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