Benefits and Risks of New Technologies

Yesterday I attended and facilitated a session at the TechForum in Austin, Texas. I want to write more here about what I was learning and thinking, but because I don't want to overload my blog I am going to spread it out and write a bit each day. I will start out with the session I facilitated since it has been on my mind so much.

What was supposed to be a "debate" on the benefits and risks of new technologies was really more of a discussion and a story sharing session. I hope that everyone who attended (and those who weren't able to) benefit from the materials that are collected in two places. One is the Conference Vault http://www.techlearning.com/events/techforum/vault.jhtml which has not been updated yet. The other is a wiki that was created for the session and added to http://childsafety.pbwiki.com. I hope that people will keep correcting and adding to the wiki so that it grows as a resource.

Speaking of Wikis there is a very interesting article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about a researcher who spent a lot of time putting false information into articles and watching to see how long it took for them to be corrected. He assumed that some of them would sit and not be corrected. He was surprised when all of the errors were corrected within three hours.

Mr. Halavais expected some of his fabrications to languish online for some time. Like many academics, he was skeptical about a mob-edited publication that called itself an authoritative encyclopedia. But less than three hours after he posted them, all of his false facts had been deleted, thanks to the vigilance of Wikipedia editors who regularly check a page on the Web site that displays recently updated entries. On Dr. al-Halawi's "user talk" page, one Wikipedian pleaded with him to "refrain from writing nonsense articles and falsifying information."

Here is a link to the whole article: http://tinyurl.com/y9ty3l

There were lots of other fascinating sessions at the TechForum. I will write more about it tomorrow.

Reading and Testing

In the October/November 2006 Reading Today there is a very interesting editorial by the current IRA President Timothy Shanahan. I recommend that you read it! Here is an exerpt:

"There's an old joke about a man who goes to the doctor. The doctor tells him that there is a spot on his X-ray. The man, in a cancer panic asks what can be done. The doctor takes him through an elaborate agenda of medications, radiation, chemotherapies and surgeries. The man says that it sounds terrible and the doctor replies "Or we could just touch up your X-ray."

He goes on to talk about how schools and districts are doing the same thing with testing. It is thought provoking!

(image from http://www.med.harvard.edu/.../Case4/WriteUp4.html)

K12 Online Conference Begins

It is good that it doesn't matter when or where you are to attend the K12 Online Conference because I am just realizing that there is no way I am going to be able to keep up with all I am interested in. I wish, as I have many times in the past, that I did not need more than 4 hours of sleep. Yesterday after teaching a full day (when I did not find any time to go online to read) I went and helped finish quilting a quilt for a relief sale. Then I came home at about 7:30 and ate dinner. Finally, when the dishes were washed I could sit down to read and watch Vicki's presentation about Wikis. It was great, but my mind was on slow. I do much better in the morning. So, the first day there were four presentations and I was especially interested in two of them and I only had time to look at one. Hmmm... If that happens every day I am happy that I will be able to go back to see what I missed.

Vicki's session was very interesting. It is great to hear someone presenting who is actually using Wikis with students. I learned a lot.

Do take time to click on these tags to Technorati. What they will do is to bring to you all of the other blogs that are talking about the conference. That is another thing that I wish I had more time to read. Maybe I need to take a speed reading course!

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K-12 Online Conference

I feel like I have just been away somewhere, but I was actually traveling virtually to the K-12 Online Conference Keynote with David Warlick. It was interesting and if you want to see my notes and the notes of MANY other people about what was said you can go to the Wiki that is set up for that purpose.

I just found out that I missed the fireside chat which was at 6 when I was coming out of my virtual visit with David and finally feeding the starving animals. Now that I have washed the dishes I will check in to see what is there.


Technorati Tags: k12online06 k12online

School Observation

As a substitute sometimes I have to think on my feet. This morning there were not many plans available and I just hate having kids do worksheets all day. I was happy when I saw a bank of five new looking computers in the back of the room. I thought I would set them all up to do MAP Attack, which is a web site based on Missouri's state test, the MAP. There are activities geared for each grade here and I am guessing that many of the standards are very similar here in Texas.

Too bad, no one knew the passwords to get into the student computers. I talked to the teacher of the class on the phone, the teacher across the hall and the media specialist and no one knew the username and password. They gave me things to try, but nothing worked. So, the bank of 5 computers sat unused. I thought of other activities instead of only doing worksheets, but the students and I were disappointed.

The school does have a pretty good web site that is up to date though.

Please respond to this post

I am writing this time to ask you a question: How do you keep up with all of the blogs you want to read? I started to delete some of the blogs on my bloglines that I just wasn't getting to, but then I started adding more and more because they were so interesting or somehow seemed important. Now I have more than 700 posts waiting for me to read! I know I can't read them all and so I click on a blog and there are 80 posts and I browse through and read a few that look really interesting. Next thing I know I am commenting and hours have passed and it is time to eat dinner which I have not prepared yet. Worse than that while reading more posts have come in so that I still have over 700 posts waiting until next time! Now and then I just click on the blogs to set them back to zero and start over. I guess that is all I can do. There is not enough time in a day for all that I want to keep up with. So I am curious about what other people do.

One of the blogs in my bloglines account that I will never delete, but that backs up like all of them is called Creating Passionate Users. What I really like about it besides what it say is how visuals are used! It is great! Check it out!

p.s. I find myself getting mad at those people who post more than one time in a day! How do they do that? I don't even have that many good ideas... and then to find the time to write them out???!!!

Is Balance Coming?

In the Austin American Statesman this morning there was a story that I recommend looking at if you are interested in what is happening with MySpace and Facebook.
http://tinyurl.com/ncsfh
It basically says that "youths" are beginning to realize the difference between online relationships and face to face relationships and some of them are getting rid of their MySpace accounts. It talks about a professor who "often lectures his students about 'Interpersonal Intelligence'. It is not an anti-myspace article, but it does suggest that some people are finding the need for balance! I think that is good.

Postive School Observation and Idea!

I finally have been to a school where students used technology and where the set up seemed to be very condusive to technology use! I was in a first grade classroom and there were five computers along the wall, which is what I have seen in most classrooms. However, this time they were all on! And not only that there were plans to use them! The five computers were a center that was used during center time and the first graders went to Starfall a terrific reading site.
The media center was also set up in a computer friendly way. There were 12 computers right in the center of the library where they would be easy to use and two others over to the side. I talked a bit to the Media Specialist there and asked about technology use in the school. She said that they are under huge pressure to raise their test scores and so teachers don't feel that they have time to do anything but the required curriculum and preparing for tests. She said that they used to do more.

One interesting thing was that they don't have a working web page. When you go to the link for their school you reach a directory without an index and there is no index to be found. I was disappointed.

I was pleased to find a terrific web page for another school that I had visited. It was well done and did not contain a calendar that was out of date. The best part about it was that it was done by the students. There was a link to the WebMaster page which had pictures of the club of kids that made the page last year. I wonder what is happening this year?

So, I guess it is interesting. One school I visited seemed to have lots of computers turned off, but has a terrific web presence and another impressed me with using the computers in the classroom, but has no web site. hmmmmm

I think that the use of Starfall is great, but it is really only a beginning. There are more powerful ways to use technology, even with first grade. It is only October though!

Collection of Ideas

This morning I had an "AHA!" moment when I realized that along with observing what is happening (or not) with schools and technologies I could also use my blog to share what excites me.

There are really so many exciting things that can be done in the classroom with technology to enhance learning of the curriculum.

One thing is to follow the migration of the Monarch Butterfly north from Mexico to Canada in the spring or south from Canada to Mexico in the fall. It is an amazing mystery how these butterflies know where to go every year. During the course of one migration it is possible to have several generations of butterflies hatch eggs and die. How do they know where to go?

There are so many applications of this project to the curriculum. Social Studies-geography, Science-life cycle, ecology, Arts-visual art, Language Arts-just about anything with writing or reading could be included (write letters to the Mexican Government urging them to protect the monarch's environment), Technology-there are several websites that follow the migration and have projects you can join. Journey North http://www.learner.org/jnorth/ is my favorite (it also has many other natural phenomena you can follow and Monarch Watch http://www.monarchwatch.org/ which includes curriculum. You can even plant a Monarch Garden at your school (Did you know that they only eat milkweed which is being killed off by herbacide resistant strains of corn and soybeans?). At the Monarch Watch site they sell milkweed seeds! This morning an article in the New York times Science section talked about the Monarch Watch project and said to email askscience@nytimes.com if you have any other questions.

Picture Credit: Pedroni, Leilani. Monarch Butterflies Emerged from Cocoon. monarchhatched2.jpeg. 2004. My eCoach^® eLibrary. Online. Available. 3 October 2006.