del.icio.us, web 2.0, and more!

I have to say, delicious is one of the most awesome things I have learned about all semester. How wonderful to be able to bookmark and share your educational findings with others! I wrote my website summaries on a MLA documentation guide I've used since high-school which has been infinitely valuable for me these last four or five years, and then on a new website I found for English teachers. This site allowed teachers to search for literature by genre, grade level, culture, and a few other factors. This is definitely very useful for one who would like to represent literature from other cultures, but maybe is not familiar with much of it. It isn't just limited to books either, it can be used to locate poetry, essays, and folklore, among other things! The other nice feature is the inclusiong of the RSS feed, so that your delicious can be linked to your main page, be it pageflakes or what have you. This makes it easy to link up sites that you want your students to have access to, as well as the ones you use for your lesson planning and such. Wonderful, wonderful idea.

The lab on web 2.0 basically taught me that all of the cool things that are popping up like crazy on the internet lately, are based in web 2.0. Basically, anything that allows users to interact, add material to the website (such as youtube, flickr, and wikipedia), or alter information on the website. I discuss further the benefits of these applications, particularly in centralizing a place online where students and teachers can interact, discuss, and complete assignments, in my post on the forum.

Also, we've been working on our PSA. Scott had the wonderful idea of making a commercial of dowtown Grand Rapids, promoting the local haunts and trying to get people to hang out and support the downtown scene. We had a ton of fun filming on what was likely the last warm day this year! Trevor did an amazing job editing the video, with the help of Jeni, who was in charge of spazzing out on Scott and I. And I managed to find the perfect jazz song for our PSA, entitled "Walkin' the Dog." It was a great time, and we were all very satisfied with the final result.

two weeks worth of blogging...in one entry!

Hello. So, first and foremost: powerpoint. I did not know that you could use hyperlinks to create an interactive powerpoint! While maybe not profoundly useful, it is kind of cool. I immediately thought of how you could use an interactive powerpoint to present a piece of literature. That would be much more interesting than a book report! This is probably not something I would use too awfully much in my own powerpoints, but regardless of subject, it would make a good project for kids to do. I think anything out of the ordinary, where they can implement some creativity and individuality is what really makes for a good project. I know I had a lot of fun making my powerpoint about Futurama, and I was citing wikipedia for my content (isn't there a law against that by now?), I can only imagine how much more interesting and rewarding it would have been had I actually created all of it by myself.

The educational laptop initiative was interesting as well. I have a hard time forming an opinion on such matters, though. As I mentioned in my first post, I am a bit of a luddite, and I do tend to wonder whether we really need to be putting so much effort into getting kids laptops. Certainly, in underdeveloped countries I have to agree with the critics, like one youtube poster who said "idiots! buy them food, not computers!" And as far as providing a laptop for every child in the US, I can't help but wonder the effort is misguided. Obviously, the underlying intent is to do what is best for kids' educations, but I can't help but wonder if there aren't other factors in education that can be fixed before spending massive amounts of money developing inexpensive laptops for them. There are a plethura of issues in education that I believe could be resolved before we focus so heavily on providing computers for kids, especially when it seems that many schools are under-funded as it is. Also, I wonder if it is really necessary to have a laptop in the elementary years. I got by without one, but this is coming from the guy who's afraid that one day books will no longer be printed on paper.

Another concern I have has to do with the environment. The technology industry needs to make sure that they are taking strides to make technology less disposible in a world in which electronics are constantly becoming obsolete and we don't know what to do with all of our "e-waste." I think that we need to start figuring out how to recycle more and more of our electronics, and this would be a good program to start implementing such ideas. Why not send your computer in to have it upgraded, rather than buying a brand new one?

As for the development of the laptops, I was initially glad to hear that they were working with Linux, using open source technology and minimalistic software that was pratical. Obviously, I was annoyed to hear that microsoft was working with the XO computers. I feel that ms is the devil, and it really bothers me to see them in an educational environment. I think that Corporate America has no part in the classroom, and that if there's software that's cheaper and less "evil," then I'm all for supporting them. billy gates doesn't need any more money, I don't care how much he donates. Another thing that bothered me was that there are already competitors for the XO. While I understand that competition drives prices down, and thus is a good thing for keeping costs in check, I don't think that these laptops should be made with a profit in mind! I feel as though the best solution would be to have the government work with a company to produce the cheapest, most effective laptop possible, but then again, when I say things like that, I get called a Communist...

Images in the classroom and Audacity

I have to say that I found the digital story as a more impressive format than the slideshare project. However, all of the online applications we used for finding copyright-friendly photos I found to be very useful, and even pretty cool. I had a lot of fun using the Tag Galaxy website. I was surprised that when I searched for "Muskegon" I managed to find many photos of familiar places in my hometown. I found that to be pretty impressive, and was able to choose from a myriad of images for my project about my hometown. It would seem that choosing such a specific topic would severely limit the number of photos that I would have to choose from, so I was definitely glad with the variety of photos I was able to incorporate into my slideshow. I can definitely see how these websites would benefit students seeking copyright-friendly images for projects. This would especially be nice for incorporating images into writing projects, such as poetry portfolios.

What I liked about Audacity was how easy it was to use. I really have no experience with audio-editing programs, but I found this program to be very simple to use. While it was convienent to record a podcast over the phone, it would be much easier to record one using this program. Any mistakes could easily be edited out, and one could simply re-record the sentence in which they goofed, and move it into the right position in the podcast. It was also very easy to add other tracks to your podcast using Audacity. If students wanted to play introductory music to their podcast, or "quote" a newscast or television show, it would be no problem for them to do so. I could see how, using this program, a teacher could have students create weekly, or bi-monthly podcasts. If the students did this in pairs, radioshow style, I think they would have a lot of fun with it.

More Musings

So, as far as digital story goes, I was quite impressed. Though it seems a bit time-consuming at first, I thought that it was definitely a more engaging way to present poetry than just standing in front of the class and reading. I would definitely use this in English courses K-12. In high-school classes, where the students are more proficient with technology, having them create a digital story would be highly beneficial, I think. For one, they would like it. Kids love using technology nowadays. It would also be an interesting way to expand upon a writing project; have them write about themselves, tell an interesting story about something that has happened to them, and then they can create visuals for the story, and through music and their voices they can really personalize the project more than just a piece of paper that they typed up. It would also be ideal for presentations. It would be a good way for the kids to start writing, as they can always write about themselves, and also a good way for an English class to get to know each other. It's definitely a project I would try in a high-school setting.

As far as Inspiration goes, I wasn't quite as impressed. It was pretty cool, to be sure, but I wondered if it wouldn't end up wasting more time than it's worth. I guess I could say that today's kids are way more likely to pick up on this technology quickly though, and enjoy using it. And while it may take longer for them to create a concept map using Inspiration, at least it would be much neater than one done by hand!

And so this is blogging...

I have to admit, as I begin this assignment, I can't help but be reminded of Live Journal. I can recall (though I'd just assume not) all of the time spent on LJ during high-school. We used to get on that site and blog our little, teen-angst ridden hearts out. We blogged about everything: our crushes, our thoughts, our dreams, our beliefs, sometimes just our days. Most importantly we blogged about our FEELINGS. And other people read about them too! But probably they didn't, actually.
So, speaking of high-school, I was a computer nerd in early high-school, which I think still has the effect of making me, to this day, overconfident when it comes to technology. I say I was a computer nerd because it's the truth; I was then, but not now. Back then, I took every networking class offered at my high-school. I was planning on going into desktop support, and eventually network administration. Then, something happened. I had an epiphany, or a series of epiphanies. I began growing as an intellectual. I began reading deep books, deep books I didn't exactly understand, but by-God, I read them nonetheless. I also realized that if I spent the rest of my life in front of a computer screen, my eyeballs would melt away or I'd go absolutely insane.
Since this revelation, I've been a bit of a Luddite. A hater, if you will, when it comes to technology. I see so many ways in which technology has made things convenient for people, but so many ways that it's totally dehumanized human interaction. Now, it's not that I think that I'm right and progress is wrong, it's just that I would prefer to keep technology out of my personal life, since I see it as a means of wasting enormous amounts of time (more time than it saves!), and also as a means of making my social life entirely ambiguous and synthetic. I'm sure without Facebook and Youtube, the people who waste all of their time online would waste their time doing something equally meaningless instead.
That was a digression. The whole point was that I am overconfident regarding technology, although I am hesitant to use it. Taking the survey, I realized that there were things on it that I had no idea at all how to do. Some of these things, I would like to learn how to do, such as video editing. Some I'd never even heard of.
This is also my first time Podcasting. I had no clue that one could podcast over their phone. It was an awkward experience for me. I felt like I was talking to no-one at all, and yet everyone out there in internet-land. I am sure that, thinking creatively, one could come up with many ways in which they could incorporate such an easy thing as podcasting in their classrooms, for their use, and their students' use as well. Oh well, without any further ado, here's my podcast about me.
Well, these are my preliminary thoughts, musings, and ramblings about the assignments so far. As for now, there's a box of off-brand mac & cheese calling my name...