POST 10 Chapter 10 What It All Means October 27, 2011

In this last chapter, Richardson writes: “Although….being able to read and write… [those core abilities] are still central to learning; they are no longer enough to ensure understanding.” (148) What he means is that students, additionally, will need to know how accomplish these in collaborative environments. With that, I entirely agree….

However, that had not seemed to me to be the author’s primary premise previously. While reading,  I found difficulty with Richardson’s “in the background” notion  or suggestion that students already have the basic skills of reading and writing and are developmentally ready to handle the collaborative environments with which they are faced on a daily basis, K-12. That I do not believe, at least not for most students, although there are exceptions.  

Perhaps because I am a teacher of students with special needs, or perhaps because I am, above all, a realist (with an idealistic spark), I reject the notion that student's basic skills take a back seat to ANYTHING.  I reject the notion that our primary job is to teach technological skills above all else; instead I place priorities in a different order. In so far as technology enhances learning, and in so far as these are excellent tools leading to higher order learning, starting at basic learning, I applaud the role of technological advances in making teachers’ roles more effective and relevant. But just assuming the basic skills will emerge out of efforts at collaboration does not appear logical. If students are not taught step by step and developmentally, real and steady progress may not be the end result, no matter how ardently desirable that end is.

I can see that that a seamless integration of the elements noted above would be ideal, as long as attention to basics is not forfeited, and I am willing to work hard toward that end, despite the fact that I myself am an immigrant to the land of digitized learning, rather than a native. I am happy to accept the idea that I have the capability to become fully naturalized, but believe that the process will take lots of energy and time Even so, my fluency, so to “speak,” may not ever be as smooth as the digital native teachers who are very quickly becoming the teachers of today and certainly will be a majority tomorrow.

              If the vision of the seamlessly digitized classroom is to become real without aborting any efforts to bolster our students’ basic skills, it must also be the “stuff” that current and future teachers must take on from the start. Certainly I see many young teachers with these natural propensities, but I also see teachers, just as young, fresh, and smart, whose training and bent are not yet equivalent in this regard.

                           Richardson himself indicates that the new shifts he sees the new environment for teaching and learning– or rather for collaborating will indeed be a long time in coming. Again, I concur. IN principal, I agree that collaboration will play a very large role in education, and certainly teachers who do not use the newest technologies adequately in the near future will not be teachers at all. What I believe however is that real collaboration  that truly adds to the new knowledge in the world will not usually come from those engaged in grades K-12, just as new knowledge now comes from higher levels , so too will be the course of the future.  This does not mean us at the primary and secondary levels do not have responsibility for ensuring that our students are prepared and able to take on these responsibilities in postsecondary education and beyond; indeed we will have those responsibilities more than ever. But total collaboration on all fronts may notbe the sole answer. As humans , we always have managed a  balancing act, an actof s collaboration assuredly and of communication, but also of singular  individual achievement.  In sum,  individual achievement . Without each person’s ability to think for him/her self and to communicate cogently, ensuring that thinking levels are ready for the kind of ultimate collaborative problem solving discussed, without first and foremost gaining personal expertise –along with not instead of collaborations – no such harmonious efforts toward mastery as the author suggests will be reached.

                           If this discussion or my comments have taken on an aura of the abstract I apologize. I want to be current in my practices and to ensure that old-fangled ways of doing things do not get in our ay. At the same time, as many have learned from past efforts, teaching without each student being personally accountable , teaching without thought to each student's particular strengths and challenges, teaching without focusing on basics before complexities, does not led to better learning; yes, the digital age gives us ever more opportunities to teach students using their strengths and preferred modalities.  but just like the role of parent and offspring, the role of teacher and student should not become that of equals. Rather all students just as all children should be treated respectfully and loved for who they are. Nonetheless as developing human beings, students should be trained by those who have already developed and have a yearning to offer what they have learned with new generations, without giving up their responsibilities to model, correct, reteach, and expect appropriate individual results.

                           The author mentions the role of teachers being more like coaches. That is nothing new however, as the  best teaching has always been that way. Certainly a coach must care about team endeavor, but a good one never forgets where and how the individual team member must contribute to that effort and learn his or her own part not just well but expertly; indeed individual talent born of effort has always been prerequisite when it comes to team sports, when it comes to deciding who is given the chance to collaborate or in more precise and mundane terms “make the team.”  Without a core of individual expertise, students K-12 will not be given the chance to become important collaborators in the future… even if I admit book reading may be on the wane, I believe that an individuals’ critical thinking skills and communicative expertise must be better than ever, not worse and certainly not ignored in deference to anything else, so that each can achieve in whatever world may be in store, be it a more collaborative one or not. My hope is that in the new world of collaboration, it will not be only the elite who get to collaborate. If we ignore basic skills in any way, I fear, that will indeed be the case.

Post 9 Chapter 9 Social Networks October 25, 2011

The author has said it all, himself, whether he knows it or not;  he has given us good reason  NOT to  take some of the actions  he proposes, (for example become an active participant  in Facebook and interact as such even with our student or encourage their participation with-- in my mind--some questionable others ), Early in the chapter he cites the fact that "the fastest growing segment of Facebook... is the over 55 set.... ( Of course  means that Facebook will soon be [sic] anathema to all of our students -- we can only guess where they will go next."  ( 131)

So, if Mr. Richardson is right about the above, then  teachers in great numbers  joining Facebook, ostensibly to be able to understand the difficulties posed therein and to "teach students all sorts of important lessons about digital citizenship, safety, information literacy, and more,"
 (133) will have failed from the start. As our students  flock elsewhere to interact as they wish, they will do so as we linger on Facebook, and they will have strayed far from our watchful eyes, strayed from our sight. 

I overtly reject the notion that teachers must participate or simply be 'no nothings.'  To me that seems akin to  proposing that to understand what goes on in this country's most dangerous prisons, we as "moral members “of society should somehow find our way into the cloistered calls and witness firsthand what is really going on. Or, put another way, perhaps  each of us must somehow  find out way  onto an unpeopled island to live with the boys of Golding's  Lord of the Flies just to learn what that experience is really like.  That ,obviously is bluntly absurd, as adults and adolescents alike have doing just fine--and form some times-- learning the searing lessons of that tome by reading about it!

xx

Post 7 Chapter 7 Fun With FlickR October 25, 2011

My first question: How is FlickR substantially different  in purpose than say a blog or WIKI? In addition: How, especially one that has the capacity to publish many photos and/or videos to demonstrate class activities and the like? I've already noted , I think, that any that any picture published in the public domain, and especially ones that can be identified and tagged seem  to pose a potential to those pictured--retrieved by who knows? Maybe I've been watching too many Crime Dramas on TV (most probably) but nonetheless, if I were a young man or woman, a child or adolescent in particular whose identity , location, and activities could easily be accessed by thousand (or more) I believe I'd be far  more risk averse than the current population seems to be--even if these risks are less sensational than I can imagine, and I can imagine some very sensational and potentially dangerous and eerie in in terms of outcome.

After all isn't possible that a published photo could easily be tagged in a manner that poses extreme  risk to the person   pictured. Or, is it possible to Photoshop—or otherwise somehow change the activities or "sense/context” et cetera of the photo and thus cause damage thus, again, to those pictured? 

With or without the  most extreme possibilities, isn't it possible that such image posting  can be the cause of bullying or other demeaning or criminal/targeting/bullying activities? In most school  there are often strict rules against taking pictures in school, with the real problem being the publishing of those pictures without permission. Protecting one’s likeness falls squarely in the realm of the right to privacy.  So how wise is it to make one’s image available (along with the capability for those one does not know to link this to all key information about  the person pictured including name, age, address… likes, dislikes… the list can go on and on but you get the idea). Why is the potential for foul play or any type, bullying, or even mere embarrassment brought on oneself so poorly understood?

Post 6 Chapter 6 The Social Media

Post 6 Chapter 6 The Social Media AKA I feel blue…

Although this chapter focuses on “Learning together” and other related issues about which the author has  commented somewhat before,  from the start, I could not get past the author’s incredibly poor use of the English language; Then, early in this section – this usage got so bad, it earned the following (POST). To boot, while figuratively making contortions with the English language, he simultaneously reminds us that he was/is an English teacher!  Please STOP!  Author Richardson you hit a nerve (figuratively).  So I digress in this particular post in order to ask a question to all who read this book: Should we his advice figuratively with a grain of salt, or more literally with drink in our hand? 

On page 85, Mr. Richardson writes that people connections in the social web/ ways in which people online connect online are literally exploding. “OMG,” my pet peeve – as an actual teacher of English… literally exploding? I doubt it. In fact I’ve just about had enough, Mr. Richardson. Aren’t you supposed to be encouraging clear and reasoned thinking? Instead you have singlehandedly managed to promote murky, incorrect thinking and writing in one fell swoop here. All that aside, you’ve negated key lessons teachers of English and of reading comprehension are striving to impress upon their students to promote keener thinking and closer reading.  One of those key lessons is learning the difference between that which is literal and that which is figurative.

 If the “ways” discussed are literally exploding, then they have been bombed or shot at--decimated to be sure. If they have exploded literally they are shattered. Don’t you mean exactly the opposite? You write extensively about the power of the read/write web and then, what do you do (and have done throughout your book, just not as offensively)? You make a mockery of a basic understanding of ELA. You may also have continued to confuse, obfuscate, and worse, exaggerate to the point of being ingenuous. Literal and figurative are not the same. Literal is real; please, before, you write another book, or even another blog, get an editor, or get into my special education English class and learn the very basics needed to read and write with any effectiveness at all. Please start thinking before and when you put pen in hand or keyboard under fingertips. Another piece of advice is simply: Stop writing. If you cannot do that, then stop writing about being an English teacher and or journalist (you told us both of these facts—both of which are extremely difficult to take seriously. Also, another possible bit of advice: Stick to technology and get someone else to write your work and make sure that person has or gets an editor—would you?

Does this huge “stink” make me look petty? Perhaps. But your writing has been so generally poor with dangling grammatical everythings—plus improper antecedents, and a whole host of generalizations that you do not back up with any sort of logic and certainly with little to no research…. that I feel I am justified in figuratively exploding at his blatant misuse of the English language and what it stands for: higher order thinking – conveying it and comprehending it.

Well, I‘ve made my point.  I do think though that you should take my class and learn that a blue cow can be blue (figuratively) if she is sad, but literally only if she is some kind of azure, or navy, or periwinkle, et cetera in terms of skin/coat. Last time I looked the only blue leather I could find was dyed blue long after the cow was gone; it’s in my living room where blue is the color of the leather sofas.

Oh, did you think I mean meant smurfs instead of cows? Smurfs, literally, ARE blue. Fictional, but blue.  

Post 8 Chapter 8 Multi Media for the Masses (In this post specifically Getting Started with Podcasting plus a bit on screen casting query)

Even though Getting Started with Podcasting is only one part of this chapter I chose it as the focus.

[Did I already post that all that my notes are extensive on every chapter, but because few seem to want to read that much (KJ said she would but others in this course have commented otherwise) I long ago decided to post just part of the postable notes I took when I read… so…..all my posts now have been shortened….and….. in this case, as I wrote above,  I chose to focus on the podcasting, as I have a particular set of questions:]

I have read this part several times, but I remain confused, possibly because I had originally – long ago now, it seems—been told that Apple does not use the precise MP3 format  ( MP3 having been developed/marketed  prior to iTunes/ iPod—and that Apple uses an alternate format--for all its related products and services that came out subsequently including iPod, iTouch, iPhones,  etc.). Is this truly incorrect? Or are the formats both included under a general “category or family of “MP3?”

Is my assumption  that I’d need  the g free open source  formatting program Audacity ( tinyurl.com4gx3j) to use my up-until-two-days –ago-latest iPhone to export in Mp3 format? If so this seems like an extra hurdle  I need to jump, when I learned that the standard iPhone (4) app can easily record up to 35 minutes of audio.

As far as I can tell at this point, another way for me to create a podcast might be to use Skype and then Audacity to edit and export as or to MP3 (see I am confused!).  I suppose my overall  comment here is that  I don’t quite understand  the “how to” Mr. Richardson tries hard to explain and make simple. Thus, I am relying on Miss Training to sort this all out with our class  when we get to that part of the course—and I think the same for screencasting too. It’s not that Richardson doesn’t try his best to offer the readers a “how to,”—he does. But I believe those who can follow his directions  perfectly without having a need for an actual demo and a do it yourself as happen in our class--and as we are likely to get through kj--probably do not need to take this course! I can’t wait until we get to that part, when, I am hoping, the proverbial light bulb will go off figuratively  atop my head!

 Since my fist post on this subject and our class discussion about this, I looked up the technicality that  had been so confusing for me, especially given what the Richardson book seemed to be saying–and my own understanding and conversations with those who maintained that Apple/ iPod. iPhone. iTunes do not actually use MP3 formatting. Through my research however,  I found out that Apple iProducts do support MP3’s along with many other formats. In fact the Apple audio formats are: AAC, M4A, and M4P.  I suppose that for simplicity’s sake the author Richardson has just called all of these MP3—and I cannot say that I blame him. I don’t, except that was terribly confused; that’s what happens when you have half a schema, rather than a whole one in your head!.

Specifically the information I needed resides within the site: http://ipod.about.com/od/fileformatguide/a/file_formats.htm

Chapter 10 Post October 24, 2011 - What It All Means

In this last chapter, Richardson writes: “Although….being able to read and write… [those core abilities] are still central to learning; they are no longer enough to ensure understanding.” (148) What he means is that students, additionally, will need to know how accomplish these in collaborative environments. With that, I entirely agree….

However, that had not seemed to me to be the author’s primary premise previously. While reading,  I found difficulty with Richardson’s “in the background” notion  or suggestion that students already have the basic skills of reading and writing and are developmentally ready to handle the collaborative environments with which they are faced on a daily basis, K-12. That I do not believe, at least not for most students, although there are exceptions.  

Perhaps because I am a teacher of students with special needs, or perhaps because I am, above all, a realist (with an idealistic spark), I reject the notion that student's basic skills take a back seat to ANYTHING.  I reject the notion that our primary job is to teach technological skills above all else; instead I place priorities in a different order. In so far as technology enhances learning, and in so far as these are excellent tools leading to higher order learning, starting at basic learning, I applaud the role of technological advances in making teachers’ roles more effective and relevant. But just assuming the basic skills will emerge out of efforts at collaboration does not appear logical. If students are not taught step by step and developmentally, real and steady progress may not be the end result, no matter how ardently desirable that end is.

I can see that that a seamless integration of the elements noted above would be ideal, as long as attention to basics is not forfeited, and I am willing to work hard toward that end, despite the fact that I myself am an immigrant to the land of digitized learning, rather than a native. I am happy to accept the idea that I have the capability to become fully naturalized, but believe that the process will take lots of energy and time Even so, my fluency, so to “speak,” may not ever be as smooth as the digital native teachers who are very quickly becoming the teachers of today and certainly will be a majority tomorrow.

              If the vision of the seamlessly digitized classroom is to become real without aborting any efforts to bolster our students’ basic skills, it must also be the “stuff” that current and future teachers must take on from the start. Certainly I see many young teachers with these natural propensities, but I also see teachers, just as young, fresh, and smart, whose training and bent are not yet equivalent in this regard.

                           Richardson himself indicates that the new shifts he sees the new environment for teaching and learning– or rather for collaborating will indeed be a long time in coming. Again, I concur. IN principal, I agree that collaboration will play a very large role in education, and certainly teachers who do not use the newest technologies adequately in the near future will not be teachers at all. What I believe however is that real collaboration  that truly adds to the new knowledge in the world will not usually come from those engaged in grades K-12, just as new knowledge now comes from higher levels , so too will be the course of the future.  This does not mean us at the primary and secondary levels do not have responsibility for ensuring that our students are prepared and able to take on these responsibilities in postsecondary education and beyond; indeed we will have those responsibilities more than ever. But total collaboration on all fronts may notbe the sole answer. As humans , we always have managed a  balancing act, an actof s collaboration assuredly and of communication, but also of singular  individual achievement.  In sum,  individual achievement . Without each person’s ability to think for him/her self and to communicate cogently, ensuring that thinking levels are ready for the kind of ultimate collaborative problem solving discussed, without first and foremost gaining personal expertise –along with not instead of collaborations – no such harmonious efforts toward mastery as the author suggests will be reached.

                           If this discussion or my comments have taken on an aura of the abstract I apologize. I want to be current in my practices and to ensure that old-fangled ways of doing things do not get in our ay. At the same time, as many have learned from past efforts, teaching without each student being personally accountable , teaching without thought to each student's particular strengths and challenges, teaching without focusing on basics before complexities, does not led to better learning; yes, the digital age gives us ever more opportunities to teach students using their strengths and preferred modalities.  but just like the role of parent and offspring, the role of teacher and student should not become that of equals. Rather all students just as all children should be treated respectfully and loved for who they are. Nonetheless as developing human beings, students should be trained by those who have already developed and have a yearning to offer what they have learned with new generations, without giving up their responsibilities to model, correct, reteach, and expect appropriate individual results.

                           The author mentions the role of teachers being more like coaches. That is nothing new however, as the  best teaching has always been that way. Certainly a coach must care about team endeavor, but a good one never forgets where and how the individual team member must contribute to that effort and learn his or her own part not just well but expertly; indeed individual talent born of effort has always been prerequisite when it comes to team sports, when it comes to deciding who is given the chance to collaborate or in more precise and mundane terms “make the team.”  Without a core of individual expertise, students K-12 will not be given the chance to become important collaborators in the future… even if I admit book reading may be on the wane, I believe that an individuals’ critical thinking skills and communicative expertise must be better than ever, not worse and certainly not ignored in deference to anything else, so that each can achieve in whatever world may be in store, be it a more collaborative one or not. My hope is that in the new world of collaboration, it will not be only the elite who get to collaborate. If we ignore basic skills in any way, I fear, that will indeed be the case.

Post 5 Chapter 5 RSS Really Simple Syndication

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) appears to be not just really simple, but also a really great idea making sense to the busy, overburdened, overemailed, overcalled and texted (everyday) digital citizen. It’s clear that the author understands what that is like. The notion of unclogging the constant piling up of email is truly attractive. There is a clear difference in the kind of information I need to get to right away as in email and the kind that I can peruse. I believe that mixing them up--the way most email ends up-- is the cause of poor professional choices about how much time is spent emailing back and reading, not to mention getting side focused on items that do not need action versus those that do. It's a labyrinth that can easily be a superhighway-- which I believe was the intent all along. Why not have two distinct highways or one highway and an old country road  if one wishes—but I would be the person making that choice, not having someone else dictate what I should or could attend to.  I would then be able to better choose these options based on my own professional and personal considerations—even with multiple email accounts, that is hard right now—my common sense and desire-- i.e., the wish to spend longer say on one kind of message than another or the desire to respond in different modes or at different times at different speeds (i.e. prioritize) based on purpose.   (Oh, by the way sorry my sentences are so long... I'll fix them soon.)

RSS appears to help us make important decisions that we can convey to our students as well, in terms of time management and executive functioning as their prefrontal cortexes begin to learn how to handle these functions --they may as well learn the "right ways" first.  Since our emails  are often maze like throughways with traffic jams and stop and go conditions,  the  option to read what one wants to all in one place designated for that purpose is appealing.  I do have one issue though with Mr. Richardson:  The author vehemently asks me to “learn RSS today” and teach it to my “students tomorrow” (literally? Liter- REALLY?). I find that it is always better to learn the ins and out of any new service – so that would include RSS no matter how simple-- and use it regularly before introducing it to my students, who may or may not be experiencing the same type  of issues I am, or not. In this case it may be the same or different . Do they have the spam I call the “I’ll read it later” phenomenon in their own email or elsewhere? What are their specific issues? Can RSS help them in the same or different ways? What have I learned by using RSS that I can use as a teacher?..., i.e., that’s most effective for them and not just silly, et cetera.

Perhaps the best way I might make use of RSS for my particular classes would be  to research level appropriate subscriptions relevant to any particular class related interest ( Biology 1a and 2a come to mind first!) and use those articles to more deeply  explore a topic or area of interest about which there may well be breaking news – for example news on interesting  topics to the students such as  stem cells, new brain research,  biology related to health, and anything of interest to them that shows the students how research is done—especially if the articles present easy versions of  the processes used to get the scientific results. That way, they can internalize these processes, without necessarily having to memorize the scientific method—not a very good way of remembering how it works! 

 RSS, here I come,.... well some time soon when I have typed every post I actually have written already.... 

Post 4 Chapter 4 AKA More WIKI MUSINGS October 3, 2011

There have always been those students and teachers who by virtue of all the above plus some pretty high level thinking and goal setting have been able to accomplish great things. Now with collaboration made easier, I have no doubt that their collaborations and results will be that much greater, broader, more global, perhaps more meaningful and successful in changing our world for the better. Certainly I think this will be true beyond grade 12.... Still, I think about the mid- to lower-achievers and think that some of them might be included as well, although many of them, who do not have the slightest desire to do anything beyond what is absolutely required, and oftentimes less, some far less, will NOT be a large part of this new WIKI world.

When I write I know, in part, I am writing about some of my own students who are still trying (or not yet quite trying hard enough) to learn to read and write cogently, grasping inference and higher order meaning and skills . Those are the facts, those and the fact that our high stakes assessments just test SOME skills, just so much knowledge, just parts of what we want students to know and to do. But without their gaining that specific information –especially very particularized concepts and, as in biology (and I am a teacher of tenth grade biology—as well as English), without the knowledge and skills that ARE on the MCAS and necessary to pass those tests, our students cannot garner high school diplomas.

What this means to me as a special educator is that until the skills of computer literacy and collaboration are valued as highly as are whatever is on those assessments, we will remain primarily teachers of students who struggle to gain the knowledge they NEED to pass, not teachers of material that's important and even crucial  as Richardson suggests. It won't happen in the largest sense if it is not requisite to gaing hte skills and/or information needed to graduate high school. In addition, many more teachers not just those in special education will persist at teaching TO the particular high stakes tests. Should that whole assessment system change, should that goal change to meet the kind of skill- making Mr. Richardson talks about, I easily can envision such changes in teaching and learning.   What will not change though is that fact that the basic and higher than basic skills of reading and writing still lie at the foundation of learning everything else. Without enhanced reasoning along with reading and writing, WIKIs and the read-write internet/web—and without those basics-- peer collaboration and student group ed projects will have far less meaning, far fewer exemplary qualities than they should and will for students at more advanced levels of  literacy. 

With so little of a student's formal education time, actual time plus think time, devoted to his/her education, practice time devoted to what will be most meaningful....at what level will the collaboration and negotiation implicit in “adding to the sum of human knowledge,” truly occur?  What if our educational system must devote ever more time to teach the read-write-web allowing some students to gain entry into it (than is needed for others)?  What needs to occur to assure they have at least some of the reason and skill-based strategies to participate? What will happen to happen to groups and/or individuals of different skills, talents, and proclivities? Although many of us want to believe the new tools will make participation so much easier for all, within my core of reason, I sense the nudge of conflict even naysaying, fearing that the separations that now exist among students who understand and excel and the students who do not or may not, at the appropriate developmental level, will become greater not fewer. What if the gulf among and between them gets wider and wider as technology and its implications and applications become ever more useful in schools K-12?

Chapter 3 Post 3 September 29, 2011 WIKI-WIKI

I shouldn’t have been startled by the fact that Wikipedia is so reliable, but I was. I have used it many times, understand how it works, but--at first--was suspect about an encyclopedia that anyone can change; then again, when I use it, the information always does seem reliable. Before reading this chapter I hadn’t thought about WHY that might be. Now I know (pp 55-58). So it makes sense that Wikipedia is known for its accuracy, not the other way around.

Yes, Mr. Richardson, I am inspired by the Wikipedia example, and yes it is exciting that “a single individual can contribute to the sum of human knowledge.” (58). Actually humans have been doing that throughout recorded history—but I get your gist: that through the internet and wikis in particular contributing to that sum can be done by  virtually anyone at any time, and that is something new. More to the point, WIKIs act as vehicles to add to the “sum” by teachers, by students, and by others at almost any level. The “anyone” example, that of adding a recipe is a good one, at least in this regard.  What I do not understand though is why a WIKI in particular is necessary to do that (add a recipe?). Why not some other vehicle that does not afford multiple authorship? As explained in class, WIKIs can hold far more information on them than can blogs—so if that is the reason I suppose I understand at least to some degree. But in the copy, the author cites this kind of example (and others) and indicates that it is the collaboration and negotiation that are the key factors. In my view collaboration and/or negotiation in the recipe realm and other like additions “to the sum of human knowledge” might well be a real negative:

If I were adding my late Aunt Fanny’s recipe for Sweet German Marble Buntcake to the internet, I would recoil at the notion that it could be the subject of such treatment—as it’s already perfect! Seriously, if anyone wanted to try that recipe and change it, that would be fine, as long as the original recipe were left intact. No collaboration would be needed to subsequently publish another renamed version with those changes, crediting Aunt Fanny as the original source. This would be far better than revising and thereby wiping out the recipe in its original form.  Perhaps this is a silly example, and yet the notion of the recipes was written about by the author in this particular section. 

On the whole, right now, there is so much tolerance for poor etiquette and even worse for those unaware of the full responsibilities of digital citizenship that I would worry about the collaborative part—a lot. The results in many other realms might be far more consequential than an altered recipe. I worry about all kinds of changes and usurpations that are consequential in one regard or another, and I worry about the veracity of changes made by a population of contributors far less diverse than, say, Wikipedia’s or other far reaching OPEN sites.  Nonetheless I am indelibly impressed with several of the student projects, presentations, and results Richardson tells us about on pages 63-66 and have a huge amount of respect for the students and faculty who are responsible; evidently all, including the teacher overseer, are passionate and hardworking almost beyond belief.

Despite all my protestations above… I will make a long –term goal of orchestrating a WIKI made up of my students with moderate disabilities, all of whom will be asked to be collaborators. I have never been one with low expectations and won’t settle for those now! So we will try it; I know somewhere in the back of my mind, I am already working  what might be the right kind of subject matter or quest and what kind of experience and comfort with the medium I must have before beginning. After all is said and done, I am sure that just as there is a place for individual achievement , so too the advances that come about through collaboration also will be considerable. Just as the internet already has changed the way   heavy internet think, I trust that kind of change will touch each of us in the future.  Certainly, we’ll never know if we never try.  I do not want to be guilty of not trying. In class the other day I asked my students to ponder and answer: “What would you attempt, if you knew you could not fail?” None of them wrote WIKIs, but I’ve decided, I will. For now, my WIKI will be my own “teacher-web.”

Chapter 2 Post 2 September 21, 2011

Thank goodness Chapter Two is as full of useful information and thoughtful ideas, as chapter one is or at least to me seemed so) barren! Indeed the chapter chuck full of ideas, that my blog today and its focus do it a bit of injustice. Even so, I feel fairly comfortable writing almost solely about ideas that are MOST striking or meaningful to me. Future posts should allow more contemplation and writing about other ideas introduced in the chapter but missed here.

The concept of the online, digitized archive, as introduced with the mention of "Meredith's Page” (19), so appealed to me truly in a heightened manner. It was the first concrete example of a blog that epitomized the qualities the author heretofore had only generalized about, an at last here was one super example. It also occurred to me that a blog can be a life saver for the disorganized person. It can be a haven for what I (AND OTHER EXPERTS I AM FOLLOWING) call the ADD TRAIT type person, thinking and including too many thoughts/actions at once-- most of the time. . You might imagine what my Richardson book already looks like: almost each page boasts a holds a really mound-like mess of de facto colorful handwritten marginalia, (written in different color pens, mostly because I lose writing implements by the hour, only to come upon them again by chance); one good thing about all this – including he must have marginalia is that a book like this is worth keeping  and I must truly value the book and take lots of hyper vigilant- care related to its whereabouts, as haven’t lost it yet.

It’s not surprising that the notion that so grabbed me above broadened itself into an even grander scheme, when the author added the topic of class portals. The reason?  I am or can be so caught up in the process of annually reworking curricular mapping (that is making major changing in timing, instructional method and  level of  focus —rather than in  n the curricula themselves) so I change the way I present the curriculum and thus many, many lessons plans  every single year. In great measure this is based on the radical variation in  abilities and s disabilities of my students and their IEPs  and because of the highly variant disciplines in which I teach-- biology (first and second levels) English language arts and a double nonequivalent two sections of structured reading. I make such changes for the reasons noted above but also because I want to be the most effective I can be; this bumps up against my areas of challenge, all revolving around “organization.”  I always take too much time, am way too busy keeping up with reviewing and redoing lessons and activities and reading and homework and in class labs, and inquiries, and --well you know the drills…

Suddenly, the author introduces the class portal! THE ORGANIZATION IT PROMSIES IS MORE THAN WELCOME:  The notion that whatever I produce would be right where I want it-- on my blog on class portal -- every time—is more than tempting. In addition, presently I feel as if I get endless requests for copies and re-copies and feel it really takes a lot out of me to provide these items over and over again, searching,  finding, reproducing , etc.  on my part –No wonder I am  so taken with the idea of the blog being the sweetsop for the "losers" ( those of us that regularly misplace things) of this world --and that the spot can be made even sweeter with addition of multimodality examples and work, with the touch of keyboard buttons and some know how re gadgets, widgets, content in nonword form.  Potentially  a huge weight appears on the verge of being lifted off my hyper-vigilant teacher shoulders. I can actually envision high level orchestrations and surety of the command of content , as it will all be where I put it , once and for all.  Not just that, my student’s input can be right there as well.  I am so taken with this, my current idea for a BlogSpot  that I am apt to name it sweetspot;  just as surely as it exists is on a baseball bat or a golf club-- once found time after time, it certainly can breed consistent and reliable success--a hit out of the park, or a hole in one.  I can envision parts of that t now, first the request:  “Oh Ms. Kahn- do you have yet another another copy of x or y?” When that happens is it possible that I’ll feel I have suddenly changed in to an efficient expert rather than a bumbling “professor?” After all, I’ll be able to calmly reply: “Oh, that again? That’s right on the class portal. Why not get it yourself?”

 For me and others like me, compensatory strategies have been the saving grace of our kind; thus, a compensatory blog seems a little like manna from heaven.  Perhaps this type of compensation via blog is particularly meaningful for me as a professional because, throughout my career (s) the sole methods that of extreme use to me (with or without the technology component) are those that are, indeed, organized chronologically. (AND that has been true ever since my first assistant started keeping “chrono-files" for me) arranged by nothing more than date – of course at that time, the system included hole-punched actual “carbon copies” of everything I wrote placed in a binder with most recent work on top... oh those ancient times....

 Of equal import, for more than a decade and a half I kept photo files before they were digital almost solely chronologically--and that was when we had actual physical files of contact sheets and strips of negatives literally in plasticized sleeves, as well as transparencies and slides in old fangled Kodachrome (25) and Velvia 50 formats.

So, as noted above, the blog’s intrinsic format is even more meaningful to me because the only method of organization at which I have been exceptionally successful at has been chronological. On that count too, the blog meets my natural bent; I always appear to know WHEN I have done "something." So armed with that kind of chronological memory /recall, the blog - iteration seems particularly sweet. Oh, this thought and resources comes just in time for me as well; five days and I’ll be fifty nine years old (with the spirit of a 29 year old ???), so with a little bit of luck, this course, this book, and some practice, I can be right where I’d like to be before age 60 (in sprit then, before the age of 30).

In closing, I admit some feeling  of guilt because the relief and gratefulness about which I have just written have taken up more than my share of blogging for this chapter. In reality the chapter offers much more of import I have NOT written about! I can only hope my fellow bloggers do.

September 14 POST 1 Chapter 1 Blogs,Wikis, Podcasts, etc by W. Richardson

Post 1 Chapter 1 The Read/Write Web

The best aspect of this chapter, at least from my first read and review, is its name. The read/write web gives me more insight into what the author is really going to talk about and teach than all the other references I’ve heard before, such as Web 2.0, and the like. In fact, in the past, when I was asked to talk about “Web 2.0” after having gone to a half day event (at Bridgewater State) on this very topic, I couldn’t even tell what I had learned, because I did not know, and wasn’t told during the entire event, what the core concept of the event conference was about--at least not in words I could understand.   It was as if the people there, at least the organizers, thought everyone already knew about the topic, as if first grade or kindergarten student s is expected to come to school being literate enough to apply their skills to past entry-level authors and commentary. That small event so perplexed me, as a member of the District technology Committee, that whenever I heard about “Web 2.0 Tools,” it really shook me! Thinking back now I realize I had no known schema on which to base any of discussion around me.  Neither did many of colleagues sitting around me, which, I think, made it worse.

When I reflect on that now, I know it was our current instructor who facilely managed to explain what the others just forgot all about in their enthusiasm to have us all come along for the ride as if we too--the complete novices-- actually  knew what “everybody” knows…right?  The notion that these tools are all part of the creating of the internet and the consuming of it, as well as the interactive links that coordinate both is more clear to me now—although, I hardly think very many among us “fully" understands it all—as the author immediately claims (see page 8 for actual quote-- but I don’t think I am exaggerating his claim!).

In fact, I fear these blogs will be full of critiques of him –even though he is dutifully teaching me much I did not already now ( so I am grateful for all that); however, the criticism is something he bring s on himself. His generalization, his inept metaphors, his wild and  even wildly wrong hyperbole  coupled with his lack of understanding of who his audience really is – this all breeds trouble for him from the start. This then may be the kind of book I critique all along the way and on realize later on  that I have been duped by poor style into thinking that I haven’t learned much from one who writes so foolishly and illogically. Inside me, somewhere, I know he must be presenting very important material, though he’s trying darn hard to hide that from me… as I am busily fighting off his superficial and not so superficial presentation errors.     

 A fist critique  first comes into play when the q author talks about the word communication  in a manner that opposes my own now very long-term comprehension of the term and the art and science of it (as I have my master’s degree in this very interdisciplinary field). He makes the mistake of likening it to the way we teachers use the word teaching ,as if it is a “one –way” term; thus, teachers are always talking about “teaching and learning “ to ensure that two-way street, while the actual definition and model of communications not only implies that it specifically and explicitly includes two way communication as well the notions of encoding, decoding, gaining  feedback and then orchestrating messages  as go through ‘noise,” so the messages ultimately will gain improved outcome. Communication is not synonymous with message, just as education is not synonymous with just teaching. In both cases there must be a recipient or recipients, all of whom have filters and other forms of decoding difficulties in relationship to the messages or teaching methods coming in and, thus, will do their own interpreting …. Well, I assume you get by now, via my very short course in communication, how the author has already missed the mark when it comes to characterizing a field, and a word, extraordinarily incorrectly--presenting the meaning of a large and key concept inappropriately (or casually speaking just plain "wrong,").  

 Despite the author's worrisome mannerisms and his neglect, not utilizing  research  but rather relying almost solely on anecdote and generalization, at least thus far…despite all that , I learned something here:  I learned that the questions he poses in this chapter are very important for me to answer, as I think about becoming involved in the read –write web ( and this is what I am thinking right now, not how I am going to use it in the classroom—at least not just yet thank you! I must value what the read –write web can offer me in the meantime, so his questions about passions (in my case broad ranging interest and creativity) are significant ones for me, ones i will need to answer well.

In his own way, he also asks: from whom do I expect to learn (9), although he phrases it differently, of course. He also asks:  How do I intend to use  what is at hand and  how will I be able to reach and whom will I be able to reach  to pursue those passions via technologies that open up to me?  Again, his wording is far different than mine, but the notions, I hope are the same). As I sit at the computer writing this initial reflection, I honestly don’t know just yet. I know what he is trying to say—just get your feet wet,  your hands dirty, just get into he “swim” of things—that kind of thing. But being here unknowing and slightly scared of knowing that I might not be good at this, it’s all a little  or a lot discouraging … I  do not yet have answers to his first  three questions.  And certainly as I maintained before, I am not even thinking of his fourth and final question.  Not yet.

I am grateful that the book is but a part of this course and that Foxborough and Keri are the other parts of it—intentionally the much larger parts that will help me come out my shell on this pristine beach of know-nothing-ness. Wanting know-how, wanting knowledge isn't new to me, but having to really work to get even the basics is!  That's what makes me afraid of the technology involved. There I’ve actually said it—and I haven’t before. I’ve called myself an technological immigrant versus native, I’ve talked around the issue a lot; I’ve  tried to think of myself as an active participant in a changing world, and, well now that I’ve admitted there is fear in me that I’ll fail… I do feel a little better. But really, very little.

Snap out of it, then.  Don’t I expect my own students to come out of their shells and try?  Don’t I expect that of them, even if they are trying something they may not be very good at, even if it takes many, many hours of (pretty bad) work to slowly, slowing amass some skills? Sure I do. Okay, then, I’ll make like the “The little engine that could…”