Mallory led me to an edublog called "Hurricane Maine" that I thought was worth exploring, not least of all because it had a section on technology. I really wanted to focus in on the tech aspect of this exploration of edublogging, as separate from my content areas. In the tech section, I found a post containing a video by Larry Rosenstock of High Tech High School, in which, among other things, he talks about teaching by means of computer/video games.
Rosenstock's take on it is that there has to be some value in it, as kids are so highly motivated to play the games, despite the adversity they offer the gamer. However, from there he proceeds to say that the only games that kids in his school are allowed to play are ones that they themselves develop at the school, and that are non-violent and educational. Here is my response (which is in the approval process, and I suppose may or may not appear on the site, especially since I biffed and misspelled Rosenstock's name! Oops):
"Thanks for this post. I have come across other materials concerning learning through video games, and I am interested in the idea.
"Below is my transcript of what Rosenstock says about this topic in this video. He says it after observing that kids will sit for hours and days playing video/computer games in which there are many setbacks and disappointments, playing on and on nevertheless. Here's what he says: "…isn’t there something that we can take away from that pedagogically, if we were to change the nature of the transaction? Um, and so there’s a lot of opportunity there. So, at High Tech High, from the beginning, we’ve said that you can’t play video games unless you made them here, and they can’t be violent, and they have to be educational." "I want kinds, again, producing not consuming; I want kids making, making those things."
"I'm really glad he brought up the topic, but I wish he had gone into more detail. I wonder a number of things, such as: what does he consider "educational"; and what does "violent" mean, exactly. I have a suspicion that games that fit his rubric of what is educational and that are also cleansed of all kinds of conflict that he might consider violent might seem a tad dull, especially to boys. I'm pretty sure that every video game I ever enjoyed (I am male) involved some kind of violence, whether a less intense, cartoonish kind, or a more realistic kind.
"Finally, I understand his desire that the games be created at the school, as this involves the kids in producing, not just "consuming." However, it seems to me that this approach might be quite limiting. What level of programming would really take place? Would it satisfy the students' hankerings for the sophisticated kind of programming they are used to outside of school? Why not satisfy both objectives by allowing the kids to employ outside-produced games that are both highly sophisticated and extremely customizable, and so allow for a lot of user input and creativity? Surely games that prioritize children’s personalization and in-game creativity shouldn’t be dismissed as strictly “consumption.”
"I think that by disallowing games that have been produced by professionals with many years of development under their belts, not to mention degrees, or for that matter games that might be produced by, say, educators, we may perhaps be fatally limiting what is available to the kids. I say "fatally" because the effort to introduce gaming to kids as Rosenstock suggests sounds, with all due respect, like it might be slightly DOA. I wish he had said something that would prove otherwise.
"I am very interested in the topic, but I don’t know that I want to embrace his limitations." [End of comment]
It's also not the most glowing response, however much it's an honest representation of my reaction, so we'll see if it makes it.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Sticking my Toe into the Classics Edublogosphere
The syllabus asked that we reflect in our blog about our reaction to a particular edublogger’s post. We are also supposed to post at least one response to a posting by an edublogger, either on his/her blog or on Twitter. I thought I would blog, here, about both my reaction to an edublogger’s post, and about my response to it.
The site I chose to focus on had much to do with my main content area, Latin. It is called eLatin eGreek eLearn (http://eclassics.ning.com/). I found it after a lot of searching one night back in July. I don’t know if it technically meets the criteria of an “edublogger” site, but it was one of the best sites I could find in my discipline. It is much more than just a place to blog. It’s more like a classics nexus where people can: establish groups focused on shared areas of interest; chat; originate and engage in discussion threads; post videos and pictures; and more. The site was not established by an educator, per se, but by the Director of eLearning at Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Andrew Reinhard (Bolchazy-Carducci produces a lot of texts and tools for classical studies). Incidentally, in his profile (http://eclassics.ning.com/profile/amasis), Andrew says that we can also find him “on World of Warcraft on the Feathermoon realm as Philabovis, the affable level 80 Tauren hunter and leader of the Carpe Praedam (Latin Language) guild.” (One inside joke, here, is that Philabovis means roughly “bull-lover”, and Taurens look like minotaurs.) Also incidentally, he has been gathering signatures so that Blizzard Entertainment might port World of Warcraft to Greek and Latin. Gee would love this guy!
The blog post that I chose to respond to was actually by a member. Many members are teachers and professors (in fact I found one of my former professors there and we have “friended” each other on the site), but the fellow to whom I responded is not a teacher yet. He is an M.A. student in “2nd-6th Century Jewish studies, Hebrew/Aramaic” who says he can “speak Latin in a stumbling manner.” His post was about 19th century translations of the so-called “Imperfect” tense in Latin, and how they go about trying to differentiate it from the “Perfect” in translation. Trying to stay within the parameters of his post, I responded with a grammar-bookish post using a 19th century Latin grammar as my source, namely Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar. This was my maiden blog out in the real “blogosphere,” and I was blogging under my own name, so I was being extra cautious; I double checked everything, spell-checked, and made sure that I could back up what I said. In the end, I have to say, I felt pretty good about my post.
Then, the next morning, Laura Gibbs commented. She teaches “online courses in mythology and folklore at the University of Oklahoma” (says her profile), and Greek and Latin are her “hobbies.” Steering things immediately away from the dusty 19th century grammar books, she boldly stated that “we need a Latin grammar that is actually based on linguistic science, rather than forcing Latin to look like English” and “[i]nventing non-categories like ‘historical perfect’” [something I mentioned in my post] “in order to justify the choices we make when translating Latin into English…” She continued to explain that, since Latin descends from Indo-European, “which was a language system stronger on aspect than on tense”, Latin should be taught in such a way that the aspectual characteristics of verbs receive more attention. Her post got significantly more technical from there.
Now, I have to say, in some ways, I think I agree with her, insofar as I am knowledgeable enough to do so, but even up through my M.A. in Classics (Ancient Greek and Latin) at Wayne, we didn’t delve into Indo-European linguistics much. What she says has the ring of truth to it, based on my understanding of ancient Greek, but it did kind of leave me feeling a bit deflated and slightly adrift. Am I missing the boat since I haven’t studied linguistics and this Indo-European aspectual background of Latin more in depth? Would it allow me to make things clearer to high school students trying to understand Latin grammar by means of endless lists of bookish sounding terms, essentially unchanged since their being fleshed out in the 19th century grammar books? After all, it would be more consistent with how many of us understand ancient Greek. I do suspect that an aspectually-based understanding of Latin verb usages might be simpler, but I don’t know if a grammar based on this method exists. If it does, it certainly isn’t standard.
In the end, I think that this post, and Laura Gibbs' sophisticated answer to it, planted a seed for me. I will be on the lookout for ways to inform my own understanding of the Indo-European backdrop to Latin and Greek (to the degree that it has been reliably reconstructed, since we have no actual remnants of this theoretical language), so that I can improve my own understanding of both Latin and Greek grammar in a comparative linguistic way…oh, in my spare time. I guess that will have to be my “hobby.”
The site I chose to focus on had much to do with my main content area, Latin. It is called eLatin eGreek eLearn (http://eclassics.ning.com/). I found it after a lot of searching one night back in July. I don’t know if it technically meets the criteria of an “edublogger” site, but it was one of the best sites I could find in my discipline. It is much more than just a place to blog. It’s more like a classics nexus where people can: establish groups focused on shared areas of interest; chat; originate and engage in discussion threads; post videos and pictures; and more. The site was not established by an educator, per se, but by the Director of eLearning at Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Andrew Reinhard (Bolchazy-Carducci produces a lot of texts and tools for classical studies). Incidentally, in his profile (http://eclassics.ning.com/profile/amasis), Andrew says that we can also find him “on World of Warcraft on the Feathermoon realm as Philabovis, the affable level 80 Tauren hunter and leader of the Carpe Praedam (Latin Language) guild.” (One inside joke, here, is that Philabovis means roughly “bull-lover”, and Taurens look like minotaurs.) Also incidentally, he has been gathering signatures so that Blizzard Entertainment might port World of Warcraft to Greek and Latin. Gee would love this guy!
The blog post that I chose to respond to was actually by a member. Many members are teachers and professors (in fact I found one of my former professors there and we have “friended” each other on the site), but the fellow to whom I responded is not a teacher yet. He is an M.A. student in “2nd-6th Century Jewish studies, Hebrew/Aramaic” who says he can “speak Latin in a stumbling manner.” His post was about 19th century translations of the so-called “Imperfect” tense in Latin, and how they go about trying to differentiate it from the “Perfect” in translation. Trying to stay within the parameters of his post, I responded with a grammar-bookish post using a 19th century Latin grammar as my source, namely Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar. This was my maiden blog out in the real “blogosphere,” and I was blogging under my own name, so I was being extra cautious; I double checked everything, spell-checked, and made sure that I could back up what I said. In the end, I have to say, I felt pretty good about my post.
Then, the next morning, Laura Gibbs commented. She teaches “online courses in mythology and folklore at the University of Oklahoma” (says her profile), and Greek and Latin are her “hobbies.” Steering things immediately away from the dusty 19th century grammar books, she boldly stated that “we need a Latin grammar that is actually based on linguistic science, rather than forcing Latin to look like English” and “[i]nventing non-categories like ‘historical perfect’” [something I mentioned in my post] “in order to justify the choices we make when translating Latin into English…” She continued to explain that, since Latin descends from Indo-European, “which was a language system stronger on aspect than on tense”, Latin should be taught in such a way that the aspectual characteristics of verbs receive more attention. Her post got significantly more technical from there.
Now, I have to say, in some ways, I think I agree with her, insofar as I am knowledgeable enough to do so, but even up through my M.A. in Classics (Ancient Greek and Latin) at Wayne, we didn’t delve into Indo-European linguistics much. What she says has the ring of truth to it, based on my understanding of ancient Greek, but it did kind of leave me feeling a bit deflated and slightly adrift. Am I missing the boat since I haven’t studied linguistics and this Indo-European aspectual background of Latin more in depth? Would it allow me to make things clearer to high school students trying to understand Latin grammar by means of endless lists of bookish sounding terms, essentially unchanged since their being fleshed out in the 19th century grammar books? After all, it would be more consistent with how many of us understand ancient Greek. I do suspect that an aspectually-based understanding of Latin verb usages might be simpler, but I don’t know if a grammar based on this method exists. If it does, it certainly isn’t standard.
In the end, I think that this post, and Laura Gibbs' sophisticated answer to it, planted a seed for me. I will be on the lookout for ways to inform my own understanding of the Indo-European backdrop to Latin and Greek (to the degree that it has been reliably reconstructed, since we have no actual remnants of this theoretical language), so that I can improve my own understanding of both Latin and Greek grammar in a comparative linguistic way…oh, in my spare time. I guess that will have to be my “hobby.”
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Post-Class Reflection (7-30 class)
Having former MACers Kevin, Daver, and Lauren in to speak to us was a very good decision. I was impressed with all three of them for a number of reasons. They all appear to care very much about teaching, and about the kids whom they serve; they certainly are dedicated to their jobs and have an unmistakable passion for teaching. It was very good of them to take the time to come see us.
We got some good ideas about technology elements that we may want to integrate into our classrooms, like clickers and wireless mice for student input, and Wallwisher. I would particularly like to have a better understanding of what the clickers are all about. It sounded like a platform that is difficult to set up, but that really leverages time later. We also got a lot of good advice, such as, from Kevin, the recommendation to use Spring Break to fill out applications and other paperwork necessary to raise our profile up so that school decision makers can find us. Daver impressed on us how demanding this is in terms of time, and that we therefore should not procrastinate on it.
I have nascent ideas about how to help my future students imagine themselves actually being in the ancient world, three dimensionally, so that it can be more real to them. I don't know if the technology will soon be available to me to make this at least partly come true, but I imagine it might. I suspect that kids could better remember what the Circus Maximus was, or the Roman Forum, if they could walk there in a realistic, 3D environment, if they could actually enter the Forum and see the rostra from which Cicero spoke, and upon which later his hands and head were nailed by Antony during the proscriptions. Hearing how Kevin and Daver, in particular, are embracing technology in the classroom, I am encouraged.
I was glad to hear that Lauren is bringing classical elements into the lives of her inner-city kids. That's really something. If not for her, those kids might never have known anything about the ancient cultures that underpin the history of the entire western world, and some of the eastern (Asia Minor & the Near East) and southern (North Africa), too. I'm glad that she thinks this is relevant to them and has found a way to engage them.
Final thought, I am wondering whether there might be a way for us to access Kevin's PowerPoint, and Daver's cell division claymation video.
We got some good ideas about technology elements that we may want to integrate into our classrooms, like clickers and wireless mice for student input, and Wallwisher. I would particularly like to have a better understanding of what the clickers are all about. It sounded like a platform that is difficult to set up, but that really leverages time later. We also got a lot of good advice, such as, from Kevin, the recommendation to use Spring Break to fill out applications and other paperwork necessary to raise our profile up so that school decision makers can find us. Daver impressed on us how demanding this is in terms of time, and that we therefore should not procrastinate on it.
I have nascent ideas about how to help my future students imagine themselves actually being in the ancient world, three dimensionally, so that it can be more real to them. I don't know if the technology will soon be available to me to make this at least partly come true, but I imagine it might. I suspect that kids could better remember what the Circus Maximus was, or the Roman Forum, if they could walk there in a realistic, 3D environment, if they could actually enter the Forum and see the rostra from which Cicero spoke, and upon which later his hands and head were nailed by Antony during the proscriptions. Hearing how Kevin and Daver, in particular, are embracing technology in the classroom, I am encouraged.
I was glad to hear that Lauren is bringing classical elements into the lives of her inner-city kids. That's really something. If not for her, those kids might never have known anything about the ancient cultures that underpin the history of the entire western world, and some of the eastern (Asia Minor & the Near East) and southern (North Africa), too. I'm glad that she thinks this is relevant to them and has found a way to engage them.
Final thought, I am wondering whether there might be a way for us to access Kevin's PowerPoint, and Daver's cell division claymation video.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Scanning for Musty Cheese
From this chapter (Teaching Gen M: The Wired Life) by Klapperstuck and Kearns, it sounds like I am to consider the possibility, or maybe even accept the assertion, that members of Gen M are not multi-tasking when they are hanging out at, well, wherever they hang out, intermittently talking, texting, answering their mobile phones, and popping their ear buds in and out and saying "what?"; no, they are engaging in "continuous partial attention" (bottom, p. 120). And it appears that I am, further, to entertain the notion that they don't just proficiently "scan the incoming alerts" to glean content from that "one best thing to seize upon" that's probably already airborne, that next "most interesting or important opportunity" (again, p. 120) in the form of a post, text, video, or IM; no, they also resend these items, and some of their own, around so that they can become the content.
Let us consider the difference between multi-tasking and this "continuous partial attention" (let's call it CPA, sorry accountants). I always thought of multi-tasking as engaging in multiple tasks simultaneously and attending to each at its critical times while the others are not at their critical times, with the ultimate goal of bringing them all to a successful conclusion. The downfall of this, of course, is that one has to be able to do the calculus on each of those tasks in advance to know when that pot of water is going to boil and be ready for the green beans, when the burgers on the barbie will reach the right level of doneness to be flipped, and also keep an ear out for the dog who went outside without his leash and might bark and then run away because he sees someone on the road. Actually, the dog doesn't require calculus, he takes a crystal ball. So now, CPA: I view that more like a truck driver listening to his CB radio for the next cool transmission, only he's not driving a truck (one activity), he's engaged in 3 to 5 activities. So this is like multi-tasking and expecting the equivalent of a page from God any second, which will be that "next great thing" worthy of attention, or, umm, partial attention.
I don't think I like that. Is that a recipe for success? Do we wonder why more and more people are struggling with ADD? Yes, I know, it said somewhere in the chapter that this isn't necessarily shortening attention spans. (Pregnant pause.) Uh huh...
May I tell you a little story? I know a woman who works with a younger woman, a member of Gen M (no names to protect the innocent and the guilty). In a given day, the one I know will get 18 to 22x done, where x is a task that, on average, works out to take a fairly regular amount of time. While she works, she does not listen to an IPod, she does not check Facebook, she doesn't talk every few minutes with those around her, she doesn't blog, text, or Twitter: she keeps her head down, talks little, and works...hard... She checks her personal e-mail at lunch and she may make a personal phone call or two and read the news while she eats. Then it's back to work. Meanwhile, the Gen M member (& no, I'm not saying that all Gen M-ers do this, so don't even start with the claims of age discrimination), the Gen M-er engages in precisely this process of "continuous partial attention." She check texts and e-mail, she often pops into Facebook between each x (remember x=task), she hops into conversations going on around her, and at the end of the day, surprise surprise, she has about half of the x's completed that my acquaintance does. There are days she gets almost nothing done, because she "just can't focus."
Call me old fashioned, but do we want kids to be practicing "continuous partial attention" when they are pilots, doctors, truck drivers, cabbies, dentists, currency traders, and SWAT team members? (Will they be able to shut it off when they need to. The young woman in the story can't.) So why are we looking for ways to excuse it now? Sometimes, that "most interesting and (seemingly) important opportunity" will be just enough to distract us from something much more important, like flying a commercial jet or driving a car. Weren't those two pilots on their "laptops" when they overshot their destination by a few hundred miles? Okay, bad example, but you get the point. Need another one? Texting while driving, now illegal in MI.
There's another angle on this. Assuming it would be of some interest to somebody; what would Henry David Thoreau think of all this?
"Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are" (Walden, on solitude).
He was talking about ice cream socials, running into each other at the post office, and breaking bread a few times a day, not texting every few minutes, or seconds. According to Nielson (May 2009, http://www.healthnews.com/family-health/child-health/average-teen-output-eighty-text-messages-day-3194.html), the average teenager sends 80 texts a day. Let's just say we should divide those 80 texts into 16 hours of waking time. That's musty cheese every 12 minutes. Now let's consider cell calls. That's 5 per day on average (Pew Research). What about Tweets, IMs, and e-mails? How often are they being distracted with cheese, every 30 seconds? I say "continuous partial attention" is a euphemism for "distraction."
I had some positives, too, but I think that's enough punishment for you readers (assuming there are any) so no details. One had to do with comfort with the Internet. It boils down to sites. I think younger people may understand that safety is about where you are. Shopping Amazon (Bezos: "relentlessly customer focused") is one thing, buying a navel ring from XYZ Jewelry is another.
Let us consider the difference between multi-tasking and this "continuous partial attention" (let's call it CPA, sorry accountants). I always thought of multi-tasking as engaging in multiple tasks simultaneously and attending to each at its critical times while the others are not at their critical times, with the ultimate goal of bringing them all to a successful conclusion. The downfall of this, of course, is that one has to be able to do the calculus on each of those tasks in advance to know when that pot of water is going to boil and be ready for the green beans, when the burgers on the barbie will reach the right level of doneness to be flipped, and also keep an ear out for the dog who went outside without his leash and might bark and then run away because he sees someone on the road. Actually, the dog doesn't require calculus, he takes a crystal ball. So now, CPA: I view that more like a truck driver listening to his CB radio for the next cool transmission, only he's not driving a truck (one activity), he's engaged in 3 to 5 activities. So this is like multi-tasking and expecting the equivalent of a page from God any second, which will be that "next great thing" worthy of attention, or, umm, partial attention.
I don't think I like that. Is that a recipe for success? Do we wonder why more and more people are struggling with ADD? Yes, I know, it said somewhere in the chapter that this isn't necessarily shortening attention spans. (Pregnant pause.) Uh huh...
May I tell you a little story? I know a woman who works with a younger woman, a member of Gen M (no names to protect the innocent and the guilty). In a given day, the one I know will get 18 to 22x done, where x is a task that, on average, works out to take a fairly regular amount of time. While she works, she does not listen to an IPod, she does not check Facebook, she doesn't talk every few minutes with those around her, she doesn't blog, text, or Twitter: she keeps her head down, talks little, and works...hard... She checks her personal e-mail at lunch and she may make a personal phone call or two and read the news while she eats. Then it's back to work. Meanwhile, the Gen M member (& no, I'm not saying that all Gen M-ers do this, so don't even start with the claims of age discrimination), the Gen M-er engages in precisely this process of "continuous partial attention." She check texts and e-mail, she often pops into Facebook between each x (remember x=task), she hops into conversations going on around her, and at the end of the day, surprise surprise, she has about half of the x's completed that my acquaintance does. There are days she gets almost nothing done, because she "just can't focus."
Call me old fashioned, but do we want kids to be practicing "continuous partial attention" when they are pilots, doctors, truck drivers, cabbies, dentists, currency traders, and SWAT team members? (Will they be able to shut it off when they need to. The young woman in the story can't.) So why are we looking for ways to excuse it now? Sometimes, that "most interesting and (seemingly) important opportunity" will be just enough to distract us from something much more important, like flying a commercial jet or driving a car. Weren't those two pilots on their "laptops" when they overshot their destination by a few hundred miles? Okay, bad example, but you get the point. Need another one? Texting while driving, now illegal in MI.
There's another angle on this. Assuming it would be of some interest to somebody; what would Henry David Thoreau think of all this?
"Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are" (Walden, on solitude).
He was talking about ice cream socials, running into each other at the post office, and breaking bread a few times a day, not texting every few minutes, or seconds. According to Nielson (May 2009, http://www.healthnews.com/family-health/child-health/average-teen-output-eighty-text-messages-day-3194.html), the average teenager sends 80 texts a day. Let's just say we should divide those 80 texts into 16 hours of waking time. That's musty cheese every 12 minutes. Now let's consider cell calls. That's 5 per day on average (Pew Research). What about Tweets, IMs, and e-mails? How often are they being distracted with cheese, every 30 seconds? I say "continuous partial attention" is a euphemism for "distraction."
I had some positives, too, but I think that's enough punishment for you readers (assuming there are any) so no details. One had to do with comfort with the Internet. It boils down to sites. I think younger people may understand that safety is about where you are. Shopping Amazon (Bezos: "relentlessly customer focused") is one thing, buying a navel ring from XYZ Jewelry is another.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Motivation and Change
One take-away phrase from Gee: "Teachers have to be rewarded for innovating themselves." Somehow, I don't think a system that bases most decisions having to do with staffing largely or solely on seniority does that...
Anyway, I found myself agreeing with Gee a lot. He grasps that global competition is the new standard. No matter what standards are decreed by the Fed and passed along by the state, or what ideological axe we are grinding, or whether we think there should be vouchers or not, there is a standard being imposed on us from without. We have to innovate, and do so really, really soon.
Are computer game platforms a way we can do this? If fighter pilots can learn to fly jets better by using them, I'm thinking we could find a way to teach economics well with them, too, and in a way that engages students. So far, it seems that we have lacked the creativity, and have not dedicated the programming skill, to make this happen. The hardware is beyond ready. It's now a matter of imagination, software, and will.
I think something Gee could have dwelt on even more is motivation, although he did hit it. Computer games are very motivating. Intrinsic motivation is far more compelling than extrinsic reinforcement. Game platforms could provide a major doorway to motivation, a doorway we have so far pretty much refused to open, or failed to open, either because of feelings of bias against games or lack of imagination.
By the way, I have received corroborating input that there is a WHOLE lot of writing taking place on fan fiction sites, and that many people are indeed learning how to write English through them, English that doesn't sound like the writer learned it out of a text book, or last week. That's more of a forum concept, as opposed to a game, but it has the same level of engagement and motivation, which is the key.
I have one final thought that links back up with the looming force of globalism. Fifteen years ago or so, I was a security analyst for an investment firm in Ann Arbor. Among other things, I studied the tech sector. It was always a push for me to get the idea across to older decision makers within the firm that technology was going to permeate every aspect of our lives and that, as it did, it would immensely change how we do things. Sometimes, I felt like the guy who had tried in vain to convince the business machine company executive that the personal computer would be useful for many things beyond being a repository for recipes in the kitchen. Citing research, I argued that the pace of change would occur at an ever-increasing rate and that it would destroy many business paradigms once thought fixed. I remember discussions about lowering barriers to entry, evaporating barriers of geography, and that the pace of change would be too fast for many companies and industries to respond to, once it was upon them.
Much of this has come to pass. I suspect that most of us don't fully realize how disruptive it has been, or how much more disruptive it may be in the future. Education is not exempt. Gee hints at this.
Gee is reigniting my interest in the capacity for human beings to embrace technological tools and empowerment for the better. The American education enterprise needs to strive to be better in touch with the opportunities and possibilities in this area.
Anyway, I found myself agreeing with Gee a lot. He grasps that global competition is the new standard. No matter what standards are decreed by the Fed and passed along by the state, or what ideological axe we are grinding, or whether we think there should be vouchers or not, there is a standard being imposed on us from without. We have to innovate, and do so really, really soon.
Are computer game platforms a way we can do this? If fighter pilots can learn to fly jets better by using them, I'm thinking we could find a way to teach economics well with them, too, and in a way that engages students. So far, it seems that we have lacked the creativity, and have not dedicated the programming skill, to make this happen. The hardware is beyond ready. It's now a matter of imagination, software, and will.
I think something Gee could have dwelt on even more is motivation, although he did hit it. Computer games are very motivating. Intrinsic motivation is far more compelling than extrinsic reinforcement. Game platforms could provide a major doorway to motivation, a doorway we have so far pretty much refused to open, or failed to open, either because of feelings of bias against games or lack of imagination.
By the way, I have received corroborating input that there is a WHOLE lot of writing taking place on fan fiction sites, and that many people are indeed learning how to write English through them, English that doesn't sound like the writer learned it out of a text book, or last week. That's more of a forum concept, as opposed to a game, but it has the same level of engagement and motivation, which is the key.
I have one final thought that links back up with the looming force of globalism. Fifteen years ago or so, I was a security analyst for an investment firm in Ann Arbor. Among other things, I studied the tech sector. It was always a push for me to get the idea across to older decision makers within the firm that technology was going to permeate every aspect of our lives and that, as it did, it would immensely change how we do things. Sometimes, I felt like the guy who had tried in vain to convince the business machine company executive that the personal computer would be useful for many things beyond being a repository for recipes in the kitchen. Citing research, I argued that the pace of change would occur at an ever-increasing rate and that it would destroy many business paradigms once thought fixed. I remember discussions about lowering barriers to entry, evaporating barriers of geography, and that the pace of change would be too fast for many companies and industries to respond to, once it was upon them.
Much of this has come to pass. I suspect that most of us don't fully realize how disruptive it has been, or how much more disruptive it may be in the future. Education is not exempt. Gee hints at this.
Gee is reigniting my interest in the capacity for human beings to embrace technological tools and empowerment for the better. The American education enterprise needs to strive to be better in touch with the opportunities and possibilities in this area.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Face-to-Face
"There is no substitute for face-to-face reporting and research." --Thomas Friedman
I'm not usually very critical of people whom I don't perceive as predatory and mean. When I critique the efforts of nicer people, I strive to be pleasant and reasonable. I write this post in that spirit, since we have two professors who are clearly genuinely jazzed about their topic.
Private contemplation and peaceful surroundings are my preferred venue. However, I realize that if you need a job, or if you want to get a real feel for things, you have to go out and "press the flesh." Most of the jobs I have gotten in my life I got because I knocked on a door and shook someone's hand. When it comes down to it, I think we miss a lot of information when we can't do that. Therefore, I believe that the acme of electronic interaction would be to imitate the face-to-face experience as closely as possible.
I don't think we imitated that terribly well last Friday. Between the distraction of ongoing Tweets (I don't multi-task well), my own constant stream of thoughts (a veritable parallel reality that I must deal with at all times and that I know distracts me more than most people's does), and the deflation of expecting a live guest speaker, but instead seeing a frozen image on a screen of two women who couldn't hear us, I felt a bit disconnected and distant. I couldn't tell where the center of the action was. Plus, it was dark. I went into a similar mode that I went into during filmstrips in Mr. McCann's history class in 8th grade.
I love tech, but next time, I think maybe it needs to be Skype or something. Certainly, the center of the action was the relationship that Buffy and Kristin have cultivated. I would have liked to see that in a format in which the natural back and forth of two friends and colleagues communicating could better have been realized. So, that's my feedback: moving image; better back and forth communication; as close to live and "face-to-face" as possible.
This class is really great, though, in that we get to explore all of these tools and platforms. Do keep them coming!
Monte
I'm not usually very critical of people whom I don't perceive as predatory and mean. When I critique the efforts of nicer people, I strive to be pleasant and reasonable. I write this post in that spirit, since we have two professors who are clearly genuinely jazzed about their topic.
Private contemplation and peaceful surroundings are my preferred venue. However, I realize that if you need a job, or if you want to get a real feel for things, you have to go out and "press the flesh." Most of the jobs I have gotten in my life I got because I knocked on a door and shook someone's hand. When it comes down to it, I think we miss a lot of information when we can't do that. Therefore, I believe that the acme of electronic interaction would be to imitate the face-to-face experience as closely as possible.
I don't think we imitated that terribly well last Friday. Between the distraction of ongoing Tweets (I don't multi-task well), my own constant stream of thoughts (a veritable parallel reality that I must deal with at all times and that I know distracts me more than most people's does), and the deflation of expecting a live guest speaker, but instead seeing a frozen image on a screen of two women who couldn't hear us, I felt a bit disconnected and distant. I couldn't tell where the center of the action was. Plus, it was dark. I went into a similar mode that I went into during filmstrips in Mr. McCann's history class in 8th grade.
I love tech, but next time, I think maybe it needs to be Skype or something. Certainly, the center of the action was the relationship that Buffy and Kristin have cultivated. I would have liked to see that in a format in which the natural back and forth of two friends and colleagues communicating could better have been realized. So, that's my feedback: moving image; better back and forth communication; as close to live and "face-to-face" as possible.
This class is really great, though, in that we get to explore all of these tools and platforms. Do keep them coming!
Monte
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Thinking of the Birds
As I prepared to write this, I became amused by the fact that my three kids were just outside making a racket because they were seeing a double rainbow. This is ironic, given that I was introduced to the video at the bottom of this post yesterday (I suggest stopping at 1:21, but your call. By the way, I keep putting videos at the bottom of posts because I am getting a big space after them; anyone know how to avoid this?). Amusing, also, was the fact that they could hear the kids across the woods behind us yelling to their parents about the "double rainbow," too. Being aware of the video, they figured those kids had also seen it. I hear a lot of things outside, not just my children. It all starts at sunrise. I don't have air conditioning. In the warm months, I wake up every day to an actually deafening chorus of birds singing in the large trees outside my open windows and over the pasture in front of my hay barn: swallows, robins, cardinals, doves, blackbirds, orchard orioles, and plenty of birds that I wish I recognized by their calls, but don't. I can't control the noise except to shut the windows; this means I have to get out of bed. Then, sometimes, I am awake enough that I can't go back to sleep. Not so much these days, since I am chronically zombified. Perhaps you can relate. Anyway, it is roughly this that has kept me from exploring Twitter. I don't want to be subjected to a stream of information I can't control and that keeps distracting me from what I need to do, namely sleep, study, or eat, which is pretty much all I do outside of class. Therefore, I was most gratified to learn that one actually chooses the tweets that one sees, one selects the tweeple (why isn't it tweople?) whose tweets interest one. This is a very good thing. I know a number of people I would gladly get some tweets from every day or two, MACers included! I can see how this could be a very useful tool for quickly partaking of the thoughts of people who interest me. I can also see how one could use it as a collaborative group tool, I think. The organization tools sound important. Yes, I look forward to grazing on the tweets from my friends and associates. From the Rainbow Guy...maybe not so much... "All the way! All the way across the sky...!!!"
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