Learning is Change

03.21.07

Cores 1-2:

  1. Read the Remix Culture articles:
  2. Debate the merits of Mashups and Remixes as art forms and workable solutions in pro- and anti- groups.

Core 3:

  1. Fill out the Outsiders Anticipation Guide.
  2. Discuss personal connections to the themes of the novel.
  3. What do you know about the 50’s?

Core 4:

  1. Do you think that authors paint a realistic vision of the future? One they would like to see happen? Or, one they would never like to see happen? Why?
  2. Which of the following have come to pass, and which of the following will/should never come to pass?
    • Looking Backward:
      • People taking one year off to serve one another before they get their real jobs.
      • Having a solution for shopping: Checking things off of a list and having them delivered to you immediately.
    • 1984:
      • A government that wants us to fear one another.
      • A “Big Brother” that is always watching you.
      • Mind control through the use of language.
      • Power concentrated in the hands of only a few people.
    • Brave New World:
      • Genetically Engineering Human Beings
      • Strict Classes of people based upon intelligence capacity.
      • Compulsory (you have to do it) contreception
    • Player Piano:
      • The automation of nearly every job so that there is very little left for humans to do.
    • The Giver:
      • Centrally stored memories.
      • A closed off society.
    • Fahrenheit 451:
      • Extreme censorship.
    • We:
      • The importance of logic above all else.
    • Utopia:
      • Each Man or Woman working for only what they need.
      • Devaluing money (money and gold mean nothing to these people).
      • Paying other people to fight wars for you.
    • Lord of the Flies:
      • A life without supervision.
    • Anthem:
      • A complete dependence on Group-Thinking.
      • True equality for all citizens (without the handicapping of Harrison Bergeron).
  3. Debate the merits of each theme from the ten books mentioned.

A New Image for New Students

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My students are different. Not from yours, but from the ones that came before them. They are desperate to connect everything together: disciplines, ideas, home and school. They need a way of bridging the gaps that many adults artificially create. We must help them to connect. I don’t have any five point plans in this podcast, but I do have a good example from a student about tormenting substitute teachers. Have a listen.

I am looking for a new image to help explain this phenomenon of connection as a reaction to the increasingly splintered world that they experience. If you have any grand ideas about this, please drop me a line at benjamin.wilkoff@dcsdk12.org.

03.20.07

ELT:

Cores 1-4:

  1. Get everything on your blog to work.
  2. Not be frustrated by technology.
  3. Write out your Sem2_Week10 and post to del.icio.us.
  4. Get one-on-one writing and technology help from Mr. Wilkoff.

03.19.07

Cores 1-4:

  • Check in on Weekly Authentic Blog Posts.

Cores 1-2:

This week you will be constructing your own position paper on who gets to own ideas. You are going to create a solution for our own projects (utopias and -Isms) that will allow some intellectual rights to be preserved in a traditional sense (no one can copy your ideas), and other rights to be changed to allow remix culture to take over (people can work with your premises to create something new). In order to start this writing piece off right, I would like you to do a little bit of internal research to see what you know and think about copyrighting ideas. Create the following diagram on a piece of paper to show your opinions of what should and should not be allowed of the following remixing or mashup situations:

Isn’t Illegal            Is Illegal

Should be Illegal

Shouldn’t be Illegal

  1. Creating a collage using a famous piece of art and some of your own drawings.
  2. Hacking someone’s computer game and making it better then selling it.
  3. Taking someone’s direct quote from a book without citing it.
  4. Taking someone’s ideas from a book and listing them as one of your biggest influences in the bio.
  5. Using two pieces of different music to make a new one.
  6. Creating a replica of a building in Google Sketch-up.
  7. Creating a parody of the latest blockbuster film and putting it up on YouTube.
  8. Typing out a chapter of someone’s book and putting links to pictures of all of the places it mentions.
  9. Taking the beat or melody of a famous song and looping it to create something new to sing or rap over, without asking for permission to use the sample.
  10. Using a well known movie clip, and dubbing you and your friends making up funny, rude comments over top of it so that it looks like they are saying what you want them to.

Discuss each situation.

Lets take a look at a few definitions and real life situation. 

Core 3:

  1. Discuss Digital Educator Technology Toolkit proposals.
  2. What does it mean to be an outsider?
    1. Who are the insiders?
    2. What kind of outsider are you?
    3. Why do we identify more with outsiders?

Core 4:

  1. Discuss Digital Eucator Technology Toolkit proposals.
  2. Where is the best place to get ideas for our Utopias?
  3. Go through the process of selecting a Utopian/Dystopian novel that you think will have a great effect on your Utopian ideas.

03.15.07

I’m sorry that I couldn’t be there to help you out in person (especially because I love teaching on my birthday), but I did want to tell you how to post from writetomyblog.com:

  •  Click on Manage Posts
  • Choose WordPress (not WordPress.com) as your Blog Service.
  • Enter in your blog web address with “xmlrpc.php” at the end:
    • Example: http://bhwilkoff.learnerblogs.org/xmlrpc.php
  • Enter your Username and Password that gives this site temporary access to your blog.
  • Click Manage Posts
  • Choose your blog and Click Manage Posts again

From here you can either decide to edit one of your posts, or you can click close and write a new post.

  • You can then click publish in order to send whatever you have typed to your blog.
  • It will ask you if you want to publish it to the same blog that you set up before. Click publish again.
  • You can then categorize it if you want or just click publish for a third time.

You have done it! Pat yourself on the back.

03.14.07

Cores 1-2:

  1. Discuss-on: What is Remix Culture?
  2. Watch the Remix Culture in Generation Y video and discuss:
    • What is okay to copy?
    • What isn’t?
    • What is a remix?
    • What is a parody?
    • Who owns an idea?

Cores 3-4:

  • I have just been selected to be a part of the Digital Educator program for 2007-2010. What this means is that I will mentoring other teachers in the the use of technology in classroom. Right up my alley, wouldn’t you say?
    • The best part, though, is that I get to build a technology toolkit to use in my classroom, and they have given me some really tempting choices. I would like you to help me to pick out what I should get because you are going to be using this stuff too.
    • The toolkit is based on a point system (1 point=about $100). I have 30 points to play with, but I have to get a 13 point laptop, so really I only have 17 points to work with. Please select the items accordingly and give a compelling reason for each choice. Write down what you want to use this item for next year. I will select from your proposals, and hopefully you will have had the best reasons for your choices. Time to check out the great stuff we can have.

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Researching School 2.0

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In creating a wiki for my vision of School 2.0 within a school, I have found that there is quite a bit of research out there supporting 1:1 computing, constructivist teaching practice, and engaging technology usage in the classroom. What is even more amazing is that I didn’t know that this research existed because it has been so universally ignored by much of the proponents of this kind of reform. We must have this kind of research on the tips of our tongues, and we must be ready to spout off both the anecdotal evidence and the numbers to anyone who wants to know more about where education is going. We must also create our own research from our own classrooms. This podcast describes three different ways of achieving this goal:
1. A malleable research model that can assess new types of technology as it becomes available.
2. Survey and reflection of what is working in our classrooms.
3. Comparisons of certifications of mastery.

Show notes:

Thoughts to get me through the Colorado Student Assessment Program

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CSAP can do weird things to you. It kind of goes to work on your head. There is nothing unique about your test. It is the same as everyone else’s. And so you crave to do something original, to snap the unending monotony of test giving and test taking. The Colorado Student Assessment Program provided me with an abundance of time to think and be creative this year, and unlike my students, I was actually allowed to write out my ideas. (Students can’t write out their ideas because we are afraid that they will write out an answer to the test or pass a note, as if they wanted anything more to do with the test after it is over.)

This year I chose to think about next year that seems to be approaching so rapidly as to be nearing terminal velocity. All last week, I said what I have always said about next years, “I am determined to get it right next year.” But this year the “it” is different. This year I am not referring to classroom management. This year the “it” is not referring to teaching a book or unit the right way. The “it” this year is that I am going to get the next generation of my classroom right. I am going to make sure that I have all of the research and ideas in place so that I know and everyone else knows what the Discovery Team will look like when it comes through this fundamental change.

So what will change next year? Well, it is my hope that teaching will become a more collaborative process and learning will become more student-directed. This may sound far-fetched and somewhat hollow, but I have outlined everything, down to the assessments (much better than CSAP if you ask me) in a wiki. The fact that it is a wiki means that it can change. This vision is malleable by anyone who is interested in taking a stab at making thing better for teachers and students.

The Academy of Discovery is more than just a vision, though. It is a gauntlet that is being thrown down. It is a statement that says education will not be effective without collaboration, context, conversation, change, connection, and continuous support. This ultimatum, however, is more for students than teachers. It means that once we provide you with all of the infinite resources, creativity, potential of a connected classroom, it is your responsibility to be amazing. It is your responsibility to direct your engagement. It is your responsibility to learn.

03.12.07

Cores 1-4:

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you-make-me-touch-your-hands-for-stupid-reasons.mp3

  1. I saw this online yesterday and I knew that I just had to play it for you. This is an example of just how ineffective your words can be when you don’t take the time to choose them wisely. This piece really makes me feel bad for the girl who wrote it. The “former boyfriend” obviously thought it was funny rather than serious, the exact opposite of its intent. I feel so bad, in fact, that I think we should help her out. I would like to have you rewrite this letter with the intent that it originally had and then give a dramatic reading of a great breakup letter. You may either keep the same words and just make them grammatically correct, or you may keep the sentiment and change the words. Either way, I would like you to make this breakup letter readable.
  2. Show and tell what I did during CSAP.

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