Lauren called me an old man

I am often called skeptical, pessimistic, and all around negative. Despite this I genuinely do not enjoy being such a downer about everything, but having looked over my blog posts I feel as though I must come off poorly. There have been very few things I have written positively about. In my first post, I mentioned that I am not a huge fan of technology in the classroom and after Friday’s class I am still not convinced.

We discussed the usefulness of Skype, Dropbox, Evernote, and Diigo. I have used the majority of these products in my personal life, but feel they would simply become a distraction and clutter my classroom instead of putting it in order. Diigo and Evernote might be useful to keep track of websites or news articles and that would be convenient for me as a teacher, but I feel each service offers just minor improvements beyond saving files on my own computer. Dropbox is handy to share large numbers of photos or video files, but how often would I really be sharing so many files with my class?

Lauren has concluded that the reason I dislike the vast majority of technology is due to my old age. As a 27 year-old geriatric, I fear that I will resist adopting things that my students might find helpful just because they annoy me. In my old-man viewpoint, Dropbox and Evernote are just one additional thing to download, signup for, and eventually forget. I am constantly making new accounts because I cannot remember passwords (sign of dementia) and I know the logistics of maintaining all of these accounts will just drive me insane.

I also fear overloading my students with the requirement of maintaining so many different accounts. I strive for simplicity and integration and having a million accounts I know will just become more of bother than anything. I want substance, not some fancy way of organizing links or notes.

To best adopt the usage of some of these services, the school must first limit the number of tools to just a handful. Secondly, the students should have a single account per tool that can be used for every teacher. If at all possible, I would try and limit everything to either the school’s website or a google account, the most integrated and useful product we have discussed thus far. Google works with a single username and can be used for a number of different tasks. This streamlines everything so the students can focus on the material, which I contest is the first causality of all this new fangled media sharing young people stuff.

Until I see some product really increase productivity and the quality of my students’ work, I will remain an old man. I have to take a balanced approach, however, and accept that times have changed and at least try some of the new products that are out there. 

Portfolios!

The thought of having to apply for a job in the current market has cost me more than a few hours of sleep to say the least. I often ponder how exactly I could make my résumé be more attractive to my future employer and really accentuate my strongest attributes. But what are my strongest attributes?! I have never taught in an American high school. I have zero college credits in the subject I will most likely be asked to teach..... 


The list of shortcomings could go on and on, but I have had a number of other experiences in my life which could make me a more interesting candidate than even someone with a few years of teaching under his/her belt. Mainly, I am talking about the five years I spent teaching English in Japan. This offered me tremendous freedom to experiment with my teaching, engage in training seminars, study other cultures, develop foreign language skills, and much much more. On paper, however, these extremely significant events of my life are most likely to be glanced over in a few seconds. No matter how well I written, a few sentence could never sum up the importance that time. 


Therefore I was excited at the idea of creating my own web-based portfolio. I have never made a webpage so the Weebly site was a welcomed first start. With this platform I could upload videos of my classes in Japan or create more elaborate presentations of the teacher training I have partaken.


Secondly, once I become a teacher I can use my webpage portfolio to keep track of additional developments in my career and as a resource for my students. My webpage could have videos from class, links to important supplementary documents, examples of assignments, etc. The possibilities are truly endless. 


The limitations of the Weebly site, however, were apparent after exercising just a few functions. Placement of photos, silly errors, and the like make me really want to learn html, css, and java coding. I have been told that someone with even limited knowledge of computers can pickup basic html coding in a day or two. From this point, I could really fine tune the webpage and make it most functional and attractive. Until I can find time between readings for class to learn the three most important computer languages, I guess Weebly will suffice ;)

The Smart Gamer

As a child, my father forbid videogames in our household, which is astonishing if you knew the type of man my father is. My father allowed and at times encouraged the worst behavior in my brother and me. I can remember when I was about ten years old he suggested we set a pile of newspapers ablaze and then to throw an entire packet of bottle rockets into the fire. I will never forget seeing him laughing in the window holding his cup of coffee as we frantically tried to crawl away from the bottle rockets which were whizzing ever so close to our heads. He never fully explained why he was so opposed to videogames. Instead he would simply say, "they're a waste of time," and I have by and large come to the same conclusion as well, which is also astonishing as I have made it my mission in life to defy him in anyway possible.

The TED talk video with Jane McGonigal of course argues strongly the opposite. She claims that skills learned in videogames can be used to solve the largest problems the world currently faces. By making such an outrageous statement that many people would love to be true, she has of course gained a lot of attention. The problem is it is not going to happen. The skills she cites to be strong amongst games, such as epic meaning, are vaguely defined and I can see no way that they will result in tangible results in tackling real-life issues. The games that the vast majority of the world play reward precision of killing on a mass scale. Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto, one of the most popular games of all time, simply rewards random acts of violence for the purpose on entertainment. On the other hand, the peak-oil game that she claims can teach people how to conserve fuel and changes peoples' habits, which I find hard to believe, is virtually unknown. Games that teach useful skills have always been and will always be regarded as a joke. They are the sorts of games only your mother would buy you.

Sure, videogames probably exercise a lot of reasoning, but so do sports and a myriad of other things in life. Videogames, however, exist in a virtual world that has been programmed. There are only a limited number of variables to challenge the player. In real life, there are an infinite number of variables, many of which will never be seen in the games people actually play because they are boring, tedious, or simply no fun.

James Gee highlights some good points about games, but stops from making such outlandish conclusions as McGonigal. He asks why we cannot use the principles of gaming in the field of education. I feel this is rational enough, but difficult to do effectively while still retaining the sense of entertainment.

So until I am presented with the most amazing game in the world that a child plays for a couple of house, sets down, and then go outside and uses that knowledge in the real world, I will remain unconvinced.

Class Reflection 三番 and my time in 日本

Just weeks prior to the start of the MAC program, I was living on the southern island of Kyushu in Japan. It was a tropical paradise with turquoise blue waters and lush green mountains. It would be a perfect destination for almost any traveller... But I was not a traveller. I was the sole English speaking teacher in a remote backwater of Japan and my tenor lasted a total of five years. That's a long time to be stuck in paradise with limited communication skills.

During those five year, however, I found many useful tools to help cope. One of the most useful was podcasts! Podcasts helped me stay connected to the English speaking world via NPR and BBC programming. Also, several Japanese language programs greatly advanced my own speaking skills. They made practice easy and convenient as I could perform a lesson anytime, anywhere. They were so useful that I often advised my own students to use podcasts to practice their English, but no podcast was particularly useful to them as the material rarely matched the curriculum taught at school. 

This is why I found Friday's lesson on podcasting to be so exciting and pertinent. If I had taken the initiative to create structured podcast lessons that matched those from classroom textbooks, I strongly believe my students would have practiced their English more often and in a more effective manner. Japanese schools are slow to adapt to innovative teaching techniques and essentially refuse to try anything new that would take away precious time from the pre-prescribed lesson plan. Podcasts, however, can be used by students at their leisure and hence would have taken away no time for traditional instruction. 

While podcasts work quite perfectly within a foreign language classroom, I feel it would be more difficult to integrate their use in a history or social studies class. Although I can see the potential benefits of having my students listen to news reports from around the world or biographies of famous individuals, I strongly contend that it is most important that the information contained in the podcast be relevant to what we are doing in class or I would likely experience the same problems I had in Japan. In order to do so, I would likely have to create my own podcasts, which would require a great deal of time. 

Once the podcasts are made, however, I could use them for several years with little modification. Another alternative might be to have my students make podcasts and have them shared amongst the class as a means of review and deeper learning of the subject matter. Either way, podcasts are a brilliant tool with many functions that I hope to make part of my classroom in the future. 

Nanny State

New York City's Mayor Michael Bloomberg has successfully banned smoking in public places and trans fats from city restaurants, all in the name of public health and the greater good. Now the mayor is planning on banning the sale of sugary drinks in quantities over 16 ounces.

While the effects of such ban are debatable, I would focus my lesson on the legality of such a law and the government's ability to restrict how we choose to live our private lives. Yes, second hand smoking has been shown to cause harm to those in the vicinity of the smoker, but this ban is directed at an activity that solely harms the consumer. How far can the government intrude on our lives and when is it a government's responsibility to protect its citizens?

First, I would have my student search for laws which could be defined as "nanny" laws. We would then compile these laws and define why we believe the government has no legal right to legislate and restrict particular parts of our lives.

After doing this, we would flip the table around and brainstorm justification for such laws and how the government might have a motivation to change the personal habits of its citizenry. For the example of sugary drinks, we might consider the cost to the healthcare system to treat diseases linked to diets high in sugar. Although this might seem to be a stretch of logic, I would remind the students that many laws we think of as common sense were once controversial just like the soda ban. For instance, when cars were first becoming common, there was no licensing system in place. Today, few argue the benefits of restricting who is allowed to propel a two-ton piece of steel down a freeway at 75 miles an hour.

We would then consider the benefits of the "nanny" laws along with their legality under the limits of the Constitution. The students would then vote if the law is 1. beneficial and 2. if it can legally be implemented.

Closing the class, I would attempt to put into perspective just how restrictive these laws actually are. It is not uncommon to hear pundits warn that laws like the soda ban move the U.S. dangerously close to a Northern Korean styled government. It is not my intentions to sway my students' opinions, but I would like them to know what laws are actually like in North Korea and other more totalitarian governments.

Day 1 - Teaching with Technology

I have an odd relationship with technology. I love wikipedia with the burning passion of a thousand suns, I read newspapers solely online and am attached at the hip to my computer. On the other hand, I cringe at the idea of a smartboard in the classroom and gag when I hear the word “powerpoint.” So while I have had generally positive experiences with technology in my personal life, these feelings have rarely transferred over into the classroom. 

I see a world of potential with technology and excitedly follow google and other tech firms in the news. I am just highly skeptical of how this energy could be harnessed to improve learning. Today in class we discussed an article about a teacher and how his introduction of digital photos to his classroom motivated his students to work harder and to critique other students’ work in a positive and productive way. Although I do not argue with the author’s conclusion, I feel as though he could have achieved the same results with a much more analog approach. 

In a 1996 article for Wired magazine, Steve Jobs discussed his views of technology in schools.

I used to think that technology could help education. I’ve probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody else on the planet. But I’ve had to come to the inevitable conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What’s wrong with education cannot be fixed with technology. No amount of technology will make a dent.¹

Technology so often becomes a money pit for schools. The logic essentially goes, put a computer in the classroom and they will learn. In actuality the equation is far more complex and in the void of proper instruction computers are primarily hijacked by students as toys. 

Despite my fairly negative attitude towards technology in schools, I have to admit that technology in the MAC program is quite exciting. I love the use of ctools and pulling up my schedule on my phone on the way to class. I like the idea of shared google documents and even the idea of blogging is growing on me. For instance, I have read several other blogs and found myself wanting to engage the authors in discussion, which would be amazing to facilitate in my own classroom. Therefore I am excited about this class because I see the huge potential, I am just uncertain and skeptical about how it can be achieved.