If you've ever sat back and thought of memories from your childhood, perhaps a playground where you once flew back and forth, higher and higher on the swing set, or a house where you and your family once lived, your memories may very well be warm, vivid, and seemingly larger than life.
And yet years later, if you've ever had an opportunity to visit that house where you once lived, or the playground where you once hung out with your buddies, it strikes you as to how small the place actually is, totally unlike any of your fond recollections.
For me, the exact opposite is happening in regards to the Internet as I have known it over the past decade or more ... this thing is not getting smaller - it's getting larger by the minute, as if its secrets are being unlocked, and revealed to me for the first time.
I've learned many things these last few days, perhaps the most prominent being the realization of the existence of an intellectual online subculture - folks who spend waaaay more time engaged in activities that are probably far more productive than say - fantasy football. I've discovered an entirely new set of tools designed to increase productivity on the web, and the realization that these tools - while very useful individually, become much more powerful when when used in conjunction with each other.
What else would I like to learn? Well . . . what else is there? At this point, I'm not inclined to assume I can accurately pinpoint one thing. If the sky is the limit, how high is the sky?
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Blogs as an Instructional Tool
Where am I right now regarding the use of blogs as an instructional tool? Well, I have a better understanding of what a blog is, and an idea of how blogging might be used in an educational setting, but I'm not certain we can even do it in our district on a wholesale basis. In my role as an audio-visual coordinator, I provide support services to classroom teachers in 13 different buildings; I don't actually operate out of a single room, nor do I have a group of students I see on a daily basis. Our network is highly "tied down" and filtered, and I'm not so certain that many of our pathways to blogging are not actually blocked.
I'm thinking my first step is to sit down with our tech director and simply discuss blogging, or actually Web 2.0 in general, to develop an understanding of what is currently possible, and what might be possible in the future. Will we be able to utilize some of the tools that comprise Web 2.0 in the future? Perhaps ... one good sign is that I am actually participating in this class with the blessing of my district. Small steps lead to larger ones.
I'm thinking my first step is to sit down with our tech director and simply discuss blogging, or actually Web 2.0 in general, to develop an understanding of what is currently possible, and what might be possible in the future. Will we be able to utilize some of the tools that comprise Web 2.0 in the future? Perhaps ... one good sign is that I am actually participating in this class with the blessing of my district. Small steps lead to larger ones.
Responding to Square Pegs, Round Holes
Is it deja vu all over again? It seems as though I've traveled this path before; images, sounds and text ... only this time packaged with 3 of man's favorite activities - sitting, eating and thinking, all the while utilizing a new set of powerful tools that allows the creation to be changed on a whim, but accessable this time to the entire planet - a world without borders, a world without boundaries.
I am a stranger to this world, an immigrant of sorts. At this point, I really only know that I don't know much; but that alone is progress. I am already permitted to have all the time there is ... a minute will always be 60 seconds, a week will always have 7 days, and so forth. How I choose to fill this time is all the freedom I have.
And so, to be productive. To fill my alloted time with as much meaning as I can, or as I choose. And, to share that with others - a give & take of sorts ... and so with this, I begin my first post, on my first blog.
David, your article packs quite a wallop. To be able to connect, to create, to communicate and to collaborate describes the world we live in, or at least the world we think we might like to live in. And yet, at this point in time, the package of tools collectively described as Web 2.0 has little or no impact on the district in which I work, or on other districts that I am familiar with, and there are many, many reasons for this.
Consider the mindset. Education itself still revolves around the Agrarian Cycle. Back in the day, kids were needed on the farm to help plant crops in the spring, and then to tend to them, and perhaps harvest some of them throughout the summer months, in preparation for the winter.
And so for the most part even today, despite advances in all sorts of technologies, school in most parts of the country continues to start in the early fall, runs at full tilt all winter long, and comes to a grinding halt in the late spring or early summer ... at which time the books are put away, and the kids are off doing other things.
Even members of Congress, and members of the Supreme Court ... traditionally break for summer!
Old habits die hard, and so it's no wonder that new technologies, new ways of doing things ... are not readily embraced by the public at large. Change is not necessarily the order of the day, and so the resources needed to make changes are not always readily available, and tradition can sometimes be a difficult mindset to work through. Let's face it, we're still Agrarians!
Your argument for using the resources of Web 2.0 to link people together, and your framework for making technology an integral part of teaching and learning are very well thought out. But getting there, ah ... that's the challenge! I guess it needs to be done, one teacher at a time, one administrator at a time, and one student at a time. At some point, the value begins to shine through.
I am a stranger to this world, an immigrant of sorts. At this point, I really only know that I don't know much; but that alone is progress. I am already permitted to have all the time there is ... a minute will always be 60 seconds, a week will always have 7 days, and so forth. How I choose to fill this time is all the freedom I have.
And so, to be productive. To fill my alloted time with as much meaning as I can, or as I choose. And, to share that with others - a give & take of sorts ... and so with this, I begin my first post, on my first blog.
David, your article packs quite a wallop. To be able to connect, to create, to communicate and to collaborate describes the world we live in, or at least the world we think we might like to live in. And yet, at this point in time, the package of tools collectively described as Web 2.0 has little or no impact on the district in which I work, or on other districts that I am familiar with, and there are many, many reasons for this.
Consider the mindset. Education itself still revolves around the Agrarian Cycle. Back in the day, kids were needed on the farm to help plant crops in the spring, and then to tend to them, and perhaps harvest some of them throughout the summer months, in preparation for the winter.
And so for the most part even today, despite advances in all sorts of technologies, school in most parts of the country continues to start in the early fall, runs at full tilt all winter long, and comes to a grinding halt in the late spring or early summer ... at which time the books are put away, and the kids are off doing other things.
Even members of Congress, and members of the Supreme Court ... traditionally break for summer!
Old habits die hard, and so it's no wonder that new technologies, new ways of doing things ... are not readily embraced by the public at large. Change is not necessarily the order of the day, and so the resources needed to make changes are not always readily available, and tradition can sometimes be a difficult mindset to work through. Let's face it, we're still Agrarians!
Your argument for using the resources of Web 2.0 to link people together, and your framework for making technology an integral part of teaching and learning are very well thought out. But getting there, ah ... that's the challenge! I guess it needs to be done, one teacher at a time, one administrator at a time, and one student at a time. At some point, the value begins to shine through.
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