Sunday, October 19, 2008

"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.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

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.