Ready...Set...Wiki!

Photo Copyright Lindsey T.

I would like to start this reflection with something witty, clever and possibly even profound. However, I feel like for that to happen I would need to get a set of jumper cables from the garage and clip up my ears and turn the key. Frankly, I am spent mentally and it is all thanks to the wonderfully exhausting experience of creating my own curriculum page. 

Lights, Camera, Integration!

So far, I have explored the development of technology within the realm of education and what tools are available to me as an educator to make use of said technology. Digital storytelling is a wonderful element that can be used in just about every classroom environment, as well as beyond the classroom for professional development and in the world of corporate training. However, ideas are all well and good, but without a good strategy of integration they are mere playthings instead of useful tools. As noted in our textbook, “The key to successful technology integration is identifying what you are trying to accomplish within your curriculum” (Shelley & Gunter, 2010). In other words, having the fancy software programs is all well and good, but what on earth do you mean to do with them? Now, even though I am not currently in a classroom, this is still a very important question and this week’s assignment was a wonderful way for me to explore this concept. Once more, I get to work through what I have learned in my readings and apply it to a hypothetical classroom. However, unlike the last time, I think I will go a different track a little more suited to my aspirations. 

Beyond Paper: Exploring Digital Storytelling

Creativity is the force that gets me up in the morning and keeps blood pumping through my veins. It is the horsepower in my engine that keeps me going to new and exciting places. However, I long ago understood that in terms of school, creativity must often take a backseat to the demands of knowledge and understanding.  Now, I have always been able to study like a fiend, and discuss theories and ideas at length, but nothing makes me happier than actually creating something of value and worth beyond a term paper. This could be something practical (sewing together a new change purse), something silly (spray-painting plastic dinosaurs to act as Christmas ornaments), or even something nourishing (a hearty dinner of braised short ribs in red wine). All of these things make me happy because I am actually applying knowledge gained and skills developed. In the end of each of these things I have a product to look upon and be proud of.  To that end, I have to admit this is the most excited I’ve been to do schoolwork in a very long time. This week, my job was to take all of the ridiculously informative and helpful information from the textbook, websites linked without our given module and wonderful examples, and somehow create my very own piece of digital storytelling.

Learning that Gigahertz is Not a Car Rental Company...

When I bought my laptop last summer, I spent months researching what I would need to replace the aging, decrepit lap-sized paperweight I was currently using. I was not, however, very well versed in the technical specifics of computers, nor did I really know off hand what I needed. Thankfully, however, my boyfriend is an expert in his own right, and was in the process of buying the components to build his own desktop computer at the same time. With his guidance, I was able to pin down that I needed a lot of storage, a high-quality video card, as fast of a processor as I could afford and a nearly excessive amount of removable media options. So, with the information he provided (and repeated many times at my prompting to make sure I understood everything), I did endless hours of research, online browsing and in-store playing and finally plunked down some serious change to get the machine I work with today (and hopefully for many years to come). The experience was a bit frustrating, since I was not used to the onslaught of numbers and abbreviations he threw at me (such as Ghz which is the speed of my processor and the heartbeat of my computer), but was ultimately very rewarding. In fact, the whole computer-buying adventure was far more to my benefit than I had previously expected, because when it came to this week's reading, I was rarely, if ever, stopped in confusion at the terms and definitions presented to me. CPUs, you say? Got it! That's my oh-so-speedy processor that manages my computer's operations. The difference between Solid State Drives and Optical Discs? No problem! SSD's are the way in which  my computers stores all of its precious information using 500 GB of flash memory, while optical discs require a physical disc to keep it's information. Data representation in the form of ASCII? I may not be fluent, but it is more than gibberish to me now!

Hello Internet! My Name Is...

There's a saying out there that goes like this: The Internet never forgets. In fact, this saying has spawned a blog in of itself (enjoy, ladies). In this day and age, there is no limit to the depths of the Ol' Interwebs, with both treasure and trash awaiting those brave souls willing to dive down far enough. Daniel J. Solove provided a beautiful example in The Future of Reputation when he described the hilariously awful accident of communication from a law student to his colleagues a prestigious law firm. "[T]he email and the apology soon became the toast of the Internet...If you run a Google search on the person’s name, you can still pull up the emails in an instant" (2007). Nowadays, even simple mistakes are no longer simple if the location their made is online.

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A Case for Cliches: Ethics, Technology and the Classroom

Is it more unethical to allow threats to students/schools (see list above) or to deny students/teachers access to instructionally-relevant Web-based tools and content?

When considering the difficult situation of how to handle access to technology in a classroom – ie, if, how, where and why to block – I believe there is no one right answer where ethics are involved. In many schools, blocking is implemented to preserve the security and efficiency of the school's precious computer system. Is this worse than denying open access to all the Internet has available, including instructionally-relevant content? No. Keeping a school's entire system is far more important than allowing access to potentially dangerous content and viruses. A few lessons or papers may suffer, but that's far preferable than losing an entire server's worth of data.

What does this mean for the classroom, however? Well, it pains me to say this as an English teacher, but I feel we must take comfort in cliches. What do I mean by this? Well, when all the debate comes down to it, there comes a point when we must “make the most of a bad situation” and even sometimes choose “the lesser of two evils”. In fact, a teacher's wish for free access for their students might even be a case of “be careful what you wish for”. Let me explain...