Culture and Technology

“How does variation in culture effect technological adoption?”   The wikipedia definition of culture is :Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning “to cultivate,”) generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance. Different definitions of “culture” reflect different theoretical bases for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity. I really am having a hard time figuring out how exactly culture effects technology adoption.  I’ve been reading the blogs and text, but have drawn no conclusion to what the effects are.  It seems that the technology is embraced by people that understand what to do and how to use it and the others that are scared of change and don’t understand it are not adopting the technology.  This is evident in schools by teachers that are set in their ways, have been teaching forever and don’t feel it is necessary to change their teaching habits.  I read in the Solomon text that, minorities are not adopting technology as well as “whites” are and that the African American population isn’t interested in what the internet has to offer.   I don’t understand what makes one person want to embrace new technologies and another loath it.  Maybe it is the fear of change or loosing a piece of what you grew up doing that some cultures don’t like.  I guess if we really knew the answer to that question posed by Nate, than we could begin to work on solving the problem.  Let me know if I am really off track.  I just voicing my thoughts on it, right or wrong.   

Barbaranantz’s Weblog › Create New Post — WordPress

Barbaranantz’s Weblog › Create New Post — WordPressPressOk, I am trying to get my blog to recognize this.  I clicked it and this is what happened.  Any suggestions? 

Thinning walls

I read several blogs from our classmates and disagree a little with some of them and totally agree with others.  That shows me that this in another topic that has different meanings depending on the Point Of View of the students/person it is coming from.   When I first heard thin walls, I immediately though of the flat classroom and I still feel that this is a version of that concept.  I read the blog, A Difference: Thin Walled World.  This blog was the ideal blog about thin walls in my POV.  I feel that linking classrooms together while still in yours is what a thin wall classroom is. This article talks about online mentoring through blogs.  I myself have never head of it, but this blog has several examples of links to show what they have done.  I really like this and feel that it could be a job or career in the future for people that are confined to their homes or just like to use the internet to help other people.  From what I can tell from this sites is that the students do assignments and blog about them.  They blog about likes and dislikes.  They also have an assignment posted from flickr.  It is a picture that has all the mathematical functions labeled on it from the picture.  It is a great example of math on the internet.  They are trying to get the  internet mentoring to be a good reference for scholarships applications as he states in: “their learning has been enriched via these online mentorships and they have started to think of ways they can pay it forward and maybe get a good reference for scholarship applications they will be making in the near future.”The students are benefitting from the online mentoring then they want to pay it forward as seniors and become the mentor.   I only found one blog that was from the mentor and it was a really great slideshare of geese and why and how they fly.  The blog states that at least one question a day is answered between the two classroom that are working together online.  Since it isn’t clear to me exactly how it is done, I assume that the students blog about a question and the other class will blog back.  Not for sure, but you can read about it yourself:“(another teacher and ) I are collaborating with his two classes of student teachers mentoring my classes via their blogs this year as well. “This person is also mentioning some names of well known bloggers (I assume since they only use the first names) like Clarence (Fisher) and Barbara(can’t remember her last name).  If I’m not mistaken, we had some assignments last semester using these blogs.  They are working on an “Advice Through Ethereal walls” blog.  This one I haven’t really investigated, but I think these people are some people to watch in the field of technology and education.

Solomon’s chapter 6

I find that this book is very informative even if some of the statistics are a little dated.  I really think that what the native americans are doing with the recording technologically, their heritage is a great idea for all ethnic groups.  I know that most have a written record, but I wouldn’t mind having a heritage record of my family background.  Both my grandfathers fought in wars.  Since I am also taking a multimedia Design class also, I think making a documentary would be helpful not only to me to learn my heritage, but to my children and their children to learn who their great grandparents were and where they cam from.  My great grandparents on my fathers side were born and live in Italy before moving to America before they married.  I would love to of had technology to learn of their trip over to America.  So, the Native Americans using technology to keep their language and heritage going is a great idea.  I have a question about the chapter one and chapter six conflicts.  Maybe I read it wrong, but I thought chapter one said that Native Americans didn’t have telephones or even the infrastructure for telephone lines or Internet communication, but chapter six talks about their using technology to keep their heritage going and making go world wide.  I may have misunderstood.  Did I?  Any comments to clear that up would be helpful.Well, they other things that were an eye opener to me was that the large number of people that are still not in the loop of using technology like “white anglo” people are.  I am kind of curious to why this great “digital divide” exist in a world with internet cafe’s and free access to the internet at libraries and free computer courses offered at different locations to the public.  Could it be that the minorities are not as interested in technology or using the technology as others are?  I am a little spoiled also because I think that everyone still have means to want to improve their current situations if they are wiling to.  I know that that just isn’t the case in most places, but because I don’t see it, I am blind  to it.Now onto the Spanish/Mexican population. The way I read the chapter, there are not as many Spanish sites out there as their are English.  So that means to me, when they go onto the internet they can’t just google whatever they want like we  can because most of the sites are not published in Spanish.  I found that to be a very scary thought since there is so much information out there for us in English, I assumed that the rest of the counties that spoke different languages had the same amount of stuff, just in a different language.  I guess that just isn’t the case.  I wonder how you could go about changing that?  Have spanish classes take news site or different sites and translate them for the spanish speaking public?  I don’t know what the answer is to that and I still find it hard to believe that the WWW doesn’t have as many spanish language site as it does English. Well, I hope that everything I said came out the way I was trying to say it because of the content, I wouldn’t want to offend anyones heritage or ethnicity.    

Danah Boyd’s “Social Networking cite” Definition

In today’s world it is hard to define anything involving technology because things are changing so fast and our culture does not move that fast. We don’t have the backgrounds to say that the definition is limited to just this cite or this application.  A more general definition could be given like Boyd tried to do with any cite that involves talking with people you don’t know, but now who is the define what a cite is or isn’t.  Our world and culture are not understanding of the broad general definition that are needed to define a term that is used in technology.  Just like Boyd tried to break it  down to just social networking sites, when the world said he was too narrow.  I don’t think we are capable of defining something that so many people have already formed their own definition of.  Maybe Webster can help us or who ever is the authority on technology terminology.  I may be way off, but that is my take on the culture of defining social networking cites.  I sure feel sorry for Danah Boyd because as she pointed out how frustrating it was.  If you get specific your not broad enough and if you get broad, it isn’t specific enough.  Good luck, Danah Boyd!!  

Four Precepts of Solomon

I agree totally with the four precepts that Solomon has stated for our technology dilemma.  We don’t have the up to date hardware and software, the culture enriched content and opportunity to contribute to the content, educators that know how to use the technology, or access to systems and support from leaders to change via technology.  We have lots of teachers willing to use the technology, but don’t know how to integrate it into their classroom instruction.  We need content technology PD, (which our school has already asked for) that will show us what resources are available for our content and how and when to implement them into our curriculum.  We also are looking about going wireless, but we don’t have to hardware (wiring) that will allow  600 students to get on the Internet at the same time.  So I agree if we could have a perfect technology school we would have technology coordinators in every subject area constantly reviewing what where we are in our classes and what technology can be implemented at that time.  We could also have internet access to all students with laptop when ever we need it AND have all the software we need on each laptop to use it.  I teach an exploratory math class in-which I like to utilize the math games on the internet, but half of the computer in the lab will allow the games to be played and the other half won’t. So I can’ t rely on the computer to allow all the students the ability to play the games.  This makes it very difficult when trying to have a fun day when it becomes an aggravating day.  I feel that the knowledge of how to implement the computers into the classroom is the most important part.  

Solomon reading

I finally got my book yesterday and spent the last two days reading.  It was a great read and didn’t feel like it was a chore.   I really enjoyed learning about all the history on technology.  I was however unaware that the phone company doesn’t have a phone line in an Indian reservation or doesn’t go to some very poor communities.  This really got to me because of the Educational Access article that I read.  It talked about how the United States wanted to get the world interneand educational access, but it doesn’t even have that in it’s own country yet.  I really don’t understand how a corporation that is making so much money, like AT&T can’t afford to take a right off and put the wireless network in for these areas.  Since the world is going wireless, I really don’t understand why we can’t get wireless phones in there.  A tower or two surely can’t be that costly.  Just think of all the information that these people are missing out on and all the knowledge that they are unable to research.  There are some days I use my internet several times for normal stuff like recipes to cook dinner, a phone number to a show out of my area, or just to find some information about a topic I heard in school or on the news that day.  I feel like I can find out anything just by googling it.  I feel that getting a computer with internet into all the children of the United States is a must and with the government already dishing out billions of dollars for our tax relief, (the 300 per child and 1200 for family or something like that) they could afford to put a laptop in every child’s hand.  And they could give the phone companies extra money to make phone service available to every household in America. This probably wouldn’t even be as costly as handing out money, but would be more economical.  Giving money to a country that already overspends and can’t pay their bills now, probably won’t help our economy.  (just my opinion again.)

Universal Access

I read the speech Education and Opportunity for All, written for Secretary Spelling at a UNESCO conference. You could sure tell it was written by a government official for NCLB because of all the positive comments about it.  It almost made me believe that NCLB was working, until I remembered all the students that can’t do 2 times 2 in their head.  Our goals are for UNESCO is for : “universal primary education by 2015″; a 50 percent expansion in adult literacy; improved quality as well as access; gender equality; and opportunity for “excluded and marginalized” populations.”A tall order for a country that can’t even take care of it’s own problems, now we are going to cure the world. Since we are all aware of how wonderful NCLB is then the following quote won’t be news to you:Its goals — every child learning at grade level in reading and math by 2014, a quality teacher in every classroom, special attention for students once ignored and left behind – complement UNESCO’s good work.Ok, but as far as the Educational Access to all is concerned, it is a forward movement and a step in the right direction.  As the speech says, “earning depends on learning”.  With 90% of the jobs requiring a post secondary endevor of some type, we need to focus on learning for all no matter what it is.  It is a shame that foreigners come over and get degrees in our colleges and take them back to their homeland for their economy can prosper and their people can be educated from it, while the facilities are here, but not enough Americans are takeing advantage of them.  (the last part is just my opinion, which may not be accurate, I know that is hard to believe, but true).   I think that we have our hearts in the right place and we are trying to do the right thing, I just don’t believe we are going about it the right way. Bush increased educational research by 60% (who knows what the original is because 60% of nothing is still nothing, but that is the sceptic math person in me wondering why they didn’t give figures instead of percents) and I believe they are thinking they are going to find a miracle way to teach our students by the following quote:“We don’t yet know where the research may lead. But we are eager to share our findings with the world. Educational access — filling an empty chair with a willing student — is necessary, but not sufficient. We must insist on quality. UNESCO’s 2005 Global Monitoring Report demonstrated its importance. Children must leave school with the skills to survive and thrive in a knowledge-based world”    AMEN !! with that being said, I agree, but HOW!  I don’t think NCLB is moving us in that direction. We are donating lots of money to other countries to educate their students and giving the world educational access the best that we can, but I feel we need to perfect our skill at home first before working on the rest of the world.  I  feel that we are letting our “underprivileged” students fall through the cracks by having NCLB because if all can’t have it, none will have it.  We need to have an attitude of,” if our students need it, all students should get it”.  And you can quote me on that.  We looked into laptops for all, but we know some can’t afford to replace it if it is lost, stolen, or damaged….so should we not get them because all can’t afford them….or should we help those in need and allow the students the advantage of having a laptop that might otherwise not ever get to use one.  I know that internet service isn’t available in all homes, but there are enough hotspots to allow low income students to walk to a library or a wifi location to get on to do some homework or surfing of the internet.  Well, I feel very passionate as you can tell about his topic and I apologize for getting all my problems out in one blog, but I can’t help my opinions and NCLB is beginning to get on my last nerve as it is a lot of teachers that want to teach.  This article relates to the readings in , Toward Digital Equity;  Bridging the divide in Education, because it focuses on bringing education and technology to the world not just Americans.  I do feel that we need to work on getting the world on the world wide web; especially low economy countries.  Having the Internet is a cheaper way to educate yourself than the alternatives of college, traveling, or professional development.  Don’t get me wrong it would be a better education, but if you don’t have to money to do it, it is an alternative to becoming more educated.  I don’t know anyone that does research anymore in a library unless they are on the computer.  I feel that technology is knowledge with all the information out there, we can do anything.  So, educational access in this article was talking about education for other countries. This is something we have to do eventually, but I feel we need to work on educating our own first before worrying about the rest of the world. 

Blog lag

After reading many of the other blogs, I am thinking I am reading the wrong assignments.  If I am on the wrong thing, (like I did last semester) please let me know….so if you read a blog of mine and wondering where that came from let me know because I may have skipped a week somewhere.  On a brighter note, My wifi is up and running again thanks to all that tried to help me with it.  I think I just had the wires hooked in the wrong places like NAte said, but I will keep all you sugestions for the next time I had to unplug it.  THanksNow for the craziness of Dr. Lowell’s classes.  I am already unorganized and scrambling to make sure the I get everything done in the right amount of time, but it never seems to work.  My family and I have also come down with the flu so I haven’t been able to keep on top of the computer since I had to only use my ssslllloooowww desk top.  It took 5 minutes to enter one name into my google reader.  I finally broke down and tried what everyone suggested so I could use my laptop.  Was done with about 10 names in about 5 minutes.  Big difference.     I was also wondering if we ever came up with the final count of the number of blogs that we should have???  Ok, I think it is time for our chat so I will blog later.  

Wrong location

I sure have made a mess out of the first week already,  I posted a little about myself but on blackboard and my iwireless nternet still doesn’t work.  I also didn’t keep reading that we needed to post about what we expect out of this course.  So here is a little about me:

I live in Muhlenberg County and teach 10,11 and 8th grades.  I have one son who is 11 and a husband of 13 years.  I am just beginning my educational technology degree and will hopefully finish by Chistmas this year (Well see though).  I am looking for a better understanding of the tools used from education to link to the computer and vice versa.  I know I’m late, but better late than never.  Sorry about that.