Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Kinetic Energy

Well, my energy conservation project is finished. Whew! I found it challenging in a number of ways. And I didn't live up to my expectations. For example,


  • I didn't keep track of the weather. (But then again who needs to here in Ketchikan. It rained. The temp was between 30 and 45 fahrenheit. It was windy.)


  • Also, I didn't keep track of my data very well. I used a little black notepad. After Day 3, I didn't use it again to chart my gas consumption. Oops!


I learned a lot about my habits and that I don't really have enough time to drive anywhere-even if I could here in Ketchikan. Back and forth, back and forth. To and fro I went daily home to school, school to home. It amazes me, however, how much money and gas can be saved with people car pooling, biking, or walking.

My powerpoint can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/kaugpak. It goes over the basics of my study-my observations, data collection, analysis, and conclusion.

Also, my very detailed-but not detailed enough-spreadsheet can be found at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=po3KdBbMBxZK8FjADxzDqdA&hl=en.

Finally, I don't really have any plans to improve my gas consumption right now. I'm so busy and it's simply too difficult to care for a bike here in Ketchikan. Further, it would waste too much time to walk everywhere I went. Although, I admit that would be a most excellently fun thing to do. Oh well, maybe when I actually get a job.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

The Gas Fast

Question: How much gas do I consume in one week of normal driving?

There are at least three important things related to the consumption of gasoline.

  • First, supply and demand of oil drives to a large degree the world's economies.

  • Second, gas is very important to politics and foreign policy.

  • Finally, oil is a big issue for the environment.

All these issues are much more complex than mentioned and in fact are interrelated in rather complex ways, too. Through all the complexities, there is a thread of simplicity: oil and gas are volatile topics this day and age.

My wife and I each have a car. I putz around in a little green "tortoise," while my wife cruises in a red Subaru. I never thought that I'd ever get as reliant on a car as I am. I've always walked, biked, or ridden the bus, or hitchhiked where I needed to go. That is...until a year ago.

For these reasons, I will carefully examine how much gas I use during a week of driving. I plan to do this by filling up the tank every evening so I can figure out how much I drive in a day. I also will record where I go and why I go there as well as such factors as weather. It should be interesting.

Chao for now.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Practice of Read/Write the Web

Laron Thomas llthomas2@uas.alaska.edu October 22, 2008
“The Educator’s Guide to the Read/Write Web” by Will Richardson

Overview of Article

In Richardson’s article “The Educator’s Guide to Read/Write the Web," he proposes a change in educators’ paradigms toward technology use.

First, he claims that most educators use technology, and esp. the internet, to simply consume information if they use it at all. According to Richardson, this is old school thinking and not the goal of education. Instead, educators should use the newly available resources to create unique and highly interactive learning situations for the students where they can produce as well as consume. Hence, the name is Read/Write the Web.

This is the essence of the Read/Write Web paradigm. Students can use blogs, wikis, RSS (Really Simple Syndicatiton) such as podcasting to collaborate with others in a growing pool of knowledge on the internet.

Richardson goes a step beyond just reporting what’s new out there on the internet; he further discusses what educators need to do (i.e., the demands on teachers) to switch their pedagogical paradigms so that they can use these new educational tools, and the risks and benefits of taking such an approach toward education.

Reference Points

  • Read/Write Web focuses on tools now available on the internet to enhance student learning
  • Blogs can be used by students for reflections, collaborations, and student portfolios
  • I esp. like the idea of blogs used “to build classroom resource portals and to foster online learning communities,” (p 24) which students can be a part of
  • Richardson points out using podcasting for such things as “audio tours of local museums and points of interest, weekly news programs about their [the students and teachers’] classrooms, oral histories and interviews, and more” (p 26).
  • The teachers should not be the "sage on the stage" but the "guide on the side," modeling thier role as “content creators” (p27) and modeling how to use technology for academic purposes
  • Teachers should carefully monitor students with consideration of privacy and safety of everyone involved, school rules, and state and national laws as well as appropriateness of material

My Reflection

I found this article to be very helpful and thought provoking. I like how it describes the present context and technology tools before going into how educators can use them. Richardson provides many great examples of how these tools can be used in the classroom and to change the curriculum. The ideas he gives readers offer me a great source for starting to apply the use of technology in the classroom. Yet, with those applications of technology comes increased responsibility.

Our responsibility as educators is to think and collaborate to answer some tough questions. Richardson essentially asks, “What is literacy?” and provides some good ideas for how I can restructure my ideas of literacy as being more than just reading and writing.

Also, he suggests an “open content” model. I think this is an ideal that cannot be fully realized in the classroom; there are problems. Students are not automatically creators because it takes work. I find that they need A LOT of guidance so to think that they could create on their own seems a bit far fetched. I think that this is the case especially when students collaborate and when they use technology.

Finally, Richardson notes that one of our goals should now be to lead students to questioning and evaluating sources. This, I believe, is the goal of education in and of itself regardless of whether it’s technology-filled or traditionoal. Evaluation being on the top of Bloom’s Taxonomy, i.e., the most complex task, most students can only begin to perform these tasks. It’s not that they are not capable, but they are just not ready yet. That said, it is a great goal to shoot for.

Monday, October 20, 2008

AnthroTech Reflection

Anthropology 101:The Culture of Computer

This assignment asks the question, "What is the culture of computer in the Ketchikan Gateway Borough School District?"

To answer this question required a lot of fun, interactive work. It required me to participate in the assignments and projects of the schools' (i.e., Schoenbar Middle School or SMS, and Ketchikan High School or Kayhi) students to find out what they know and think about their use of technology.

I also had to observe my mentor teacher and how she interacted via computer and e-mail with the administrators and ed tech leaders. I even participated by sending such e-mails and communicating with those people to get things done.

Finally, I had to interact with the ed tech leaders by meeting them and talking with them, not an easy task at all here in the KGBSD.

I learned that the students in our district aren't as far along as I thought they'd be. Although they certainly know more than me, they aren't as adept as many older people think kids are. Even I can keep up! There is still a lot of use of paper and pencil, and in the KGBSD this is still the preferred means of learning.

The trends are changing, however. In fact, the KGBSD is a 'tweener, being in between the technology-less schools I grew up in and the technology-filled schools some might be (and most colleges seem to be quickly becoming). We have a lot of potential but have a long ways to go to use the technology we have most effectively.

I also learned that the ed tech guys are biz-ee (that is, extremely busy). You only catch a glimpse of them as they whiz by from school to school, call to call, problem to problem.

Most importantly, I think that this project helped me in finding out who to go to for help and how to reach them. Also, I now know the technology policies for the school and how to get the right gear to supplement my teaching. Finally, I understand where we're going as a learning community in our use of technology.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Article Assessment 1

Laron Thomas llthomas2@uas.alaska.edu Sept 14, 2008
Listen to the Natives by Marc Prensky
Overview
Marc Prensky in his 2001 article Listen to the Natives argues that teachers need to teach via digital media. His argument goes that, unlike in the past, today's generation of students are way different than past generations' students. He defines them as digital natives and digital immigrants respectively. Prensky states, "Our students are no longer 'little versions' of us,' as they may hve been in the past. In fact, they are so different from us that we can no longer use either our 20th century knowledge or our training as a guide to what is best for them educationally." Using this fundamental assumption, he argues for an all-out change in our education system. Along this line, Prensky proposes the following changes:
  • teachers hired for empathy not content knowledge
  • student engagement over content
  • students as classroom desicion makers of curriculum
  • teachers as facilitators
  • digital classroom with use of cell phones, wikis, video tapes, blogs, ebay, etc.
  • programming taking the places of traditional literacy
  • math through gaming

In this way, teacher, parents, and administrators ought to listen to the natives for educational reform and classroom change.

Reference Points

  1. Cliche language metaphor where today's students are native speakers, and the teachers are the digital immigrants of computers video games, and the internet.
  2. Students today are "evolving" so quickly that educators can't keep up with the usual inservice trainging and workshops.
  3. Too much emphasis on teachers' content knowledge. Instead, we need to focus more on their empathy and guidance abilities.
  4. Teachers should put engagement before content knowledge and encourage the students to design instruction by asking them how they'd teach class.
  5. Teachers still work as discussion guides but must learn to incorporate students' new prior knowledge.
  6. If educators listen to today's brightest students, they may provide the solutions to today's thorniest education problems, e.g., Webcam evaluations of teachers and streamline the homework submission and correction process.
  7. Herding and teacherds, i.e., "Herding is students' involuntary assignment to specific classes or groups, not for their benefits but for ours."
  8. "Programming is perhaps the key skill necessary for 21st century literacy. Many kids are already proficient enough to do their assignments as programmers.
  9. Techno-Byte: U.S. teachers who say that computer technology has affected the way they teach: To some extent--86%, A great --55.6% (eSchool News, 2005)
  10. Curriculum of the past is a "legacy" curriculum, which is not needed and "becoming an increasingly moribund and irrelevant institution." Students need to be learning about nanotechnology, bioethics, genetic medicine, and neuroschience and can meet with professionals in these fields via media.

My Reflection

I think that this article is absolutely rediculous in its content. The only way I can read it with out dropping dead laughing is if I take the weaker version of Prasky's argument. Prasky must have been using his stronger argument as a hyperbole, an overexaggerated story. He seems to use this as a call to wake educators up to changing trends in students' prior knowledge and teaching methods and tools. If he really meant what he said, I wonder how this article could have EVER been published. First, I will focus on the huge fallacies of his strong argument and how its complete nonsense. Second, I will turn gears towards what I think his point was in the weaker version of his argument.

Strong Version (Hyperbole?)

In this argument, I could attack many claims Prensky makes. I'll start with his main assumption that kids of the 21st century are digital natives and the adults are digital immigrants. Some psychologists propose a dichotomy between learning and acquiring knowledge. In this dichotomy, they propose (and I admit that I agree with them) that languages are acquired, not learned. Unless under very special circumstances, all people-and only people-everywhere acquire unconsiously at least one language pretty much completely by the time they turn five years old. Nobody needs to teach children language even though they don't know anything coming into the world. This language is one of the most complex systems. For example, computational linguists can only come to a very gross approximation of language as it is. It is a human phenomenon, which is different from learning knowledge consciously. Technology is learned consciously. In fact, this analogy is a cliche and is not even true. Many adults know how to use computers and media a lot better than kids. Kids may learn more about using media as they get older, but then again maybe they won't. In this way, the article is a gross overgeneralization. I'm not particularly savvy yet I haven't found many kids who know how to use media better than I do.

Further, there are some really BIG questions left untouched. Prensky mentions that the schools are not meeting the children's educational needs. Prensky proposes empathetc not necessarily knowledgable teachers, students as designing the curriculum, and "fun" instruction over content. Although I don't think that teachers have to be experts, they must know their subjects fairly well to be able to teach it. It's absolutely rediculous to even think of students creating their own curriculum. If we want to institute this, we are saying that children know what's best for them and should be the teachers. Where are the parents and the authority figures like the curriculum developers and teachers? The most educated people on these issues are the curriculum committees and teachers, not the students. Period. Now that's "common sense." Additionally, Prensky assumes that our educational woes (which is a questionable topic as is) have to do with lack of engaging teachers. I believe content can be fun and engaging, and it can motivate students to want to learn more. Finally, Prencky proposes programming as literacy. The problem with this is that students have to learn to program. Traditional literacy is really a prerequisite to programming much like his claim that we need to teach students nanotechnology. How can you get into nanotechnology without first understanding the physics and chemistry that make it possible?

So, Presky make A LOT of unfounded assumption on education and the teaching profession. He is BIG on change and lean on fact.

Weak Version

Despite the completely outlandish comments Prensky makes, his article has a thread of truth. Educators, administrators, curriculum designers and the like must think about how they can change curriculums to be more up-to-date, more relevant, and more apt to use technology to illuminate content used in teaching. Meanwhile, we must realize that qualitative knowledge is what we're going for, i.e., understandings. There are many way to reach these understandings and using different media sources can be a great way to teach such stuff. I as an educator can think of ways to make content learning more engaging by allowing my students to use these media sources. Further, they can play games to learn math, communicate with experts in their fields, etc. However, I think that we can and should make the content engaging in its own right for virtue that it is what it is.

Finally, I want to point out that it is important to listen to our students. They can assess us as teachers. They can help us as teachers by answering questions such as "What did you think about how we taught that?" and "Do you have any suggestions for how we can improve and make learning X more interesting?" It is true that we must listen carefully to what our students have to say. Then we can modify our curriculum, or game plan, accordingly.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Futuring 3

Sabrina's Journey
Sabrina's journey took her from her home in Klawock. Scared and liberated, she embarked on a circular adventure to Durango, CO and back home to Klawock. Her journey chronicles her feelings about each place. She asks herself the question, "Do I belong here?" Then she answers and explains why she answered the way she did.
This is absolutely a wonderful photo/audio essay. It answers an extremely important personal question we all have. Then she answers by explaining and describing all the situations she has been in on her adventure back home. It's a great reflection piece that my students could do. I think in particular this project appeals to the students I work with. English language learners need all the speaking practice they can get. It would be a great essay topic. "Do you feel you belong?"Use pictures and audio to explain. Many other questions could be asked also.

Futuring 2

EPIC 2015
To me, EPIC 2015 was a bunch of gobbdiddlygoop. Certainly it has a point as to an increased use and reliance on technology. In every classroom, I see computers where the students can access the internet and search for information. This never ever would have been imagined when I was in high school. (I didn't even hardly know how to use a computer until I was a sophomore/junior in college.)

The clip mentioned that podcasts allow people to communicate their own thoughts and music to others. According to EPIC 2015, it predicts that this will eventually lead to no newspaper medial as we have today. Instead, news-owned by Googlezon-would be given by individuals.

I don't see it because journalism is a profession and I think it will change to the times. Also, I think that it wouldn't make us as reliable on computers if we didn't want to be. To me, it all seems kind of odd and (yawn) a little boring. Too much information and worse too much bogus information. But it still should be able to be used WISELY in the classroom. In what way? I don't know.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Futuring

Fox and School Train
How would I "grade" or assess these two assignments? This question consists of two parts:
  1. What rubric I would use to grade the two works, and
  2. What grade I would give each of them

I will refrain from answering one in hopes that my answer to two will implicitly reveal the rubric I use to grade them.

  • School Train

School Train is a very fascinating take on metaphor. The students compare the school to a train. I think that the use of video media helped these fourth graders communicate their ideas. They made some good and interesting connections:

  • test-pull hard
  • conductor-principal
  • sit a lot
  • it takes a loooong, looooong time

Some of these would never be uttered by children in oral/written projects. Also, these connections appear to be highly reflective and do show an understanding of the concept. Obviously their use of video to show the school and the class was good. I think they could have connected what was going on in real time classes with the train more, i.e., more photos of the students in classes. Further, I think that, with the class working together as they did, they could have made more connections to solidify the metaphor and illustrate that they knew what they were talking about. I say this because my first impression was, "Do they know what metaphor is?" The other question is "What did each student put in? Was it equal? Or was it highly differentiated?"

The verdict: I would grade the class favorably. It's not an A, but also not a C. I give them a B.

  • Hannah-Fox Becomes A Better Person

I think that Hannah's traditional story was well done. I loved the use of visual and auditory media in her story. In a culture where stories are oral, the use of video was especially powerful. The story just wouldn't be the same if Hannah had written it down. Further, this story has a little more "meat" in it than the School-Train did. She uses the cultural characteristics poster at the beginning and closes it with one of those morals at the end. I don't know if the song was exactly appropriate to the occasion but it sounded nice. Plus, songs go well with stories. (I'm sure the teacher and song writers knew what they were doing.)The background images were outstanding and really brought the story to life. She looked a little uncomfortable up front and probably could have tweaked that a little bit. However, her movements and sound effects were fantastic. Also, I think given a language/culture class, she could have used some more words in Tlingit (she only introduced herself). It would have been nice to hear at least fox/duck/turtle/dove/bug in Tlingit, too.

The verdict: For good substance, backgrounds, moral, character development, etc. I give Hannah an A-.