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.