EDUC 628-Spring-08

While reading Solomon’s chapter five related to the many, many different kinds of literacies that exist today I feel that a good bit of information can be provided by looking at the not-so apparent kind.

The Project Fresa, that is talked about in the book on page 70, has a website that I decided to take a look at.

http://eden.clmer.csulb.edu/netshare/cti/%20FOR%20PSRTEC%20WEBSITE/Amada%20and%20Michelle/lessons.html

A lesson from the Kansas Collaborative Research Network (KANCRN) is shown here.

http://kancrn.kckps.k12.ks.us/cookie/index.cfm

I decided to look up smoke signals and I ran across this site, which looks pretty informative of Native American history and culture.

http://www.native-languages.org/composition/smoke-signals.html

The California Association for Bilingual Education site can be found here.

http://www.bilingualeducation.org/  while the Center for Language Minority Education and Research (CLMER) is found here.

Each one of these sites shows me a different kind of literacy.

After reading Gail Mellow’s Call for Equity for Community Colleges I was watching a talk show last night and someone had won a scholarship to a Community College, and everyone just laughed.  I do think that Community Colleges have been snickered at much too often.  I went to Maysville Community College and the instruction was tough.  They were up to standard and I would advise this college to anyone.  I am proud that I went there.

In her article Dr. Mellow points out how the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) , a data collection system that is used for both federal data collection and also many state data systems is used while it is an outdated system and survey methods of colleges need to ne up-to-date to account for the various factors of college enrollees.

She brings up issues about the Community College system that people need to be aware of, and just what these colleges do for their students and community.

What can the study of distribution tell us about learners? 

After thinking about what the study of distribution can tell us about learners, I think that if instruction is geared more to the individuals needs….and likes and preferences then perhaps more learning will take place.  Like for example, I subbed the other day for some remedial students, and whenever I have this one student, and when he gets on the computer, he is always looking at cars….so I looked up some “car buying” webquests that perhaps I could let him try the next time I sub, if I’m allowed.

 What constitutes literacy?

I think literacy come in many, many different forms.  Something could be so simple for someone to do, yet not for somebody else, so I think people can be literate or not of many things.

Yesterday I had an idea, but I don’t know what people will think about it.  They may think I am nuts.  I just thought that if there were lessons out there in one spot for teachers to access (I know there already are)..but ones that already are tied to the core content, then I thought more teachers would be apt to use them.

After reading Marc Pesce’s Unevenly Distributed: Production Models for the 21st Century along with Angellalee’s blog The business of school http://angellalee.edublogs.org/ and dancingnancy533’s comment I came up this idea. 

What if there was a social network that decided to take on the beginning of setting up an online school—like this class.  It could be just be for those who want to contribute—no grade. 

I know it is a lot but it could be a beginning.  For example, it could begin with 6^th grade math and the Core Content and Program of studies is shown first..like below.

 Big Idea: Number Properties and OperationsMiddle grades students understand fractions, decimals, percents and integers, compare them and locate their relative positions on a number line. They develop and use proportional reasoning to solve problems.  They work with large numbers and small numbers. They use factors, multiples and prime factorizations.  They perform arithmetic operations with fractions, decimals and integers, use properties in computation, develop fluency and develop strategies to estimate the result of operations on rational numbers. 

Academic Expectations 2.7 Students understand number concepts and use numbers appropriately and accurately.

2.8 Students understand various mathematical procedures and use them appropriately and accurately 

Core Content MA-06-1.1.1Students will provide examples of and identify fractions, decimals and percents.

Program of Studies:  Understandings MA-6-NPO-U-1

Students will understand that numbers, ways of representing numbers, relationships among numbers and number systems are means of representing real-world quantities.

Programs of Studies:  Skills and Concepts MA-6-NPO-S-NS1

Students will continue to develop number sense using fractions, decimals and percents, including percents greater than 100% and improper fractions. 

….and the instruction is tied to the Center for Educational Technology Standards

http://cnets.iste.org/teachers/t_stands.html

 …and then people could add their lessons, like YouTube videos of instruction, and other online teaching lessons…. I know that the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives is a good resource for math.

http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/frames_asid_106_g_3_t_1.html?from=category_g_3_t_1.html

  ….just an idea.

After I read  Marc Pesce’s Unevenly Distributed: Production Models for the 21st Century  blog, I was impressed with the way he laid out how the Internet changed music distribution and movie production since the mid 1990s.  I had heard of Napster, but did not know the history and the details of Shawn Fannin’s creation of it.  Also, BitTorrent, being designed by Bram Cohen, and how transfers happen by “hyperdistributing” film was news to me as well.  I guess I’ve been under a rock or something because I thought I was sort of up with technology, but I know now that I was just emailing and blackboarding until now.  I like what Marc Pesce says about microaudiences and the importance of the media to these audiences, especially when he shows how producer Ronda Byrne, declined by the Australian Channel NINE to broadcast her film The Secret spread news of the film herself to certain intended audiences, and it then sold over 2 million copies.

It is a book. First Chapter:  http://cluetrain.com/book/apocalypso.html

It is a website.  http://www.cluetrain.com/

It is a set of 95 theses.  http://www.cluetrain.com/ 

It is a definition in Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluetrain_Manifesto#The_main_idea_of_the_.27Cluetrain.27_theses

The manifesto was written in 1999 by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger

The book and website both challenge what the manifesto calls outmoded, 20th-century thinking about business in light of the emergence of the Web, clearly listing “95 theses“, as a reference to Martin Luther’s manifesto which heralded the start of the Protestant movement

http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/wittenberg/luther/web/ninetyfive.html

My best synthesis from all of this information is that the Cluetrain Manifesto is the human voice and that it can be heard on the Internet louder now than it ever could in the past—without the leverage of the Internet, and the human voice can change everything.

While I have spent most of my day trying to play catch up, I have realized that it is not going to work.  I cannot sum up the information I need to know about Cluetrain, Solomon’s chapter 5, and everything else so quickly and it is due to my inefficiency this week.  I will be up and running in the blogosphere full force daily from here on out.  I can tell you that.

…until my next blog have a good evening everyone. 

I’ve got a lot to catch up on today since I have avoided my studies for a week.  My own fault.  Sometimes I try not to spend endless hours on the computer all week, but that just puts me in front of the computer all day long today.  But you know what…that’s okay because I am finding that I can learn more in twenty minutes from being on the Internet than I have learned from lots of the other things I have done this week, so maybe I’ll be a genius by midnight.

First of all, I really thought I knew quite a bit about technology until taking this class, since I will ask teachers if they do podcasts or webquests….or you name it….they look at me like I have two heads.  I can’t wait to do this stuff, so I am glad I’m here, blogging away.

In response to Dr. Lowell’s post Compare and Contrast (I’m still working on linking…I know I am hanging on to the back of the bus) from http://durandus.com/phaedrus/ about comparing the conversation streaming of his Four Barriers? Really? post on his blog Phaedrus to the conversation stream of the same post on Connie Weber’s Fireside Learning site, I do think there are definitely subculture niches.  The are forum users. There are bloggers, virtual chatters, and some do all.  But I am new, and it is all new to me…blogging….ning, etc. 

I will say that for me the difference that impacted me the most relates simply to the logistics and the differences between blogs and forums.  When I read the blogs of people and then the comments, it seems to me to take a while –which it should– because I am going from one blog to another and then back again, and then I feel like I will never have an intelligent answer to the beginning question that I have to go back over again because I have trouble following everything.   Again, I am knew at this.  But when I went to the Fireside learning forum, it reminded me of the MSU Blackboard—if you could see everyone’s posts.  I liked the forum conversation stream and found it easier for someone like myself to follow and after going to his page, I ran across Dr. Lowell’s post like Introduction and Apology Where he begins with Greetings, Earthlings. I come in peace….  on his page http://firesidelearning.ning.com/profile/NathanLowell, so my point is that I would rather scroll than click.

..and while I was scrolling I read on from Dr. Lowell’s post and one of the bests parts that I like was this:

So after learning this “fact” — distance education isolates students — I went home and logged on. I asked my friends in Singapore, London, Fargo, Boston, Sydney, and Osaka if they felt isolated by being online.
None of them did. I took polls of my group-mates, between slaying dragons and leveling up — usually while we were healing and regaining expended mana, if they felt isolated by being online. None of them did.

I loved the whole article.

So, today I figure I won’t feel bad about how long I can sit in front of my computer any longer.  I sit here today, with my dog in my lap, and my husband is building my home office….my oldest daughter is downstairs on MySpace and my youngest watches Aquamarine—again….and I don’t feel bad about it.Also, I realized why my daughter likes MySpace so much because I may become a ninger—-not the right lingo I know.  I did have to look up ning to get a definition, and there was many, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ning kicked back that it is an .. online platform for users to create their own social websites and social networks.  

Well, last night I read this chapter, and I had to keep reading things over and over…but anyway, on pages 85 and 86 I found the what Solomon said about Native American Tribes’ history not being reflected in adopted textbooks quite a lot to think about.  I thought about how I take for granted what I have access to and so I looked into a few of the texts minority developments that are spoken about.  The URT and the AIHEC sites are shown below as well as a virtual library for the AIHEC.

 http://www.uintarivertech.com/about.html

 http://www.aihec.org/ 

http://www.aihecvl.org/