Blogalisation

Please find the video to which this post refers, here.

Lamb & Johnson have written a quaint little guide to social technologies mainly pitched at the teacher-librarian. The article may be accessed here.

The article is useful for new comers to technology as it gives a run down of the most common networking sites including media sharing sites like flickr and youtube and explains very briefly and in plain language what they do.

The article also describes a couple of the benefits of web 2.0 and the dangers that may come along with it, and it stresses the positive side of using the internet which is great in my opinion.

One of the interesting comments in the article was, “many students are unable to effectively evaluate the information that they gather from these various social contacts” which I find a little surprising. I would have thought that digital natives would be very discerning of the information which they can use and that they can’t in the digital setting. If this is the case, however, as teachers, it is important that this becomes one of the skills we teach our students, as it is vital for functioning in today’s society.

The other interesting point in this article was that regarding the use of the internet as a means to gain freedom. The authors mention that some students experiement with the internet like others do with drugs, and that this can sometimes be harmless and sometimes be dangerous. The concept of freedom through the internet was something which I hadn’t really considered, however it makes much sense to think that something with no bounds like the internet could provide a means by which teenagers can gain freedom from their parents/teachers/caregivers etc. . To me, this poses an interesting dilemma, how do we give our students the freedom they want/need through the internet whilst still protecting them from the dangers? I believe a great deal of rhetoric will be needed by any teacher to pursuade a student from accessing/creating something inappropriate via the internet whilst still allowing the student to, at the very least, feel as though their freedom isn’t being impinged.

The article also gives some ideas for modeling positive internet use by way of encouraging the use of social networks based on book clubs or writing clubs. I believe modeling ‘good’ use of the internet is one of the most powerful tools we have in relation to guiding our students usage of the internet, however it must be done with some credibility, something like a book club sounds, to me, very dull, and is likely not to be appealing to the majority of the students either, I think it is important to find material that will engage and interest the students and that is also appropriate for your classroom, modeling this will have a beneficial impact on the students’ usage of social technology, however modeling something that is irrelevant to their desires is somewhat null, in my opinion.

Sherry Turkle’s from powerful ideas to powerpoint presents an opinion of information technology making the world a ’shallow’ place in which people are taught to skim the surface of their world and see things in black and white. Turkle demonstrates her point by discussing the use of powerpoint in classrooms for presentations regarding poetry. Tukle mentions the complex nature of a poem with its multitude of interpretations and contrasts this to the powerpoint presentation with its bullet points and single authoritative voice presenting ‘facts’ to the class who do not disagree or pose argument. The interesting thing about this article to me is not the use of the technology itself, I believe students need to be taught to delve into complexity and do not disagree with Turkle that computers can help people become life skimmers who do not really understand the world in which they live, however as a student teacher myself who has had students deliver powerpoint presentations, I believe the technology does not forbid debate or problematic knowledge, at the end of every presentation in my class I ask my students questions pertaining to the bullet points they had presented, challenging their findings or assumptions, my students are encouraged to do the same, they often do. The powerpoint and computing technology in general, provides us with the facility to arrange and present our information in concise matter of fact ways, this does not mean that those facts are not or should not be contended. The internet is a good example of a counter point to her argument, in which she states we need to be able to be comfortable with ambivalence and contradiction, one google search will show a range of results regarding a single topic, all of which will have differing perspectives or at the very least nuances which we must sift through to find the most appropriate information for our purpose. Sometimes this is a purely personal professional purpose,other times it is an academic fact finding purpose, and I believe technology has given us greater access to this dilemma and through this, better equipped us emotionally and intellectually to deal with this ambiguity.

I’ve just read an article by Todd Oppenheimer regarding the use of computers in education which may be accessed here: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97jul/computer.htm . The article was written in 1997 which allows it some scope for having a dated and inadequate view of what ICT can do for the field of education, however even still the article seems a little naive and closed minded. The article does have some very good points, such as its opposal to the closing down of other school programs such as art and music to make way for computers. I agree that in the secondary school a wide variety of subjects should be made available to allow students to find their area of interest and develop the skills they will need to find a career that suits their personality. The main gripe I have regarding this article is the fact that it makes computing technology seem like another fad in education, it quotes the creators of previous technology such as radio and television and likens the computer to the same type of machinery which will ultimately have little impact on the way we teach an learn. The difference between computers and the former technologies is its application in the real world, how many occupations require the use of a television or radio? These two technologies are merely for broadcasting information from one place to another in one instance. The computer is much more than this, it has infiltrated every aspect of our professional lives and all workers need computer skills in order to be successful and competitive in the workplace. The computer not only broadcasts information but creates, manages and stores information, and is a new medium through which creativity can be expressed such as music or art. Due to this difference, there is every reason for governments to invest in educational technology by way of funds for computers.

After reading Papert’s ‘presentation’ of constructionist incorporation of technology in the classroom, I came to wonder if anyone had disagreed with his position. To me, it seems a very basic position to take on education, that the instrument through which something is constructed, should not be the main focus of instruction. I hold the opinion, though, that instruction in how to use the tools of a given subject should be conducted consciously but separately and alongside the construction of the subject matter itself. For instance, in the mathematics examples given in his article, the students were learning mathematics through constructing computer programs. I believe it makes sense to inform the students they will be using the computer to learn about a particular topic and then instruct the skills they will need to know to use the computer to complete the goal. From there the students begin the constructionism in making the programs and creating their knowledge of the topic.

Just an introductory post.

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