"The Future of Publishing" Video

This week I viewed "The Future of Publishing" on YouTube.  I have to say, the first half was a real downer!  But when I saw the whole concept of the video, I thought it was quite powerful.  I think you can find several messages in there actually.  The most obvious is in reference to the publishing industry becoming obsolete, or not.  I like to think in even a larger scale--so many companies out there want to boil us down into some neat little marketing target.  I suppose it’s a lot easier to advertise when the company creates such a narrow minded view of what they want to reach.  Many companies may have warped images of who their customers are, what they want, and what they are willing to give in return.  I think the best message of this video is that people need to listen to each other and stop making assumptions.

As for the publishing industry in particular, I don't like reading much.  But if given a choice, I usually prefer printed.  If I'm in a waiting room and have a choice between browsing the web on a phone and reading a magazine, I'll probably take the magazine.  I prefer to read newspapers over watching news on TV.  I like to use paper—I make to-do lists on paper, plan papers and projects on paper—I need to be able to see the entire work in front of me sometimes and scrolling on a screen just doesn’t cut it.  And beyond all this—paper is quieter.  I’ve never received a text message from a book!  While I consider myself very good with technology, I don’t want to get completely absorbed by it.  I like quiet and I think it’s healthy to just let your mind rest from time to time.

Chapter 13 Video – Solving a Logical Reasoning Problem

This week I viewed the Chapter 13 video: Solving a Logical Reasoning Problem.  The students worked in small groups to find the minimum travel time in a challenging word problem.  Students then presented their solutions to the class using a document cam or SMART board.  Overall, I think it was a good lesson.  The students seemed to work well together in trying to solve this problem and they did a good job of explaining their solutions and reasoning methods to the class.  (I just wish I could get a copy of the problem myself, I want to try it!)

However, I thought that the technology use was weak.  The document cam was moderately useful in showing how the students worked out the problem on paper.  I’m not sure this was helpful to class overall since I thought it was hard to see and understand the drawings.  The first group that used the SMART board merely drew lines and labeled with letters—this could have been done with any old whiteboard.  The last group attempted to act out their solution by moving the pictures, but I don’t think this contributed much to the discussion.  I think a simple line diagram like the previous group drew was more effective in communicating their solution.

I don’t think the technology used was required for the lesson.  I think it would have been just as effective with a simple whiteboard.  Unless the students are really going to do something with the SMART board, I think it’s more of a distraction or a toy.  I think this video was a tiny bit embarrassing; if I were in a classroom lucky enough to have a SMART board and I was going to make a video of its use, I’d certainly showcase it a little better!

Chapter 9 Video: Bird Rap

This week I viewed the Chapter 9: Bird Rap video.  This video shows a multidisciplinary unit on songbirds at what appears to be the middle school level.  I really thought that this unit was well-planned and did a great job of integrating technology.  The students utilized technology in many ways including searching the web, collecting data in spreadsheets, using handheld computers and cameras on the field trip, and presenting their information on a webpage.  Overall, I think the students had a true understanding of how to utilize technology to acquire and present knowledge (and not just how to operate the devices).  I really liked that the teacher had introduced the concept of copyrighted materials to the class and explained to them how to properly cite their sources.  I also thought that having students teach others how to use the devices in the future is an awesome idea!  I think the best way to truly understand something is trying to teach another and, in my experience, this is a skill that I didn’t get much practice with in school.  It’s hard for me to think of any weaknesses; I can’t think of anything I would do differently.  This is probably the best example of integrated technology I’ve seen so far.

Chapter 6 Video: World Wide Weather

The Chapter 6 video showed a lesson utilizing weather data from the internet.  The students were asked to research a particular city’s weather and construct a slide which would be published as a class for Tech Night at the school.

• 1. Basic operations and concepts: students appeared familiar with navigating on laptops and web browsers, scrolling/clicking etc.
• 3. Technology productivity tools: the students prepared slides to report the results of their research
• 4. Technology communications tools: the slides were collected and published with the class to be presented at Tech Night.  The instructor also mentioned that the class participates in an e-pal program communicating with other classrooms.
• 5.  Technology research tools: students used technology to enhance learning by obtaining current weather information for many locations                                                       

I liked that the teacher did a walkthrough with the class to look up San Diego so they all saw where to go and what the information looked like when they got there.  I noticed that she told students to double click on web links; at least in my experience, it should be single (unless it’s a Mac thing?)  Not to be nitpicky at all J  I thought she spent far too much time bringing students up to the front to click on this or scroll down to that.  What I did not like in this video the most was that the class seemed to be rather chaotic and the teacher did not give very clear instructions about who was supposed to be doing what and where (maybe it was nerves and she was trying to over-direct); perhaps it is because she mentions that some computers were not working so when I was watching I was trying to figure out just what sort of setup they had (1 laptop per group?).  I think I’d have a better understanding observing the lesson if I had a better feel for what resources they were actually using.

Week 3: Video - "Trouble Online"

This week, I viewed the presentation by C.L. Lindsay III titled “Trouble Online: Campus Computing and the Law.”  The first topic he discussed was copyright infringement of intellectual property.  I found this to be an interesting update on the topic since I wrote a research paper on this around 2000, back when mp3s were still unknown to a large proportion of society.  (I remember having to explain to my entire class and professor what an mp3 was!)  This also reminded me of a little run in my roommate and I had with campus computing back then—we had our dorm room ip blocked for a couple days because of a copyrighted video clip she had shared on the campus network (which caused us to exceed the bandwidth limits).  We also got a little warning about sharing copyrighted materials then.  I found Mr. Lindsay’s explanation of how the RIAA typically handles lawsuits both reassuring and frightening.  I’m glad to know more about how the system works and who they tend to go after—but the amounts of money involved are staggering.  Theft is crime, but I think the punishment is excessive compared to the actual damages.  In addition, the strategy of scaring people as a deterrent is sort of scummy in my opinion!

In his next topic of plagiarism, I was shocked to see that people can actually buy papers!  Back in college, I only came into contact with buying old exams (which were sometimes free and even kept in the libraries sometimes).  I’m sure people would have written papers for others for money, but I’d never dream of ordering them by mail or on the internet!  Finally, I was interested to hear about social networking sites and photos.  I had heard before that employers sometimes look up candidates on Facebook.  Personally, I do not post photos of myself for any reason because I don’t want them to exist electronically on the web.  It might be a little paranoid, but even posting my photo for TEP classes bothers me and so far I have refused every time (and unfortunately, have lost points for this a few times).  Overall, I found this presentation to be a lot of fun.  I loved the pictures and the action figures were hilarious!  I think some friends at other schools would find this worth their time to watch.

The Chapter 1 video clip showed the utilization of graphing calculators in teaching the commutative property of multiplication.  The teacher used the calculation of area (length * width) as an example.  The students were given worksheets with pairs of values and were asked to use the calculator to test whether l * w = w * l for each set.  I think the following NETS Student Standards were evident in this short clip:

• 1. Basic operations and concepts: students appeared familiar with the general use of their calculators (clearing memory for example).  The students understood that an output of 1 from the calculator’s test function indicated “true.”
• 3. Technology productivity tools: students used technology to enhance learning by “proving” that l * w = w * l with calculators
• 4. Technology communications tools: the use of an overhead projector aided all students in the class to make sure they were performing the activity correctly and obtaining the same results

If I were to do a similar activity in my classroom, I’d be sure to include a few blank lines where students could make up their own number pairs and then have several share their results with the class verbally or writing on the board.