Mirror, Mirror, on the wall

Pete Reilly posted a response in his blog to a invitation to a “meme” or passion quilt.  I’m not really sure what this is, but it seems to be a collection of ideas to create some sort of “super thought” brainstorm. Anyhow, thats not really important, but what was interesting was Pete’s contribution.   He said that what kids need to learn is how to reflect.  I think this is fantastic.  Not only does reflection help critical and a higher level of thinking, but he focused on more of an internal reflection.   I think this is a huge step in learning.  Not in learning about what the text books have to offer us, but rather, as a valuable life skill.  With the ability to reflect we may the degradation of a society where morals are somewhat lacking.  We may see people getting into careers that they are passionate about.  Reflection ultimately leads to better decision making.    The trick is how does one teach this beautiful skill?  Pete may be on to something: “What if by consciously building the human sides of our classrooms, deliberately creating trust with out students, focusing on them as unique individuals, helping them know themselves a little better; we are creating an academic environment where we can be even more rigorous? As adults, we do our best and most meaningful work (whether ‘one on one’ or in teams) when we have a trusting relationship and bond with those we work with. The same dynamic applies to our classrooms.” 

The ‘advancing’ higher education

As I was doing my weekly reading, I checked up on Will Richardson’s blog and the title The Distributed University caught my eye, being a student at a university.He echoes the words of Jeff Jarvis who says that the modern university as we know it is in the process of being phased out.Richardson talks about what I call a “grocery store” approach to education.  A student should be able to pick not the university he or she wants to attend, but rather the professors, classes, and the like from any university.The obvious initial negative reaction to this Will Richardson addresses, “I know, I know. There is more to college than classes. I’m a poster child for that. And accreditation is a huge issue.”But I think what both Will Richardson and Jeff Jarvis  are overlooking is how this would ultimately lead to the destruction of the university as an institution of higher thinking.  A place where professors and their students conduct break-through research.  If a students was able to grocery shop for the school they wanted to attend, what good would that do the United States as a forerunner in higher thinking.I think what Will Richardson and Jeff Jarvis speak of is an elitist approach to education.  The best students will be able to pick out only the best teachers.  There will be no room for personal advancement.  I personally don’t see this as a progression for the system of universities.

Technological Simplicity

For class, I needed to create a podcast.  I decided to include the text for those without speakers and who are hard of hearing.  I couldn’t actually get it as a true m4a file, so I just made it into a quicktime and uploaded it to youtube, so there is no visual.   Ewan McIntosh adressed the economic debate issue of whether technology actually simplifies our lives or not in his blog.   McIntosh neither supported nor rejected this claim, but  instead presented both sides in this post.   I feel that  it is easy to see how technology has crowded our lives with confusion.  Between rebooting, reformatting, call waiting, spam, and online hackers it is hard to sometimes see how we are better off than “the good old days.” The question I have is “Does technology make our lives more complicated, or do we?”   I think it is the latter.  I believe that technology has absolutely made our lives more simple.  It has succeeded almost perfectly.   I stress the word almost.  Telephones saved us loads of time from writing personal letters to anybody we wanted to be in contact with.  E-mail made this even easier and quicker.  Computers help us process information with the beat of an eye, store information and consolidate space by eliminating the need for endless filing cabinets.  The list goes on.   So where did this all get screwed up?   I believe it was when we had all the spare time and eased stress when this was spoiled.  We had free time and we clogged it up with more technological advances.  Instead of using the time that we were given by the simplistic technology we just added more to our plate.   If we want technology to be used as it was intended, we must learn not to serve our machines, but for them to serve us.  This is a common problem among most things today.  Lets be prudent about how we use our ‘conveniences.’  

These numbers don’t look so good

In a blog  by Pete Reilly, some figures are presented in regards to the funding and overall concern for the advancement of technology in the classroom.  This is what it says: Nearly three out of four school leaders say they don’t have enough IT staff to support their needs effectively, according to the survey. Fifty-five percent of respondents said they can’t maintain their network adequately, 63 percent said they can’t plan for new technologies, and 76 percent said they have trouble implementing new technologies.  I see these numbers and I recall my high school days and even here in dorm life.  This describes problems that we see every day.  Overloaded servers, understaffed IT departments.  Lack of resources and time to keep it updated.  The frustrating thing about these numbers and thoughts is that I believe that Educational technology is worth every penny we spend.  The problem is 1) convincing other people of this and 2) getting room in the budgets.  

Where should teachers be on this scale?

I read a blog by, the once again, Doug Johnson about the progression of the “literacy” so to speak of Word Processing.  It was interesting to see, in rubric form, how Johnson sees this skill growing.  I was scared to see that I am actually behind on the rubric!  I am no longer in “Level 4!”   Two things came to mind when I read this.  1st)  If I am falling behind now, will I have the time and motivation to keep up with advancing software in the future?  Based on my interest level now, I would say yes.  I have to admit, as soon as I found out that I was behind I whipped open Microsoft Word and tried to figure it out.2nd)  Where do current teachers stand now on this rubric?  I remember teachers in grade school that were older than my parents who are still teaching now!  Do people actually expect them to keep up with this fast paced progression? I would say that teachers in the same boat as them, of course they don’t expect that.  Parents, maybe not.  But the students do and will continue to!     Once again,  I lament over the fact that the conversion of the traditional classroom will be a long and painful process. 

Ed Tech Funding

Since the beginning of SpEd 312 starting, I have been convinced that technology is completely necessary and vital to be in the classroom.  But one concern of mine was “where do we get this money from?”  We see classrooms across the state that struggle to keep information updated.  (I’m pretty sure my home high school still has pluto in the textbooks!)  There is a constant need for new, underpaid teachers and constant threats to cut school budgets if they do not meet state requirements.  But, there is still a demand for updated technology and constant criticism to those who cannot or will not make changes toward this.  In a blog by Doug Johnson, an answer is proposed.   “We in education spend millions on dry textbooks, drill-and-kill software, inumerable paper worksheets, and useless testing. What if we took just 10% – or even 5% – of our budgets and spent in on things that actually got kids excited about learning – like an immersive trip to the stars, really good library books, educational games or field trips to interesting local history sites.” This sounds like a fantastic idea!  But the question is, “is it feasible?”   Do boards of directors feel comfortable throwing millions of dollars at hardware and software that they are not familiar with.  Would parents be responsive to the phasing out of text books?  I’m thinking, not so much, or so the majority would cry.   Although this is a great solution, I think it will be a long process.  We may see in the next generation what we want to see now.   

Best form of Literacy?

This blog post, written by Anne Davis, reviews another blog that echoes the TIME article “How to Bring Our Schools out of the 2oth Century.”  One point that I thought was very interesting was an audio clip imbedded into the post.  Apparently, the children of her classroom said that the best writing tool they had were video games.  It allowed them to create and follow a specific story line, work with protagonists and antagonists, it allowed them to make choices in the story, and had a specific beginning, middle and end. I found this very interesting that the children argued this in class and that it was even more interesting that the teacher presented this information seriously!  There is no doubt that this is very interesting and a novel idea, but I can personally recall myself in high school being a gamer, and don’t actually find this argument to be valid at all.   I do find it fantastic though that the teacher is taking seriously the fact that writing and literacy is moving into a very digital world.   

Murky and Challenging…

One blog that I am glad that I subscribed to is Weblogg-ed written by the genius of critical thinking of Will Richardson.      He speaks of a very blurry educational system and future that children are stepping into.  I failed to notice this very obvious point.  Being caught up in the excitement and possibilities of the direction of the field of education in conjunction of technology, I overlooked how murky it all is.  The future of education promises nothing.  Especially with the political race with candidates who seem very uninterested in the direction of education.  This doesn’t mean we should lose our hope though!    Richardson goes on to state some more clear points of the future of kid’s education.  He lists some requirements that will create capable and educable students.  Here is the list:   The interesting thing about this list is that it is both things that we have spoken about in the SpEd 312 class and things that we are learning to do ourselves.  Way to go Mike and Vanna! 

Pushing New Frontiers

I managed to stumble across a new blog this week entitled “2¢ Worth”  A fun little title if you ask me.  The post that jumped out at me was entitled The Changing Landscape of Education.  The post was about the MIT OpenCourseWare Initiative that allows students from multiple campuses in higher education to access a wealth of information and resources, straight from the horses mouth so to speak.   The professors who participate in this give access to video and audio clips in addition to lecture notes and assignments.   This is not new to students at the University of Illinois, but the interesting thing about this “initiative” is the access they have given to college-prep students mainly in AP courses.   The reason why I am excited about this is because we may see a trickle affect from this.  If the program were to extend to the regular education high school students and even through special education, we would be seeing great steps forward.  <<Steve Rosenbaum, I don’t think this is the doing of your “middle 70% who are “waiting and hoping the whole thing will go away. Real change happens not when you silence the critics but when you engage the middle 70%”  In-concrete passive idealism is not a result of this remarkable forward progress.>>  If, and hopefully when, this reaches Special and Regular Education, the format for this will clearly need to be revamped.  I don’t think that these students will effectively utilize audio clips.  But the use of digital assignments and interactive and entertaining videos could be.    The youtube generation of learners may finally have a venue for learning that will fit their needs.

Do people actually think we can do it?

Among the different blog posts that I read in response to TIME’s article entitled, ‘How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century’ I noticed a few similar themes of their responses.   One of the responses was: “Oh, I actually didn’t think we made it into the 20th century yet!”  and, “this is much needed, and get ready to get messy.”  Most people either responded enthusiastically to this article, but there was the handful of cynics who believe we will perpetually be stuck in the past.   I feel that the reality of this is actually a mixture of hope and weariness.  I am excited and anxious to see the progression of the American school system.  In the moving age of technology, the classroom has potential to be exciting for both the teacher and the student.  Something that I think is passed all too often.  On the other hand, we’ve seen the limitations of the public school system, now brought in part by NCLB.   I think that overall, the cynics should be silenced and give support to the progression of TIME’s proposed method of getting the school out of the 20th century.