RSS Nightmare

I'll admit that I am new to this RSS deal.  I have little idea what I'm doing and what few buttons I have managed to push have left me with more confusion rather than less.  I looked up some information online and discovered that RSS is supposed to syncronize one's internet updates into a readable formate.  I like the idea.  Everyday I visit about 10 sites on a regular basis: 2 news channels, facebook, my online email, my uaa email, blackboard, my blogger, the weather channel, and the library.  I would LOVE to have all of the information on one site!  But, when I went to try and set up Google reader, I ended up with not the news stories I wanted, but rather tons of useless articles that I would never have the time to read.  I just overloaded my reader with just one site!  EEk!  Help!  

Passed my smarts on

So, yesterday I sat down with my in laws and had them log into the National Geographic site to explore it (my brother and sister in laws are age range 22-7 years) and all were quite enthralled with the games and interactive tools. All of them are home schooled and loved the cool computer tools. Fortunately, they all were unable to trump me in the geography game. I remained in control of my pride as a result :).

So much for being smart

So, I thought I was smart.  Then I went to the National Geographic website and started playing the little kid games and failed so completely that I'm seriously doubting my abilities to teach now!  ha ha ha

No, it was a great website that has tons of wonderful games for kids and interactive learning tools.  I could be entertained for hours, so I'm assuming any student able to read and comprehend large concepts would also be entertained.  I also learned something from the videos and games I played, so I don't doubt that this site could teach students something quite quickly and completely.

On the other hand, a word of warning for this site; it did contain a large bit of graphic material so younger students might not be encouraged to wander around the site without supervision.  The graphic material when taken as a purely scientific view, is quite fascinating and wonderful to learn, but younger students might not be able to make the distinction.  I would recommend that teachers carefully look at what they would like the students to do at this site before they assign a project.

The next generation

Today I watched.  I watched a video made by teachers who want the world of teaching to catch up with the world of learning.  The students of today's schools are ahead of their teachers by leaps and bounds especially in the area of technology.  They can operate, manipulate, and apply technology in ways that many grown adults can only gawk at in surprise.  It is going to take a new teacher to teach this generation.  It is going to take new creativity to balance out the fresh wave of information that has pulverized our society.  To create a digital identity is something most of us shake in our boots over, but kids as young as five or six already have a presence online.  I heard from a friend that a baby, barely a month old already has his own personal site set up by his parents.  What is the older generation going to do?  Sit by or catch up?  Here are a few of my thoughts.

For one thing, this idea scares me.  I was taught at an early age to keep my private life private.  You don't post things that you don't want seen where people can see it.  I applied that well until I started with my own digital identity.   Before I started this project of creating myself online, I googled myself (in the year 2000) and found nothing.  Today I have a facebook page, a blog, a name on a roster at an university, and I teach.  My life is as public as it can be less than a decade later.  This scares me.  Why?  What if I say something wrong?  What if I post a picture that in some way comes back to haunt me?  What if my religious convictions offend someone and they decide to stalk me?  What if my family is someday harmed because of my digital identity?  What if the government comes looking for me because I am considered dangerous or not safe anymore?  What is there to stop someone from finding all that there is about me?  I no longer feel free.  I no longer feel like I can say something to a friend and no have it being overheard.  Any good sixth grader worth his or her salt could hack my emails and find all sorts of incriminating evidence to have me fired, jailed, or worse.  Do I really want that as a teacher?  Do I want to be that open?  

Now, nobody go look at my stuff at once!  

Vision vs. Reality in NETS-T, -S

Dear Fellow Sojourner,

Just because I can think it doesn't mean I can do it.  Just because I can conceive of an event or program working doesn't mean that I can put it into practice.  Technology is a tool at my fingertips that I know is present, but don't know how to full use.  

There is a vision in my head of every student that I teach in my career after the morning bell rings in my classroom having a computer screen in front of them.  They log into their personal universal site and start working at the games present for them.  The first thing they do is navigate the typing scenario for the day in game format.  I set it up the night before to model an earthquake scenario which is the unit study for the day's science lesson.  The students move their character around the obstacle course set out before them using their accuracy and words per minute in typing skills.  If their character survives the earthquake scenario then they can move onto the next challenge.  

The vision moves on as I show each student his or her grades for the quarter on a graph in their own personal site.  I edited the grades using my moderator power and the grades show up on their sites.  Only they, their parents, and myself can access their site so the viewings are completely private.  I can show them using visuals and graphs where they are academically day to day.  They can see where they are at and where they need to go.  There can and will be no excuse for not knowing about bad grades descending upon their heads.  

Nice vision.  For me.  Likely to remain so for two reasons.  Number one, while NET-T and NET-S (National Educational Technology Standards - Teachers - Students) claim that these sorts of things ought to be a reality, schools rarely have the funding to develop these kinds of extensive technology networks in elementary classrooms, let alone train teachers how to use them.  And number two, I am not very 'tech savvy' myself.  I will need the training.  I'm already behind by national standards.  I don't know how to use programs that I will need to even preform basic tasks let alone have polished skills that I can teach to the younger generation.  

For my vision to become a reality, I need to stop day dreaming and get to work.