Will this be on the test?

OK, dharter, you win.

I had discovered the thrill of blogging while taking Jeff's class. Then work realities hit, and blogging just wasn't a "priority" anymore. But in this beautifully interconnected universe, I could no longer bear a most recent post touting my my mom's new Christmas Nano.

As I prepare for my first ASCD convention, I wonder what lies ahead for curriculum and curriculum mapping. I can't deny that technological advances make our lives more accessible to more people and information more accessible to us, but accessibility doesn't change the substance of our needs or needed skills.

Working with educators rather than students provides many opportunities for questioning the path of education. Nonetheless, our technology shouldn't dictate the content of what we teach; it is merely a tool to accelerate our discovery learning.

Wiggins and McTighe use etymology in understanding curriculum - as the course to be run, given a desired endpoint. Until there are near-metaphysical changes in our destination (i.e., an academic degree leading to a job/career to support exisitence on earth), there will not be lasting change in the preparation toward this end - commonly known as k-12 education.

Richard Bach's biplane view of life offers winding roads filled with alternatives. He offers that Learning is finding out what you already know. Education should not restrict the path that students use in this discovery, but they need an aerial view of where the "course to run" is leading them

It is misleading, no matter how many different jobs a 21st Century student may face, to coax our students into believing that mastery of the traditional core subjects is anything other than necessary. How we lead them to discover those fundamentals can eternally morph, but without the possession of the knowledge and skills essential in a math, science, language, and arts education - traditional long before the industrial age - remains essential.

'Tis the Season

It has been an exciting holiday week:

• My mother was ecstatic about her iPod Nano-video. I felt cheap for not getting her the touch screen!


• My mother-in-law was not. She wasn't sure it was compatible with her wmv books on tape and didn't want to take the time for me to show her how to import. It did take her over a year to take her new computer out of the box. . .
  
• My husband is home from Saudi. We've been together for 10 straight days with another week to come!


• Mom's house is wireless. One trip to Best Buy, and my husband and I are emailing URL's for "you gotta see this" things

• I bonded with my 16 mo. old nephew. He cuddles with me, and sits on my lap for fingerplay songs.



• One niece added me to her facebook account. Two others accepted my request. We're planning a girls' weekend in NYC for 2008.




• I'm increasingly aware of what an integrated part of our lives modern technology and the internet are. What prohibits it from being an embedded part of curriculum design, teaching, and learning?

I also wonder what goals I should set for the next year. A pep talk from a brother-in-law focused me toward Plato's Republic; I turned him toward Moore's Utopia. I only want to make the world a better place.

A New Educational Life in Second Life

Wow. I finally gained access to second life by reverting back to my Windows XP system and gaming computer with the ATI video card recommended. Irony is that my husband bought this 17" computer for me to play The Sims2 when my older laptop was ready for the rubbish.

I browsed around the University of Cincinnati site, as my Professor shared that my soon-t0-be Alma Mater was developing a "presence" there.

I was led to an open-source research sharing by Boise State University. This led me to sloodle and a wealth of information about building "social persistence" in virtual learning communities.

Now I'm at the in-laws, basking in holiday glow, and anxious to explore more. Did I mention my nieces and I are planning our trip to NYC via facebook? In a six hour visit, I walked through their world of youtube videos, xbox, Wii, and art - so different from the holidays of my youth where batteries are replaced with SD disks and the college novice brags about her prowess in getting required courses by pre-saving registration online.

And I'm proud that I use my blog to track information I may want at a later date. At least I'll know where my links are, if I can't keep up with the nieces and nephews. At least they needed me to help assemble the airhockey table that held their interest for two full games. . .

How do I return the gift of virtual knowledge to a friend who shares so freely?

"Pass it on," the voice echoes in my mind.

Reflections on Teaching and Learning in a Networked Classroom

What started as a substitution course turned into a new way of viewing the possibilities of the web in instruction. Enjoying the embedding of technology doesn’t begin to scratch the surface. I’m living in a different world which will is rapidly becoming the only reality current students know. My mind swims, I can’t keep up with my RSS feeds, answering a question usually leaves me with ten windows or tabs open forgetting the original source of inquiry. In this world, we still expect students to sit in desks, listening to lectures and doing writing assignments? Do we expect teachers and staff members to do the same as we train them to think as students think?

The possibilities, even in professional development for educators are endless. Podcasts, Second Life, Wikis are just a few of the tools available. It was most meaningful in this course not to just learn about them, but to be responsible for creating them. The most difficult was reading about these possibilities. At least I’ve discovered that what used to be ADD is now just connected learning.

My regret was not assuming a more regular pace through the course. The typical final cramming didn’t afford the best understanding of blogs. For instance, during the last week, I discovered ways to edit code that would have customized my blogger template. Had I done the challenging podcasting assignment earlier, I would have – scratch that - might have come across the tutorial blog that links to customizing other features. I say might, because one thing this course has reinforced is how difficult it can be to retrace research steps. That is the value of a blog – linking to the pages at the time of thought so that they’re only a few clicks away.

As I was writing my blog on Wikis, I thought it might have been fun to collaborate with classmates on a project, but my timing probably would have been the weakest link. It was clever to begin the course by becoming course editors through the WetPaint wiki; at least I understand how it works. Setting it up for others will be a larger challenge.

I'm pumped that my Senior Partner extended an invitation to discuss ideas for the coming year. He has demonstrated a desire not only to keep apace with Web 2.0, but to revolutionize the way we do business. I would enjoy using these tools to teach teachers, to facilitate discussions about learning, and incorporate it into the processes attached to mapping.

One to One Learning Environments

I have the fondest memories of both of my grandfathers. With each, I was afforded the opportunity for meaningful time alone with them. Every animal, every radio program, every person that walked past the porch became a lesson, usually based on a life experience to help me avoid some of the crueler pitfalls in life. I cherish our one on one time. It had to be the most meaningful lessons, immersed in our mutual love for eachother.

What does this have to do with one laptop per child, or other one-to-one learning environments? Let me play a paternal grandfather role and share a story:

When I was in Grade 8 in the Detroit Public School system, we had to share books with a partner during class. Taking them home for continued reading or further investigation involved a rather tedioius check out process that meant precious time away from the seven minutes allotted to see friends and to make it on time to the next class. I shared a microscope with eight other lab table partners and they came out so rarely, there wasn't a direct connection to labs and science.

When I transferred to the suburbs, the first thing I received was a stack of books - checked out to me for the entire year. I was assigned a microscope and my own personal lab station. We were always cutting things, picking things and looking at them in microscopes, and, when the teacher wasn't looking, creating our own little science experiments. We worked in diads and triads in our home ec kitchenettes complete with its own fridge, stove, and cupboard space. All of a sudden, there was a value placed on education by what was available to each individual, and I started taking it seriously. I was "tracked" as a low performing student upon arrival, but by the time I was in the ninth grade, my Biology teacher pulled me into the hall and shared that someone had made an awful mistake putting me in her class and that she would make sure that I was "in the right classes" by the new quarter.

One-to-one supplies. One-teacher to one-student communication. Why should it be any different for the tools of modern education? What message do we send students when there aren't enough computers (or labs) to do the projects or research needed?