Stephen Downes post

I was looking at a slide show of a presentation that Stephen Downes gave on January 30, 2008.  It had a slide that I think is the perfect illustration of learning in the 21st century.  Look at the webpage and go to slide number 18 to see it.  I feel that it is a true example of learning today.  Let me know what you think!!

Danah Boyd’s interview

I love the interview.  Danah seems like a very informed and compassionate person.  She is right about the facebook and myspace.  she even mentioned what we have discussed about educating students how to use the technology, not to ban them from it.  I don’t understand why she was talking about it over drinks though?  That was a little confusing to me.   Anyways, great interview and great information.  

Silicone Ceiling

First off, had I read the article about the silicone ceiling prior to becoming a teacher, I might not be a teacher.  They make in one year what a teacher makes in two and a half.My interest in computers came years before I knew that technology would be the way of the future.  I played a typing game on a beta machine ( I think that was what it was called) in the fourth grade.  So I went home and told my mom I wanted a computer.  My mom bought me and my sister an appleIIe computer.  Who remembers those??  It was based in DOS, I think, and had the 31/2 inch floppy disk.  I played on that computer for years and didn’t get another one till I was married.  My mom got rid of it approximately 2 years ago.  Still worked!But the point was that I was introduced to using the computer in a fun manor in the fourth grade.  I feel that the way to break that silicone ceiling is to introduce girls to computers at a younger age.  Another good way would be to make sure that they are also introduced to games that are of interest to females.  I, being female, don’t like all the racing, fighting, and stealing of cars type games that are out their for boys.  I also am too old to like to play the Hannah Montana and Barbie type games.  So, what are my options as a girl, or for the high school girls.  What games are made for high school girls?  I don’t know of any off hand.  We as teachers can also help by making sure that we encourage the females to think about a career in information technology.  This is the one thing I wasn’t sure of how to accomplish.  I don’t know much about the opportunities out their for technology and some of the jobs aren’t even available yet.  So how to do entice a student to go into a job that doesn’t exists yet? Another thing I am worried about is if we focus on all male or all female schools, who is going to teach the teachers how to gear their years of teaching to only one gender.  I don’t know if a female should teach in an all male school.  I don’t know if I would know how to teach differently when given all males.  I have a class right now that is almost all males , I don’t do anything different for that class.  I think that I should be, but what??  So we need to work on PD that shows us how to work with the different genders and how to encourage females with computers.  More information on the opportunities available, the schooling needed, and the jobs available will help me to discuss with my students what you can do with an IT degree. 

Enders Game

I read a book last semester for Dr. Miller called Enders Game.  It reminded me about the mob.  It has a little kid and his sister creating blogs that are of political content.  The kids are writing as if they were older.  They final gained enough attention to sway the opinions of well educated politicians and their view of the world.  It is a very futuristic book, but that I think can be possible if a blog gained enough attention.  I think that Barack Obama is using the internet to his advantage too.  So, with the use of technology and the mob anything is possible. 

Still out

Well after missing 3 days last week, we got out 1 and a half hours early on Monday and are still out right now until Thursday. I hope everyone got all their stuff out of the weather because if not, it is now ruined.

Equity, is it possible?

I touched  a little on it in my other postings, but wanted to address the whole question.  Yes, I feel that it is possible by an extraordinary teacher in an extraordinary school.  I feel that in order to be equitable in the classroom, the first thing that must take place is the administration must also be equitable in their distribution of discipline, policies, and time. There is no way that you can control a classroom and keep the students all working equitably when you have some students that do the same thing wrong as others, but don’t get in the same trouble.  A school has to be consistent with the students so they know what they can expect from the administrators if they do something wrong.  This is equitable treatment because the punishments get more severe when the student does it more often.  So following policy will make the discipline more equitable which in turn will let the students know that they will not receive special treatment and thus must behave.  Now, once your School is equitable, the classroom will run smoother making it easier to conduct class and get around to all students helping them equitably.   I do feel it is possible, but it almost has to be an educational utopia school in order for it to occur.  Now lets talk about educational equity on the internet.  If you are taking a online course, is it a given that it will be equitable.  Since the professor is not in the classroom and does not contact the students personally unless the students is in need of assistant, does that imply equitable treatment for all.  I don’t really think that it is because that would mean that if the professor made a comment to one students he also made a comment geared towards every student.  With that in mind, I think I have changed my view of “is equity possible “,  I just though of the fact that it is probably not because of the effort other students put into class.  Every students is different and thus each need different types and levels of teacher attention.  Not all students get the kind of attention they need, thus it is not equitable.  NCLB is based off the premise that all students can learn, but it fails to take into consideration at the pace that they learn.   So, NCLB does want equity among students, but doesn’t know how to go about doing it besides testing to make sure we have done it.  I don’t think that some students are capable of grasping the higher thinking of physics or calculus, but does that mean they can’t learn it.  According the NCLB it doesn’t mean that.  By my definition it does mean they can’t learn it.  If they learned it they would be able to apply it later in life.  I don’t think that most of the students I have will ever apply anything they are learning in my class later in life.  Like my students said when I asked them how are they going to be able to determine how much gas they have left before they run out, they replied, “look at the gas level which tells you how many miles you have left”.  I didn’t know that they had cars that would tell you that.  So, really, what do they need to know algebra for?What is it about blogging that makes your mind ramble.  I always seem to think of a thousand things to say and it makes it hard to get all of it in before I forget what my point of the blog was.  Hopefully you can interpret what I am trying to say.   

mob rules

I loved the article about the mob.  It enlightened me on the ways of the mob.  I am also glad that they implicated a company that I think is fast becoming a monopoly and a poor service provider, At&t. The article described AT&T as a “politically power” because they are too large for their own good.  I have just written a blog about the problems I was having with At&t not providing good service because they know that there is no other option for me to turn to.  I feel that since I am blogging that I am part of the mob and as a member of the mob, I have a voice that I may help to cause a change in AT&T.  Not likely, but that is the message that I took from the article.  If enough people communicate together than they can create a difference.  This to me is the way that it can effect learning and education.  If teachers and administrators come together all on one topic, they can create a change, like the article said.  I feel that just communicating with people that feel the same way you do will help to create change.  Maybe not world change, but just a change in the way you teach or use technology.  We as teachers and life long learners are always looking for ideas and new ideas to use in our classes, so why not create that on the web.  TappedIn creates this, but we just don’t have enough people using it to make it really useful and it doesn’t have a storage system that teachers could upload lesson plans or activities to.  The time is now and the ones that are in the mob are going to go places, but those outside might just get left behind.  

Conditions to educational equity

I have always said that I will treat each person equitably in my class.  That means, I’ll treat you the way you deserve to be treated by the way you act in the classroom.  That isn’t the same with the educational equity.  The conditions for educational equity would be to treat everyone in the class the same.  This I know is hard for me to do because of the personalities of the girls compared to the boys.  This is not always the case, but usually the girls will listen and the boys are usually talking, sleeping, or acting like they aren’t listening to be cool.  I can easily prove my point with the classes I have now.  I have a class of 20 students first period where all but 4 are girls.  That is my only class that I can actually ask a question and there is silence.  No one wants to say anything.  The males are either sleeping or not paying attention.  Now, contrary to that come visit my 5th, 6ht or 7th period class where in all three classes there are 8 females total in all three classes.  These classes are loud with students constantly talking, not listening, or busy doing something else. These classes are very loud and aren’t what I would call equitable.   This shows the differences in girls and boys attitudes in the classes so of course I will have to treat them differently, but I’m not supposed to.  That is something I would like to know how not to.  If a student is disrupting class you have to get them to stop doing which is giving them he attention that they wanted.  If you don’t get them to be quiet then that is inequitable to those that are trying to learn.  So being able to give each student regardless of gender or ethnicity is equity, but I feel it is very hard to do.  I would like to say that I can treat everyone the same and I try to get to each of the students, but the ones that are quiet and don’t cause any trouble when you have a class of trouble makers, it is hard to do.  I do offer students time in morning or afternoon everyday to have one on one tutoring, but no one willing has come yet.  So I do know that equity is something that I need to work on because I can name several students that I have probably not said more than 10 words to the whole semester because of all the other “squeaky wheel” type students. We also just went 7 periods from 4 period block schedule that doesn’t allow me much time to go around and answer questions like I used to be able to do. I know that is no excuse and I am trying to work on that, but where most of the good students are passing, I have put it on the back burner.  

Clean up

I know that I have blogged a bunch about the Tornado, but that is what is happening in my life and the lives of many others.  I went out and took pictures today of some of the area that I was helping to clean up.  I thought you might be interested in just what little I took a picture of.  These pictures are from just one small road that got hit.  This is mostly tree damage that you can see from the pictures.  A lot more houses were damaged in Gaslight Park and Nolen trailer court.  I’ll post more as I get them while  I am helping clean up after the destruction.               These pictures were taken 5 days after the tornado hit.  A lot of the roads were covered with power lines and trees so they have mostly just cleared the roads.  As you can see lots of trees are down and have been cut up and placed by the side of the road.   We’ve been going in and trying to help clean up the trees from peoples yards.  

Off the subject: AT&T

After I read the articles from the assigned reading I realized that blogging is one way to inform people of your problems with a company.  This will help me to see if it only happens to me or if lots of other people have this happen to them.  So, I wanted to see if anyone else is dissatisfied with AT&T.  I have been on the phone several hours trying to get my bill lowered and every time I call either the bill comes in wrong or higher than they said.  Not to mention that when AT&T purchased Bellsouth they started billing me for a service I received free with Bellsouth without notifying me(that was another two hour call in which I ended paying anyways for the service I didn’t use).  Is there a monopoly here that is making it hard to get good service.  Does AT&T not have to worry about satisfying their customers because they own all the competition or does someone out there have a different company I can switch to?  I don’t need long distance because I can use my cell for that, but of course I am Cingular which is also owned by AT&T.  I need the DSL because of class.  So any options I am willing to change.  My cell phone plan I think is up in March so anything goes.  Also, anyone have a story where AT&T are not using customer satisfaction to drive their service to let me know I’m not alone.  THanks