Philosophy of Education Video

While I don't think that all of my beliefs about education can be summarized in a 90 second sound byte, I've discussed some of my philosophy in the video found here. Of course, it is easy to have a philosophy of education-- the difficult part is to be able to live up to your own beliefs in the day to day tasks of teaching; constantly evaluating whether or not your actions are aligned with your philosophy. I'm certainly working at it, and I think as time goes on my actions are beginning to live up to my philosophy.

After leaping over several technological hurdles, I've finally been able to post my Energy Conservation Project presentation here. Unfortunately my presentation was longer than the memory capacity of my camera, so the last few minutes were unavailable.

To be quite honest, I don't consider myself to be very good at giving presentations that will be seen by my peers, and so I was a bit hesitant to watch myself on video. I believe that I already had a decent idea of my areas in need of improvement, but seeing a recorded version of myself gave me a bit more objective view of things. I'll try to focus on the positive side first-- I didn't sound quite as incoherent as I felt like I was at the time. That's not to say it went as smoothly as I would have liked, but I think that my personal perception of my presenting abilities clouds my view in the moment and makes me assume the worst.

There is a fairly long list of things that I think I could improve upon. In no particular order, here are a few of them:

• Eye Contact: I need to face the audience more and the projection less.
• Pace: This is something that I have been working on, but still have difficulty with. I normally communicate at a very slow pace that betrays my rural Alaskan upbringing, but when I am doing any sort of public speaking I tend to speed up erratically. This is probably the most important presenting skill that I need to work on, considering the average pace of my students.
• Organization: Usually I do a fair job of organizing presentations, but for some reason I didn't feel that this particular one was well organized. I think part of the problem was that my talking points on the slides weren't clearly worded, leaving me with a few moments of gaping "uhhh..." while I remembered what I wanted to say.
• Confidence: My nervousness is still evident, though I think I have improved slightly over the course of time.
  
• Voice: This isn't actually something I could improve upon, but does anyone like to hear their own voice on video? I just plain sound weird...

Luckily, I'm much more comfortable in front of my students, and so my teaching tends to be a lot more relaxed and coherent than my peer-level presentations. However, pace is an issue that still comes up for me: while I generally have learned to take my time while lecturing in class, if something unexpected happens (technology issues, students leading the discussion too far away from the subject, etc.) I tend to speed up, which only exacerbates the issue. Hopefully, with a bit of effort and the gradual process of becoming more comfortable over time, I think I should be able to overcome this hurdle.

"Tools for the Mind"
Mary Burns

I. Overview

In "Tools for the Mind" Mary Burns makes the case that computers are being used ineffectively as instructional tools in many school districts throughout the United States. She identifies four main reasons that computers are not being utilized to promote higher-order thinking:

1. Professional development for teachers focuses on technology skills, rather than on how and when to use technology to promote student learning.
2. Districts are not providing sufficient support (equipment, training, time, etc.) for teachers to incorporate technology wisely in the classroom
3. Excitement about new technologies overshadows whether students are really learning
4. No distinction is made between "higher-order" and "lower-order" applications
   

Burns defines these two categories of computer applications in the following way:

1. Lower-Order: Applications that offer few opportunities for problem solving, analysis, and evaluation. Burns uses Microsoft PowerPoint, Word, Publisher, and Front Page as examples of this category
2. Higher-Order: Applications that offer opportunities to practice analytical and critical thinking skills. Examples given include spreadsheets, databases, and Geographical Information Systems.
   

Burns laments that most schools today use primarily lower-order applications, limiting the usefulness of computers to promote critical thinking skills. She advocates that in order to overcome this teachers must focus on critical thinking, and use technology only when it furthers that goal, and that districts need to provide professional development that shows how technology tools can be used to promote higher order learning rather than simply teaching educators how to use various types of software.

II. Quotes


The Evils of PowerPoint and Word?

1. "...the most commonly used applications are what I call show-and-tell applications-- PowerPoint, Word, Publisher, and Front Page..."

2. "PowerPoint does not lead students to delve deeply into the writing process or wrestle with complex and conflicting conceptual information."

3. [on PowerPoint] "It may be a wonderful entry-level tool for teachers wading into the technology waters. But as the default tool of choice at the middle and high school levels, it fails to promote deep, complex, or even developmentally appropriate learning."

Why Aren't "Higher-order" technology tools being used?"

4. "Higher-order tools, for the most part, are not as user-friendly or visually appealing. They are time-intensive to learn, integrate, and use."

5. "Many districts have concentrated on professional development that trains teachers in skills instead of teaching them how computers can enhance student learning."

6. "Spreadsheets may receive their most rigorous workout in computer classes, but often in a decontextualized, mechanical fashion (entering data, formatting columns, and so on)--a lower-order use of a potentially higher order tool."

7. "For example, students can use GIS to indicate a geographic area's vulnerability to natural disaster, identifying constraints such as floodplains or areas subject to coastal erosion."

High Order Technology Tools

8. "Teachers need to show students how to evaluate the information's veracity, reason logically, come to evidence-based decisions, create relevant new knowlege, and apply this learning to new situations."

9. "Spreadsheets demand both abstract and concrete reasoning and involve students in the mathematical logic of calculations. They enable learners to model complex and rich real-world phenomena."

10. "Database design can help students systematically organize, arrange, and classify data according to established criteria. Such activities require students to think inductively and deductively."

III. Personal Reflection


It is fairly evident that Burns isn't a big fan of Microsoft PowerPoint and other so-called "Lower-Order" applications (quotes 1-3). She seems to feel that these "entry-level" tools aren't developmentally appropriate for middle and high school students (quote 3). While I agree that critical thinking and analysis should be what educators aim to impart to their students, I think that Burns overlooks or dismisses many of the challenges we face in using technology to promote critical thinking.

I believe that the biggest challenge educators face in incorporating higher-order technology is time. Burns admits that higher-order technology tools are time-intensive to learn. This, I believe, is the reason that educators are taught technology skills rather than how to use applications to promote higher-order thinking. Teachers' time is limited, as are professional development opportunities, and unfortunately, if you do not know how to use an application, it is impossible to use it to teach analysis and critical thinking. This is also the reason that students in computer classes are taught how to enter data and format columns-- without these basic skills, one can't move on to higher order processing. While the upper levels of Bloom's Taxonomy are excellent goals, one can't simply skip the first levels.

Burns also fails to mention another limitation: space in the curriculum. With the emphasis on state content-standards, standardized testing, and "covering" the material, educators don't have the freedom to devote a large portion of the curriculum to teaching students how to use the technology necessary to do projects that incorporate higher-order learning. While I would absolutely love to have students do a GIS project such as the one that he mentions (quote 7), I think it would be nearly impossible to fit into any high school course. I spent an entire trimester at a fairly competitive university to learn the skills necessary to do something along the lines that Burns mentions; many people earn doctorate degrees doing GIS research of that nature.

Finally, there is the issue of the Digital Divide-- something that seems to be overlooked by many authors of instructional technology articles. I have some students who don't know how to copy and paste text, while others are fairly tech-savvy. The time required to bring one student from copying and pasting to using GIS software would be immense-- meanwhile, keeping the tech-savvy students engaged and continuing to learn would be challenging. This brings up a good explanation for why school districts tend to focus on applications such as Word and PowerPoint-- both of these tools are increasingly becoming necessary in the workforce, meaning that every student needs to learn how to use them effectively. While spreadsheets, databases, and GIS software all promote higher order thinking skills, they are all specialized tools not necessary in many jobs.

While there are many points I feel have been overlooked or deemphasized in Burns' article, I do fundamentally agree that educators should strive to incorporate technology into classrooms in a way that promotes higher order thinking skills. In math and science classes in particular there is ample room to integrate these tools into the curriculum. Evaluating, Modeling, and Classifying are at the heart of these subjects, and these higher order applications (see quotes 8, 9, and 10) give students the tools to use their critical thinking skills to answer complex, real-world questions.

Energy Conservation Project

The results are IN, and it looks like even if Katie and I move into a small (900 sq. ft.), energy efficient house where we can commute to work by bike, our total carbon dioxide emissions will go up by about 1,700 pounds. This means that even our daily journey all the way across town and back again releases less CO2 than splitting up the household.

Also interesting was the staggering difference in energy use between a standard 1,500 square foot home and an energy efficient 900 square foot one: the smaller, energy efficient home saves around 12,500 pounds of carbon dioxide from being released and around $1,100 per year in natural gas costs. For more details, check out my PowerPoint Presentation found at: http://www.slideshare.net/guestfcc691/energy-cost-benefit-analysis-of-commuting-and-multi-family-living-presentation and/or my GoogleDocs spreadsheets available at:

1,500 square foot home:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=py95OaFAU0NoecKNp8fJGNA

900 square foot home:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=py95OaFAU0NroaTzZcx1LcQ

EnergyStar 900 square foot home:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=py95OaFAU0No4_0R9X1FrEA or

"The Educator's Guide to the Read/Write Web"

“The Educator’s Guide to the Read/Write Web”
by Will Richardson

I. Overview:

In “The Educator’s Guide to the Read/Write Web,” Will Richardson discusses additions to the Internet environment that allow people to easily publish writing and audio broadcasting and how these new developments are changing the way some people teach. After introducing blogs, wikis, feeds, social bookmarking, and podcasting, Richardson describes how he thinks that teachers should respond to these new media. He gives many suggestions and examples, three of which seem to be central to his point of view:

1. teachers should have students use these technologies to publish their work to a wider audience
2. teachers should show students how to evaluate information from the web, and
3. educators should incorporate these technologies into their classroom by increasing the non-textbook materials used in their classes and shifting their role from teaching content to guiding students to learn from online sources and experts.
   

II. Quotes:

Audience

“The awareness of even a small audience can significantly change the way a student approaches writing and other school assignments. It’s the difference between handing a piece in to a teacher and publishing it.”

“Students create online, reflective, interactive portfolios of their work to share with worldwide audiences.”

Scrutinizing Sources

“We must teach students how to actively question and evaluate published information instead of passively accepting it as legitimate.”

“Google regularly scans in information from more than 50 million books from the world’s biggest research libraries, and a new blog is created every two seconds. Literate internet users need strategies for sorting out, storing, and using relevant information from this outpouring.”

Examples

“For example, at Hunterdon High School in Flemington, New Jersey, where I teach, students have used blogs to collaborate with authors of the books they are reading in literature classes; to contact professional mentors in journalism classes; and to communicate with high schoolers from Krakow, Poland, as part of a unit on the Holocaust.”

“A student doing a project on global warming, for example, can create RSS feeds that will bring him or her the latest research on the topic almost as soon as it is published.”

“Students across the United States are podcasting audio tours of local museums and points of interest, weekly news programs about their classrooms, oral histories and interviews, and more.”


III. Reflection: The Novelty Cult

Real World Scene: I’m driving six or seven students home in the company Suburban after dance practice. The radio is playing a rock song.
Teenage Boy: Oh, this song has an awesome music video! Have you guys seen it?
Teenage Girl: You still watch music videos?!?
Teenage Boy: (quickly, trying to maintain his coolness) Only on the computer! I watch them online!
Teenage Girl: (satisfied that Boy has not lost his coolness) Oh, okay.

Does newer necessarily mean better? This young Girl was shocked that Boy would do something as 90’s as watching music videos on television, but could relate as soon as he said he watched them online. The content would likely be unchanged whether it was on television or online, but somehow the medium made all the difference. While I agree with much of what Will Richardson has to say in “The Educator’s Guide to the Read/Write Web,” I believe that at some level he shares the belief that my students expressed in the above situation that newer is inherently better. Here are two examples taken from the text:

“Digital tools allow students to easily work together outside school—for example, collaborating on projects through instant messaging or text messaging on phones.”

True. There is also another tool that allows students to easily work together outside school: a telephone. Or, to go even lower tech, they could meet somewhere. Newer technology doesn’t magically instill motivation or organization into students.

“With millions of knowledgeable people posting blogs, for example, students may find scientists, writers, or researchers willing to guide their study of a topic who have more content-area expertise than a classroom teacher.”

True. Students MAY find a scientist, researcher, or writer who has enough time, energy, and willingness to guide them through a topic online. Teachers have also been bringing in guest speakers and going on field trips to visit outside experts at museums, national parks, etc. for quite a long time. The difficulty, whether using the Internet or going out in the real world, is making the right contacts, finding experts who will donate their time, and organizing everything.

That being said, I fully agree with Richardson that because we live in an information environment that can at times be overwhelming, educators must teach students to evaluate, sort, store, and use information wisely. Having students publish their work online may also be valuable as a motivational tool, although I think that we need to realistically look at who is reading the blogs and wikis and listening to the podcasts that students would create. For example, who is going to read this blog? The worldwide audience that people refer to? Or will it just be the teacher, and maybe one or two other students in the class?

I found the most useful part of the article to be the examples that Richardson gave of teachers using this technology in the classroom. These led to a flurry of ideas about how I could incorporate these tools into my teaching in appropriate ways. After all, even though I think that novel doesn’t necessarily mean superior, it appears that many of my students are excited about new media tools.

Energy Project

Will Katie and I reduce our carbon output by moving closer to where we work and commuting by bicycle to work, or will the added energy use of heating another home overpower any potential savings?

Background Information:

This summer, Katie and I moved out of our apartment and into her parents’ house on the Anchorage hillside area while we looked to buy a home. Their house has ample room for us to live, but we are now commuting a fairly long distance to Bartlett and West high schools, which unfortunately are located on opposite ends of town. Last year we commuted by bicycle to work for the whole winter, and will likely do so again once we purchase a home. While this will cut out a lot of driving for us, splitting one household into two homes will mean that our energy use will increase. While we are planning on moving out regardless of the net carbon change, I am curious to see what the difference is, as I feel that in the US environmental movement there is very little emphasis on buying a smaller home or increasing the number of people in a home to meet its carrying capacity. As the energy requirements of heating a home in Alaska are very high, I think that this simple change in lifestyle has the potential to save a lot more energy than other high-tech solutions that are being offered.

Websites of interest:

Small House Society: http://www.resourcesforlife.com/small-house-society
Green Home Building: http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/small.htm
Bike Commuting Tips, News, and Links: http://commutebybike.com/

There is a wealth of other information on the web—the above sites are good places to start, with lots and lots of links to follow.

Assumptions

• Katie’s parents would heat their home in the same manner whether or not we were there. They would not rent out their lower floor, even though there is ample room.

• While there is some sharing of electricity in the home (using the same lights, etc.), because Katie and I have a fairly different schedule from her parents, I am going to assume that there would be no change in the amount of electricity that we add to household usage here as the amount we will use once we move.

• By moving out we add another household to the energy requirements of Anchorage. Someone may object that if we didn’t move there, someone else would—however, thinking on a larger scale, one can see that if every household split, Anchorage would need twice as many homes to house the population and additional ones would need to be built and heated.

• We will bike on average four times a week to and from work. This is to take into account days in which we wake up late, there was a snowstorm, or when we are slightly sick. I think that this is a reasonable estimate considering our experience last year.

• I am only going to take into account our daily commute to work. While moving closer to town will make some weekend or evening rides shorter, it will also lengthen others, especially since we will need to drive up to Katie’s parents’ house to visit on a regular basis.

• I am assuming that we will purchase a house in the Airport Heights District, and so will use our old address to calculate the number of miles to Bartlett and West that we will drive on average once a week.

Data Needed:

I. Carbon dioxide outputs per unit of fossil fuel:

1,000 cubic feet of natural gas = 115 lbs. CO2

2.3 lbs. of CO2 per kWhr of electricity

A good estimate is that you will discharge 19.6 pounds of CO2 from burning 1 gallon of gasoline

Data Limitations: There is a question as to how much energy it takes to
1.) Extract the fossil fuel
2.) Process the fossil fuel
3.) Transport the fossil fuel to its site of final use

The natural gas calculation is based solely on stoichiometry, whereas the other two estimates don’t provide calculations nor references.

“Frequently Asked Global Change Questions.” Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center. Address: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html Date Accessed: 10/4/2008


II. Amount of Fuel Saved by Commuting by Bicycle

1. Average Fuel Economy of our 2006 Subaru Outback
Z. Found by looking at our car’s data display
2. Average number of miles driven per daily commute
Y. Found by recording start and finish odometer readings for one full week.
3. Estimated number of miles driven per daily commute from Airport Heights neighborhood to Bartlett and West.
X. Found by entering in start and end points on GoogleMaps and recording distances

III. Amount of Additional Fuel Needed to Heat Another Home

1. Average natural gas used to heat a home per year in Anchorage for a 2 and 3 bedroom house.
W. Found by contacting Enstar Natural Gas Company or local housing and/or environmental organizations.

Method:

Part A: Decreased Gasoline Use

1. Obtain Data in Z, Y, and X
2. Compute average number of miles driven per weekly commute from Katie’s Paernts’ house to work.
3. Estimate number of miles driven per weekly commute (1 out of 5 days) after moving to Airport Heights neighborhood and commuting mostly by bike.
4. Subtract number post-move estimate from current data to find number of miles saved per week.
5. Use fuel efficiency to determine number of gallons of gas saved per week
6. Use carbon dioxide per gallon of gas estimate to determine amount of CO2 emitted per week.
7. Extrapolate to find yearly CO2 emissions savings.

Part B: Increased Natural Gas Use

1. Obtain Data found in part W.
2. Use CO2 per 1,000 cubic feet of natural gas estimate to calculate the amount of CO2 emissions we would add per year by heating another home.


Part C: Comparison


1. Compare amount of CO2 emissions saved from decreased gasoline use to amount of CO2 emissions increased by heating a new home. Look at averages for 2 and 3 bedroom houses to see if results change.
2. Discuss other potential benefits and disadvantages of splitting households and the possibility of future changes among Alaska residents.
3. Discuss limitations of study and new questions.

The Technology Culture of the CITC Program at Bartlett High School

I interact relatively rarely with the Bartlett High School staff and students who are not in our program, so I am going to discuss the details of the technology culture of the Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc. (CITC) group at Bartlett, which consists of 9 staff members and roughly 180 students.

Limitations: Our greatest challenge stems from the fact that we estimate that only around 25% of our students have computers with internet access at home. This means that a majority of our students are at a relative technology disadvantage. This became very apparent when I did a unit on doing calculations using Excel in the Algebra II class. The unit took much longer than I had planned for, primarily because many of the students did not have the general computer technology competencies that I had assumed when planning. On the other end of the spectrum were students who found the material relatively straightforward; luckily, we were able to use these students as mentors for the others, as otherwise the unit would have used way more class time than planned. This inequality in access and familiarity with technology means that we cannot reasonably ask students to do homework that requires the use of the internet. The problem with this is that there is a limited amount of class time, and there can only be so much of it allotted for doing internet research and typing assignments. The CITC program is also limited by the level of technological competence of our staff; all but one of our teachers (two if you count me) have already retired from a public school district, and so many of them don’t have the same level of familiarity with newer technology as people who grew up in the digital age tend to have. Finally, our entire staff is limited by the fact that the tech staff at Bartlett is made up entirely of one man: Don Bladow. If any of our equipment or software has an issue, it is up to him to fix it. Even problems that we collectively have the knowledge to fix require his help as we do not have the administrator access and privileges that are needed.

Opportunities: The CITC program has several unique opportunities. First of all, we have our own computer lab with 15 Macintosh computers. Of course, all 15 of them are never working properly at the same time, but nevertheless, it is extremely useful in helping to minimize the technology gap that our students face. CITC is also blessed in having some additional equipment, and potentially some small amount of additional funding to purchase more. Thus our staff has a fairly wide range of possibilities that come with slightly more resources; however, without the knowledge, training, and initiative required to integrate more technology into the classroom, these resources may be underutilized. The MEDIAK program is also an amazing opportunity both for our students, and potentially for our staff if we could collaborate on projects.

Narrowing the Technology Gap: I think that it is imperative that we make a concerted effort to help our students overcome their limited access to technology so that they can be competitive in our Digital World. I think the following steps are required to achieve this:

• Tech Training: Our teachers need to improve their tech skills so that they will be able to incorporate more technology into the classroom. CITC and/or ASD should require and fund more training that is relevant to their subject area.
• Collaboration with MEDIAK: There is a wealth of knowledge and resources available through MEDIAK—we at Bartlett need to find a way to bring them to our classrooms so that we can take advantage of this opportunity. We should also be able to do a better job of convincing students to sign up for the program.
• Personal Projects: As I have the freedom to develop lessons and projects to be implemented in any of our classrooms, and am relatively more technologically savvy than most of our staff, I need to make an effort to ensure that students in each of our classrooms are exposed to useful technology and are taught the skills that will be essential for them to stay competitive in modern workplaces.
• The End of Bartlett Monotheism: Bartlett absolutely needs to hire more tech support staff. Don Bladow is extremely knowledgeable and hard-working, but cannot adequately meet the needs of more than 100 people.
  

For a more detailed description of the technology culture of the CITC program and of Bartlett High School in general, please look at my complete anthropological assessment here

Dustin Madden
dustinm@gmail.com
9/23/2008

"Listen to the Natives"

by Marc Prensky

I. Overview

In "Listen to the Natives", Marc Prensky argues that because technology is evolving at such a rapid pace, much of educators' training and knowledge is quickly becoming obsolete. He constantly uses the term "21st century" to emphasize his opinion that students are growing up in a world that is so different from the one that most teachers were raised in that unless educational practices are radically changed, they will become essentially useless.

In order to keep up with technological change, Prensky suggests that teachers incorporate more of the students' opinions and knowledge into the curriculum. He believes that in general students are extremely technologically capable, and so teachers should help guide them in their own pursuits rather than teaching them what the educator thinks is important for them to know. He also recommends that students be given more power in the classroom to make decisions and to participate in discussions about what and/or how they would teach.

II. Prensky's citation-less opinions on:

Students and Technology

1. "Outside school, they [students] are fully engaged by their 21st century digital lives."
2. "Many students are already proficient enough in programs like Flash to submit their assignments in this medium."
3. "Students should be learning 21st century subject matter, such as nanotechnology, bioethics, genetic medicine, and neuroscience."


Collaboration with Students

1. "We need to include our students in everything we do in the classroom, involving them in discussions about curriculum development, teaching methods, school organization, discipline, and assignments."
2. "They [teachers] need to... pay attention to how their students learn, and value and honor what their students know."
3. "Our brightest students, trusted with responsibility, will surprise us all with their contributions."


The Role of Gaming in Education

1. "For example, students could learn algebra far more quickly and effectively if instruction were available in game format."
2. "Can you think of any examples of this problem in your computer games?"
3. "We need to incorporate into our classrooms the same combination of desirable goals, interesting choices, immediate and useful feedback, and opportunities to "level up" that engage kids in their favorite complex computer games."


Does Prensky somehow $$benefit$$ from this article? Why is he writing so much about the benefits of gaming in education?

1. "Marc Prensky is a speaker, writer, consultant, and game designer in education and learning. He is author of Digital Game-Based Learning (McGraw-Hill, 2001) and Don't Bother Me, Mom, I'm Learning (Paragon, 2005).
2. Marc Prensky’s CV: http://www.marcprensky.com/experience/Prensky-Resume.pdf


III. Reflection

In this article, Prensky is essentially making two very strong recommendations for educators: one is that we respect and value students knowledge and opinions and try to incorporate them into our teaching, and the other is that as educators we need to use the technology that students are engaged with in our classroom. While I certainly agree with the first one, I find Prensky’s discussion of the second point to be condescending and lacking nuance.


First of all, Prensky assumes that educators are not capable of keeping up with technology, and that students inherently are, as they were born in the digital age. It seems that Prensky has neglected to discuss a rather large percentage of the population that does not have full access to all of the modern digital devices that he mentions. The technology gap is something that I know is very real—I would estimate that roughly only about 25% of my students have internet access at home, and probably only slightly more than that have a functioning computer at home. So certainly not all of my students “are fully engaged by their 21st century digital lives” outside of school. While I believe that there is some truth in his discussion of the difficulties people who were raised in a pre-technology world may have keeping up with a constant barrage of new software and hardware, he exaggerates this to the point of absurdity. Apparently rather than learning to incorporate new technology, Prensky would have educators throw their hands up in the air and say “It’s not my fault, I’m a digital immigrant!” One of the characteristics that I have seen in the majority of the teachers that I work with is their ability to take the initiative and learn new things for their students benefit; with well-planned training programs, educators are certainly capable of keeping up with the technology curve.


Prensky also completely ignores the possibility that new technology isn’t actually beneficial. While I believe that it is important to prepare students to be able to navigate through a society with a focus on new communication systems, he presents new technology in a tone that implies it is inherently better than what came before. I personally have found that many new technologies made me less productive and lowered my quality of life: cable television kept me from learning about the culture and environment around me as a child, computer games helped keep me in a stage of social ineptitude for an unnecessary amount of time in high school, and using instant messenger programs never resulted in meaningful conversation and sucked my free time into a black hole during my college years. While I share Prensky’s excitement in the possibilities that new developments bring, I think it is important to learn to use them wisely, rather than using them for the sheer novelty of using them.

Finally, I am dubious of Prensky’s qualifications and intentions in making many of the bold statements that he does in this article. Looking at his CV (see web address above), it appears that he taught high school for a total of three years, back in 1968. So it seems his experience with the tech-savvy students of today may be questionable. However, he has a wealth of experience in marketing, product design, business consulting, and… well look at this, he designs educational computer games. Of course, I’m sure his constant reference to the benefit of games and the need to teach students in a way that is as engaging as computer games comes purely from his altruism.

School Train

The first question is: am I grading the teacher, or the students? Either way, I think it will be unfair, as I don't believe in grading without making your expectations clear beforehand. To grade the students, I would have created a rubric before beginning the assignment and discussed it with them. It would include the following:

Use of Technology:

* Was the technology used in a way that promotes the understanding of the concept?
* Was the presentation visually interesting?

Effort:

* Did the student put in time and effort into the project?
* Did they perform to the best of their ability?

Understanding of Concept

* Did the student's work on the video show that they understood the concept?
* Can the student explain the concept to others?

Assessing the Teacher

I think a teacher would benefit from feedback that promotes self-reflection on the project more than they would benefit from a rubric. So here is a list of things I thought worked well, and things that the teacher may want to ponder:

Apparent Successes:

* Students seemed to be enjoying themselves
* It is likely that the students will remember the material much better
* Learning to work on a project from start to finish is a real-world skill

Questions for the teacher to think about:

* How much time did this project take? Was the learning experience valuable enough to justify the amount of material that will be left out of the curriculum to make time for this project?
* Were all the students able to participate? Or were most sitting around while a few worked diligently?
* Did the students really understand the concept of metaphor? Or were the majority of them just excited about making funny faces at the camera?

Fox Becomes a Better Person

Again, I would have created a rubric and discussed this with the students before beginning the assignment. The rubric would have looked something like this:

Quality of Story:

* Was the story interesting and engaging?
* Was the story imbued with traditional values?

Quality of Illustrations

* Did the illustrations help us understand the story?
* Were the illustrations visually appealing?

Presentation

* Was the story told in a way that kept us interested?
* Were hand gestures and body movement used?

Effort

* Did the student put in time and effort into the project?
* Did they perform to the best of their ability?

For each category, each student would be assessed as to whether they were emerging, developing, proficient, or advanced by a set of criteria. Hannah would be advanced for the first three categories, and probably for the fourth as well, though I don't know what her ability level is.

EPIC 2015: "The Democratization of Information" or "Short Attention Span Theatre"

I believe that the developments portrayed in EPIC 2015 would only further some of the trends that are happening in the classroom now. As information becomes democratized, assessing whether information is reliable will become an even more valuable skill. As podcasts and other easily accessible, relevant, and entertaining electronic materials become more widespread, students will become even more addicted to constant entertainment. As the importance of such electronic materials increases, the gap between students who have reliable internet and technology resources at home and those who don't (a large percentage of my students) will grow even larger.

The Dilemma of Reliable Information

Wikipedia is an excellent example of one of the highly contentious sources of information in schools right now. It is widely used by students, and almost universally hated by teachers. The most common approach I have seen teachers use is to simply ban Wikipedia, which I believe is completely ineffective. Much of what is available on Wikipedia is accurate information, and students need to be taught how to discern between good and bad sources. I teach students to use Wikipedia as a starting point, and follow the references and links until they reach primary sources of information. As we approach an EPIC 2015 type of world, it will become more important for students to learn these skills.

Entertainment Junkies

More and more students are able to get exactly what they want, when they want it through electronic media, sometimes resulting in a lack of interest in other things. I believe teachers need to harness this excitement about these types of media (YouTube, podcasts, Wikipedia, etc.) by creating projects that use them. This will also make them less taboo in the classroom, which often decreases the amount of interest in them.

SabrinaJourney

Actually, I was recently considering using digital storytelling in a way similar to Sabrina in my classroom. As an assistant teacher for CITC, occasionally I am asked to substitute teach, and so for the first two weeks of this school year I taught English 9 and 10. We were working on a community poster project, in which students wrote about the people that were important to them in the various communities that they are a part of (school, village, family, friends, sports teams, etc.) and created a poster to display this. My girlfriend's mother was taking a digital storytelling class at the same time, and recommended it for my class. Unfortunately, we were already a little too far into the project to switch gears at that point. I think that it may be a good idea for next year; however, I'm a bit worried about the technology gap amongst our students. Many of my students did not have pictures available for their posters, either digital or hard copies, and many could not type up their writing at home. In a poster project, students could easily get around these obstacles, but I think in a computer based project such as Sabrina's many students would be at a pretty strong disadvantage.

Curriculum Development

Here is a great example of a need for a locally or district based curriculum. This is a picture taken in the 1950's of a woman teaching Inupiaq children about animals. The chalkboard says:

Animals

See the animals' house.
The animals' house is a barn.
The animals like the barn.

For students who have probably never seen a barn, and live in a culture that has a very different view of animals than the Western European one, this lesson must have been utterly incomprehensible. Assuming that the teacher continues by discussing animals that would live in a barn, this unit will continue to be irrelevant. We can only guess at why she is teaching about animals in this way, but I would wager that she is using printed materials made for another culture. A locally designed curriculum with relevant materials would help to solve this problem.