EDUC 628-Spring-08

After reading Barbaranantz’s blog about the bus driver and student fight   and watching the  video of it that she posted, I began to think about cell phone usage on school busses.  I wonder how many kids are texting–and talking while on the bus.  Is it a problem?  What should the policy be?

Well, I have joined Twitter—to catch up with Dr. Lowell.  Actually, I had already joined—just forgot I had because I haven’t been going to that social space.  I am now a follower, and I am being followed.  I think I am going to join MySpace too (I said I would and haven’t yet(…but now that we have to for part of the class, I know for a fact I am joining both. I don’t know which one I will write about—the ethnography.  Maybe both.

I try to stay Tapped-In, follow the blogs, follow the assignments and it is quite hard to keep up with it all given that it takes me I think, longer than the average bear. 

I have to go and read several blogs and if I don’t get to all of them, the thing I like about this class, and about blogs is that I can catch up—for my own knowledge—when I get the time—that is if the people leave their blogs up.

While messing around on Twitter, I found this and thought it was interesting.  Short and sweet, but informative (now I know why the little numbers are up in the corner for blog replies)—you’ll see what I mean if you join Twitter and comment to Dr. Lowell

http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=1430064531

Also, just wanted to mention that I have become a strong advocate for digital equity and find myself repeating things we have discussed in our forums and blogs.  I will more than likely go into the profession of educational technology.  I’d like to take a “build a computer” 101 class though, just to know more of the ins and outs of the hardware.  I wonder if a person can possess educational technology knowledge without being able to build computers and still be considered an asset to a company.

 I think this class is a great class to learn and become aware of all the ICT and all.  For me, it is my first of the sort, and whatever I don’t —or can’t spend time on now, I will keep with me—in my little media toolbox—to use for myself, and for the next class I take in this field.

My Opening Bell online newsletter led me to this article today, from USA Today.

 http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-25-single-sex-schools_N.htm

By Dorie Turner, Associated Press Writer GREENSBORO, Ga. —

Nearly four decades after this rural Georgia county stopped segregating its schools by race, it wants to divide students again — this time by sex. Greene County is set to become the first school district in the nation to go entirely single-sex, with boys and girls in separate classrooms — a move born of desperation over years of poor test scores, soaring dropout rates and high numbers of teenage pregnancies. “At the rate we’re moving, we’re never going to catch up,” Superintendent Shawn McCollough told parents in an impassioned speech last week. “If we’re going to take some steps, let’s take some big steps.” This pine-shrouded county of about 14,400 people between Atlanta and Augusta has in recent years become a magnet for retirees moving into luxury developments along the shore of Lake Oconee. But the vast majority of longtime residents — and most of the 2,000 students in the county’s schools — are black and working class. McCollough pointed to research showing that boys and girls learn differently, and said separating them will allow teachers to tailor their lessons. Also, boys won’t misbehave as much because they will no longer be trying to impress the girls, and the girls will be more likely to speak up in class because they won’t be afraid to look smart in front of the boys, he said.

 I just thought it related to our discussions.

What do you think?

Some of the points that Solomon makes regarding important factors in assessing educational equity are the social context, economic, political, and educational reform contexts.

Digital technology, I think, is improving the level of digital equity in certain age groups, mainly teenagers.  I think that in some older generations though, that digital technology can hamper digital equity since some people don’t want to learn the newest technological innovations if they don’t have to.  If it is not necessary for them to change their current style of communication then I think these people are reluctant to take the time to figure out how to change.

Access of digital technology is affecting cultures because it is bringing together cultures through the instant communication.

I think that to improve the rates of women professionals in the technology fields would be to give them easy access to pursuing professional development and college courses.  For younger women, instructors and the schools need to address this issue encouraging females to pursue this field.  Vocational schools should have computer technology courses for high-school students.

The following website has much information on the subject:

http://digitalequity.edreform.net/resource/1383

The technology adoption seems to be–in general terms–being implemented by just about any company that exits in one way or another when I googled this on the Internet.  I say this because it appears that way on the surface.  I think that many many companies are implementing strategies to integrate and educate technology into the many facets of their business needs, and they are doing it well.  I think that education the students of today in high schools is where the adoption lacks perseverance.

From http://education.ed.pacificu.edu/bcis/workshop/adoption.html

the following article was presented:

Adoption and Diffusion of Innovations What are the stages that teachers go through as they learn about and adopt these innovative applications of technology?General stage models of adoption:There are a number of Important adoption models. I will focus on two of the most important works in the field.1. Rogers’ “Diffusion of Innovations” (1960, 1995). His Innovation Decision Process Theory proposes that there are five distinct stages to the process of diffusion. The stages are:

1. Knowledge – when the person or group begins to learn and know about a new innovation
2. Persuasion – the person begins to form attitudes through interactions with others
3. Decision – there is a drive to seek additional information and a decision is made
4. Implementation – as regular use is attempted more information is sought
5. Confirmation – Continued use is justified or rejected based on the evidence of benefits or drawbacks

2. Hall and Loucks’ (1979) Concerns-Based Adoption Model is useful in explaining the lack of teacher investment in innovations, and describes the seven levels of concern that teachers experience as they adopt a new practice: (NCREL)

1. Awareness – Teachers have little concern or involvement with the innovation.
2. Informational- Teachers have a general interest in the innovation and would like to know more about it.
3. Personal- Teachers want to learn about the personal ramifications of the innovation. They question how the innovation will affect them.
4. Management- Teachers learn the processes and tasks of the innovation. They focus on information and resources.
5. Consequence- Teachers focus on the innovation’s impact on students.
6. Collaboration- Teachers cooperate with other teachers in implementing the innovation.

This interview brought about so many familiarities in my life, given that my 15 year old spends quite a bit of time on MySpace.  The core structure that Boyd spoke about, being the profile, the friends, and the comments (private ones as well) was right on the money in our situation.  My daughter has friends and talks to only them—-all the time.

As a matter of fact, my daughter told me not IM on Yahoo because she thought it was dangerous.  I don’t IM much anyway, but I just thought it was an irony.

Also, I thought I would join MySpace one day, and after joining, I got this “friend” suddenly, and it scared me.  His name was Tom(I think).  After I cancelled my membership and told a few people, I found out quickly that everyone new this guy.  He was the owner they said.

Back to the interview with Danah Boyd, I thought it was interesting when she was asked how these types of skills would help high-school students in the workforce, and I don’t think she gave a specific answer to that.  I do know that she spoke of the upcoming communication on cell phones being a different type of entity that kids are mainstreaming to—if they can afford it.  The other day, i finally called my carrier to put the media package on my daughter’s cell phone for unlimited Internet, Text, sending pictures….whatever, and that is much cheaper than paying for 4000 more text messages over the 1000 free ones we started out with on her original plan.  This is the reality at my house, and the child does see it as much less of an intrusion that calling.  One day I said, why don’t you just call them, and her reply was —what…not when I can text…

At & T Learning Circles were mentioned in the text chapter so I wanted to know more about them, and here is what I found out from the site http://www.iearn.org/circles/lcguide/p.intro/a.intro.html.

 With the support of the The AT&T Learning Network from 1987-1996, thousands of teachers and their students were engaged in learning circles around 6 themes and in 4 different languages.

An Overview of Learning Circles

• Learning Circles
• The Learning Circle Concept
• Learning Circle Interaction
• Phases of a Learning Circle
• Introductory Activities
• Learning Circle Projects
• The Circle Publication
• Exchanging Messages
• Learning Circle Themes
• Educational Benefits
• Teacher Comments 

Also, from AT&T they offer some information about how they are trying to reach out with grants to support technology integration into intruction.

 http://www.att.com/gen/corporate-citizenship?pid=7745AT&T Excelerator Grants and Funding Areas

After six successful years, 2008 marks the final year for AT&T Excelerator grant awards. AT&T Excelerator was a competitive grant program for projects that use technology to help nonprofit organizations build stronger communities. In 2007 alone, the AT&T Foundation provided $9 million in AT&T Excelerator grants to 680 organizations nationwide to help nonprofits fully integrate technology into their ongoing operations and community outreach.

After reading Chapter 14 I was interested in the processes that Solomon has described that teachers need to use to increase more Information and Communication Technologies ICT in their classrooms.  Solomon says that

“Ideally, the teacher is guided by the content and by student and teacher performance standards and follows the process of:

1.      Specify the instructional academic and democracy citizenship objectives.

2.      Identifying the optimal teaching and learning context.

3.      Reviewing the composition of the class in terms of diversity.

4.      Assessing what each student or group knows or does not know.

5.      Organizing the class into appropriate learning groups.

(I have used this survey before and I thought  I would list it.

http://www.paec.org/teacher2teacher/gotthehots_multi_intell_survey.pdf )

6.      Selecting the appropriate instructional ICT and non-ICT materials and strategies to assure full participation and access to the content standards by each student group and by each student within the group.

7.      Regularly monitoring the progress of each group and individual student with both ICT and non-ICT tools.

8.      Competing a culminating assessment to determine the achievement of each student and working group.

9.      Reflecting on how well the unit practice succeeded in realizing the instructional goals for the unit.

I then did some perusing on the Internet to find this article,http://www.thejournal.com/articles/17715,

which talks about the Sylvia Charp for Innovation in Technology Award and the ISTE’s National Educational Technology Standards that one has to go by in meeting the criteria when applying:

http://cnets.iste.org/students/s_esscond.html

Successful learning activities, such as this, depend on more than just the technology. Certain conditions are necessary for schools to effectively use technology for learning, teaching, and educational management. Physical, human, financial, and policy dimensions greatly affect the success of technology use in schools.A combination of essential conditions are required to create learning environments conducive to powerful uses of technology, including:

• Vision with support and proactive leadership from the education system
• Educators skilled in the use of technology for learning
• Content standards and curriculum resources
• Student-centered approaches to learning
• Assessment of the effectiveness of technology for learning
• Access to contemporary technologies, software, and telecommunications networks
• Technical assistance for maintaining and using technology resources
• Community partners who provide expertise, support, and real-life interactions
• Ongoing financial support for sustained technology use
• Policies and standards supporting new learning environments

This website is designed to provide teachers, technology planners, teacher preparation institutions, and educational decision makers with frameworks, standards, and performance indicators to guide them in establishing enriched learning environments supported by technology. These new learning environments provide rich opportunities for students to find and utilize current information and resources, and apply academic skills for solving real-world problems. These environments engage students in activities that have educational technology skills and relevant curricular content interwoven. Traditional educational practices no longer provide students with all the necessary skills for economic survival in today’s workplace. Students today must apply strategies for solving problems using appropriate tools for learning, collaborating, and communicating. The following chart lists characteristics representing traditional approaches to learning and corresponding strategies associated with new learning environments:ESTABLISHING NEW LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
Incorporating New Strategies

Traditional Learning Environments	New Learning Environments
Teacher-centered instruction	Student-centered learning
Single sense stimulation	Multisensory stimulation
Single path progression	Multipath progression
Single media	Multimedia
Isolated work	Collaborative work
Information delivery	Information Exchange
Passive learning	Active/exploratory/inquiry-based learning
Factual, knowledge-based learning	Critical thinking and informed decision-making
Reactive response	Proactive/planned action
Isolated, artificial context	Authentic, real-world context

The most effective learning environments meld traditional approaches and new approaches to facilitate learning of relevant content while addressing individual needs. The resulting learning environments should prepare students to:

• Communicate using a variety of media and formats
• Access and exchange information in a variety of ways
• Compile, organize, analyze, and synthesize information
• Draw conclusions and make generalizations based on information gathered
• Know content and be able to locate additional information as needed
• Become self-directed learners
• Collaborate and cooperate in team efforts
• Interact with others in ethical and appropriate ways

Teachers know that the wise use of technology can enrich learning environments and enable students to achieve marketable skills. It is still critical, however, that educators analyze the potential benefits of technology for learning and employ it appropriately.  

Well, I’m back in blogosphere this week and scrambling with responses and reading posts, and from Ronni Bennett’s  TIME GOES BY | Elders in the Blogosphere, the

“The latest Pew research, published 15 February, reports that 72 percent of U.S. people 55-64 are online (not necessarily blogging) and 37 percent of the 65-plus age group.”

The table is below:

I went through and changed the font color of where I fit into the age and culture of this table.  I did learn how to get the advanced toolbar to do this, so I figure I am advancing a little more with the technology as I do this…..and I learned how to paste the table in..

The article Mob Rules begins with the scenario of the fisherman of Kerala buying a GSM handset to communicate to the various ports to find out where he could best sell his fish.  This wireless communication can also benefit the poorest of people in their fish and farming markets.  Pesce talks about wireless phones and networks where he points out that the population of cell phone carriers will soon reach half of humanity in 2008, with the Nokia 1100 being one of the most successful marketing cell phones that supports this prediction because it is cheap and can text.

 Mark Pesce did a fine job of putting the technology of wireless networks into perspective for me.  I actually understood most of it.  I even went to Pirate Bay and joined and then cancelled my membership—because then realized that I don’t know enough yet –for that.  The RISC CPU running a custom version of LINUX, by Meraki, really showed me how the mob rules.