The battle for visits among Internet destination sites appears to be heating up and each seems to be integrating new services. Often these new services seem a bit removed from the original mission of the site.
In keeping up with an interest in what I would call “realistic maps” (e.g., images from space)(BBC analysis), Amazon has purchased a company (maps.a9) that provide “street level” views of selected cities. I suggest you locate a city you are familiar with and see what you can recognize.
One blogger described the site in the following fashion:
There are a couple dozen cities here containing most of the usual suspects for major citydom — Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Miami, Fargo — Fargo??! Pick a city.
Be careful now – Fargo is a major city to those of us who live in North Dakota. Uff-da, don’t you know.
Jeff Jarvis challenges the perception that content and distribution are not king and claims that conversation is. I have been following a series of bloggers who appear frustrated with the money schools spend on commercial resources (i.e., books). For some reason, perhaps because I write books, such comments generate in me a need to respond. Maybe this need stems from a sense of guilt. However, it is also seems possible I see the issue from a different perspective.
I have absolutely no quarrel with the notion that “the conversation” is important. Conversation, discussion, interaction, etc. are great ways to encourage the learner to think, process, integrate, etc. However, the quest of some to bring the process of education down to certain “basics can become self-promoting. In such discussions, it seems possible “others” are trying to tell the learner” what is best for him/her. In fact, as an “adult learner” I often prefer to purchase a book and not have to listen to the comments of potential teachers who may have a different agenda than my own. I can interact with the ideas of the author and I can use the Internet to locate “free” humans with opinions to test my personal opinions and stimulate my thinking through discussion. In a way, a book and a teacher are both resources intended to assist and stimulate the learner. Just for sake of argment, doesn’t it seem as accurate to claim that both free content and free conversation are available online?
I would propose a different perspective. I agree that there is a reasonable quantity of useful online and hard copy information. Information is also present in the form of content experts and in life experiences. What both good authors and good teachers do is locate and organize quality information and encourage learners to “process” this information and generate personal knowledge. In this effort, the “face to face” teachers has the opportunity to respond to students rather than having to anticipate what issues, misunderstandings, needs, etc. students may have. In most cases, the “face to face” teacher does not have the time to continually develop the background and review the potential information sources an author must consider. The author takes the risk of expending this time hoping that whatever product (a book, video, multimedia product) is generated will be regarded to be of sufficient quality to attract a reasonable number of purchases. It is a very competitive process. In fact, it is a competitive process I must engage in as an author that I do not have to engage in as a teacher. My teaching job is not constantly in jeopardy because another individual decides he or she is willing to engage in some form of competitive process for the students who might consider enrolling in the courses I teach (sounds something like vouchers).
It is easy to make “commercial” sound like a bad thing. It is true – I make some money writing a textbook. But, to be fair, I also get paid to be a teacher. Perhaps I see writing to teach and talking to teach to be more similar than others do.
Google continues to add to its collection of services. Googletalk provides free IM and talk (audio) communication. Goggletalk is not presently available for the Mac, but can communicate with iChat.
Googletalk is intended to work with Gmail (you must have a Gmail account, Googletalk makes use of your Gmail contacts).
The Milwaukee Sentinel has what appears to be a “back to school” series on “Is Tech in School a Fad?”
The short answer appears to be – it is too early to tell.
Research results are mixed. But most studies conclude that for computers and other technology to have much effect on student performance, a number of conditions are necessary: Teachers have to be technologically adept; classroom assignments have to allow for exploration; and curricula have to abandon breadth for depth.
Although schools have made changes in some of those areas, particularly increasing teachers’ technical proficiency, the predominant uses of computers remain word processing, heavily filtered Internet searches and the occasional PowerPoint presentation. In addition, with pressure rising to improve test scores, more schools have embraced skill-drilling software that contributes little to long-term student learning, observers say
Among the issues raised is the frequent observation that actual student use is less than one might expect given the increase in access to technology.
I must add this. My next door neighbor (actually the kid living on the next farm down the gravel road) and high school friend was Lowell Monke. We have pretty much gone separate ways since heading off to college. Lowell is interested in ed tech too –
For Lowell Monke, an assistant education professor at Wittenberg University in Ohio and former advanced technology teacher, the lack of results and questionable uses of technology have destined them to become another educational fad.
For an extended comment by Dr. Monke see – The human touch. How ironic is that?
My university starts the Fall semester today. I love this time of year. People who are lucky enough to have jobs doing what I do have something uniquely positive – we are allowed to experience an annual return to youthful enthusiasm. No matter what the age of your body, each year brings the opportunity take on new challenges and to do so in the company of many others on similar journeys.
I find myself caught between what I think are some of true benefits of the “college experience” and trends that may be moving us in a different direction. The ideal for me is a full-time face-to-face experience. I regret that tuition costs require that some students must water down the experience with a heavy work schedule or attend part time. Despite my commitment to instructional technology, I am not willing to argue the equivalence of distance education. I think what students or parents pay for is an environment. The environment is as much a function of the diversity and capabilities of the other students as it is of the instructors. Class time is a small part of the experience and the curriculum is much broader than those topics listed by instructors.
If you are lucky enough to be “full time” and “live”, I hope you appreciate the experience. I do.
I came across an article in techLearning (Mary Burns) arguing that teacher technology inservice should be based on a “just use it” rather than a skills training approach. The article was an argument against lengthy experiences in which educators learn the features of PowerPoint, BlackBoard (or whatever) even when an attempt is made to link this training to practical classroom applications.
The author lists several arguments explaining the limitations of a skills training approach:
technology rather than the curriculum becomes the focus
in order to meet the needs of each individual too many features are presented overloading everyone
skills approaches unintentionally focus on the expertise of the trainer rather than the skills of the learners
The author advocates minimal training, projects involving groups of teachers, and training individual teachers in skills that they pass on to group members (kind of cooperative learning for teachers).
As I read this article, I was evaluating some of the premises by way of personalization (Note: I hope other people do this. If not, I must be very egocentric.) Anyway, my institution has made a massive change in the way techology works on our campus by integrating all kinds of things through PeopleSoft software. I have heard all kinds of very negative things about this new system and was probably prepared to become frustrated, angry, etc. I decided to ignore the request that all faculty members attend a training session and just log on (I hope the connection to the Burns article now makes some sense). I did have some difficulty initially – I had thrown away the email providing my password. I tried the old trick of having the system send you your password by email but this did not work and I did become frustrated for a little while (it turned out the department secretary included the wrong email for me when enrolling department members – the “old trick” assumes the system has your email address). However, I eventually was able to connect and seemed to find a way to do lots of interesting things. Poking around to see what worked was fun. I must admit I was doing this without any pressure to get a specific task accomplished and not everyone would be willing to spend time in this fashion.
Promoting “Don’t Read the Manual” – My version of “Just Do It” (Note – I am just making this up so evaluate my reasoning carefully).
Playing is an active form of learning. If you are willing to play with technology, you create your own understanding. Good technology does not break. If it does, blame the technology!
Experience generalizes. Developers are allowed to use good ideas they have observed elsewhere and do. What worked before or what should be the case often is!
When I run into a wall, I do use the manual. This is inefficient in the specific case, but being inefficient in a few cases may be better than being efficient more times than necessary!
I sometimes do try to learn everything. I sometimes read the manual after I already know how software works. I did say sometimes. Thoroughness may be applied after I am convinced an application is really cool and I want to explore what more I might do with it. The details make more sense when I already know how something works and have experience doing productive things (a way to avoid working memory overload and a way to provide a context for learning).
The Washington Post has a nice piece on the consequences of playing violent video games. The article references several studies that appear to come down on opposite sides of the issue (i.e., leads or does not lead to violence). This appears to be a useful starting point for those wanting to become acquainted with the issue and contrasting positions.
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok
