Audio Blog 1

If you're having trouble hearing the audio, here's the link to it online:
Milestone 7

Stories Posted

So, after sitting here posting my stories for the last two and a half hours, I'm going to say that I'm slightly a little relieved/frustrated. I found voicethread to be almost unbearable, as I cannot for the life of me get my mic to pick anything up. Along with that, the voicethread seems to be progressing too quickly through my pictures, so even if it were picking up sound, it would not be on the picture long enough for everything said to get through. However, I was reasonably impressed with the animoto application. I really enjoyed that, and it was practically painless. You find pictures on flickr or your computer and upload them, that's all. I see little point in performing anything on Scrapblog as that just seems like a glorified, online PowerPoint. It would be less effort to create a PowerPoint and just post it online, so that's what I think I'm going to do from now on instead of using the Scrapblog application. I do have to say that I am extremely glad that I'm done with these things though. My animoto didn't last a full minute, but I'm hoping that no one is going to complain too much about that.

CI 335 Voicethread Story # 3

CI 335 Scrapbook Story #2

CI 335 Animoto Story 1

Blog Group A Reply

These are the blogs I responded to this week:

http://paulsciblog.blogspot.com/
http://sacsquatch.blogspot.com/ &
http://jimbosblog-jimmy.blogspot.com/

Selling your Soul: Education Style

So, this is the new way for students and teachers to interact...money. Well, it had to come down to this didn't it? Isn't money always the breaking point for every educational issue that we, the United States of America, face. If we just throw money at the problem, it will go away. I have news for these people, what happens when the students spend their little stipend and have nothing left to fall back on because they don't want to retain the knowledge, they just want the cold, hard cash...nothing. That's what happens, they fall victim to the same poor schooling and social status that they were in prior to this "Harvard" study. Of course Harvard wants to throw money at kids...they have plenty of it. The fact of the matter is that students learn and retain knowledge only when they see the need for long-term use of it. Can I remember my Constitution test, no. Why? Because I really didn't feel it relevant for daily use...I learned it up to a certain point (the test) and then I forgot it because that was the easy thing to do. What this bribery is doing is taking stipends to a whole different level. It's causing some students to perform that type of garbage regurgitation for their whole high school career. Are we doing any of the students a favor, no. Will the "good" students get good grades regardless of the money, yes. Will the "at-risk" students remember and process anything they learned from the previous year, not if they're only in it for the money. I was looking for a good closing to my rant when I stumbled across a quote. Now, normally I only reserve quotes for research papers and things that really irritate me. This happens to be neither, but, because of the importance of this experimental education and the slippery slope I feel that it is leading us down, I thought I would try to find a quote that summarized my thoughts. My teacher always told me that someone far smarter always had said something far more eloquent than what I would say on important subjects. While she was quite a downer, I believe that is mostly true. Anyways, I digress, but the quote I found fits well, and is by a classic American that pulled himself up out of poverty by his own bootstraps, Henry Ford. He said, "If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability." This quote basically summarizes my position; whether teacher, parent, or taxpayer, money does not make for a long-term answer, the thirst for knowledge is the only thing that can really make a lasting impact on a student's educational experience.

Other links on this topic include:

Sun-Times Commentary
Daily Illini Opinions
Dana Goldstein's Blog (no idea who she is)
USA Today's Opinions

These are the blogs I replied to this week:

http://sacsquatch.blogspot.com/
http://paulsciblog.blogspot.com/ &
http://markci335.blogspot.com

Blog, Week 2: Ken Robinson and Creativity

So for this blog, on Ken Robinson saying that schools are killing creativity, I decided to do a running blog. I got this idea from my favorite ESPN writer, Bill Simmons. He says what he feels during the games, as they occur, in a conversational style like he is talking to a person sitting there watching it with him. I wanted to do this to see if my position on the subject changes or not during the speaker's message and whether or not I agree with him on parts or on the whole of his speech.

3:16 in: The speaker says that creativity is as important in education as literacy. I'm interested to see where this goes. I'm not sold yet as literacy opens up a wealth of knowledge to a child that their own personal creativity cannot.

4:40 in: Mel Gibson joke on Nativity 2: not funny, but I enjoyed the Frank sent this bit (I hope he's planning on tying these stories in somehow).

5:50 in: Ties it in with: If you're not prepared to be wrong, you won't come up with anything original. I like that. I think that sometimes school districts can hold on so tight to an out-of-date curriculum or ideal just because they fear change, they fear mistakes. As an educator you need to be able to be wrong, if we don't learn from our mistakes, why should we expect our students to?

6:20 in: We are educated out of it. I do not dispute the fact schools tend to be less than enthralling, but schools aren't the only things killing creativity: video games, t.v., lack of social contact. These are things that are just as damaging to a young mind.

8:20 in: Taking pot-shots at his kid's ex-girlfriend is just dirty.

9:00 in: Dance as important as math, you've got to be joking. No one is going to dance everyday, but we all do basic calculations everyday. How would teaching dance everyday get you prepared for the real world?

10:00 in: Does this guy remind anyone else of Michael Caine? Anyone?

11:35 in: The most useful subjects for work are at the top of school importance is his point 1: isn't that what we're going for, to make students able to support themselves with a livelihood? If you are good at something and enjoy doing it, such as music and art, why can't students do them after school? I love watching sports, but I'm not allowed to take St. Louis Cardinals 101 at either the University or the high school level.

12:00 in: Academics are set up to get students into Universities: point 2. Fair enough, it's hard to argue that, what with standardized testing and teaching towards a test. The only other argument could be that teaching is set up so that students earn the most amount of funding for their school by passing tests (I love NCLB), but that's along the same lines as his point.

12:30 in: Wow, I still have 7 minutes left.

12:40 in: "Degrees aren't worth anything." That's a comforting thought.

13:10 in: Intelligence is diverse, dynamic, and (2 minutes later) distinct. Really what did this forage into the three d's of intelligence tell us that we didn't already know?

13:40 in: Creativity is defined by this guy as "the process of having original ideas that have value." How do we or who determine(s) value? What is creative and what is not? How can you have a definition like that and expect people to inherently know what is creative and what isn't?

14:05 in: Taking a shot at the wife and her cooking in front of a large crowd. This guy has a death wish, or likes the couch.

15:45 in: ADHD an invented condition, finally someone I can agree with on this subject. You can either sit still, or not, pay attention or not, and it has nothing to do with a brain/learning condition. It has everything to do with whether or not the student has structure and discipline towards his schooling or not. And that structure and discipline comes mostly from the parents at home.

17:40 in: Story of Gillian Lynne was, I guess in a way, proving his point, but really I've seen little evidence or proof towards his position. I'm not saying I disagree with his position, just that in this particular talk, the evidence towards his point given seems pretty thin.

18:30 in: he gives a great closing speech, but like I said, he gives nothing concrete, nothing for teachers to change or hang their hats upon.

All in all, I liked this guy. He was entertaining, funny (sometimes), and passionate about what he was talking about. He has all the marks of a great speaker, but insofar as proving his point, or giving me something concrete to use, I don't feel as if he did that.

Technology

The question is, "Given the realities of our modern age and the demands of our children's future, is it really ok to allow teachers to choose whether or not they incorporate modern technologies into their instruction?" My reply is that I do believe that is okay. I think that schools should be responsible for making sure that children are technologically literate, however, there should be a specific class that is accommodating them in this area. I think that teachers should not be forced to delve into an area in their own classroom in which they are uncomfortable. The best way for students to learn from a teacher is if the teacher is in a comfortable environment, as that is always the best way for the information the teacher has to be passed down to the pupils. Not that a teacher should just stand and lecture everyday, but if a teacher doesn't know how to give a multimedia presentation, making them do so is just going to bring chaos into the classroom as the teacher will be unable to understand and process a new way to disperse a lesson. So, while I think that schools should have a class in which they are teaching students technology (and they should have someone expressly trained in the teaching of technology), I do not think that teachers should be forced to have cutting edge technology in their classrooms if they are uncomfortable with it.

This is my blog for CI 335.