The Great Divide!

When I think of the digital divide, I am reminded of the "earthshake" scene in the old animated movie The Land Before Time - the world is shaking and changing. And sometimes, the "great divide" is unbroachable.

I know, kinda dramatic. Besides, we're in anything but the "dinosaur age"! But consider that digital technologies are rapidly transforming the way the world functions and communicates, and if one is left on one side of that divide, then the gap only becomes more and more vast and uncrossable. The digital divide usually refers to a contrast of the use of computers and the internet, and the latter demographic in these pairs usually have more access: old vs. young, uneducated vs. educated, majority vs. minority, low income vs. high income... From this kind of objective standpoint, one could argue that digital access and proper use enhances and contributes to quality of life.

Of course, there are those with access to the internet and those without access, but there's another level to carefully examine that is maybe another mini "earthshake" - those who produce vs. consume content. From what I gather, "consuming" content is a lower-level way of using the internet, doing rather simplistic things such as Facebook statuses. Producing content would mean being an active user and also understanding how the technology functions.

For example, this blog. I am producing original (and hopefully fascinating) content that contributes to the worldwide internet community. I have a working knowledge of how Blogger works and can go in and apply my creativity. I'm a producer. (Yay!)

But "consumers" have little to no knowledge to how technology actually works. They just use a technology that has already been produced.The problem is that as technology advances, less and less people know how it actually works, which puts the power into an increasingly concentrated field of people.

I believe the best way to bridge the divide on that first level - those without access vs. those with access - is to allow for more wireless or subsidized internet access. "Build it and they will come" - technology is becoming so pervasive and cheap that if given the opportunity, people will find a way to use it, which will provide companies the incentive to mass produce hardware to meet demand.

As for the second divide - those who produce vs. consume - what can I say? This is best approached through an alternative approach to education itself, a deep infrastructure sort of thing. Like, this class is teaching how to integrate technology into the classroom, which will trickle down to all of our students. As we revolutionize the way teachers teach, I believe that is the best and most lasting change (albeit the slowest!).

I realize that I need to challenge the digital divide in my own classroom more by allowing for a learning curve, and teaching the rudiments of technology as we go along. I'll incorporate the use of Google Docs but not take into account how to teach the best usage!


And in the list that Paul C Gorski wrote "6 Ways I Challenge the Digital Divide," he states: "I must not use technology to replace face-to-face interaction." Hear ye, hear ye! I concur! All day long today I have been e-mailing, texting, Facebooking, even calling people, and you know what? I am sick and tired of it. I just want to sit down across from a warm, live human body and watch the expressions on their face shift - in the flesh, and not on a screen! - in reaction to what I say. 

So although the Land Before Time was describing a scene from millions of years ago, I think the principle of the divide remains the same - we must unite together as fellow living, social beings to progress forward and prosper or we shall perish.

Who knew a cartoon could offer up such life lessons!

Copyrighted Creativity

Why do copyrights exist? The Technology Source explains, "To provide an incentive for undertaking the risks inherent in creative activity, the owner is granted a limited monopoly on his or her creations (http://technologysource.org/article/copyright_law_and_fair_use/)"

Okay, that sounds cool and fair. Yay to America for encouraging creativity, which often has low money remuneration, etc, but greatly benefits society. But because creativity often DOES benefit society, how do we share that with the world without stepping on the toes of the creator?

As an educator, this will come up frequently in my work. And the best way to create a mood of respect for others' inherent ownership of creativity, that takes setting the example. How so? Citing work and being knowledgeable in how to present work. Showing respect on my part with allow for my students to pattern respectfulness.

I can also encourage proper acknowledgement of copyright issues by simple education! Letting students know what is a copyright, how to cite, and the importance of citing. Even this simple lesson and question on copyrighting in this Integrating Technology into the Classroom has given me a whole other perspective on copyright.

So yay to creativity, America, and yes, copyrights! Because this means that the very words that I'm typing right now (which are so very fabulous) are inherently protected from showing up on someone else's site.

Well, hopefully.   

Virtual Schools?

Technology is evolving at breakneck speed and revolutionizing how we experience the world.

School is no exception.

Maybe you have heard of virtual schools, or have taken online classes. Whatever the situation, technology offers education profound and unparalleled opportunities to learn.

Or does it?

I personally examined the website for Florida Virtual Schools to see if this option offers anything new or of significant value to education. I considered if I would want my child to take these online classes. From my rather neophyte perspective, I have gathered some conclusions on virtual schools:

a) Virtual schools involve a LOT of sitting in front of the computer - according to the projected time required to take courses, a student must sit in front of the computer for about 20 - 25 hours a week. Add on to this the fact that that's all supposed to be "school" time, and kids want to also do more recreation activities online, my kid would probably be on the computer 40 hours a week!

b) Webcams are cool. Phonecalls are cool. Chats and e-mails and Skype conferences are cool. But in my humble opinion, nothing replaces looking another human being in the eye. How would my child go through life, contacting all of the important people in her/her life through some form of technological medium?

c) Virtual schools require a huge amount of commitment to time management and a sense of self-accountability - these skills are often lacking in adolescents (I myself attest to that).

In conclusion, I would let my kid take classes from Florida Virtual Schools if it was one or two classes, but not full time. If I let my kid take classes full time, it would be because:

a) We're traveling in a foreign country and he or she needs to keep up with school, or
b) my child expressed a deep, very focused desire to take all classes online, with also some balance of real-world interactions with people and friends.

Technology enhances life and communication, but please, let's not let it get in the way of connection with other human beings and the world.

Social Networking Evolution

The article that I will be commenting on this week is a case study involving the dangers of social networking. You can read the short article here: http://www.bamaed.ua.edu/edtechcases/Case%20Numbers/social%20networking%20ups%20and%20downs_Case%2012.pdf

At the end of the article, these questions are posed:
1.) What should the University of Education do to the girl who keyed Natalie's car and stole her
clothes?

I believe the University should do whatever the University does to students who would break into someone's personal property and steal his or her belongings. So the question is What is the University's policy?


2.) Should Juicy Campus be held responsible for what happened to Natalie’s belongings?

No. I think there should be more copyrighting protection for photos and content and the like, but in the end Juicy Campus only encouraged attitudes like this and did not cause these destructive attitudes. If it's not Juicy Campus, another website will spring up, and another one, and another one. There is no end to it, so you might as well just face the realities of social networking.

3.) When does social networking become cyber-bullying?

Good question. Social networking becomes cyber-bullying in the hands of immature people. I believe that when people rely too much on internet connections with people, they lose touch of what it actually means to physically and emotionally connect with other human beings. Cyber-bullying can seem so cheap, but really it can be so harmful.

4.) Could Natalie’s situations have been prevented?

Yes. I believe it is a very individual circumstance, and kind of exceptional. If Natalie is an awkward girl who doesn't know how to make friends in person, then she's probably going to be an awkward girl online who doesn't know how to socially interact and make friends with new people.

Ultimately, online social networking is a TOOL, and it is a tool and experience that shall continue for a very, very long time into the future. It's a process of evolution, and we must be ready to evolve with it. Along with computers came computer viruses. So deal with it - now we have anti-virus programs and an entirely new career opportunity in fixing diseased computers! Along with copyright issues on YouTube came the technology to identify music and content from major sources, and then easy avenues to report and remove copyrighted content.

Social networking is a fact of life. So deal with it, Natalie. 

The Do's and Don'ts of PowerPoint

Dear Professor Aburrido,

I heard someone snoring in last Tuesday's class. I'll be frank, I wanted to join in. 

I say this with a lot of love: I have attributed your snore-worthy teaching style to the way you use PowerPoint. PowerPoint is a tool, yes, but it must be used with caution. Not only can a presentation become boring, but vital information can be chopped up into unrecognizable, useless pieces. So, being the concerned and inspired student that I am, I have decided to break down the Do's and Don'ts of PowerPoint. 

1. 

DON'T: Read out long paragraphs verbatim from a PowerPoint slide

DO: Give a dynamic speech with only some key references noted on the slide

2. 

DON'T: use Frilly fonts or colors

DO: Use standard fonts, such as Verdana or Trebuchet and keep the text a standard color

3.

DON'T: Use Phluffy clip art

DO: Use strong, relevant images to tie in with your dynamic speech (see #1)

4. 

DON'T: Oversimplify and distill charts and information down to mind-numbing simplicity

DO: Post important charts or information in some entirety, and give students some silent wait time to read and process the chart - then point out the parts you want to emphasize

5. 

DON'T: Print out your PowerPoint as a way of disseminating information at your presentation

DO: Print out a longer pamphlet to give some anchor and accountability to your audience, but allow the foundation of your presentation to be your speech

6. 

DON'T: Use more than two tiers of bullet points

DO: Stick to one main tier of a topic and then one sub-tier of that topic

7.

DON'T: Display a slide that will not be personally expounded upon for relevance

DO: Make sure every single slide and every single bit of information is relevant and ties in with your speech

Thank you for reading, Professor Aburrido. Although, if you carefully apply these Do's and Don'ts, your name shall be Professor Dinámico! 

Another Look at PowerPoint

This week we take another look at the famous (infamous?) PowerPoint format, as continued in the Tufte article from last week called "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint."

I shall bring up two other logistical issues that Tufte raises on PowerPoint. The first is how the format of PowerPoint lends a terrible logic and sense to presenting statistics. Tufte argues that tables of valuable data in their raw form is converted into meaningless and convoluted graphs. He gives the example of the famous table about life expectancy and casualties by Graunt - it is a large table with lots of data, but Tufte argues that that is the table's beauty. Trying to dress up the data into graphs or individual slides would butcher the data.

The second issue that Tufte raises is how information is chopped up into strange pieces and then scattered into a plethora of "phluffy" slides. The PowerPoint rendition of the Gettysburg Address definitely had me chuckling. Since it would be difficult to post that rendition on this blog, get an idea of it like this: try putting into a bar graph "four score and seven years ago" in relation to new nations founded; breaking down Lincoln's poetic metaphors about the future of this country into an "Agenda" slide with bullets, and my favorite was the slide entitled: "Shared Vision" and underneath was the bullet "Gov't of/by/for the people."

I had fun reading Tufte's opinions on PowerPoint, I just couldn't help but wonder: "Well, if you hate PowerPoint so much, what do you suggest??" My conclusion last week is ultimately the conclusion I draw this week: PowerPoint is a tool, a very powerful tool. And like any tool (especially powerful ones) it can be abused and wreak havoc.

So beware.

And PLEASE do not reduce JFK's inaugural address into a PowerPoint! Can you imagine?

AGENDA
- Ask not (country)
- Ask (you - country!!)  

An UnemPowered Presentation

In "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint," Edward Tufte seriously hates on the famous software program. You could say he's analyzing the various pros and cons of using PowerPoint, but let's face it, he's hating on it. And not just from the viewpoint of a disgruntled administrator - he brings in a case study of the Columbia spacecraft crash... and attributes a major reason for its crash to PowerPoint.

Ouch.

Tufte's first argument that stuck out to me was how the format of PowerPoint breeds the usage of hierarchical categories that are simply not needed. "Bullet Points Dilute Thought," he states, which intrigues me. I would think that by summarizing an idea into bullet points and categories, subject matter would be distilled down to its essence, not diluted into meaningless "phluff."

Take note of the screen shot below, which is taken from Tufte's article. He is describing the hierarchical usage in the PowerPoint presentation that was used to describe warning signs that all was not well before the Columbia crash.

Put in this very clear format, the hierarchy used actually seems preposterous! You know, dashes and diamonds and little bullets... It makes sense that the human brain would get a bite of information and then "dilute" it with lots of personal assumptions. He states that this is one of the main reasons that dissemination of information of the damage to the Columbia spacecraft was so scatterbrained and ineffective. Thus, nobody did anything about the damage and bam, the craft crashed.

Another pointer that Tufte makes is that PowerPoint has a low resolution. My first thought was, "Are you serious? PowerPoint presentations can be extremely fancy and high-res!" Then I checked the date that this article was written - 2003. Aha, that explains it. Technology advances at exponential speeds, and the popular PowerPoint is no exception.

What caught my eye the most, though, about this issue that Tufte brings up (and not just discarding it as outdated) is that each slide in PowerPoint condenses information down to such concentrated extents that much is lost in the process. This harkens back to the previous point about how bullets "dilute thought." He notes that presenters put only very little on each slide because of the resolution, thus "with so little information per slide, many many slides are needed. Audiences consequently endure a relentless sequentiality, one damn slide after another."

True, true. I have definitely sat through many a mind-numbing presentations that flashed before my eyes.

The thing is, Tufte hates on PowerPoint, but what does he suggest to replace it? Personally, I believe that PowerPoint is a tool - and like any tool, it can be used improperly and even cause a lot of damage (as in the case of the Columbia crash). But when used properly, PowerPoint can transform teaching and also learning into a dynamic presentation that engages and inspires.

Does This Game Make the Cut?

If you're going to incorporate computer games into your classroom setting, you've got to have a standard.

Not all computer games are created equal.

An Active Process

Okay, nerds and geeks unite! After such a nerds-and-geek-downer proposition last week that there is No Significant Difference in learning with or without the application of technology, a retaliation was in store.

This week the title of the article in question is, "The MYTH About No Significant Difference." The article that Oblinger and Hawkins write ultimately boils down to one question: "Difference in what?"

The authors emphasize that if we are to look at "learning" as the significant difference, we can break learning down into many facets: motivation, opportunities, active process, interaction with others, etc. Indeed, incorporating technology does not automatically guarantee an increase in learning, but the potential is there.

The final statement of the article says: Does using technology produce a significant difference? The answer depends on how the question is asked." Oblinger and Hawkins sound remarkably unbiased and balanced, but of course their article is all about the myriad ways that technology can transform the learning process. They give very few examples of technology not making a difference.

I resonate the most with learning as an active process. Learning is an experience - sometimes that experience comes through reading a book, sometimes through traveling to another country. I feel that if technology can enhance the active process of an experience, then by all means it is worth every penny of investment.

An example of meaningful learning is going through the steps to actually publish a book, while not-so-meaningful learning is to research how books are published and then give a presentation.

So if meaningful learning incorporates technology into an active process, then it means being able to create a product and be able to share that with other students and with the world. Technology is an incredible platform to expose one's work to the world for evaluation and growth.

Like this blog.

I know that this blog is simply a learning journal for a class, but I plan on putting a link to this blog on my Facebook and even on my other, more mainstream blog, Seed of Devotion. I figure I might as well apply the power of technology in its best way - the active process of sharing with others. 

Paper vs. Pixel - NSD??

Consider the difference in me writing this post out on a sheet of paper versus me writing this post out on this blog. The former I hand it in to the professor, the latter I click "PUBLISH POST." Either way, a man by the name of Richard Clark had a question: "Does the form of media in which something is learned make any difference on learning?"

At last he concluded, after much research, there was No Significant Difference. Yes, those are capital letters. This research is quite old and has reach such fame (infamy?) that it has even been shortened to an acronym: NSD.

But all I wonder is: Difference on what?

Clark posits that it doesn't matter how a subject is delivered, but what is ultimately delivered - much like a delivery truck delivering goods to the market. Learning is learning, he seems to say, and the media in which is delivered has absolutely no impact on that learning.

I was curious to see if Clark would change his position, which he did. But it wasn't that he de-validated all of his work and stated the opposite, but rather that he took his same work and moved to a different spot to view it from. He mainly questions the "unique influence of media" on learning.

So then one might ask: what is learning? Clark seems to have a very defined idea that learning is a cognitive product - something to be achieved at the end of a cognitive process. But if learning is truly a cognitive product, then we could just confine learning to taking tests... which doesn't quite work because one needs to learn something to be able to take the test!

So how does this research impact the classroom? After all, Clark suggest that utilizing various media only signify a difference in cost and convenience. School administrators might cite the "No Significant Difference" (or shall I say quite smartly, the NSD) study to justify a cut in technology funding in schools - fail to update what is currently in use and also to resist investing in technology for the future.

In conclusion, would I have learned more by writing this post out on a sheet of paper and handing it in to my professor? Or have I learned more by typing it out on blogger.com and clicking "PUBLISH POST"?

I honestly have no idea.

While human beings have been learning just fine without computers for millennia, I must admit that a blog post is much more fun than handing in a piece of paper. 

The Staircase and The Summit

I once heard a story about a man who wanted to know what gold was. He was told that if he climbed this particular gigantic staircase, he would reach the top and know what gold was. Along the way he kept asking what gold was, but the people just smiled, shook their head, and said, "Keep going."

The man reached the summit of the staircase. Hands shaking with excitement, he opened the door... and there was a block of gold. In astonishment, he whirled around to look down at the staircase he had just climbed. It was made entirely of gold.

This story sums up the idea of learning as a process and a product. The two principles are deeply interconnected. For the man to even understand what gold was, he had to climb a staircase made of gold, and he could only have the realization of its value when he reached the top.

Writing this blog post is a process - I reflect upon a school assignment and I formulate my thoughts into words and stories and ideas. And yet as a produce, I must hit "Publish Post" for you, my professor, to even grade this work and count it towards my grade in Integrating Technology into the Classroom.

I identify with viewing learning as a process - I feel that is 90% of my experience in this world. The other 10% is the outcome of that learning, and how do I continue to evolve in my learning as feedback. Instead of "knowing that" I want to "know how"... and yet I must begin with "knowing that" to "know how."

I mean, the man could have simply Googled a definition and image and maybe even shopped for it online. But his process was to journey far, to have an experience. Learning is an experience.

I want to climb the staircase.