Gen M reading

Well, that officially made me feel like a fish out of water. According to their reckoning, I'm supposed to be on the upper end of generation M, but I am not as 'plugged in' as the people they describe and I apparently have the previous generation's definitions of private and public. Besides a sense of social ostracism that I thought I'd left in middle school, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get out of this article. I know the world keeps shrinking as people become increasingly connected, and I know that my future students will be in the habit of doing six techy things at once. I also know that, at the end of the day, that habit is just going to make my job of getting them to focus on me that much harder. (sigh) I wonder if it would be hypocritical of me to go watch Youtube now?

Edubloggs

OK, since I'm not sure how many people saw my tweet (or if the tweet counted toward the assignment requirements), I'm going to take a few moments to wax eloquent about the two edubloggs I've been reading.
The first is the Medieval Material Culture Blog, and it's all about different aspects of Medieval life. Most of the posts are about different museum exhibits, usually in California. However, I figure that even if I can't go to the exhibit, the museum's website aught to have some good material. Also, it reminds me to keep in mind our own local resources such as Ann Arbor's many museums. (Did anybody else check out the kimono exhibit at the Art Museum? - it was soooo cool!) The most recent post is all about scissors and has tons of pictures of different scissors from the Middle Ages/Renaissance; it's cool to see how some are the same as today's and some are oddly different. (http://larsdatter.com/wordpress/)
The second blog is The History Channel This is Not..., and the blogger tends to talk about the impact of different technologies on teaching - such as whether or not textbooks are still worthwhile. His most recent post is about the possible merits of giving students examples of what not to do. (http://nkogan.wordpress.com/)
Hopefully, some of you - especially the history dorks - will find these interesting.

After the podcast class

I'm so proud of myself! I actually did the podcast thingy without needing Kristin to stand over my shoulder every second. Of course, whether or not I can recreate this miracle when Kristin isn't there is another story entirely. I'm not sure how much help I actually was when Kristin asked me to go around and help others try to upload their podcasts to the wiki, but I gave it my best shot. I guess that's the thing that worries me most about using technology in my classroom - I'll be the one responsible for teaching students how to use it! Well, I'll let tomorrow take care of itself. Have a great time at the art fair and try to stay dry.

Games and Teaching reading

Thank you Mr. Gee for supporting teachers!
OK, that said, I do think that he oversimplified the similarities and differences between computer games and formal education. Good teachers, who explain why their students need to know seemingly random facts, can make learning fun.
Also, I disagree with some of his criticisms of classroom instruction. The one that I have the biggest problem with is his argument for 'just in time' information. In the real world, no one is going to hand you exactly the right info. at just the right moment; you have to know how to go out and hunt it down and how to separate the important stuff from the worthless stuff. (And actually, some 'worthless' trivia can be great conversation starters.)

However, I'm not going to dispute that some games are great learning experiences. Here are my favorites from when I was younger, which you might want to see if they've been updated:
1. Wishbone's Odyssey Adventure (you as the dog Wishbone/Odysseus must go through the episodes of the Odyssey by solving puzzles - it's actually very close to the story and very challenging)
2. Oregon Trail (you are a pioneer on the Oregon trail, and you must make decisions when confronted by obstacles the pioneers faced)
3. Zeus (you build your own Greek city-state, while being introduced to concepts such as money management, trade, issues of unemployment, lack of employees, the importance of material supplies, hygene, resource management, etc. On top of all that, you also get a breif introduction to characters in Greek mythology)
4. Spelling Jungle (you have to use trial and error, work out sequence of events/problem solving, and you learn how to spell words)
5. The Time warp of Dr. Brain (different puzzles, some more educational than others)
Granted, the last two are for elementary students, but I had fun with all of them. However, even the war games can be valuable; my cousin learned a lot of the sci-fi vocab he needed for the GRE through computer games.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to add one more thing - the answers to the Lion and the Unicorn questions!
The lion represents England and the Unicorn represents Scotland, and the two were brought together to form the British coat of arms in the 1600's when James the VI of Scotland became also James I of England, thus uniting the two countries. Previously, the two had been at war off and on for hundreds of years. The old nursery rhyme about their strife was referred to by Lewis Carroll in his book Through the Looking Glass, a sequel to Alice in Wonderland. Personally, I like the sequel better than the original.

After the Twitter class

I thought today went pretty well; (for once) my computer was not one of the ones having trouble, and I was able to create my Twitter account with no problems. I don't know if/how many people saw my Tweet, but I'll give you ficticious bonus points if anyone knows the relationship between the Lion and the Unicorn or their relationship with Lewis Carroll (and no, this is not an open book/computer question) :)
As for the webinar, part of me wonders if a conference call coupled with instant message wouldn't have been easier/have had fewer problems. But I must admit that I'm frustrated with visual tech stuff at the moment anyway - I have yet to figure out how to get my camera, the xacti model recommended, to talk to my pc computer! If anyone has solved this conundrum, PLEASE let me know.

Twitter, etc. Readings

Am I the only one who thinks that some of this Twitter vocab sounds like an English exercise in how to conjugate verbs or modify nouns with nonsense words? (ex. 'to blunk' - I blunked, you blunk, we were blunking)
I also want to ask if I am the only one who is getting a little claustrophobic with all this inter-connectedness? I'm not saying that multiple brains aren't better than one, but I get the feeling that if I check all these 'social networking' cites all the time that I won't have time to hear myself think!
Basically, the only thing in the reading that got my full support was the statement in the blog that the goal should be to change the system so that most schools succeed instead of trying to copy the rare successes of the current system. - Speaking of blogs, are we supposed to read the 2 edblogs during/after class? If not, where is the list of options?

2nd class - July 9

Talking about democracy gave me a really good idea for a lesson for anybody teaching civics, history, or English. It would be really cool to look at the history of democracy/the language that we use to talk about democracy. A lot of our language for government comes from French/Latin and was introduced after the battle of Hastings by William the Conqueror's government. However, the Saxons had/were practicing a lot of the ideals that we associate with democracy today. I'd be surprised if some of the electronic sources we talked about didn't have info. on this stuff. - Just thought I'd throw the idea out there for anyone who's interested.

Reaction to Dewey and Google/Wiki Readings

I get the feeling that Dewey would have really liked the 'all the world's a stage' speech from As You Like It - everyone as an individual contributes to the society as a whole.
I also think it's funny that his arguments in favor of place based education and against the 'sage on the stage' are still relevant with the whole Google/Wiki issue. However, what I find really fascinating is how the 'sage on the stage' developed BECAUSE of the technological limits of the times, and how we are now trying to get away from it because technology has advanced. Back in the Middle Ages, they didn't have the technology to rapidly reproduce texts and other sources of information, so the professor would read the textbook to the class and lecture about it - that way they could all share the one book. I think Dewey would have suffered an apoplexy if anyone had suggested such a model to him, and yet, learning did take place, so the model is not totally ineffective.

reaction to 1st day

I was thrilled that the profs emphasized that technology was a tool, and it's a tool that doesn't fit every problem all the time.
I think blogging could be a really good way for students to ask/answer questions (assuming I remember/have time to check it). I'd just be worried that such a blog would be all questions since the kids who 'got it' would be unlikely to be on it. I probably wouldn't require kids to blog just for its own sake.