technology: A starting point.

I just finished reading a very thought-provoking article (Kids and Tech: How Much is Too Much? by Jennifer LaClaire) that makes some great points about today’s generation of digital users and about some of the implications of youth using technology right from when they are young, and in large amounts of time. 

One quote I particularily can connect with was ”

Their brains get used to too much auditory and visual stimulation — and in the absence of these stimulations, they do not know what to do with themselves,” she told TechNewsWorld. “They get anxious, restless, bored and aggressive.”

I know often when I get off the computer after spending an extended amount of time on it, I don’t know what to do, and I immediately begin to feel antsy…ecspecially if I’m waiting for something…an email, something to download, or if I’ve just finished a large assignment…what do I usually do?  Sit down and watch tv…because I need to have something to keep me entertained…I am now accustomed to having anything available at (literally) my fingertips…without having to wait!  Which I find half funny and half frustrating.  I’ve never had any channels on tv (other then the 2 local ones-farmervision), and so I’ve never had a problem with getting addicted to it.  But this year, since we’ve gotten sattelite, even though I often can’t afford to take time away from whatever it is that I’m working on, I do.  And it is becoming a BAD habit for me…  The only thing that stops me from sitting all night in front of the tv…is the guilt that I should be doing something else(homework, cleaning, going for a rollarblade…ANYTHING).  And yet, for many kids now, there is no feeling of guilt!  This is the lifestyle that they have grown up in…tv, computer, video games, etc. 

What implications will this sedentary lifestyle have..?  I’m scared to find out.

Anyways, read the article for yourself…I would like to know what some of you think…ecspecially since many of your are now coming from a strong background in using technology.

Ever met a good friend in a really unlikely place?  Ever ran in to someone who you were ironically connected to from the other side of the world?  As this commercial shows, people are now connected in the strangest ways.

I started thinking about this, while I was reading a blog post by Jordan.   While he was explaining about his roommates from various parts of Canada, I was thinking about all of my foreign connections, and how much I now rely on technology to stay ‘in touch’.  I can get away with not talking to my brother in weeks, but through text messaging, I know how he’s doing.  In fact, I probably talk to my friends in mexico more then I talk to my friends who live in Regina! 10 years ago, this would have been expensive,  50 years ago, this wouldn’t have been possible!  Technology is developing so rapidly that suddenly, our world has become a lot smaller.  And although the commercial means to make the ending seem funny, in reality, there are special laptops created to be located in desolate areas….although how well they work on PartyPoker…who knows….Through global connections, people everywhere are becoming more and more alike, both through culture and what is available to them.

 It’s crazy what we now deem to be important.  I’ve heard statistics about how there are goals to have internet access available to the entire world by sometime in the next few years…..and yet the millenium goals which were supposed to be met by 2015 are NOWHERE CLOSE to being completed…and this is for meeting basic needs such as food, health care and education!  Economically, there is still a large amount of disparity between nations, but this will never change.  We live in a well off country, but we need the poor countries to stay that way.  Capitalism….Its set up to keep the rich rich, and the poor poorer.  We might complain about equal rights for all, but would we really want to be in someone else’s shoes?  Those of us here in Canada, although we complain about gas prices and the cost of foreign fruit in the winter time, often we forget about how good we have it.  We can ACCESS these products from half-way across the world…imagine the price if we had to do all the work that is involved in getting some of these products ourselves??  And the shopping trips when we find all of our ‘bargains’ (guilty…) how can the stores even afford to put prices that low??  Because it’s on someone else’s tab…  It’s the low amount that we pay foreign countries to make all this stuff.  Because here, although we will, we don’t LIKE to spend a lot of money on things.  More for Less…that’s our motto, and through this, we have a disregard for countries poorer and therefore, often more vulnerable to whatever action our economy and industry decides to take.  And so, wherever some sweat-shop ran by children paid by pennies is, it will continue to break environmental laws, labour laws, etc, and get away with it.  Who’s to stop them? We get our low prices, and thats supply and demand.   

Another way that our world keeps getting smaller, is through culture.  ‘Western culture’ has essentially taken over the world.  There are so many influencing factors that make it nearly impossible to stay away from.  It’s funny, the first thing I noticed when I went to Nicaragua?  McDonalds.  English has a major impact as well.  In any professional field, English is often the functioning language ( when dealing internationally anyways).  I heard a statistic once that in about 10 years, China will be the largest English speaking country…..  ??????   I find that bizarre.  So then, shouldn’t it be us who should be learning to speak Chinese????

And so, although globally we are more connected, we have a kind of materialistic attitude towards reaping the awards of globalization.  I think we need to focus our attention instead on the humanity side of things, and instead of taking from and using each other, let’s use our collective knowledge and resources and help each other out.

So, as I was looking for sites to add on to my website of fun and interesting links, I googled anti-racism, and look what popped up!   What a positive thing to see!  An article (Concert Brings Anti-Racism Message to Regina Students)  on Regina being one of the top searches!  Regina has gotten a bad rap (ecspecially in McLeans magazine) about having Canada’s worst neighborhood, and a tough inner-core, and if you live here, you know some of the existing issues dealing with racism.  So to see one teacher making such an effort (and being supported by such a large amount of youth!!) is very inspiring for me.  It makes me feel relieved that this issue is finally getting out into the open, and has stopped existing in a way that no one acknowledges(they may deal with) and don’t act in prevention of these attitudes. Way to go Regina! 

I had a discussion about our class the other day during my coffee break with a co-worker, explaining all the different tools I had been learning about, and about how to integrate technology into the classroom.  The answer I got? 

‘Technology?  All that’s going to happen is kids are going to goof off during class and download porn!’.

Oooook.

Now, I realize that yes, there IS an exceedingly large amount of porn out there these days(and is that all that people think you can do on the internet???), BUT, are we going to sit around and ban the use of technology because of it??  I hope not.  I think that if we are worried about all the plausible outcomes of letting a student use a computer, then we haven’t properly prepared them to use it.  It’s like telling your 17 year old son/daughter not to drink when they go out, and then give them 20 dollars and a 2am curfew, and don’t ask where they’re going. 

Like any classroom management, if you make your expectations for your students known, as well as the concequences, AND you follow through with them, life gets a whole lot easier for you. 

As for the porn issue, well, it’s out there, and the students know it.  It is on advertisements on websites, it’s on tv, it’s in magazines, and it’s easily accessible. They also know that it is out there because there is a demand for it.  I believe that if you do catch your students viewing porn at school, it’s important to address some of the underlying issues that come with it.  Why do people get so upset about it?  To students, porn might form their entire concepts and ideas about what sex is actually like.  And not addressing the ideas and issues around sex may only further promote these false ideals and perceptions.  I think it is absolutely neccessary that as teachers, we are able to discuss sex in an educational, appropriate way.  Allowing ourselves to become angry or embarrassed does no favors to our students.  It may get rid of the problem at that moment, but odds are, it’ll be back….there’s certainly enough of it out there….as well as a large amount of curiousity. 

Keri McIntyre used to be known as a teacher.  Now she’s known as the former-teacher-with-a-nice-butt-who-starred-in-an-online-oggling-at-a-fifth-grade-graduation-put-to-the-music-of-’Hot for Teacher’.  The video was placed on YouTube, and parents, students and co-workers alike all saw it.  However, no one happened to see it while it was being filmed. 

The cool part about the internet now?  Anyone can post something anonymously.  The problem with the internet now?  Anyone can post something anonymously.  It’s true, its a great way of practicing your right to free speech, but it also often infringes on other’s right to live without harassment or grief.  And yet…what can we do? 

For this teacher, she has suffered public embarrassment and the loss of her once beloved job.  Some might say that as a teacher, you need to have thick skin and not give in to the lowly acts of those out there who would do something like this, which is true to a point.  But, who should have to suffer through an act like that.  How much action was taken to prevent another incident like this.  A better question might be….how much can we actually do?…  And this is disheartening.  I want to believe that our technological world is used mostly for the best, but it also makes it much easier to get away with anonymity, which people do abuse.

 Read the story at http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Technology/story?id=3525019&page=1

I’ve had people tell me I’m crazy before…to my face…but I just shrug it off. I’m ok, i say, I’m used to it. I keep telling myself that I’m just training for teaching… I have two jobs and work about 70 hours a week(one full-time, one part-time), and I’m taking my ECMP class…I’m busy, but I’m used to it. This is how I like life…fast paced, busy, changing, challenging and interactive. Which is why my mom says i will make a perfect middle-years teacher….our attention spans are about the same…However, I’m starting to wonder how well I’m going to do when I am teaching. Teaching, must like my life now, is ever changing, with people pulling you from all sides, each expecting your best. I just finished reading an article entitled ‘Teacher Burnout’ By Tanuja Surpuriya and Mark Jordan, and could relate to some of the things talked about, although at the same time, I was hoping and praying that I would not be one of the teachers who got discouraged enough to end my teaching career.

One comment in particular that I could really relate to was ‘today he feels somewhat dispirited by student and parent apathy ‘ . I have two seperate experiences to speak to. The first one was during my pre-internship, where by October, nearly half the students in the school had letters sent home about 10 or more absenses. What was this about? Well, who could really blame them. Being brought up in a school system where you could not fail until Grade 10, no matter how much content you actually knew, or how many tests, assignments or grades you failed, you still got passed along. Now for the teachers, this was very frustrating. Planning any sort of yearly plan was difficult, because it often took twice as long to get through any of the content due to lack of attendance, lack of effort or lack of previous knowledge. If teachers worked hard to try to relate to their students, to provide individualized programs or lessons, often times, they either got sick of trying, or they burned out. There was a lack of interest from the students towards their education(many saw the lack of relativity to their own lives), and a lack of support from parents at home. My second experience of burnout related to student and parent activity, was during my time of tutoring a Grade 6 student whom has ADHD. He had been moved around from school to school, could read at a much lower level then he should have been, his spelling, writing and mathematics were as well, and the biggest problem??? His lack of caring. He had been passed on, and let go, he learned, if he complained enough, or put up a fight. He blamed his teachers for not helping him enough, and his mother complained that the school teachers didn’t know enough about ADHD and weren’t willing to learn. However, when I would show up my Sundays, Mondays or Wednesdays…did he have his homework with him? Not usually. Would he have practiced the things we went over in the time we had together, and that I had asked his mother to work with him on? Nope. Did he seem to care about his marks at all..?? Not that I could see. No matter how I tried to get inside his head, or make the work relative to his interests(making up math questions using basketball , practicing reading skater magazines, etc.), nothing seemed to get through. I knew he liked me well enough, but that didn’t seem to be enough. So, as a teacher, simply getting through to your students can be difficult enough. I know that it was very discouraging to me, and the interactions with him were often more draining then preparing the work itself.

Within teaching, there are many challenges both with the teaching content(learning and teaching it), and with the interactions of the staff, community, administration, parents and students. There is much to be expected of you, and much that you may be expecting of yourself. However, I have begun to see that you simply can not please everyone including yourself. It simply is not possible. However, you can do your best, in a human-ly possible way, and still remain happy and satisfied with your job…because I don’t believe that(for me anyways) there could be a more satisfying job. As for the system of education itself…well, one day soon, I hope it will be able to be more flexible in able to adapt to so many of the students who no longer work well within the public systems boundaries. I would like to be part of this change. But first I have to learn to work within it, so as I will know better how it should change. So, in a last comment towards burning out, as two very wise people once(ok, a few times…)said….stay fit, and have fun!!

I need to let my landlord know soon if we will be moving out of our apartment, and this got me punching some numbers, and thinking about costs. While I was bitterly thinking about how expensive everything seems to be, I saw an old paper from one of my classes where we had decided to do an action project for a centre in Regina that is a safe haven for many people who don’t have everything they need, including a home(Carmichael Outreach). This made me go digging around for a video that a classmate and I had made to raise awareness about the issue of homelessness and for the centre. After watching it, I thought up my idea for my mastercard commercial assignment for class. It deals with the costs of a home, and about how lucky I feel to have one.

The Price of a Home

After reading a previous post refering to the ‘priviledge’ of technology(and by that, i mean to having it available for use), I am questioning myself for using it as a kind of ‘discipline’ technique.  If students are abusing the use of the computer(ex: inappropriate sites, not working, gaming, etc), it is different, but if not allowing students to use a computer IN CASE they might(which is, I believe, what many people, including myself may be lead to assume)? I think this idea of technology as a priviledge to be able to use is definitly showing my digital immigrancy.  Thoughout the course of the last few weeks in class, im starting to view the use of technology in classrooms as an addition to the curriculum(as well as being a CEL), that can add so much more to the learning experience.  If taking the use of the computers away, such as a discipliary action, because you know students like it, it could be compared to  taking away art, or phys.ed(which in my mind, are as crucial to the holistic learning of the student as say, math or science) which the students enjoy, therfore giving the authority figure some leverage…however, is this right to do?  We have the responsability to teach this, so…why take it away?

After watching this video about ‘Yesterday’s Technology’, it reminded me of what I’ve heard of before.  Technology is ALWAYS old…no matter how new it is… Cars come out a year before it is, computers and pda’s are constantly being upgraded with the newest programs and updates, or else something crucial to them, like, oh, say, a CHARGER comes out with one more pin on it…just so you have to buy a new one.  Even printer cartridges are smart…some, once they run out, they still register as being empty even after you refill them!  Society is set-up to be this way…materialistic and disregardable. It is definitly not a sustainable way to live…soo, heres my question of the day.  At what point do we encourage students to learn how to use and provide the newest equipment for them to use(although in some cases, what we do provide is often ancient technologies, and un-usable with current systems, programs and other technologies), or do we say, ENOUGH, be happy with what you have, and learn how to get along without the newest ‘in thing’?

  I would love to hear some opinions on this one…

After reading the latest exert from Clarence Fisher’s blog, ‘School of Everything’, I began to think about what we almost/kind of/began to touch on in discussion in class monday.  We began to talk about the needs/development of technology within classrooms, and what some of the pros/cons/challenges were.  Well, as someone mentioned(Alec maybe??) maybe, it’s not time for us to tell students what they need…its time for us to listen.  The School of Everything details an alternative educational setting, where, additional to the core subjects, students are able to come up with ideas for classes that they are interested in.  From these ideas, teachers are found, and classes are developed at a variance of length and difficulty.  This I thought was a great idea!  I know with some of my own assignments given in my pre-internship classes, I found that those in which the students could develop to suit their own interests and needs went over a lot better then some of the generic ones I gave.  When the students were interested and had control over what they spent their time on, they were in class, with a higher degree of participation and learning going on, and their were almost no behavioral issues!  I can only imagine what that would be like for an entire course!  A few other good alternative educational settings that I have heard about are:  Bishop Carol in Calgary, or even Cochrane in Regina.  With the demographics of our students changing, as well as their attitutes towards schools/ing(because of the lack of parrallels to our students real lives??), our rigid education system that exists is no longer serving the purpose for the betterment of society.  A capitalistic society, maybe.  One which focuses on giving some students, that ones that the system is built to fit(white, middle-upperclass), a chance for a bright future, and gives those who struggle to fit in, no opportunities at all.  So what needs to change within our education system??  Well, I think this depends on your teaching philosophies, and own experiences and preferences.  For some, the time lines, homework, and rows of desks work.  But for some students, it doesn’t at all…and these numbers are the ones that are unfortunatly rising higher and higher.  We need to start examining where there are struggles, why and what we can do about it.  And although this may be difficult for us(who are a testimony to the system working…we are all in a third year university class…), don’t we owe it to our students and future students to put ourselves and comfort zones out on a limb?  Instead of always making our students conform…maybe it’s time for us to…