Thinking about the tension that will drive my article:
One of the things Gorman complains about is that we want everything fast. But scholarly research takes time. Yet in a recent article in TechTrends about blogs, they suggest that using RSS and new technologies can make searching easier. But I have to agree with Gorman a bit: it’s easy to accumulate a lot of stuff pretty quickly. But then it has to be read and absorbed.
I’m trying a blog experiment to see how well this technology helps me write a paper. For now, I’m in the formulating mode, collecting articles, quotes, and ideas that may or may not make it into the final paper. Here’s the first one from Michael Gorman, the infamous president of the ALA who found himself the object of scorn when he wrote an op-ed piece in the LA Times about Google’s plan to digitize everything. He continued to be unrepentant when he responded to the attacks in Library Journal on February 15, 2005. He points to the often uncivil debate. Hmm…and the Washington Post just had that interesting caper with anonymous commenting. So, for educators living in a world of instantaneous, push-button publishing to literally billions of people, what do we need to be teaching our kids about writing? But even more, about civil debate?
I have a paper to write for my online teaching and learning class and am particularly interested in the use of weblogs. But I can’t figure out the angle. When you type weblogs into ERIC (http://eric.ed.gov), you get 16 results ranging from articles in practitioners journals to a long presentation from AERA to articles from the Chronicle of Higher Education. I’ll start with a lit review, of course, and then review the issues: privacy and truth. I think there is also a larger issue of technology in general. One article I read discussed the way that blogs were going to revolutionize writing, taking students from made up classroom research activities to more real world assignments. Really? A technology can do that? I think that is the teacher’s responsibility. The technology can help us store our thoughts, track our research, and otherwise support our learning, but it is not going to change how we teach unless a teacher makes a specific decision to do so.
So how did I miss Web 2.0? I’ve seen bits and pieces (Library Thing counts, right?) but didn’t quite get the whole concept. Then, this evening, as I looked for something completely different, I ended up at elearningpost.com and couldn’t resist the Web 2.0 link. It went out to listible.com, and I was hooked. And from that list, I couldn’t resist Remember the Milk.
See you! I’m off to have fun with to do lists!
All of a sudden my tag cloud isn’t working and it occured to me that I just don’t blog enough. And probably don’t tag enough either. Too busy…although this would be a good venue to try out the short papers for my instructional strategies class.
Yup…I was right…I blogged and tagged and the cloud has reappeared.
I have been thinking about the idea of outcomes-based education: we make a list of desired outcomes and students do whatever it takes to meet them. In non-technology days that meant that they could listen to the teacher and read the textbook as part of a large group of students.. I googled “outcomes based education” and found the Bundaberg Curriculum Exchange, which said: “Lessons can now be directed towards assisting students in developing specific identified outcomes (per syllabus) utilizing whatever context we believe best suites outcome development and student interest.”
Think about the power of that statement…we have the ability to truly reach every student in the way that suits them and the content most effectively. We might incorporate online elements or a print textbook or a video…the list is ever expanding as technology changes. What frustrates me is when someone asks the question, “Is online learning going to replace schools?” It isn’t an either/or question…schools will incorporate online learning to some extent, many of them already have. Technology should expand our choices not limit them.
One last holiday before the semester begins…puttering around the house and computer. Finally decided to work on Noter, my bibliography/notetaking software. I would like the author/keyword lists to be pull down menus rather than checklists when you enter a resource. I got the pull down menus implemented pretty easily (that’s just html) but they weren’t actually writing to the database. I think I know why it isn’t working: since there can be more than one author or keyword for a resource, they are linked to the resource through a keyword and author lookup table. Evidently, at some point I learned how to get a checklist to write to the database. But that code didn’t seem to work when I switched to a pull down menu.
So I went to a backup on DVD. But I wasn’t sure which one…I hadn’t made lists of what folders were on each DVD that I burned recently as a major archiving project. I needed to print the window but wasn’t sure how to do it. I poked briefly around the web, discovered the Automator (which I’ve seen on my computer but never used), couldn’t figure it out exactly, went on the web and watched about 30 seconds of the demo movie at Apple, and a few minutes later was printing the folder window for my backup.
What’s the point? I still have lots of learning to do about php/MySQL. I rely heavily on other people when it comes to programming. I think learning can be plotted on a continuum: basic facts (bottom up processing) leads to conceptual and critical understandings (top down processing). But I don’t think it’s a linear continuum, if that’s possible? I am somewhere in the middle of the continuum: my husband was trying to explain the logic of the code and all I wanted was the code. Surely someone else has implemented this and I know enough about databases so I can make use of already written code, just substituting my table and field names.
My quick detour to learn how to use the Automator provides another lesson about learning: sometimes it happens just-in-time…we can’t possibly prepare completely and know everything we’ll need to know before we go into a project. If you had to learn every nuance of your computer before you actually used it, you would never do anything. What you do need to know is how to find out if and how you can do something. I don’t think we do enough to educate people to navigate the help screens built into software and the resources available to help online.
Reading Michael Fullan’s Change Forces With a Vengeance:
“We can begin by not trying to resist the irresistible, which is relentless change. Paul Baker, Professor Emeritus at Illinois State University, spent his entire career studying the experiences of teachers and administrators with educational reform in Illinois, only to conclude:
Planned change for [educators] is not the cumulative development of a comprehensive strategy. Rather, it is ?¢‚Ǩ?ìone damned thing after another.?¢‚Ǩ? (Baker et al., 1991:13)” (p. 24)
From Steven at LibraryStuff who is one of the smartest bloggers I read:
“There needs to be a balance. While Google is trying to index the world’s content (don’t be fooled: they are and they admit it), I think we need to get beyond that and think about how we can instill the love of literature and books in our children. I want Hallie to be able to search an entire library of books online, but I also want her to appreciate cuddling up under a warm blanket, with a cup of hot chocolate, and a book in her hands.”
I wish I had written that…sensible words that I have also said some version of during almost every presentation I’ve done. I’m certainly not giving up books. In fact, I’m blogging from downtown Roanoke right now (taking advantage of their free, citywide wireless) waiting for Cantos Booksellers to open. In fact, right now my favorite technologies are those that merge books and the web. Librarything and Bookcrossing are the two that leap to mind. And I just discovered Librivox as well. I can’t wait to get home and start recording book chapters.
For me, the essential message mirrors Steven’s conclusion. Looking into the future doesn’t require completely jettisoning the past. I want to take advantage of the full range of technologies from paper and pencil to printed text to all the Internet has to offer. If we allow emerging technologies to restrict our access to and appreciation of old technologies, then we have failed.
I am mostly testing how to post a picture to my blog from flickr. I think during the presentation, I am going to post a picture of the group to the VCOL blog. For now, I’m testing with my WordPress blog.
