EDUC 628-Spring-08

I have decided that before I make anymore judgements about MySpace or Facebook or -is it Twitter…that I need to go see what the fuss is all about, so after I explore some of these sites for a while then I will come back to what I think about this.  I didn’t think it was fair for me to only judge it through my daughter’s  eyes.

Also, I went out and am trying to read and participate a little more and I am in the middle of watching this video from Stephen’s Web ~ OLDaily

Web 2.0 and Your Own Learning and Development

When I finish it and learn some more technology I’ll keep you posted.  

I did some googling and read some of my classmate’s blogs and finally a light bulb went off for me to actually be able to write about something—or someone I know of. 

I think that thin walled classrooms mean classrooms where students can connect with other students who are not in the same classroom whether it is with students from a different school in the same area, or with students in another state, or another country.

Yesterday in the Maysville Ledger Independent, there is an article about Gertrudis Siguenza, a Spanish Professor who has been teaching online courses through Maysville Community and Technical College (MCTC) and also teaching at Augusta Independent Schools.  She will soon be going back to Spain, yet still plans to teach her online Spanish classes through Maysville Community and Technical College, and I think what she and MCTC are doing is a prime example of a thin-walled classroom….that is in my POV.

http://maysville-online.com/articles/2008/01/29/local_news/1652mctcspanish.txt

While I am trying to think of an intelligent response to social networking technologies, I have printed off  Danah Boyd’s  lets define our terms : what is social networking technology as well as her and Nicole Edison’s Social Network Sites: Definition, History and Scholarship and finally the Economist Debate on Social “Networking.” 

As I acquire my feel for these types of assignments I will always click on every link to everything, and this is frustrating me because I waste (or seems like I am wasting my time) as I try to just answer a question.

In terms of social networking I will give you some insight on the conversation that went on as my family and I drove home last night. My husband asked me what I was thinking about, and I said, well, I am thinking about my blog.  His response:

·        You are just as bad as our daughter (she’s 14) and is on MySpace everyday.

·        My daughter said Mom, you need to be careful with Yahoo IM’s….it’s not like MSN IM.

And my thoughts drifted back to that mornings conversation that myself, and two other colleagues had about MySpace, cell phones, and social networking in general and teenage girls.  One of my colleagues said that they do not allow her kids to access the Internet because it seems like they never study.  They never bring home a book.  I agreed because my 14 year old had recently gotten in trouble for her grades because I never see her with a book (her consequence was that she had her cell phone and the computer taken away for a period of time).  I thought about my daughter and her friends and how they use social networking sites continuously everyday…how they take pictures on their phones and digital cameras and race home to put them on their sites/spaces.  These kids could be photographers I think sometimes. 

Now, there are times that I have to set limits for the amount of time I allow my daughter to spend on the computer if she never comes out of her room, as I should, and there are also times I need to set the some limits for myself.   I know she is socializing with her friends and I do know that she knows everyone she socializes with, and I don’t have a problem with this.  I think that she could be out and getting into some kind of trouble and she is not.  She is at home.

As far as education and culture and technology, I think that the culture of the teenagers who use SNS will not stop, and that is educators can set limits of how they want to use SNS incorporated into their instruction, then this could help tie education to social networks—networking sites.

I went out to google social network and social networking and Wikipedia returned the following:

 Social network   From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search

Not to be confused with social network services such as MySpace, etc. or virtual communityA social network is a social structure made of nodes (which are generally individuals or organizations) that are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as values, visions, idea, financial exchange, friends, kinship, dislike, conflict, trade, web links, sexual relations, disease transmission (epidemiology), or airline routes. The resulting structures are often very complex.Social network analysis views social relationships in terms of nodes and ties. Nodes are the individual actors within the networks, and ties are the relationships between the actors. There can be many kinds of ties between the nodes. Research in a number of academic fields has shown that social networks operate on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and play a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, organizations are run, and the degree to which individuals succeed in achieving their goals.In its simplest form, a social network is a map of all of the relevant ties between the nodes being studied. The network can also be used to determine the social capital of individual actors. These concepts are often displayed in a social network diagram, where nodes are the points and ties are the lines. 

Social network service From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search 

A social network service focuses on the building and verifying of online social networks for communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others, and which necessitates the use of software.Most services are primarily web based and provide a collection of various ways for users to interact, such as chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, discussion groups, and so on.The main types of social networking services are those which contain directories of some categories (such as former classmates), means to connect with friends (usually with self-description pages), and recommender systems linked to trust. Popular methods now combine many of these, with MySpace,[1] Bebo[2] and Facebook[1] being the most widely used in the anglosphere, Hi5 in parts of Europe,[3]Google’s Orkut in Brazil,[4] and Friendster being the most widely used in Asia.[5][6][7]There have been some attempts to standardize them (see the FOAF standard) but this has led to some privacy concerns. 

And a list of social networking sites from Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

I decided tonight to stop waiting to write and just start writing.  I went to a few of my classmates blogs, yet left no comments this evening, but I did read that Remote Access had some information about thin-walled classrooms in one of Dr. Lowell’s comments.  I googled thin-walled classrooms and in return got the following link out of many. http://remoteaccess.typepad.com/remote_access/2007/04/junior_high_tea.html

It seems that thin-walled classrooms are classrooms where the students interact and learn with each other through the Internet, and I think the idea that Clarence has is a great one.  He is trying to get other teachers to join in with him in his thin-walled classroom. 

It is late, and this is my first post about this.  I will research more, and look into Remote Access to see what else I can find this week. 

Barriers that Solomon Offers: 

Barrier 1:  Access to up-to-date hardware, software, and connectivity:

Barrier 2:  Access to Meaningful, High-Quality, and Culturally Responsive content to the Knowledge Base in that content

Barrier 3:  Access to educators who know how to use digital tool and resources effectively

Barrier 4:  Access to systems sustained by leaders with vision and support for change through technology

After reading this weeks assigned pages from Solomon and searching for blogs I am yet overwhelmed again with information about technology and its access.  When I read about the barriers in the text, I could really relate to what Solomon was saying about Barrier 1 –where she discusses student to computer ratios being lowered, but with many of these lowered rates, the computers that students have access to are old ones that are very slow.  I have been in some computer labs before where it takes the computers so long to boot up, or reboot because they are out of date.  I will get on one and just to get a pdf or something will require the download of  Acrobat Reader, etc. 

I think that there is access to meaningful, high-quality and culturally responsive content to the knowledge base, but the problem could be that educators do not know where to access it, and then perhaps they don’t know how to use some of this technology.  I know that since I have taken this class that I have found some valuable information and tools on the Internet for instructional purposes that I didn’t know existed before.  I hope to try to take all of the information I learn form this class and my other tech class, and put it to meanful use, even though I am not working full time right now.  Or should I say that because I am not working full-time right now that I will have the time to explore and plan some lessons for nest year.

In my EDUC 621 class, I had to go visit the site http://www.intime.uni.edu/. Regarding multicultural issue and technology and I found it to be a beneficial site.  There is a lot of information there and perhaps too much to fully grasp the site’s purpose in one visit of two, but I will continue to visit this site for information for my instruction. 

Also, I searched for a blog and I did a search for inTime blogs, and I found this one belowhttp://ehansonsmith.blogspot.com/Although the first two pictures of videos on the left only turned out to be pictures when I clicked on them and I was a bit discouraged, when I clicked on the Asterpix it took me to a tutorial and I joined up so I can find a video for a lesson in the future now.There are other interesting links on this blog spot, like the interactive American Writers- C-SPAN videos link.

I think this site is a good site that relates to educational access for the purposes of integrating technology into education, even though I think the pics should access the access.

Angie H.

Well, over my morning coffee I read Chapter 1 of Toward Digital Equity.  I like the way it prepares the reader for the upcoming chapters, introducing how historically free education has emerged in America, and the problems that have been overcome in doing so.  The book points out how technology and the access to it can either improve education or digitally divide it.  There is an emphasis on teachers implementing the use of technology as opposed to merely just teaching technology as well.

My thoughts would linger as I read this chapter to the fact that I have chosen a particular college to attend for my Special Education Degree based on the fact that it offers the entire program online.  Be that as it may that I may not have the social interaction through in class instruction that so many may encourage.  I will get that interaction when I teach.  My point is that I chose a degree based digital access……

Angie H.

Well, I joined in a Tapped In Tricks session today at 12 Noon.  I really don’t know is I joined in , or just was present.  I was a little confused for a while until I caught up with all the chat.  I did learn how to navigate some and I knowingly joined a club called Webheads, and next Sunday at 12 Noon I will go to their session.  There is also a Campus Tour next Saturday at Tapped in which will be good to go to.  BJB was the leader of the discussion, and I learned quite a bit from this Tricks of Tapped In informational session. 

I also went out to find myself four more blogs to add to my gator, which are

http://www.ed.gov/rss/edgov.xml

 http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/feed/

http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/A56STDCXPUNPD/atom.xml

http://dreamofhope4u.spaces.live.com/feed.rss

I have subsricbed to these, yet have not spent very much time reading them yet, but I certainly will….after I put the rest of my classmates’ feeds in my gator.  I plan to do this late tonight and also read Solomon’s chapter 1 and have this completed by dawn on tomorrow…at night is when I work best.

Angie H.

Technology, Education, and Culture

How these three relate to each other could be looked at endlessy, and I think that they each are effected and affect each other. Certain cultures will pave the ways of technology, while technology will shape the culture. Education and culture intertwine while technology changes education and culture continually.

I read one of Dr. Lowell’s comments about today’s kids “linking up”, and he was right. When my 14 year-old comes home, the first thing she does is check MSN and MySpace….and text. We won’t talk about what her new phone is capable of doing.

As soon as I get home, I link up to check email sites, Blackboard, websites, and now Yahoo Messenger, Edublogs, Tapped In, and I don’t know what else. I do know that I am excited about hooking up the MP4 Player my 7-year old got for Christmas to downlaod podcasts and podiobooks(I think I said that right).

I hope that technology can shape my education so I can be part of the cyberspace culture more….but please don’t ask me to hook up a video cam. I really like to sit in front of the computer without worrying about what I look like.

Well, I finally made it through cyberspace enough to get to this spot to post to all a little bit about me.  First of all, my title needs a little creativity, but I am still trying to figure out how to change the title, so I will let it be for now.

My name is Angie Hinson and I am finishing up the MAT Middle Grades Degree through Morehead this summer and I am getting a second Masters in Education Technology.  That is why I am here right now.  I like learning about all of this technology, plus, I can’t let my kids outdo me you know.  Also, as far as my educational endeavors go, I am entering into Georgetown College’s Special Education Program this upcoming Fall and I am taking those classes via cyberspace.  I like Special Education quite a bit and am hopeful to work in the field next year. My Middle Grade’s Degree will just be on my resume for now….and the Technology Degree will always be useful for me and my curriculum vitae.

As far as my personal life, I am married, and have been for 21 years, and I have two daughters.  One is 14 and the other is 7.  Yes I waited a while before I had kids.  I guess I was sewing my wild oats as they say…trying to grow up.

I am still trying to grow up, but always find myself around the kids again and again in my home life and where I work.

I look forward to learning about technology for myself and so I can incorporate it into my instruction.

Angie H.