I have been neglecting this blog most terribly, and for that I'm sorry. The fact is, the current semester is quite demanding, and I really haven't had time to reflect upon the technological aspects of what I'm learning about. Rather than simply shutting down this blog, however, I am optimistic that things will change by Christmas. To that end, I have started another blog, The Growing Librarian, and I will split my reflections between the two blogs. Reflections centering around technology will be explored here, at Sci-Fi Now. If all goes well, by this time next year, I will be a school librarian, helping students grow into inquisitive adults -- hopefully with better success than I've had with my garden. The Growing Librarian will focus on my garden of learners, what we're doing and exchanging ideas with others in the field.
All that is in the future though. As I said earlier, this semester is proving to be quite a challenge, so I am unlikely to get any more blogs out until some time in December. Here's wishing everyone a good and productive sprint to the end of the semester.
Sci-Fi Now
Monday, November 10, 2014
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Simple but Important Details
This morning, my son was faced with a terrible decision. He could deny Mommy privacy in the bathroom, or play with Roomba Rita. At two years old, he isn't much for delayed gratification, so he went to the office, picked up the Roomba and "her" charging station, and brought them into the bathroom to be with me. Had he just wanted to run the vacuum, all would be well -- but he tried to dock her and was getting very upset when she wouldn't do it. His problem: when he picked up the charging station, he detached the power cord. Without power, the Roomba didn't know the charging station wasn't just another toy.
My son's favorite toy is a robotic vacuum from iRobot. How sci-fi is that! Getting back to the point though, he was flipping out because he didn't understand that the power cord was important. Later, when I was swapping out DVD players in an upstairs bedroom, I had trouble getting an image on the screen. What important detail had I missed? The old machine had used one video connection, and the new machine was using another -- I had forgotten to detach the old video cable from the TV when I attached the new one, and the TV was trying to use the old connection. Had I been looking at the connections directly, I wouldn't have missed that -- but it was in a tight spot and I was using a small hand mirror to find my connections. Lately, this sort of thing has been happening a lot - a dail not set, a laptop under a poster, an MP3 player in the gym shoes....
Why am I telling you this? It's all about resiliency. When you try to do something, if it doesn't work the way you expected, stay calm -- it may be a simple but important detail. I believe it was Dune that told us that fear is the mind killer -- well, so is panic and anger. If we can stay calm in the face of life's problems, we will often find that our problem will be solved with the addition, or subtraction, or a cable. Proverbial or otherwise.
My son's favorite toy is a robotic vacuum from iRobot. How sci-fi is that! Getting back to the point though, he was flipping out because he didn't understand that the power cord was important. Later, when I was swapping out DVD players in an upstairs bedroom, I had trouble getting an image on the screen. What important detail had I missed? The old machine had used one video connection, and the new machine was using another -- I had forgotten to detach the old video cable from the TV when I attached the new one, and the TV was trying to use the old connection. Had I been looking at the connections directly, I wouldn't have missed that -- but it was in a tight spot and I was using a small hand mirror to find my connections. Lately, this sort of thing has been happening a lot - a dail not set, a laptop under a poster, an MP3 player in the gym shoes....
Why am I telling you this? It's all about resiliency. When you try to do something, if it doesn't work the way you expected, stay calm -- it may be a simple but important detail. I believe it was Dune that told us that fear is the mind killer -- well, so is panic and anger. If we can stay calm in the face of life's problems, we will often find that our problem will be solved with the addition, or subtraction, or a cable. Proverbial or otherwise.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Getting Back to the Future
I'm currently reading Educating for Global Competence by Veronica Boix-Mansilla and Tony Jackson, but I keep getting distracted by one thing: the sci-fi tie-in. Thus far, chapter 1 is talking about how the world is getting flatter -- which I would have called getting smaller. People are migrating faster than ever before, employers are employing, manufacturing, and selling internationally, and we have to figure out how to prepare kids for the rapidly evolving world that they'll be faced with by the time they graduate. All this boils down to a global economy of minds, people, and money where national borders mean less now than they ever have before. If this is, indeed, what is happening, then take this progression a step farther into the future, and we'll find that national borders will have about as much significance as state borders have now. Each country will have its own laws, language, and identity, but being a world citizen will be the more common way of self-identification.
The thing is, in just about every science fiction book I can think of where space travel exists and there have probably been encounters with aliens, Earth is ruled by a global government. In one of those books, I would be a "citizen of Earth," an "Earthling" or possibly a "Terran". Only in stories set in the near future would someone like me consider themselves to be an American, and it would probably have to be a time travel or post-appocolyptic tale for me to identify myself as a Marylander.
So, are we truly moving toward a world government? I might not mind it if we are. Taking another look at those stories, you'll frequently also find that good ol' Earth (or Terra) has moved beyond the need to make war on itself. We must remember, though, that all the cultures of the world are well worth preserving. Diversity is a beautiful thing, and when we try to stir the melting pot to such an extent that peoples' rich backgrounds are stripped away, we trade something precious for something both uniform and dull.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
January is for Resolutions
Just about everyone I know makes New Year's Resolutions, and (anecdotally at least) the most popular resolution is for weight loss. While I hate to be a conformist, I've made that resolution (again) this year. I mention this here for two reasons. 1) I've heard that sharing wight loss goals can increase the likelihood of success, & 2) technology is helping me achieve my goals.
As you can see from my picture, I'm no lightweight. I really want to drop 100 pounds, but I don't want to do it too fast because I want to keep the weight off, and I want to keep making milk to comfort my son with until I successfully ween him (another 2014 resolution). To achieve these goals, I'm using Lose It! -- just not in the way the designers intended. I entered my current weight, my goal weight, and selected that I wanted to loose 1/2 pound each week. The app gave me the date at which I would achieve my goal, and, seeing that it was near my birthday in 2017, I made it my goal to reach my weightless goal by my birthday in that year.
Since I hate doing a food log (How much is on my plate? How do I record this old family recipe?), whenever the app says I'll achieve my goal after my goal date, I'm supposed to fill in the in-app food log, abide by the calorie budget, and try to keep my protein above my carbs, until I move the achievement date back to where I want it. Unfortunately, the holidays were not kind, and I haven't been good about logging when I'm beyond my goal weight. It seems that what they say is true - even when you eat healthy things, if you eat too much, you'll gain weight. Anyway, while this is an excellent weight loss tool, I find that I'm only reliably using the target date feature.
So, that's what I've resolved to do for the next several years -- stay on target for an eventual weight loss win. If you've made a similar resolution, here's hoping you find a tool that works for you as well. I blew my weight budget this New Year's, but have managed to drop much of this party-weight over the past few days. Lose It! tells me that, as of this morning, I'll achieve my goal about a month beyond when I want to... so I need to drop two more pounds to get back on track. Personally, I think that 2 pounds is much more achievable than 100, and I'm optimistic that using this technological tool will keep me on target.
I guess this is the true test for any technology's adoption. Whatever the new thing is, its good when you can play with it and find the feature or features that really work for you. For some people, the food log is necessary - but for me, simply knowing if I'm on or off target is enough to inform my eating and exercise choices. While it is good to know everything that a particular piece of technology can do, so you can try things that may improve your workflow or recreational enjoyment, we should only use the tools that actually help us. Any tool that doesn't improve our lives will actually hinder them - wasting time and increasing frustration.
So... whatever your goals for 2014, be sure to evaluate the tools you're using to achieve your goals - and don't waste your time on things that don't help YOU.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Semesters End, but Life Continues
Technology is rapidly evolving, and we need to stay on our toes to make the most of our opportunities. What technologies can make our lives easier & classrooms better -- and what's just a distraction? College has prepared us to be lifelong learners -- but technology demands that we do so actively, not passively. Like fire, technology can warm our imaginations, but it can also burn us if we aren't careful or use it inappropriately.
I've written the last blog post required by my Technology in the Classroom class. This is neither a good thing, nor a bad thing, but it is a thing -- an event, and there will be changes because of it.
So that's the bad news - blog frequency will decline, and we may pass through some dry spells. The good news is that I'm no longer going to be guided by a grading rubric, so I won't be going down a checklist, contriving ways to mention various talking points. I don't mean to say that rubrics are bad -- they're not -- only that needing to hit specific talking points can sometimes create an awkward document as the writer contrives linkages between required elements. I also hope to return to the wonder of the sci-fi theme I'd envisioned for this blog when I started it.
Well, projects are looming and my daughter's excited countdown to her birthday party (this weekend) only emphasizes how little time I have left. It will be a minor miracle if I get another blog post off this year, but I sincerely hope to be back in January. And so, on that note, happy holidays, and have a wonderful new year.
Like a Spelling Bee, But Different
I was reading a November 13, 2013 Lucacept blog post today, and it started me thinking in two directions. First Jenny talks about Programming Challenge 4 Girls, which got me thinking about merging that idea with a spelling bee format, and couldn't we make a fun event that supported the curriculum while promoting technological savviness? As the blog post continues, Jenny talks about how Victoria, Australia is gearing up for a curriculum shift, and they're using Google Hangouts and Google + to form a learning community. She reflects on how this is a good way to train everyone when the number of trainers available isn't up to the task of covering that much geographical territory, and how bringing someone in digitally is a great way to serve the students when the expert they would benefit from simply isn't available locally. This last bit made me wonder if she's discovered Skype in the Classroom yet, because that looks like a fantastic clearinghouse of experts willing to digitally visit classrooms for free.
Holding a Tech Bee
Ok, so maybe a "bee" format doesn't make sense, but what if there was a contest where kids used computer programming to move an avatar through an obstacle course - and the first avatar to cross the finish line won? I can't find any justification for this sort of an event in the Common Core, but this seems like a fun way to encourage kids to learn a programming language and gain a high level of comfort using computer systems -- skills they will likely find useful as adults.
A fun idea, but how can we modify it to suit the Common Core? I looked at how Howard County is implementing Common Core, and found something in the High School Educational Technology curriculum description. On page 3, one of the standards is to troubleshoot hardware & software problems such as error messages, as well as being proficient in the use of computers and their accessories (page 1). A competition to support this might be to have several heats where kids race to complete progressively harder tasks -- from successfully setting something up (wirelessly link this laptop to that projection system and start the movie playing in such a way that an entire classroom should be able to hear the audio) to fixing a known error (find out why this computer won't print - winner is the first to discover that the printer is out of paper, refill the paper tray, and print a test sheet.) Students in different schools can compete either between each other, for a school champion, or compete between schools by having the best times collected on a common webpage. And there's really no reason why you couldn't do both.
An unfair, but highly practical, version of this competition would be to use real malfunctioning computers. This is unfair because the errors could range from, "I don't know what was wrong, but it's working now -- I just turned it on" to "It's dead Jim," (completely unfixable). Such a variation in challenge difficulty (and the difficulty of determining if the student's right about a system being officially dead) wouldn't make for fair time trials - but it would help keep an aging technology fleet running.
One variant of this could be that students who rank highly in the repairs contest gain the opportunity to attempt repairs on real broken computers. Attempting repairs should be done in a designated area, during designated times, and successful repairs can be rewarded with repair points (person with the most repair points gets hailed as "master fixer" - rather like the Scare Board on Monster's Inc - or some school treat like a free ticket to something or a free snack in the cafeteria). On the one hand, these students would gain real world experience in computer repair, but on the other, they could damage the machines further or access data that they really shouldn't have access to (especially if it's a teacher's computer.)
The idea's far from perfect -- but maybe it can evolve again, growing into something that really can be implemented.
Digital Experts
As for the second topic for today... well, topic one was long enough so lets keep this short. Video conferencing with real experts is an excellent idea, particularly on the last day before a break or another time when something is distracting the kids. You've got a pair of half days just before Thanksgiving break? Skype a marine biologist into your science class. Maybe they're so excited that sitting and reading is difficult, but they can video conference with the author of that book you're reading in Language Arts. Our textbook, Meaningful Learning with Technology (Howland, Jonassen & Marra, 2012) discusses a variety of video conferencing ideas and programs, but my favorite is Skype in the Classroom -- which is the technology I presented to my technology in the classroom class a couple of weeks ago.
The video conferencing that Jenny was primarily talking about in her blog, though, was for professional development -- and why not? It's a great idea that is used in many fields of work! If you don't have the expert you need locally, then bring them in remotely. Whether it's teaching the teachers across entire state (or province) about the new curriculum standards or having a professional artist explain to a high school art class about her painting technique, a live encounter (even when delivered digitally) will have a greater impact on learning than something pre-recorded and non-interactive.
So... What's out there?
Technology opens many doors to us, but if we aren't careful, we may find ourselves reinventing wheels when we could be using them instead. Do any of you readers know of a tech competition in your area? Have you participated in a professional development video conference? I would love to hear about it! Collaborating as professionals, we can enrich the learning experience for our students.
Holding a Tech Bee
Ok, so maybe a "bee" format doesn't make sense, but what if there was a contest where kids used computer programming to move an avatar through an obstacle course - and the first avatar to cross the finish line won? I can't find any justification for this sort of an event in the Common Core, but this seems like a fun way to encourage kids to learn a programming language and gain a high level of comfort using computer systems -- skills they will likely find useful as adults.
A fun idea, but how can we modify it to suit the Common Core? I looked at how Howard County is implementing Common Core, and found something in the High School Educational Technology curriculum description. On page 3, one of the standards is to troubleshoot hardware & software problems such as error messages, as well as being proficient in the use of computers and their accessories (page 1). A competition to support this might be to have several heats where kids race to complete progressively harder tasks -- from successfully setting something up (wirelessly link this laptop to that projection system and start the movie playing in such a way that an entire classroom should be able to hear the audio) to fixing a known error (find out why this computer won't print - winner is the first to discover that the printer is out of paper, refill the paper tray, and print a test sheet.) Students in different schools can compete either between each other, for a school champion, or compete between schools by having the best times collected on a common webpage. And there's really no reason why you couldn't do both.
An unfair, but highly practical, version of this competition would be to use real malfunctioning computers. This is unfair because the errors could range from, "I don't know what was wrong, but it's working now -- I just turned it on" to "It's dead Jim," (completely unfixable). Such a variation in challenge difficulty (and the difficulty of determining if the student's right about a system being officially dead) wouldn't make for fair time trials - but it would help keep an aging technology fleet running.
One variant of this could be that students who rank highly in the repairs contest gain the opportunity to attempt repairs on real broken computers. Attempting repairs should be done in a designated area, during designated times, and successful repairs can be rewarded with repair points (person with the most repair points gets hailed as "master fixer" - rather like the Scare Board on Monster's Inc - or some school treat like a free ticket to something or a free snack in the cafeteria). On the one hand, these students would gain real world experience in computer repair, but on the other, they could damage the machines further or access data that they really shouldn't have access to (especially if it's a teacher's computer.)
The idea's far from perfect -- but maybe it can evolve again, growing into something that really can be implemented.
Digital Experts
As for the second topic for today... well, topic one was long enough so lets keep this short. Video conferencing with real experts is an excellent idea, particularly on the last day before a break or another time when something is distracting the kids. You've got a pair of half days just before Thanksgiving break? Skype a marine biologist into your science class. Maybe they're so excited that sitting and reading is difficult, but they can video conference with the author of that book you're reading in Language Arts. Our textbook, Meaningful Learning with Technology (Howland, Jonassen & Marra, 2012) discusses a variety of video conferencing ideas and programs, but my favorite is Skype in the Classroom -- which is the technology I presented to my technology in the classroom class a couple of weeks ago.
The video conferencing that Jenny was primarily talking about in her blog, though, was for professional development -- and why not? It's a great idea that is used in many fields of work! If you don't have the expert you need locally, then bring them in remotely. Whether it's teaching the teachers across entire state (or province) about the new curriculum standards or having a professional artist explain to a high school art class about her painting technique, a live encounter (even when delivered digitally) will have a greater impact on learning than something pre-recorded and non-interactive.
So... What's out there?
Technology opens many doors to us, but if we aren't careful, we may find ourselves reinventing wheels when we could be using them instead. Do any of you readers know of a tech competition in your area? Have you participated in a professional development video conference? I would love to hear about it! Collaborating as professionals, we can enrich the learning experience for our students.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
My Opinion: Student Taught vs. Teacher Taught Classrooms
I've been taking two classes this semester, so as the semester draws toward a close, I've been thinking somewhat on how the two classes were organized.
My undergraduate class had the teacher standing in front of the class, using Keynote (the Mac version of Power Point) to deliver his lectures. Occasionally we'd turn in projects, take tests, and participate in class. While the professor said he encouraged discussion in the class, most of his questions were rhetorical and my initial attempts to answer actually disrupted the lecture. I get the feeling that he's become so accustomed to students not participating, that he's no longer prepared for students who do.
My graduate class, on the other hand, is in a much nicer classroom, and is full of students who had to work hard to be there. Many of us are parents, so our being in school is hard work for our families, and not just ourselves. In this class, we've taken turns teaching, presenting our chapters and leading discussions and hands on activities. Conversation is active and on topic in this class.
So... which format is better? That depends.
Subject areas where there really is a clear cut right or wrong answer, like math, benefit from having a teacher run each class. In my undergraduate class, one of the other students talked about how, in one of her other science or medicine classes, their teacher let the class "waste their time" pursuing an incorrect line of thought for three whole class periods before he told them that the answer actually was something else. Frankly, I'd be ... quite upset ... if that happened in one of my classes. I am too busy to have my time wasted like that, and don't want to later have to unlearn falsehoods I learned at school! If the other professor was teaching something by letting the students chase their tails like that, the lesson was lost on my classmate. These subject areas might benefit from a lot of discussion, and maybe a seminar format, but for these subject areas, I want my teacher to stand up there and say, "This is how it is. Now lets explore WHY."
Other subject areas are rapidly evolving, like technology, or are open to a certain amount of interpretation, like literature and much of history. In these classes, having students teach at least part of the class can not only keep the lesson up to date, but will also infuse multiple points of view into the discussion. In my technology class, our text was last revised in 2012 - and only a year later we're finding that some of the programs being discussed are no longer available. A professor who writes his/her lesson plan too early could find the same things happening with their planned lecture. When students are doing it, the lesson is being revised up until the absolute last minute (in most cases), keeping it fresh. In this class format, the teacher's primary job is then to ensure that what the student is teaching is correct, and that everything that should have been covered has been.
As if this isn't a "yes and no" answer enough already, I must add a third category: the hybrid. Lets take a subject like medicine - there are clear cut wrong answers, it is a rapidly evolving topic, and there is a certain amount of interpretation as western medicine meets eastern, holistic, and alternative medicine. For these classes, I'd maybe devote 3/4 of the class to teacher led lecture and discussion - then leave the last 1/4 for a student presentation on topically relevant innovations or theories.
I must add a further provision onto my opinions - letting students teach a class is something that works in adult education, but I'm not sure it'd work in K-12. I say this because the student-led classroom depends on motivated students. After I've learned more of the teacher end of the School Librarian's craft, I may change my mind, but until then I'm just not sure it'd work.
Subject areas where there really is a clear cut right or wrong answer, like math, benefit from having a teacher run each class. In my undergraduate class, one of the other students talked about how, in one of her other science or medicine classes, their teacher let the class "waste their time" pursuing an incorrect line of thought for three whole class periods before he told them that the answer actually was something else. Frankly, I'd be ... quite upset ... if that happened in one of my classes. I am too busy to have my time wasted like that, and don't want to later have to unlearn falsehoods I learned at school! If the other professor was teaching something by letting the students chase their tails like that, the lesson was lost on my classmate. These subject areas might benefit from a lot of discussion, and maybe a seminar format, but for these subject areas, I want my teacher to stand up there and say, "This is how it is. Now lets explore WHY."
Other subject areas are rapidly evolving, like technology, or are open to a certain amount of interpretation, like literature and much of history. In these classes, having students teach at least part of the class can not only keep the lesson up to date, but will also infuse multiple points of view into the discussion. In my technology class, our text was last revised in 2012 - and only a year later we're finding that some of the programs being discussed are no longer available. A professor who writes his/her lesson plan too early could find the same things happening with their planned lecture. When students are doing it, the lesson is being revised up until the absolute last minute (in most cases), keeping it fresh. In this class format, the teacher's primary job is then to ensure that what the student is teaching is correct, and that everything that should have been covered has been.
As if this isn't a "yes and no" answer enough already, I must add a third category: the hybrid. Lets take a subject like medicine - there are clear cut wrong answers, it is a rapidly evolving topic, and there is a certain amount of interpretation as western medicine meets eastern, holistic, and alternative medicine. For these classes, I'd maybe devote 3/4 of the class to teacher led lecture and discussion - then leave the last 1/4 for a student presentation on topically relevant innovations or theories.
I must add a further provision onto my opinions - letting students teach a class is something that works in adult education, but I'm not sure it'd work in K-12. I say this because the student-led classroom depends on motivated students. After I've learned more of the teacher end of the School Librarian's craft, I may change my mind, but until then I'm just not sure it'd work.
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