From the desk of Mr. Walters…
with a squishy new theme!
An Authentic Curriculum
As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I am working hard to develop a curriculum that “Get[s] Past Teaching Apps [and helping students] Build and Use a Student Technology Toolbelt“ (Cool Cat). This focus is defined in my curriculum in terms of students’ technology fluency, which is defined in Cool Cat’s post as:
the ability to determine and use the appropriate technology tool(s) for the task at hand in a manner that allows seamless transfer of created objects and documents to flow easily between the selected tools without outside intervention.
I also want students to be able to think critically and solve problems within a computing environment since things keep changing. As Cool Cat notes and Karl Fisch supports, “We cannot fathom what the future holds for them but we know what it won’t hold: It won’t hold the software that we taught them this year in its present fashion.”
Okay,
So I feel like I’m always ranting. I go forever without posting, and then something annoys me, and I go off. I’m really sorry about that… really… I am. Sometime soon, I’ll write a non-ranting post. Today, however, the Juvinalian Muse is upon me.
The Quest for Authentic Instruction & Fluency Building
In designing my current curriculum for CIT, I was heavily influenced by Cool Cat’s post, “Get Past Teaching Apps: Build and Use a Student Technology Toolbelt“. I am particularly interested in building my students’ technology fluency, which is defined in Cool Cat’s post as:
the ability to determine and use the appropriate technology tool(s) for the task at hand in a manner that allows seamless transfer of created objects and documents to flow easily between the selected tools without outside intervention.
I also want students to be able to think critically and solve problems within a computing environment. I focus quite a bit on teaching the students to use the skills I use personally to master computer applications, rather than just teaching them what I know. As Cool Cat notes and Karl Fisch supports, “We cannot fathom what the future holds for them but we know what it won’t hold: It won’t hold the software that we taught them this year in its present fashion.”
Collaboration:
Okay, let’s face it. The world is moving toward more and more online collaboration. We need to prep our students for this. One project I currently have simmering on the back burner is a “design team” project where student groups would “meet” online with clients to discuss the design of everything from logos to web sites. The ideal tool for such an undertaking is Acrobat.com:
This tool is ideal for real-time online meeting, sketching ideas on the whiteboard, uploading sample files 
and presentations, and even sharing screens. It’s even free. The problem is, it doesn’t work on our student workstations… It’s fine on my workstation and most of my colleagues. My students, on the other hand, always get “invalid ticket” errors. I swear this is deep freeze, but I can’t get anyone to believe me.
Here are some other possibilities that may not already be on your radar because they haven’t been mentioned in a summer workshop or whatever (I find we’re constantly told about the same old resources again and again). These, however, all require signup and therefore open up a whole other can of worms, particularly if your district doesn’t have student email…
Free Apps you should have but probably aren’t allowed to install yourself…
Okay, so if you teach computer classes in the public education system and you don’t have a cool class like “Web Design” or “Desktop Publishing”, you probably get pretty sick of Microsoft Office. You also probably are not in a position to beg your district to buy you new apps.
- Adobe Air (a world of widgety goodness and free mini-apps awaits)
- Google Sketch-up (who can argue with 3d drawing)
- Audacity (a little slice of near-pro podcasting goodness)
- Gimp (open source alternative to Photoshop)
- Inkscape (open source alternative to Illustrator)
Of course, you probably can’t install these yourself so put in an IT request, beg your tech department, and bake them cookies.
“Introducing all new edublogs supporter” where we’ve taken away features you already had and offered to return them for $6.95/month. Good luck if you’re actually on a teacher salary and your district pays for nothing extra. Yet another reason public education always get’s the shaft…
Okay, I understand. Edublogs needs to make money to keep their servers running, but there are various degrees along the spectrum of supporting oneself and selling out. Edublogs has sold out. An appropriate banner ad or two is expected on most free web services, but embedded advertising links???
Will Richardson, whom I respect greatly, defines real blogging as,
Links with analysis and synthesis that articulates a deeper understanding or relationship to the content being linked and written with potential audience response in mind.
If this is the case, and links are an integral aspect of the connective writing process known as blogging, then what is one supposed to think when and ad agency can trump the links within a post with their own?? Ironically, Edublogs appears to be one of the sponsors of Weblogged. I wonder what Will thinks of their new advertising practice??
Explorer vs. Wordpress???
Okay, so I’m a Linux guy. I still live in reality, though, and I teach in a WinXP environment at school. I tend to use Firefox on my own workstation because I’m more comfortable with it. Today, though, I looked at my own blog in Internet Explorer for the first time in awhile. Surprisingly, despite Wordpress’ tightly controlled style sheet, Explorer stuck my sidebars at the bottom of my page, and tweaked half of my fonts all funky (even in my widgets!). I tried to figure out what the issue was, and after a small amount of Googling, I discovered that this is a typical problem. Apparently, after the most recent Wordpress update, the majority of blogs look fine in Firefox, Safari, Opera, and even Chrome… but not Explorer.
“Wait”, you might say, “Isn’t this the fault of Wordpress?” After all, they did the update. True, but you have to wonder what kind of funky (wow, that’s twice in one post) proprietary coding Microsoft has going on in there that it’s the only browser that screws with our blogs.
The Moral:
The point is, if you’re looking at my blog on Internet Explorer, I know it looks bad. I just want you to know, It’s not my fault.
I’ve found it. That’s right. Amidst this tumult of uncertainty that is our current world, I’ve found the answer. There is apparently one determining factor of our students’ success in the 21st century workforce. Would you like to know what it is?
Despite increased globalization; the need to prepare students to access, evaluate, synthesize, and build upon information and media; and the drive to promote Creativity, Innovation, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Communication, and Collaboration, the curriculum of our district’s Computer Information Technology program hinges on Keyboarding. I’m not kidding. This is apparently very serious stuff. One teacher commented at a recent curriculum meeting that this is “becoming a management and discipline issue at the high school.” Wow. It seems that students, who have formed bad keyboarding habits despite intensive training at the Elementary level, are resorting to the technique that works best for them when teachers turn their backs. Huh… The nerve of some people’s children…
Read the rest of this entry »
Okay, so you haven’t heard from me for awhile because I”ve been a bit pre-occupied with the harsh realities of public education. Specifically, the reality that the policy makers involved often have such little knowledge of the realm they’re overseeing.
Economics or Steel?
I teach students a variety of technology related concepts and applications with in my seventh and eighth grade course called “Technology”. The course centers on the following skills:
The following is an excerpt from an academic paper I’ve been working on, hence the rather formal citations etc.
As a teacher of technology, I am very interested in the “new literacies” related to information management, often referred to as Information Literacy, Media Literacy, Digital Literacy, and Network Literacy. I recently read Judy Salpeter’s article, “Make Students Info Literate” in the May 22, 2008 issue of “Techlearning” magazine. In the article, Salpeter succinctly makes several points that I’ve been trying to make with colleagues for the last four years.
When I read the first three paragraphs of The Teachers Mission, quoted below, I had to give a brief but hearty “Amen!”
Teachers are introduced each year to a plethora of educational buzz words. They are expected to cover the curriculum at a pace to accommodate multiple classroom abilities that may have ranges as extreme as eight grade levels. They are expected to practice classroom management skills coping with special needs along with those of their regular students and nurturing all at the same pre-set pace.
Adding to this work load are state, local, and district standards for learning, state competency testing, new technology standards for students and teachers, and constant pressure from government officials, parents, and even religious groups to improve education, reform the classroom, and better develop our nation’s children. As many as half of all new teachers respond by leaving the profession finding more pay and less stress elsewhere.
This has been the case in my experience, particularly in my Communication Arts classroom, which is why I jumped at the opportunity to move into the Technology teaching position. As a radical constructionist, who strongly believes in providing an authentic experience for students where they “think critically, solve problems, analyze sources, make good judgments. gather, sort, internalize, and share information with others” (The Teacher’s Mission). As I made the transition from a class centered on PSSA Preparation to one built around multimedia authoring, Internet research, online collaboration, and desktop publishing, I experienced a welcome role-shift from what I had been so uncomfortable with in my CA classroom since the NCLB change back to the complex, multi-faceted role of Radical Teacher. I’ve never been able to succinctly capture this role in language. Typically, I have referred people to multiple articles and resources on the web by people like Alfie Kohn. As I read the material from Simkins, Cole, Tavalin, and Means (2002), I was provided with a very accurate word picture of what it is I do, or at the very least attempt, in the classroom, which is more than guide on the side. Incidentally, they did not have a magical term to sum this up, but rather triangulated the position of this concept by attacking it from multiple sides.
After fixing my screen resolution and solving my internet woes with Comcast (bad connector that took 5 months and 3 visits to discover whilst they tried to blame my modem, my router, and finally my operating system), I’ve begun the hard task of setting up my desktop environment, a home network for file and print sharing, and getting some entertainment necessities loaded.
First of all, let’s talk about desktop eye-candy. After much pain and suffering, I decided to go with Beryl. Compiz was buggy and crazy. I really don’t give a darn about cubes and desktop switchers. I just wanted a transparent appearance for for my windows, which you can see below.
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