We are living exponentially.

"Nintendo invested more than $140 million in research and development in 2002 alone. The US federal government spent less than half as much on research and innovation in education." This is astounding. To me, this correlates with Friedman's new middle. He claims that in the near future, with the new flattening of the world, that new jobs will be created for the middle class. According to Friedman, if I plan on teaching and keeping my job, I had better be able to teach, make school lunch, read announcements, mop up puke, drive the bus, write everyones curriculum and coach volleyball and the horseshoe team. I agree that technology is changing and that new jobs will be created, but I highly doubt to the extent that he thinks it will. To relate back to the original quote, it does show how the world is adapting to technological changes. Nintendo realizes that it needs to step up it's cash flow if it wants to avoid obsolesence.

"The 25% of people in China with the highest IQ is greater than the total population of North America." Well. It's a stereotype that Asian kids are better at math than most others students, but this is crazy. Now with the flatteners in place, the Chinese have the technology to stay up to date with the current technologies, not to mention the incredible work ethic and thirst for knowledge that most every country has except for the United States. I do agree with Friedman that if Americans are to stay current and competitive, we do need to have the ability to adapt and to become great explainers, because not everything can seen and understood immediately.

For ELA teachers to stay current with this technological boom that is happening in front of our eyes, we need to make sure our students are not becoming lackadaisical. Our students can no longer afford to spend entire marking periods on one book. I think about when I was in high school, even in my 12 AP English class, we would still spend weeks on a novel. In ENG 440, we read six of Shakespeare's plays that would have taken most of the year in grade school. There simply isn't room for complacent students in the job field today, especially for those students who actually have ambitions.

And I Thought Jingle All The Way Was A Death Rattle...

If I could get a moment of silence, that would be great.







Ok, that's long enough.
Apparently, someone reported that Sinbad (yes, the Sinbad from First Kid, Good Burger, and his magnum opus Jingle All The Way) had died of a heart attack on Saturday.

I know. This took me by surprise too. Read the article here.

So.

This is the big fear about Wikipedia (other than erroneously killing off some of my favorite actors) is false reporting. Thankfully Sinbad wasn't harmed, in fact I am sure he appreciated it (there is no such thing as bad press). But because I am curious, I even checked out the history page on his wiki page and he is A-OK.

This is a good example of both sides of the Wikipedia argument. Sure, some person whether being malicious or sincerely trying to report his demise, falsely ended Sinbad's life. But within minutes, not hours, minutes, Sinbad's name was restored. Even a grave error (haha) was quickly corrected in the read/write web.

Translation: See you later, gator!

The second essay deals with the feared generation gap. What I found interesting in this essay was the different ways to deal with engaging your students when dealing with multi-media sources. I was concerned because of the idea of the 'implied teacher' and the concreteness of those who wish not to change. I recall the episode about the CD exchange and I thought it was a great idea. Get the students (granted they are older that middle and high school) engaged in discussion about the use of advertising in media. This is an excellent way to garner the attention and thoughts of your students. Take Ray for example: "Ray was a class leader for the first time: For the first nine weeks of the semester, he had sat in the back of the room...However, when Margaret asked students to bring their favorite CDs to class, he volunteered to bring in his own CD player" (109). The fact that the students were encouraged to participate in a subject that piques interest is what educating is all about. But when the discussion led to the conventions of teaching these materials, "conversations became less open, less speculative, more rigid, and more authoritative" (110).

This struck a chord with me. I realize, though this essay, something that I knew all along. Teachers must be able to keep the students interested and be able to educate without being boring, which sadly happens to pretty much everyone. This causes anxiety in my heart, because this way of thinking, this text first then maybe some other source of information, is firmly entrenched in the public education system. But I feel that when enough future teachers have this new wave of thinking and modes of educating readily equipped for battling illiteracy and ignorance, that students will hopefully want to come to school prepared to participate and ultimately learn something for once.

ill c u l8r g8r!

After reading the burly, burdensome and bulky text, I feel that I understand more about what future teachers such as myself are in for. One of the major themes I recognized in the Digital Detente was the struggle for control and authority. What we have learned so far in 307 is that we should not eschew new literacies in attempting to teach our students and to keep them ahead of or on top of the curve. Yet in the first essay, the challenge between print and media literacy is focused into a battle of controls: "The use of popular culture, represented by multi-media, may undermine the traditional control teachers enjoy when enacting prescribed curricula". And further down the page: "Students' competence with digitized multiliteracies must be delegitimated because it has the potential to destabilize teachers' control." (42) To me, this is entirely false. I see that while controlling every facet of your students learning is important in making the teaching process more comfortable, but the facts are that the world is changing. Students are more comfortable with working online than filling out dittos and reading from old, languid textbooks.

So certain people are concerned that they are losing control over the students with this new-fangled and surprisingly easy access to multi-media for personal entertainment and education. But yet, this is a huge breakthrough. Teachers can say that students can go play on computers when the work is done, but learning is still happening. Students are becoming more adroit with technology, which as we have learned over and over again, will become the forefront of education. And the faster that students become adept with mastering this technology, the better off they become: "Since information is ubiquitous, the learning goal becomes the transferable strategies that students use to critique and compare different information sources" (46).

The Only Guaranteed DATE I've Had In A Long Time

Two of the sessions I attended at the DATE conference were the Addicted to Dickens and Dealing in the Digital. And what I noticed in there was the same content that we have been discussing in 307. In the Dickens session, Georgia Peach and her peers at Skaneateles High School are teaching both Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. Not in the book form, however. They are reading them in their orginal serialized fashion, available online. The benefits of the read/write web are clearly seen here. Students now have the ability to access the content wherever they have an Internet connection. Along with the immediate accessibility, there are websites that provide study questions to aid the reader with their comprehension of the material. This is a real and practical application of the boogeyman that is the paper-less classroom. I am still not a big fan of the idea of a paperless classroom, but with utilities that were seen in the presentation, it makes some sort of sense.

The other session regarding technology was the Dealing in the Digital: Explorations in Literacy. Dr. VanSlyke-Briggs discussed using the Internet and it's myriad resources to more actively involve and engage her students. A lot of the resources she pointed out we've either

a) discussed in class

b) used in class

And a lot of the things that can used for an educational benefit I use for fun. For example, one of her students used Youtube to create a video diary based upon one of the characters that they read about in one of their books (I think it was Speak....but don't quote me). I usually use Youtube to look at videos of super obese cats named Goliath.


To conclude, the technology presented at the DATE conference is what we have been reading about all semester. It helps sometimes to know that what you read and write about is actually being used; that it isn't just some theory out there in some think tank- this is real.

One Thing

Just so you know, I have another blog. There is a link to it on the side bar and it is more relaxed and non-educational based. I review movies, music, books and whanot. Safe for the whole family. Guaranteed.

Just thought I'd throw this out there.