Lemmingworks

What If? Technology in the 21st Century Classroom | OPSBA
On Wednesday, April 29, 2009 the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association OPSBA released a Discussion Paper entitled: What If? Technology in the 21st Century Classroom. As school trustees we want to engage the province in a meaningful focused discussion about classrooms of the 21st century. We want to be part of developing a provincial vision and strategies that will make all our classrooms connected and relevant.

“Today’s students are leaders in the use of technology and we know they want their learning experiences in school to reflect this,” said Colleen Schenk, president of OPSBA. “Students want to take the technology they use in their daily lives and integrate it with how they learn. They want their learning clearly connected to the world beyond the school.”

The Discussion Paper asks the question: “How can schools continue to be connected and relevant in the world of the 21st century?” It explores the relationship between the use of technology and the scope for increasing the quality of teaching and learning.

Innovative use of technology is proliferating in our schools but it is not matching keeping pace with the integration of multi-media in the lives of our students and it is not offering a clear and preferred alternative to the flexibility of virtual schools. In a very real sense this challenge is not about machines and devices; it is about what learning should look like. For young people today learning occurs in a wider space and time. How do we in the school system facilitate learning in this wider sense?

Many students feel, however, that when they come into school they have to “power down” to fit into an environment that offers fewer options for learning than are available in the life they live outside of the school. This can erode students’ perceptions of the relevance of education as they experience it in many schools today. At the same time, students need the guidance and leadership of their teachers in judging the authenticity and worth of the information so readily available to them.

Teachers in many schools are using technology to support different learning styles and engage all learners, offering developmentally appropriate learning experiences through a variety of media. What is missing is a comprehensive set of guidelines for all teachers that describe how they would use technology to: promote innovative thinking and collaborative work; incorporate rich digital resources into student learning; employ varied assessment methods that can in turn improve learning; model ethical practices in the digital age and strengthen their own professional development.

At a time when the economy is shrinking, when there is again great pressure on the education dollar, it is more critical than ever to be strategic about allocating resources in ways that will make the greatest impact. OPSBA is asking all those who are concerned with education in the 21st century, and who are interested in how schools engage with students to prepare them for success in a highly connected world, to join the discussion.

CLD419, Learning Technology CLD419

Rochelle introduced me to her Bitstrips cartoon: Bitstrips: Typical. This could be a great tool for getting ECEs to work with tech and children without using personal information… as a step into something like Scratch

CLD419, Social Tech for Children CLD419, scratch

This is a cute video by Sarah/Girltarist, who is, among other things, a student in my and Danny’s classes. We had a chat about reducing and reusing being better than recycling, but one thing at a time. I wish more educators would sing and share their songs.

CLD419, Friends/Colleagues CLD419, singing

Thanks to Aleja for this link. Not perfect, but a good over view, i guess.

Alejandra CLD419, twitter

unClick Google | Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters

On March 11, Google revealed its latest plan to violate your privacy: they will now record the types of websites you visit in order to gather a behavioral profile of your interests purportedly so that they can send you targeted advertising. This policy is in addition to their current policy of keeping a record of every single web search you have ever made along with as much other personally identifying information as they can gather. Of course, these behavioral profiles and detailed search histories will also be made available to law enforcement personnel upon request. The disregard for user privacy is a long standing tradition at Google and one that should be challenged. Just as Facebook was recently forced to cave after protests, Google too can be made to backtrack from their creeping violations of our privacy. Every company has their weak point, for Facebook it is the fear that users will stop using the site, and for Google it is the necessity of increasing their advertising revenue. I propose that we collectively embark on a civil disobedience campaign of intentional, automated “click fraud” in order to undermine Google’s advertising program with the goal of forcing Google to adopt a pro-privacy corporate policy.

I’m not an activist, but I appreciate what they do. The net has done a great job over the past decade of getting people to give up their personal information, just as airmiles and rewards cards do IRL. If you’re not a public individual, and you’re giving out your personal information, and you’re shocked when it is used to deceive you, commit fraud or identity theft, target advertisements, or degrade your life in a myriad of unknown and perhaps unknowable ways, you do have to ask yourself… who do you blame? I don’t blame google. Google’s not hiding what they’re doing. They’re very bouncy and enthusiastic about it… “personal information? you weren’t doing much with it anyway, were you… we can use it!” And why not. If we can’t be bothered to take prophylactic measures…

CLD419, Consumerism, Evil CLD419

Slashdot | Suspect Freed After Exposing Cop’s Facebook Status

“A man on trial in New York for possession of a weapon has been acquitted after subpoenaing his arresting officer’s Facebook and MySpace accounts. His defense: Officer Vaughan Ettienne’s MySpace “mood” was set to “devious” on the day of the arrest, and one day a few weeks before the trial, his Facebook status read “Vaughan is watching ‘Training Day’ to brush up on proper police procedure. From the article,’You have your Internet persona, and you have what you actually do on the street,” Officer Ettienne said on Tuesday. “What you say on the Internet is all bravado talk, like what you say in a locker room.” Except that trash talk in locker rooms almost never winds up preserved on a digital server somewhere, available for subpoena.’”

The whole NYT article is even more fun: About New York – A New York Police Officer Who Put Too Much on MySpace – NYTimes.com

I wonder if the cop can be fired for just being thick? I assume that police try and fight the ‘thug with a badge’ stereotype? I cannot imagine they still nurture it. I’m dedicating this post to all my students past, present and future who will have their personal information found, pulled out and presented in public to support or contradict their actions or statements made in a professional forum. It is ok to do and say crazy things… but know it is out there. Everything you do on the net can come back to haunt you. I shudder at the thought of someone putting comments about the children and families and colleagues they work with on their FB or MS accounts.

What brings it all home is: Pope: We should have Googled Holocaust bishop. SEE? Even the pope is saying that your past will be googled.

CLD415, CLD419, surveillance CLD419, ECE, stupidity

Alex blogged this, and it is amazing on a whole buncha levels regarding meaningful learning and social constructivism.

Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?

If you don’t see the embedded link, click on alex’s name to see it.

Alex Halavais, Gaming CLD419

I’ve got a nice EFF member’s sticker on my laptop, and paid my dues… so yesterday I got an email pointing me to the The SSD Project | EFF Surveillance Self-Defense Project:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has created this Surveillance Self-Defense site to educate the American public about the law and technology of government surveillance in the United States, providing the information and tools necessary to evaluate the threat of surveillance and take appropriate steps to defend against it.
Surveillance Self-Defense (SSD) exists to answer two main questions: What can the government legally do to spy on your computer data and communications? And what can you legally do to protect yourself against such spying?

For students in CLD419, where we’ve been discussing how to search out information on people, how to protect children’s information, and issues around children as creators of content, EFF is one of the key sources for information on how governments and corporations collect and use information about you. Perhaps this will be a good site to add to the course next year.

CLD419, Social Tech for Children, surveillance CLD419, surveillance

I’d forgotten about this video, but HowardR twittered it. And here it is. Every students in/of education should watch it, over and over and over. It will be on the exam… the exam of one’s own life.

CLD415, CLD419, Consumerism, Friends/Colleagues CLD415, CLD419, Illich

I saw this on mind hacks about Susan Greenfield, Baroness Greenfield talking about Facebook et al risk ‘infantilising’ the human mind. The blog post sort of laughs at her for making these statements without evidence. I’m skeptical of the safe until proven otherwise model that has driven the use of chemicals in food and products that humans come in touch with. I’m skeptical of medicines that are not tested in real world situations, but only in controlled studies, before being released to interact.

When it comes to online technologies, to say that they’re safe because no one has proven otherwise with valid data, is ludicrous. Facebook use will change how people think. TV did. The invention of the Novel did. Don’t forget that the novel was a new technology too.

There’s no question, in my experience, that people who don’t read novels have a less nuanced and diverse understanding of human nature. That gives people who read novels an advantage in some respects. I think that social networking technologies such as FB reduce the complexity of social interactions to the most minimal level, reducing the need to engage cognitively with one’s self and others. But I’m not putting a value judgement on that. It will no doubt either engender new types of relationships that will have their own values, though there’s no data for that either.

There’s no question, however, FB type interactions help lots of people keep in touch with lots of people, in a very shallow, banal, trite and superficial manner… but is that anything new?

CLD419 CLD419, social technologies