In just 5 days, or less, we'll be welcoming a little girl into the world. Our OB didn't expect us to make it to this week. Hopefully we can hold out for just a few more days.
We have few ideas for names, but we know we just need to wait to see her to make a final decision.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Changed the title...
Instead, I've decided to pull all my posts into a single blog, called, "Thinking Space". Basically I had a blog that I started almost two years ago to be a place of reflection for being and becoming a dad. I also had a separate space blog that was to reflect some of my ideas and musings on technology, and then I had another blog that was intended to be dedicated to reflections on technology and it's impact on education. Well, trying to remember which one was which was just way to complicated. So, I've decided that instead, I'll use Blogger's great Labels (tag) tool and I'll just tag them appropriately. This way I can post whichever or whatever type of content I want to, and it doesn't matter.
I really believe that reflecting on your thinking about whatever topic, is important to retaining memory of the topic - and if necessary to be able to interact with the knowledge or information and I really wish I reflected more often. Just writing this actually makes me remember the research I did in grad school on meta-cognition and how fascinated I was by not only doing the research but what it could mean to my own professional practice. I was I often find myself wishing I could do audible blogs, and sometimes, I do just that, but basically it looks like someone walking down the street talking to himself. Really - it's just me thinking out loud - my brain using my mouth to make sound to try and better organized and understand the stuff that's in my brain - does that make sense?
So I have this blog now, and I hope I can be better at reflecting here on all manner of topics - a sort of thinking space.
Now to be sure, thinking space is a term that actually has more history than just a name for this blog, it goes back to before I married Becky. From time to time, as young couples do, we would get into a conversation that would lead to an intense discussion and then boil over into confusion, misunderstanding and a refusal to speak any further. We had a break down in communication. So to resolve the matter, we came up with this idea called "thinking space", - it was the simple opportunity to share whatever was on our mind or heart - but that it was merely a sandbox - a place to put ideas to think about - not make a decision on. That one decision led to a lot better discussion and interaction, and that is what I want this space to be. A thinking space. A place I generally use to reflect on many of the different aspects of my life. It can allow me to document my thinking process, and help me better reflect, so I can learn from and develop my thinking.
As a side note, in looking for some image to represent thinking space I came across this page at The Economist - not a magazine I typically read at all, that captured many other individuals thinking spaces, visually, and represented them in a rather interesting way.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Tech Tools Fostering "Mini Generation Gaps"
It really will be interesting to see if or how this actually affects teaching and learning. I'd never thought about a generational gap larger than a single generation, and yet here we have an idea about "mini-gaps", caused, of all things by the technology that so saturates our culture - all the way down to 4th graders. It also brings up another question with regard to technology and learning and what's appropriate. Surely not all technology is appropriate for all levels of development? Learning character traits such as patience and non-technological communication skills are at least as important if not more. Do you remember taking a facial recognition course on social and emotional exhibition? Of course not - those skills about how someone feels - based on their face - were taken in preschool and kindergarten. I wonder if teachers will have to begin wearing a smiley on their shirt instead of just displaying how they feel on their faces.
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times has an interesting report on the iGeneration, born in the '90s and this decade, comparing them to the Net Generation, born in the 1980s. The Net Generation spend two hours a day talking on the phone and still use e-mail frequently while the iGeneration — conceivably their younger siblings — spends considerably more time texting than talking on the phone, pays less attention to television than the older group, and tends to communicate more over instant-messenger networks. 'People two, three or four years apart are having completely different experiences with technology,' says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. 'College students scratch their heads at what their high school siblings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger siblings. It has sped up generational differences.' Dr. Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, says that the iGeneration, unlike their older peers, expect an instant response from everyone they communicate with, and don't have the patience for anything less. 'They'll want their teachers and professors to respond to them immediately, and they will expect instantaneous access to everyone, because after all, that is the experience they have growing up,' says Rosen." Read below for another intra-generational wrinkle.
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times has an interesting report on the iGeneration, born in the '90s and this decade, comparing them to the Net Generation, born in the 1980s. The Net Generation spend two hours a day talking on the phone and still use e-mail frequently while the iGeneration — conceivably their younger siblings — spends considerably more time texting than talking on the phone, pays less attention to television than the older group, and tends to communicate more over instant-messenger networks. 'People two, three or four years apart are having completely different experiences with technology,' says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project. 'College students scratch their heads at what their high school siblings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger siblings. It has sped up generational differences.' Dr. Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, says that the iGeneration, unlike their older peers, expect an instant response from everyone they communicate with, and don't have the patience for anything less. 'They'll want their teachers and professors to respond to them immediately, and they will expect instantaneous access to everyone, because after all, that is the experience they have growing up,' says Rosen." Read below for another intra-generational wrinkle.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. Blogged with the Flock Browser
Friday, January 8, 2010
Working with Sakai
One of the most exciting things about technology is the newness of it, but it's also often the most daunting at the same time.
In this case, I'm speaking directly of Sakai, the new LMS that Johnson is using to replace Blackboard later on this year, and is currently being used for some courses this semester, including Introduction to Educational Technology.
Playing with or opening up a new technology is like getting that brand new bike at Christmas time. You see the box, it's big and it's wrapped in this great looking paper with all the speckles and fancy ribbon on it, with a ginormous bow on top of it. You think "I know what that is, and I'm so excited!" So you open it with bubbling excitement, only to be stopped by the picture of what's inside of the box - a brand new, ruby-red, white-walled, 10 speed with cruise control, or something like that. All of the exitement quickly dies down when you actually open the box and discover...... it still has to be put together.
Now don't get me wrong. Sakai is 'put together', in fact it's put together rather well, and by a team of very dedicated and education-minded folk. And it offers some fantastic advantages over Blackboard, not to mention the cost savings. There are a tonne of tools available within any course or site (as they reference it), and a wealth of granularity available to professors and students alike. But one of the most significant issues and often one of the most critical pieces of an LMS is the gradebook.
Sakai does include a gradebook tool, but there are some given limitations. The gradebook can be setup in one of two overall ways - as a percentage based gradebook or a points-based gradebook. This is great, because on of the other tedius tasks in grading is the computation of a final grade, and reading into a standard paper/pencil gradebook can often yield unexpected grades, just because of computational error or mis-reading lines. Sakai's gradebook takes care of this - to a point. The standard gradebook is also where I typically handle attendance and other assignments. The problem with the Sakai gradebook tool is that anything entered into the gradebook MUST have a corresponding point value - including attendance.
There's also an assignments tool in Sakai - which is great because I can create all of and have students submit all their assignments right inside of Sakai - even to where I get a notification for each assignment that each student submits. I can even make comments on submitted assignments and give it back to them for resubmission. And all of this can be integrated into the Gradebook - how great is that? The only snag is that assignments that are integrated into the gradebook MUST have a point value assigned to them.
Really as I've thought about it, it's not so much a limitation of Sakai, as much as it's just a limitation of a computational tool. In order to have a gradebook automatically calculate a grade, it must be able to so based on a set of pre-configured parameters, and when it comes down to it, points is the only way to make an equivalence for any other grade type. 9 points out of 10 points, really comes down to a 90%, which in most cases is a low A. A pass or fail grade could be representated by a one (1) or a zero (0). Attendence could be represented by a 3 point scale, 2 = present, 1 = tardy, 0 = absent. Ideally for a 16 week course that meets once a week, a perfect attendence point value would be 32. So this works pretty well.
I'm sure that the gradebook tool will become more robust in the coming years, and I understand that there's some potential for an actual attendence tool in the works.
I'll keep my eyes peeled.
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Week 5 & 6 Review
Tonight was quite the whirlwind - we tried to cover playing with lots of academic software, in six different stations - a pixel's worth of what really is out there - both for free and at cost.
Understanding that there are different categories of software is important, though it's far more important to be aware of what is out there, so that by the time you have your own classroom, or means to put technology in your classroom, you want to know how to go about making choices for software that will definitely help you improve your teaching and lesson effectiveness.
By far, Academic software is more fun and exciting to play with. Recording keeping - the stuff of Administrative software can sometime be used for Academic purposes, but still doesn't hold the charm and pizazz of even some of the free Academic titles out there such as Tux Paint, Google Earth, Stellarium, or LinCity.
Each of these software titles has some type of for-cost relative. Your decisions on what you use in your own classroom will in large part depend on your familiarity with technology, your willingness to learn something new, and what exists at the time of your initiation as a classroom teacher. Much is and has changed in the way of software development that takes the Mac/PC specification out of the equation and puts it squarely on the shoulders of the browser and related plug-ins you do or do not have. That - we'll discover and discuss in the coming week(s):
One thing of note, we'll be doing course evaluations in two weeks, and this semester they'll be in Blackboard!
Understanding that there are different categories of software is important, though it's far more important to be aware of what is out there, so that by the time you have your own classroom, or means to put technology in your classroom, you want to know how to go about making choices for software that will definitely help you improve your teaching and lesson effectiveness.
By far, Academic software is more fun and exciting to play with. Recording keeping - the stuff of Administrative software can sometime be used for Academic purposes, but still doesn't hold the charm and pizazz of even some of the free Academic titles out there such as Tux Paint, Google Earth, Stellarium, or LinCity.
Each of these software titles has some type of for-cost relative. Your decisions on what you use in your own classroom will in large part depend on your familiarity with technology, your willingness to learn something new, and what exists at the time of your initiation as a classroom teacher. Much is and has changed in the way of software development that takes the Mac/PC specification out of the equation and puts it squarely on the shoulders of the browser and related plug-ins you do or do not have. That - we'll discover and discuss in the coming week(s):
One thing of note, we'll be doing course evaluations in two weeks, and this semester they'll be in Blackboard!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Week 4 Review
This week we talked about hardware - the virtual beginning point, or at least base for much of what we'll discuss for the rest of the semester - mostly because without hardware, we can't do half the things we do unless we have hardware first. Hardware is the stuff we can physically touch and feel, compared to software, which is the stuff that runs on hardware. We covered how the difference between hardware and software can be understood by using a book as a metaphor. The book, it's physical pages, cover and binding, even the ink would be 'hardware'. The software portion would be the story itself, the meanings behind the words, "Once upon a time, there once was..."
Having this understanding between the two different types of 'ware', can help you establish what types of needs you have for your classroom and/or troubleshoot problems you might be having with technology.
Most of us have some type of experience with technology - and in this day and age of cell phones, iPods and computers, most of us have several experiences with hardware, and having an appreciation of how hardware has changed over the years can help us understand how hardware has changed and how it will continue to change.
Having this understanding between the two different types of 'ware', can help you establish what types of needs you have for your classroom and/or troubleshoot problems you might be having with technology.
Most of us have some type of experience with technology - and in this day and age of cell phones, iPods and computers, most of us have several experiences with hardware, and having an appreciation of how hardware has changed over the years can help us understand how hardware has changed and how it will continue to change.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Week 3 Review
Class this week really consisted of three major sections of content:
Creating lessons is something that simply takes practice and understanding how objectives fit into standards also takes practice. Knowing how these things come together is not as simple or concrete as identifying the answer to a simple math problem like "2+2". This is especially true of the technology standards for students. These standards are far less concrete and more 'nebulous', but many examples of how teachers hit these standards exist.
Next week we'll start taking computers apart - or at the very least, looking at them and the peripherals we use with them.
- Understanding the link between standards and objectives
- Playing with HTML Code (tags)
- Introduction to LiveText
Creating lessons is something that simply takes practice and understanding how objectives fit into standards also takes practice. Knowing how these things come together is not as simple or concrete as identifying the answer to a simple math problem like "2+2". This is especially true of the technology standards for students. These standards are far less concrete and more 'nebulous', but many examples of how teachers hit these standards exist.
Next week we'll start taking computers apart - or at the very least, looking at them and the peripherals we use with them.
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