Intersecting Ideas
I guess it would be safe to say that I like Tradition (this post is up, on the night, even when we had been offered a blog week off).
In this post, I'll address the articles presented tonight and some of the discussion that precipitated out. Here's a link to my PowerPoint and scanned Kirschner et al. article (so that you can see my markings and notes on the paper). You'd notice that there is some marked in the paper that wasn't addressed. I presented the schema pertinent to overall learning: "Is there a best teaching/learning practice that is consistent with what psychology has demonstrated to be the way we learn and work best?" How does technology figure into that question? Is technology itself learned best in a constructivist environment? I'm a supporter of guided discovery and use it in my classroom.
More to follow...
March 2
Here’s the more to follow. I’ve taken my time to get this up. By-the-way, those who missed the BYTE Conference last Friday (Feb 26th) missed a pretty good show. Denis may have been pleased with the address given by the keynote speaker; he basically echoed a lot of what Denis has been professing since I began the ed tech program in 2007. As for the rest of it.... lots of tools.
Back to my intersecting ideas bit. I won't say anything about precipitating discussion as I had originally said I would, just comment on the papers.
The three papers, I thought, were quite related. Kirschner questioned methodology, teaching and learning and what works. What’s the best way? That’s individualistic, but in our paradigm of cattle-car education (l’enseignement en masse), we have to have a method that works best for the majority. It’s way too expensive to individualize everything, isn’t it? Perhaps. But, maybe we can individualize everything if we throw enough technology into the system. Computers to the rescue? Oppenheimer suggests not. He even quotes Steve Jobs as saying that technology won’t fix the American educational system. In Oppenheimer, it is also said that at least one big architectural firm still values “knowledge of the hands.” Further, it says that students really don’t need much computer training to be able to do a job or function as a university student – two weeks to two months. So what are we doing, really? The sizzle is a sizzlin, but is there any steak? The Clinton administration, so Oppenheimer suggests, embraced technology in education as if it were a Messianic medicine for an ailing American educational system. Now back to Steve Jobs. Is there an end to this? Well, let me bring Schoffner into the mix. She and her colleagues discussed standards to now be recognized to develop technological literacy, for which she supplies definition upon definition. The definition for technology literacy is interesting in that is frames technology as a tool: what it is, how it works, and how it can be used to serve us to achieve goals. And, ultimately, these goals are professional goals. Standards are set at the top, by professional societies, and trickle down to the kids.
Ok. So what's the point? There's so much said in those articles and I've discussed the top of the iceberg. The the articles suggested that there is a best way to teach and learn, but that does not necessarily mean computers/technologies are the be-all-end-all, and that there must be standards because of the demands of professional life. In a nutshell, is this not all about what is needed to survive? Isn’t that what these three papers have in common? And isn’t that the goal of basic education? Survival of course can mean individual or group, and in the case of the group, it might mean a country generating a better GDP/GNP.
I'll stop now; it is suposed to be a week off. Also, I want to read Jap Zero. I’ll leave asking this question: What’s the best way to arrange all the multi-coloured polyhedral bricks so that people can be happy? In other words, what's the best way to live? I think we need to teach people that all of us need to ask that question. What works for each of us? If constructivism works, then use/do it. If tech works, use it. If standards work, use them.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Class 7: February 18, 2010
Season's Greetings!
I'm a day eariler that I said I'd be. Oh well.
This week, I’ll begin with a piece of the quote Mike said gripped him:
"Assessment and filtering greatly impact the degree to which some technologies can be adopted in schools..."
We’ve been talking about how to assess and filter internet content since the beginning of the course. It’s something we need to teach, a new literacy. Interestingly, I found what I think is a good article in my travels since class time (since I am posting this on Sunday, I had some time to do some homework). It has to do with film literacy and was published in 1955. It can be seen at my resources site (I use the Google free space), titled The Necessity of Learning How to See a Film. It is quite connected to what we’ve been doing with film and literacy and has everything to do with assessing and filtering. The Peters (the one linked above about how to see a film) article also underscores a part of Mike’s second quote:
"... those who have the opportunity to learn technology skills are in a better position to obtain and make use of technology than those who do not."
O Literacy, Literacy! Wherefore art though Literacy? Survival, says Literacy, survival. We must be able to grant equal access to technology if everyone will have the opportunity to find success in the 21st century, unless we go back to horse and buggy. Wealth still influences the digital divide in education, by how much money school districts have to spend on technology.
Anyone know what time it is? Remember, there’s an app for that!! A little segue to my next point, the films! Tom Wujec made his point about the relativity of technology, and so did Sid Davis with his work of safety. “To everything (turn, turn, turn) there is a season (turn, turn, turn), a time to every purpose under heaven.” Do you know the song by the Byrds, the lyrics from Ecclesiates (music by Pete Seeger, 1959)? Not sure how the titleless, creditless YouTube shorts of today fit into what I’ve just said. Perhaps it's that titleless and creditless film is like graffiti. That fits with today’s season... an environmental mess all over, irresponsible corporate executives, unaccountable governments, cutbacks to education funding. Ya, I guess there's a fit. I think the Sid Davis film is more pertinent to the times than is apparent... we always need to be careful how we work and play. That message never goes out of season.
Last message. The BMW commercial. Denis asked, “What’s the message.” Ah... small ideas become big ones that can culminate in a saving power, the Hydrogen 7! Great idea. Too bad it's more expensive to run that car than an old gas guzzler. I am caught up with what Denis pointed to about the duration of the individual shots. How many frames of film? One to two second clips glued together. The commercial is a great short film that has great implications for the classroom. This is not to say we use existing commercials in the classroom, though we can. Here I’m getting at creating short films with goals in mind. How did Madden do his films, how did Sid Davis do his? The techniques of filmmaking could be applied to make excellent learning objects, objects that grab attention and deliver the message. Maybe I’ll have one ready for my 10 minute TED.
I'm a day eariler that I said I'd be. Oh well.
This week, I’ll begin with a piece of the quote Mike said gripped him:
"Assessment and filtering greatly impact the degree to which some technologies can be adopted in schools..."
We’ve been talking about how to assess and filter internet content since the beginning of the course. It’s something we need to teach, a new literacy. Interestingly, I found what I think is a good article in my travels since class time (since I am posting this on Sunday, I had some time to do some homework). It has to do with film literacy and was published in 1955. It can be seen at my resources site (I use the Google free space), titled The Necessity of Learning How to See a Film. It is quite connected to what we’ve been doing with film and literacy and has everything to do with assessing and filtering. The Peters (the one linked above about how to see a film) article also underscores a part of Mike’s second quote:
"... those who have the opportunity to learn technology skills are in a better position to obtain and make use of technology than those who do not."
O Literacy, Literacy! Wherefore art though Literacy? Survival, says Literacy, survival. We must be able to grant equal access to technology if everyone will have the opportunity to find success in the 21st century, unless we go back to horse and buggy. Wealth still influences the digital divide in education, by how much money school districts have to spend on technology.
Anyone know what time it is? Remember, there’s an app for that!! A little segue to my next point, the films! Tom Wujec made his point about the relativity of technology, and so did Sid Davis with his work of safety. “To everything (turn, turn, turn) there is a season (turn, turn, turn), a time to every purpose under heaven.” Do you know the song by the Byrds, the lyrics from Ecclesiates (music by Pete Seeger, 1959)? Not sure how the titleless, creditless YouTube shorts of today fit into what I’ve just said. Perhaps it's that titleless and creditless film is like graffiti. That fits with today’s season... an environmental mess all over, irresponsible corporate executives, unaccountable governments, cutbacks to education funding. Ya, I guess there's a fit. I think the Sid Davis film is more pertinent to the times than is apparent... we always need to be careful how we work and play. That message never goes out of season.
Last message. The BMW commercial. Denis asked, “What’s the message.” Ah... small ideas become big ones that can culminate in a saving power, the Hydrogen 7! Great idea. Too bad it's more expensive to run that car than an old gas guzzler. I am caught up with what Denis pointed to about the duration of the individual shots. How many frames of film? One to two second clips glued together. The commercial is a great short film that has great implications for the classroom. This is not to say we use existing commercials in the classroom, though we can. Here I’m getting at creating short films with goals in mind. How did Madden do his films, how did Sid Davis do his? The techniques of filmmaking could be applied to make excellent learning objects, objects that grab attention and deliver the message. Maybe I’ll have one ready for my 10 minute TED.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Class 6: February 11, 2010
The Strick Encyclopedia
First published in the month of Kygryo of the round-about 11597.238, The Strick Encyclopedia was the first comprehensive information source written in the language Hhiubep. Hhiubep was a language developed by the Monks of Creationium, inhabitants of a satellite colony of Old Earth during the round-about cycle 10000.100 - 12967.920. Every known copy of the encyclopedia was destroyed by the despised Muejiqs in the round-about 12844.331 because it contained references to what was considered true statements of the Muejiq oppresive regime. The Muejiqs had conquered all the people of Old Earth's inhabited life-sustaining soil plantations and implanted in them a technological device that allowed the Muejiqs to control the Old Earthlings. The regime of the Muejiqs continued until the energy source that powered their technology was exhausted.
Ok, I'll quit here. What have I said? Well, really, nothing. But, it could be true, sometime, somewhere.
Tonight's class really emphasized for me the relativeness of truth. When Denis said that he isn't fond of the term Digital Native, I listened carefully to his following remarks. When he said that the youth of today lack context and then related to us the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series, Trudeaumania, mainframe computers that needed entire floors of office buildings but had much less power than one of today's laptops, and all the other things that I right now don't recall, it struck a chord. Of course today's youth can't relate to our context, our personal histories; they weren't around. In the same way, I see pictures of the homestead of my great-great-grandparents on Henderson Highway, but I can't really relate to their way of life; I have no living context for that.
In a similar way, we experienced during Denis's workshop a song written in Latin. How many in the room had a context for that one? And hence follows the question about literacy. What is it? To come to a satisfactory answer, I traced the etymology of the word literacy at the Online Etymology Dictionary (OED). Since literacy is derivative of literate, I found what I wanted there. To be literate apparently means to be "educated, learned; one who knows the letters" (OED). The word also goes back to the 15th century, when, print was invented by Gutenberg. Any coincidence there? Don't think so. To be "one who knows letters" implies an understanding of what one sees and the knowledge of sounds associated with such letters. ABCs anyone?
In the context related in the paragraph above, literacy is about actual letters of text that we read, but it has evolved into more that just the understanding of text. Being literate does mean being educated/learned, as the definition says, but not necessarily in the art of letters. There is music, there is art, there is film, there is math, there is culture... there is technology. In general, there are different languages, modes of expression, codes... different ways. And these ways speak to what we know, or perhaps better said, what we have come to know.
To me, becoming educated has as much to do with incidental experience, if not more, as does being trained to understand a way of knowing. Sit on a hot stove and burn thy butt and one will soon not forget it. How one comes to know, which implies remembrance of something experienced - learned - is also dependent on the individual frame of mind, or maybe better said, the frame of reference, one's orientation to the world. Can one be literate if one doesn't remember? I think one can only proclaim literacy if one has context, that is, a memory about something, which I'll say may or may not include a deep understanding (consider what Paul said in his Heidegger entry about kids not being tech experts). This suggests that there are degrees of literacy, which we know, from perhaps really knowing what one is doing or talking about (as in a mechanic or doctor) to recognizing a picture once before seen. In a nutshell, there are many variables that make up the literacy equation. It is a relative (relative as a noun, for a thing that has relativeness, like truth). I'm literate in hockey not only because I know the rules and something about who is playing in the NHL these days, but because I know how to skate (and I'll add not too badly) and have a reasonably good idea how to play the game.
When it comes to literacy with technology, based on what I have already said, the relative is context dependent (like everything else). How can I be literate with technology, to any degree, if I don't have access to it or do not practice using it? What I didn't say yet but which is significant is the critical thinking involved in literacy, the amount of time spent reading, playing or using tools. This is very pertinent to teachers. If teachers don't practice using technology, if they don't critically think about how the tools can be used in the classroom, how effective will their application of technology be? I'll leave that for you to answer.
All this talk is bringing me to knowledge construction and constructivism, but I won't go there this week. Let it suffice that I constructed the first paragraph, in the spirit of My Winnipeg, borrowing from Star Trek and "the old country."
First published in the month of Kygryo of the round-about 11597.238, The Strick Encyclopedia was the first comprehensive information source written in the language Hhiubep. Hhiubep was a language developed by the Monks of Creationium, inhabitants of a satellite colony of Old Earth during the round-about cycle 10000.100 - 12967.920. Every known copy of the encyclopedia was destroyed by the despised Muejiqs in the round-about 12844.331 because it contained references to what was considered true statements of the Muejiq oppresive regime. The Muejiqs had conquered all the people of Old Earth's inhabited life-sustaining soil plantations and implanted in them a technological device that allowed the Muejiqs to control the Old Earthlings. The regime of the Muejiqs continued until the energy source that powered their technology was exhausted.
Ok, I'll quit here. What have I said? Well, really, nothing. But, it could be true, sometime, somewhere.
Tonight's class really emphasized for me the relativeness of truth. When Denis said that he isn't fond of the term Digital Native, I listened carefully to his following remarks. When he said that the youth of today lack context and then related to us the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series, Trudeaumania, mainframe computers that needed entire floors of office buildings but had much less power than one of today's laptops, and all the other things that I right now don't recall, it struck a chord. Of course today's youth can't relate to our context, our personal histories; they weren't around. In the same way, I see pictures of the homestead of my great-great-grandparents on Henderson Highway, but I can't really relate to their way of life; I have no living context for that.
In a similar way, we experienced during Denis's workshop a song written in Latin. How many in the room had a context for that one? And hence follows the question about literacy. What is it? To come to a satisfactory answer, I traced the etymology of the word literacy at the Online Etymology Dictionary (OED). Since literacy is derivative of literate, I found what I wanted there. To be literate apparently means to be "educated, learned; one who knows the letters" (OED). The word also goes back to the 15th century, when, print was invented by Gutenberg. Any coincidence there? Don't think so. To be "one who knows letters" implies an understanding of what one sees and the knowledge of sounds associated with such letters. ABCs anyone?
In the context related in the paragraph above, literacy is about actual letters of text that we read, but it has evolved into more that just the understanding of text. Being literate does mean being educated/learned, as the definition says, but not necessarily in the art of letters. There is music, there is art, there is film, there is math, there is culture... there is technology. In general, there are different languages, modes of expression, codes... different ways. And these ways speak to what we know, or perhaps better said, what we have come to know.
To me, becoming educated has as much to do with incidental experience, if not more, as does being trained to understand a way of knowing. Sit on a hot stove and burn thy butt and one will soon not forget it. How one comes to know, which implies remembrance of something experienced - learned - is also dependent on the individual frame of mind, or maybe better said, the frame of reference, one's orientation to the world. Can one be literate if one doesn't remember? I think one can only proclaim literacy if one has context, that is, a memory about something, which I'll say may or may not include a deep understanding (consider what Paul said in his Heidegger entry about kids not being tech experts). This suggests that there are degrees of literacy, which we know, from perhaps really knowing what one is doing or talking about (as in a mechanic or doctor) to recognizing a picture once before seen. In a nutshell, there are many variables that make up the literacy equation. It is a relative (relative as a noun, for a thing that has relativeness, like truth). I'm literate in hockey not only because I know the rules and something about who is playing in the NHL these days, but because I know how to skate (and I'll add not too badly) and have a reasonably good idea how to play the game.
When it comes to literacy with technology, based on what I have already said, the relative is context dependent (like everything else). How can I be literate with technology, to any degree, if I don't have access to it or do not practice using it? What I didn't say yet but which is significant is the critical thinking involved in literacy, the amount of time spent reading, playing or using tools. This is very pertinent to teachers. If teachers don't practice using technology, if they don't critically think about how the tools can be used in the classroom, how effective will their application of technology be? I'll leave that for you to answer.
All this talk is bringing me to knowledge construction and constructivism, but I won't go there this week. Let it suffice that I constructed the first paragraph, in the spirit of My Winnipeg, borrowing from Star Trek and "the old country."
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Class 5: February 4, 2010
Frames of Reference
During the class, I said a few things about the enframing section of The Question Concerning Technology and read from a paper by David Waddington. I didn't discuss what may be considered an important point or two in that section, so I'll share now what I might have also said.
The enframing is, I think and as I said in class, a frame of reference from which to view the world. It's ironic that Heidegger uses the discipline of physics to make his point because it is in physics that frames of reference abound. It really is interesting in the sense that modern physics is purely theoretical; that is, what is discovered is first put forward through hypothesis, and then from the realm of the unseen, the concealed, comes the proof. When was the last time you saw an atom, let alone a quark? I haven't either, but according to physicists, they are there. Nature has reported to physicists that it is so.
Heidegger said that "because the essence of technology lies in enframing, modern technology must employ exact physical science." His reference to Heisenberg's lecture may be the address Heisenberg gave when accepting the 1933 Nobel Prize for physics - have not been able to verify that yet. I looked at that address; didn't read beyond the first page. Anyway, Heidegger also says that even causality is not the same, that it too has become a "reporting challenged forth." Everything is now coldly calculated and has become ultra utilitarian, physical science supporting all. Not to worry though, the saving power exists.
Moving on, Theoretical Physics (modern physics) is essentially all mathematics. But, like Heidegger said, math existed before technology. Here is where fuzz appears, again. How can technology set-upon math? It doesn’t, unless we’re trying to prove that pi is rational, and then we need a program to run a computer to get to that next decimal place. A program... hmm, I want to talk about that.
Probably everyone in this course has written a computer program. Programming is all about modeling and ordering, an exercise similar to that of Theoretical Physics. Theoretical physicists make models based partially on what has come before, which, when traced back far enough, are built upon direct observation of nature. Those observations were modeled mathematically afterward, not the other way around. Newtonian Physics began with observation, not with math, yet, it did turn into a mathematical physics. No matter. Just imagine that you observe a phenomenon and realize you can model it with an equation. Now begin playing with equations supporting particular phenomena, in the same way Denis was playing with the text/words during class. Let the enframing begin? Play with enough things that you can see and maybe you’ll discover something you can’t. Enough... as I was saying, programming is about modeling and ordering. Not one detail can be missed when composing a program, not one condition overlooked. And while programmers today have sophisticated tools to help create the Windows’ of the world, those tools must meticulously be designed on paper (or in mind) and every possibility thought through before production of them can begin. Early computers would have first begun on paper and all the hardware’s AND, NAND, OR and NOR gates tested by tracing through manually, in the same way we add numbers without a calculator. The computer, actually all modern technology, is nothing short of miraculous. The technology - the techne - behind it is not the laws of physics or chemistry, it’s the reason and creativity that went into combining the scientific laws with pure logic. Programming, actually all engineering design, is a perfect act of enframing. But, it is all grounded in revealing, a process directed by Being (so Heidegger might say). The modern machine, in the generic sense of the word, is a work of art, just like the chalice. Given what I have just said, the essence of technology just might be pure reason, which can be said to be spirit. I read that in a book somewhere years ago, that spirit is pure reason. Hence, the essence of technology is nothing physical, and as Heidegger says, it is an illusion to think so. Spirit, by the way, can be argued to be the essence of Being. So, logical syllogism applied, Being is technology. Yes... so, if technology is Being revealed, then enframing must be a destining because Being does things on its own terms. Having said that, I still believe in free choice, as I said in my handout. But, wouldn't it be something if the choices we make, which we think are free, are actually predestined. That, is on the edge. One last observation regarding revealing, the light from the most distant stars is just starting to hit Earth now. The universe is revealing itself.
Now, if you are not too tired, here’s another idea. How do we challenge-forth learning? What technology – techne – do we use? Denis pointed out that his iPhone challenges him... well, I’ll say preoccupies him. But, he is interested in it... and he is learning. The technology is challenging-forth learning. Something I heard on the radio today struck me. I was listening to The Age of Persuasion on CBC radio one, 990. Host Terry O’Reilly talked about media theorist Neil Postman, saying that he said that when there was only printed materials, people thought in text, in print. They would have also thought in images, and music. Today, people also think in hyper-mode media: websites, TV, smartphone. Designing curricula for all the media of current thought sounds like a good idea.
During the class, I said a few things about the enframing section of The Question Concerning Technology and read from a paper by David Waddington. I didn't discuss what may be considered an important point or two in that section, so I'll share now what I might have also said.
The enframing is, I think and as I said in class, a frame of reference from which to view the world. It's ironic that Heidegger uses the discipline of physics to make his point because it is in physics that frames of reference abound. It really is interesting in the sense that modern physics is purely theoretical; that is, what is discovered is first put forward through hypothesis, and then from the realm of the unseen, the concealed, comes the proof. When was the last time you saw an atom, let alone a quark? I haven't either, but according to physicists, they are there. Nature has reported to physicists that it is so.
Heidegger said that "because the essence of technology lies in enframing, modern technology must employ exact physical science." His reference to Heisenberg's lecture may be the address Heisenberg gave when accepting the 1933 Nobel Prize for physics - have not been able to verify that yet. I looked at that address; didn't read beyond the first page. Anyway, Heidegger also says that even causality is not the same, that it too has become a "reporting challenged forth." Everything is now coldly calculated and has become ultra utilitarian, physical science supporting all. Not to worry though, the saving power exists.
Moving on, Theoretical Physics (modern physics) is essentially all mathematics. But, like Heidegger said, math existed before technology. Here is where fuzz appears, again. How can technology set-upon math? It doesn’t, unless we’re trying to prove that pi is rational, and then we need a program to run a computer to get to that next decimal place. A program... hmm, I want to talk about that.
Probably everyone in this course has written a computer program. Programming is all about modeling and ordering, an exercise similar to that of Theoretical Physics. Theoretical physicists make models based partially on what has come before, which, when traced back far enough, are built upon direct observation of nature. Those observations were modeled mathematically afterward, not the other way around. Newtonian Physics began with observation, not with math, yet, it did turn into a mathematical physics. No matter. Just imagine that you observe a phenomenon and realize you can model it with an equation. Now begin playing with equations supporting particular phenomena, in the same way Denis was playing with the text/words during class. Let the enframing begin? Play with enough things that you can see and maybe you’ll discover something you can’t. Enough... as I was saying, programming is about modeling and ordering. Not one detail can be missed when composing a program, not one condition overlooked. And while programmers today have sophisticated tools to help create the Windows’ of the world, those tools must meticulously be designed on paper (or in mind) and every possibility thought through before production of them can begin. Early computers would have first begun on paper and all the hardware’s AND, NAND, OR and NOR gates tested by tracing through manually, in the same way we add numbers without a calculator. The computer, actually all modern technology, is nothing short of miraculous. The technology - the techne - behind it is not the laws of physics or chemistry, it’s the reason and creativity that went into combining the scientific laws with pure logic. Programming, actually all engineering design, is a perfect act of enframing. But, it is all grounded in revealing, a process directed by Being (so Heidegger might say). The modern machine, in the generic sense of the word, is a work of art, just like the chalice. Given what I have just said, the essence of technology just might be pure reason, which can be said to be spirit. I read that in a book somewhere years ago, that spirit is pure reason. Hence, the essence of technology is nothing physical, and as Heidegger says, it is an illusion to think so. Spirit, by the way, can be argued to be the essence of Being. So, logical syllogism applied, Being is technology. Yes... so, if technology is Being revealed, then enframing must be a destining because Being does things on its own terms. Having said that, I still believe in free choice, as I said in my handout. But, wouldn't it be something if the choices we make, which we think are free, are actually predestined. That, is on the edge. One last observation regarding revealing, the light from the most distant stars is just starting to hit Earth now. The universe is revealing itself.
Now, if you are not too tired, here’s another idea. How do we challenge-forth learning? What technology – techne – do we use? Denis pointed out that his iPhone challenges him... well, I’ll say preoccupies him. But, he is interested in it... and he is learning. The technology is challenging-forth learning. Something I heard on the radio today struck me. I was listening to The Age of Persuasion on CBC radio one, 990. Host Terry O’Reilly talked about media theorist Neil Postman, saying that he said that when there was only printed materials, people thought in text, in print. They would have also thought in images, and music. Today, people also think in hyper-mode media: websites, TV, smartphone. Designing curricula for all the media of current thought sounds like a good idea.
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