll take the risk. I guess I'm just not too worried about missing out on a social opportunity anymore. I'm busy working on mind, body and spirit. My digital self will just have to wait.

Why Wikipedia Works When It Shouldn't

When I first heard about Wikipedia I was extremely skeptical. How can a technology open to everyone no matter his or her credentials (or intent) produce a viable encyclopedia populated with reliable information? Why should I be confident of a wiki's reliability when there is no expert oversight?

This article from The New York Times (Wikipedia: Exploring Fact City) is an insightful analysis of why Wikipedia works as well as it does.  It likens the website to a city where people implicitly agree to live and work together for the benefit of all.  Like a city, the freedom and good faith of hundreds of thousands of "citizens" makes it a dynamic and interesting source of information in ways that an expert site never could be. The analogy of Wikipedia as a dynamic and interesting urban environment is wonderful food for thought. 

For the first time I have been able to understand why an enyclopedia that does not rely on experts can be a reliable source of information.  In fact, the article points out that the lack of expert oversight is actually wiki's strength; and it applauds Wikipedia for having resisted the call for expert oversight throughout its existence.

I highly recommend this article to anyone who, like me, has wondered why Wikipedia (or New York City for that matter!) works when arguably it shouldn't.

Creating a Teacher's Webpage

Add this to my list of technology firsts inspired by this class: I am in the process of creating my own Teachers webpage on the Scholastic website. It is fictitious at this point, but it is fun to pretend that I am teaching American History to high school students who will find this page interesting and helpful. I also think a page like this would be a very useful tool for parents to get a sense for what is going on in the classroom, on our field trip, etc.

The scholastic webpage is free so in all fairness, I probably can't be too critical about the fact that I find it cumbersome. I also think that the ability to add graphics, change fonts, etc. is very limited. Much more limited, in fact, than the webquest site we worked with (also free) to make our webquests. I'm curious if any other students have the same observations.

Warning! Reading Blogs May Be Bad for You

I think it's time to post an opposing view to all of our exuberant praise for blogging and the way technology gives us access to news.

Don't get me wrong-- I'm not a Luddite and I value technology as much as everyone.  But the fact is that technology is changing the way we receive and share news.  And I don't think that we students have done a particularly good job focusing an observant and critical eye on these changes.

Rather than do it myself, I would like to direct you to a Op-Ed piece posted this week by Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times.  His article is titled "The Daily Me" which is a phrase coined by Nicholas Negroponte of M.I.T. to refer to our our ability to go online and use technology to select the news we want to read.  

He calls it the "daily me" because, of course, we pick the news sources from which we want to read.  And as has been pointed out in several studies on the topic "there’s pretty good evidence that we generally don’t truly want good information — but rather information that confirms our prejudices. We may believe intellectually in the clash of opinions, but in practice we like to embed ourselves in the reassuring womb of an echo chamber."

As I read this article, I thought about our St Peter's blogs.  Many of us (including me) have posted blogs praising all the wonderful technologies to which we have been introduced. And there's nothing wrong with that. But what has bothered me is that I haven't seen blogs that say "Hey, Wait a minute. Are we really considering all the angles here?  What might be the negatives to all our positives?"

Again, I risk sounding like a technology scrooge here. But c'mon students, where's the critical thinking.  Where's the opposing viewpoint?

I don't generally agree with the Op-Ed pieces of Nicholas Kristof because on most issues he's far more conservative than me.  But I read his column regularly.  I can't say the same for the blog literature I read-- it all looks alot alike.  Thank you Mr. Kristof for helping me see the narrowness of my own perspective.     

Here is an interesting article from the New York Times about new classroom designs that offer students opportunities to stand while learning.  I found this interesting because while student teaching 8th grade social studies I have noticed that some students have real difficulties sitting still in a conventional environment.  I don't think that this article has the solution to a very complex issue/problem, but I think its great that it is being addressed in innovative ways.Students Stand When Called Upon, and When Not - NYTimes.com

QuestGarden Exporting Disabled "For the Moment"

I have tried to save the webquest I created on Questgarden by using the "Export" feature (at the bottom of the left column when I am in "edit" mode). Unfortunately, Questgarden gives the message "Note: Exporting is disabled for the moment. It will be back soon. We're working on it". This has been the case for about two weeks. C'mon Questgarden! that doesn't sound like "for the moment" to me and I don't call two weeks "being back soon"! Has anyone else been able to export?

Webquest 1.0 (!)

Well, I did it. I created my first webquest. I used a project that I observed while student teaching which was not a webquest, and made it into one. It was fun -- sort of like a lesson plan with graphics and weblinks. Interstingly, when you put these elements together, the whole really does seem to be greater than the sum of its parts.

Take a look if you're interested. It will be available on QuestGarden until March 15. http://questgarden.com/76/68/2/090213112604/

The Power of Sharing Ideas

"The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbor's home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all." -Voltaire

This is a great point. We can bring it from the 18th to the 21st century with just two word changes: (1) Replace "in books" with "online" and (2) change our neighbor's "home" to "homepage". And Voila! We have the great 18th century philosophe Voltaire describing the transformative power of the Internet.

The technology changes, but the benefits derived from a generous sharing of instruction (ideas, knowledge, viewpoints) doesn't. What the printing press started, the internet continues.

Working on First Webquest

I'm working on my first webquest and I think the biggest challenge is to make it more than just an exercise in searching the web and compiling large quantities of facts.  I want the students to have to use judgement to decide what information is appropriate; to put context around the information they're collecting; to synthesis it; to think critically about it.  The webquest is a great tool, but I think a good webquest poses these same challenges that I face with traditional lesson plans:  How will the webquest inspire students to THINK?  If my first webquest does that, I will consider it a success. 

Blogs for Collaborative Learning

This month's edition of Educational Leadership magazine is all about collaborative learning among teachers.  In particular, the article titled "Learning with Blogs and Wikis" is useful and relevant to the work we're doing in this class.  Quoting Richard Elmore, a professor of educational leadership at Harvard, the article makes the bold assertion that "schools are hostile and inhospitable places for learning.  They are hostile to the learning of adults," the article says, "and, because of this, they are necessarily hostile to the learning of students."  That's quite an attention grabber!

The article goes on to observe two significant changes helping to counteract this unfortunate situation.  First, is a new emphasis on collaborative learning among members of close knit teams of teachers--not lip-service to the idea, but making it actually happen.  The second is that digital tools are helping to provide what Elmore calls "portals through which new knowledge about teaching and learning can enter schools."  The article goes on to talk about how blogs and wikis are valuable tools for collaborative learning in schools and among educators.

To check out the February of Educational Leadership, click here.  The whole magazine is worth a look, but if you're pressed for time (and who isn't?) check out the "Learning with Blogs and Wikis" article.  You can skip the instructional material about blogs since this class has already made us sufficiently blog-savy in this area.  If you focus on the points about teachers using blogs for collaborative learning, you might find this interesting.  Let me know. 

Observations on NJCCCS and NETS

Here's an observation from my review of NJCCCS and NETS:  When I look at 8th grade competencies in NJCCCS I am generally struck by the challenges that teachers face in ensuring that their students work hard, and stay on track to meet them.  In contrast, 8th graders tend to come to the classroom with the NETS competencies quite well established.  I realize this is a sweeping generalization, but I wonder if others have made similar (or contrasting) observations.

Another Presidential First

Add this one to the list: the first U.S. President to use a blackberry while in office. Not surprisingly, the device won't be an off-the-shelf model; It will be specially made and approved by National Securitiy officials. Also, the number of people who have his address will be highly limited and, sadly, I'm not on the list. Still, I'm glad he's got it.

Getting Started

Greetings. I am posting this blog as part of a course on Education and Technology. Other members of the class are invited to read it, post responses and share ideas here. It is, and will continue to be, a work-in-progress as we communicate throughout the semster. I'm looking forward to the experience -- Welcome!