Journal 4

Journal 4

In the online article “Moderating and Ethics for the Classroom Instructional Blog”, Patricia Deubel outlines some key factors in creating a successful instructional blog. While blogs may seem like yet another unnecessary novelty in the educational sphere, the authors would seem to indicate otherwise. Educators see blogs as an opportunity for students to participate in class discussions without having to be in a classroom. For those students who “might have something truly relevant to say but are too shy to do so”, the blogs can be a great way to incorporate a broader range of views without the trammels of classroom teacher-student discourse and the typical “few who dominate discussion”.

The authors agree that in order for a blog to be effective, it must be bound by rules and guided by goals. Students, in order to standardize and regulate postings, will have word count/content requirements and will also abide by a mandatory code of conduct that will keep them abreast of ethical considerations pertaining to computer/internet use and well versed in standard netiquette. They also agree that student commentary should be top priority and that individual learning will take place most effectively when the students’ own ideas are allowed to come out and when they are active participants in their own education process.

1. Couldn’t an effectively monitored/guided classroom discussion be just as effective as this?

Public speaking isn’t that big of a problem for students, so in a sense, yes, a classroom could be effective. But blogs are unique because of just how open the responses can be in setting and in format. So students can not just reply how they want to, but when. Students may learn more because they will not just be reading class material, but will also be able to read other students’ responses and think about others’ ideas before responding themselves. Blogs don’t solve the problem of classroom participation in learning, but they do offer some very handy solutions.

2. Could this be a novelty concept, like the MUVEs?

Blogs are fairly straight-forward in their function and use, and they require very little technological expertise to operate or at least post. There are no elaborate avatars, economies, designed environments. It is simply classroom dialogue placed in a new setting that many students may find much more approachable than direct in-class participation. It makes the job of the teacher and the student much easier and requires very little computer knowledge on both their parts. Blogs may be here to stay.

Journal 3

Journal 3

In the article “Social Justice—Choice or Necessity?”, authors Colleen Swain and David Edyburn raise a number of questions regarding social justice as they pertain to a teacher’s selection of classroom technologies and their availability to all students. While providing some admittedly poor examples of technology use from a social justice perspective, authors Swain and Edyburn do provide a general set of ideas that define truly equitable technology use in the classroom, claiming that it should be equally “available; used routinely; used in ways that reflect real-world applications of interest, complexity, and power; used to enhance learning opportunities for all students; and used to monitor teacher/students progress over time.”

Questions

1. Is it really such a big issue that it needs an article written for it and a “Digital Equity Portal” devoted to providing resources for effective and fair technology use?

I don’t know if it’s that easy of an issue to solve. Social inequality exists because of historic prejudices, stereotypes, existing social systems and programs, and basic geographic and economic inequality that are intermingled with the others. It seems to me that this ideal of social justice looks good on paper, but as far as making it a reality in a classroom, a kid with a personal computer in his or her room will still be more technologically adept than a student who has to take a bus ride or wait for a parent to come home from work to get to the library for computer access. While the classroom can attempt to be a level playing field for all students, it cannot possibly hope to be the final solution to the problem of social and economic inequality and their effects on student opportunities.

2. Why is social justice in the classroom so important?

As educators, it is crucial that we create a learning environment that aims to promote equality and fair treatment for all students. In terms of technology, this includes providing equal access and being prepared to assist those students who may be at a disadvantage when it comes to learning through technology. This is how technology use in the classroom enters the realm of social justice and gains new significance.

Journal 2

Journal 2

The article “Real Life Migrants on the MUVE” by Ross A. Perkins and Cathy Arreguin explores the worlds of possibilities and opportunities for learning in MUVEs, or, Multi-User Virtual Environments. Explored for entertainment value in massive-multiplayer online role-playing games where users can create virtual identities for themselves and interact with others in mythical worlds and slay dragons, now educators are catching on and beginning to embrace this technology in the classroom.

Some see this technology as an invaluable tool that could allow students to learn in more abstract ways and could allow teachers to present students with learning situations and environments where they could be studying multiple subjects or ideas simultaneously. The article focuses on a specific program called “Second Life” from Linden Labs in San Francisco whose technology has been implemented in the 8^th grade curricula at Suffern Middle School. While many call it a novelty, the fact remains that many educators are endorsing MUVEs as learning environments of the future where the possibilities are truly endless.

Questions

1. Why would teachers go through the trouble of paying a subscription to a service, buying computers and programs, then learning the software and going through the trouble of creating a digital bulb and a digital socket, just to teach kids how to screw in a light bulb when they could be learning how to do this in real live? Is this technology really that convenient or does it foster creativity at the expense of practicality?

Teachers would use these environments not just to teach kids simple things, but to provide them with diverse and unique opportunities for learning that they otherwise would not have been exposed to. The technology is by no means convenient, but the lingering hope is that the work put into developing a lesson plan in these environments will pay off in the learning experiences, progress, and understanding of students.

2. What are the estimated costs for the sustained use of this program in education?

The Second Life website says membership is free.

Journals 1,

Journal 1

In the article “Your Google Guide”, author Doug Johnson takes a look at the search engine Google and provides readers with some easy tips for effective online searching. Some excellent suggestions include putting searches in the form of a question and learning how to use search operators effectively. Johnson includes some revealing facts about internet searches from author John Battelle’s The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture, such as how nearly 50% of all Google searches use two or three words and 20% use just one word. Also fascinating is that an estimated 80% of Google searchers never proceed past the first page of results and have never used the more effective “advanced search” feature. In the end, Johnson states that the most obvious and yet most important tip in getting useful results in Google is to first and foremost “know what you’re looking for.”

Questions

1. How did Google become so popular? Is it just that good at finding things? How?

Johnson says that we as searchers use Google to the exclusion of nearly every other search tool on the Internet. But why? He writes that “the genius behind Google and its effectiveness comes from the method by which it orders the pages it finds” and that Google ranks its results by the number of links from other websites that a given page has.

2. How can Google afford to pay for all of its free services such as Google Earth, Google documents, and Gmail?

In the article, Johnson says the beauty of Google is that its users don’t know the difference between sponsored links and the real internet results.

Introduction Assignment

My name is Jacob.

I’ve grown up, gone to school, church, and most everything else in San Diego.

And while some might call that boring, I call it...

well,
so maybe it's a little boring.

But I am, to a certain degree, a creature of habit who is well accustomed to his habitat and I haven’t felt the urge to really venture beyond San Diego for any substantial period of time yet. I say “yet” because I’ve heard that teaching opportunities are not by any means abundant within the San Diego area, so it could be very likely that as I write this and, word by word, begin my journey to becoming a teacher, I may be setting into motion a series of events that could very likely be the impetus for me to leave and test the waters outside of my comfortable sanctum of a home. Who knows.

At this point I’m beginning to wonder if veering from the prescribed three-paragraph format will make me lose points. Perhaps it’s best to err on the side of caution…

I went to La Costa Meadows Elementary school and have considerably decent memories from every grade but the third grade and I really can’t say why. I went to San Marcos middle school for seventh grade but then transferred to Oakcrest in Encinitas for eighth grade. I served all four years of my high school sentence at La Costa Canyon high school where I played lacrosse all four years and have spent the years subsequent my graduation missing it sorely.

As for technology, I only got a cell phone about 2 years ago and still hate the wretched thing. To answer the prompt, I don’t mind Macs but their user-friendliness and style it seems are luxuries that many (including myself) cannot afford, hence the HP laptop that I am currently writing on. My parents recently bought a trashcan with a motion-sensor lid that opens when its sensor is triggered by holding garbage in front of it and it’s the most infernally frustrating and unnecessary piece of technological crap that I’ve ever seen in my life. I wasn't aware that there are people who are in the business of creating complete pieces of trash that actually function as trash receptacles as well. My mistake.

I use a variety of technologies in making music at home, from my beloved drum set to my guitar, sampler/drum machine, amplifier, and various pedals for looping and processing what I play or play along with. I also work at a Starbucks where we use a very complicated and frequently dysfunctional machine to brew espresso coffee and steam milk for our specialty coffee drinks as well as blenders and brewers for the others. All around I’d say I use a lot of technology and would have to agree with Tesla, who saw technology as a tool for allowing mankind to overcome the burdens of work and the traditional boundaries of time and space so that we could fully utilize our cognitive and imaginative capacities for the improvement of the quality of life for all mankind.

As for the mission statement, I think that “transform” and “social justice” are good but (in the case of social justice) often times loaded terms but, to avoid an argument for argument’s sake, I more or less agree with the statement. I hadn’t read it before applying to CSUSM, but I did apply here because I heard the teaching program was excellent, so perhaps it can be counted as a sort of secondary motivating factor in my application. I agree with the shared governance/Socratic/democratic elements of the statement as well and believe that the educational environment must be one where every idea and opinion is afforded an equal opportunity for expression so that the fullest realization of an idea or truth can be realized.

And I suppose that's it...

And instead of a picture of me, I'll sweeten the deal and upgrade your blog reading package by throwing in a video, free of charge.

enjoy.