"Cool Hunting" is.........
A search for a certain kind of personality, it's an influence held by kids who have the respect and trust of their friends. The cool kids are the ones that are sought after when one is "cool hunting". Cool hunting is where companies pay people to find the cool kids to find coolness that is still somewhat underground or original, then they exploit it and murder it to death. Cool Hunting is a way for big businesses to stay in the know of pop-culture.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Knowing Your School's Technology Culture, Emil West
Reflection- There is an ample ammount of technological equipment that benefits the students. However, there is no oversight committee that regulates and mandates the use of technology, or at least not a committee that is highly effective. I went to Barb Kelly's office several times, constantly thinking I was going to the wrong office because she wasn't there each time I went to find her. She is the head technology-person at the school, but more of a handy-woman than anything else.
I kept asking the administrators where she was and who I could talk and they told me her, but since she was never there, I was referred to Gabe's host teacher, Richard Steele. Mr. Steele seems to be more in tune with technology than anyone in the school but he's just a lowly English teacher. I asked him why he didn't pursue Kelly's technology position or something along those lines and he told me that those people just fix things and get paid 1/3 of what teachers make.
Steele informed me that the new trend for tech people at schools is to have an administrator be in charge of the technology situation. I think JDHS or Thunder Mountain High-school would benefit from that but they probably won't head in that direction. I think the technology classes and teachers are great, but there's room for more integration of technology in the classroom. With that being said, as a future English teacher, I find nothing wrong with making kids do hand written assignments. While typing on the computer is a highly valuable asset, so is having proper grammer and punctuation that isn't dictated by microsoft word. My teacher is old school in the sense that none of his assignments have to be typed. This works for him as well as the students and when I teach I will not completely abandon the art of hand-writing.
Juneau does well with technology because the community is very in-tune with the technological advances that are out there. Mr. Steele told me that we have a great internet connection as well: where other parts of Alaska aren't connected to the lower 48, Sitka, Anchorage, Fairbanks and us are, or something like that.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhjwksbc_0rr7wrx
I kept asking the administrators where she was and who I could talk and they told me her, but since she was never there, I was referred to Gabe's host teacher, Richard Steele. Mr. Steele seems to be more in tune with technology than anyone in the school but he's just a lowly English teacher. I asked him why he didn't pursue Kelly's technology position or something along those lines and he told me that those people just fix things and get paid 1/3 of what teachers make.
Steele informed me that the new trend for tech people at schools is to have an administrator be in charge of the technology situation. I think JDHS or Thunder Mountain High-school would benefit from that but they probably won't head in that direction. I think the technology classes and teachers are great, but there's room for more integration of technology in the classroom. With that being said, as a future English teacher, I find nothing wrong with making kids do hand written assignments. While typing on the computer is a highly valuable asset, so is having proper grammer and punctuation that isn't dictated by microsoft word. My teacher is old school in the sense that none of his assignments have to be typed. This works for him as well as the students and when I teach I will not completely abandon the art of hand-writing.
Juneau does well with technology because the community is very in-tune with the technological advances that are out there. Mr. Steele told me that we have a great internet connection as well: where other parts of Alaska aren't connected to the lower 48, Sitka, Anchorage, Fairbanks and us are, or something like that.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhjwksbc_0rr7wrx
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Article Summary and Thoughts
"The Overdominance of Computers"
-The article made a great point that too much access to computers can cause children/students to lose focus on their homework and assignments. While it is true that we must prepare our students for a world that will be ran by technology, "...But we don't prepare children for an automobile-dependent society by finding ways for 10-year-olds to drive cars, or prepare people to use alcohol respnsible by teaching them how to drink when they are 6."(Monke 20)
-The article reminded me of the classic line from "Spiderman" the movie, "with great power comes great responsobility." Before students ever begin doing many of the wonderous things that can be done through use of computers, they must learn essential values through one-on-one contact with real live humans. The article argues that students shouldn't be given so much access at an age where there's so much to learn (good stuff but mostly bad stuff), on the internet. I remember when I first went to Dzantikiheeni during it's ingaugral year, there were macs in every classroom and while it was pretty cool to have such better access to the interent compared to that which we had at Marie Drake, my friends and I spent most of our time trying to downolad neudie pics without the teacher catching us.
-Students must learn to associate themselves with the physical world before they completely involve themselves with cyber space. People aren't connecting with people in the physical realm anymore, and the interent is the reason for this. The largest lesson students learn while attending school is how to handle themselves in public and how to get along with eachother. We have to lay the foundation of sharing and being nice for our students before we let them run wild on the internet where they don't have any social norms to abide by.
-The article made a great point that too much access to computers can cause children/students to lose focus on their homework and assignments. While it is true that we must prepare our students for a world that will be ran by technology, "...But we don't prepare children for an automobile-dependent society by finding ways for 10-year-olds to drive cars, or prepare people to use alcohol respnsible by teaching them how to drink when they are 6."(Monke 20)
-The article reminded me of the classic line from "Spiderman" the movie, "with great power comes great responsobility." Before students ever begin doing many of the wonderous things that can be done through use of computers, they must learn essential values through one-on-one contact with real live humans. The article argues that students shouldn't be given so much access at an age where there's so much to learn (good stuff but mostly bad stuff), on the internet. I remember when I first went to Dzantikiheeni during it's ingaugral year, there were macs in every classroom and while it was pretty cool to have such better access to the interent compared to that which we had at Marie Drake, my friends and I spent most of our time trying to downolad neudie pics without the teacher catching us.
-Students must learn to associate themselves with the physical world before they completely involve themselves with cyber space. People aren't connecting with people in the physical realm anymore, and the interent is the reason for this. The largest lesson students learn while attending school is how to handle themselves in public and how to get along with eachother. We have to lay the foundation of sharing and being nice for our students before we let them run wild on the internet where they don't have any social norms to abide by.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Futuring
-1st project The value of this project is that it’s so concrete and yet hits many areas of education: public speaking, art, technology, writing, etc. That is what I see as the goal of education, integrating all the various areas of learning into single projects, units, and/or lessons. The student not only performed the story but will be able to keep the performance in a concrete document.
-2nd project This video had the same values, although the music was scary and it gave a negative depiction of school to the students. I understand if that’s how the students view education, but that’s scary in itself. The idea that they already knew about testing and it seemed to already be draining them. This video says a lot about our education system and how “not fun” and over-demanding it is. It’d be one thing if students were learning all sorts of beneficial information, but they’re not in the true sense of “learning” or at least not retaining the information they learn. The only knowledge I’ve retained was information that I truly wanted to have. These students don’t seem to see the benefits of all the years of school or maybe I misunderstood them. As an assignment, it works great just like the first document we watched.
-The third video was very interesting and helped me understand what futuring is, I think and hope.
-2nd project This video had the same values, although the music was scary and it gave a negative depiction of school to the students. I understand if that’s how the students view education, but that’s scary in itself. The idea that they already knew about testing and it seemed to already be draining them. This video says a lot about our education system and how “not fun” and over-demanding it is. It’d be one thing if students were learning all sorts of beneficial information, but they’re not in the true sense of “learning” or at least not retaining the information they learn. The only knowledge I’ve retained was information that I truly wanted to have. These students don’t seem to see the benefits of all the years of school or maybe I misunderstood them. As an assignment, it works great just like the first document we watched.
-The third video was very interesting and helped me understand what futuring is, I think and hope.
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