Thursday, October 16, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Futurist: To fix education, think Web 2.0: The evolution of the Internet can facilitate this approach, Web 2.0 tools, such as wikis and blogs; make information sharing and content creation easier.
I do agree with this approach. The wiki space that was developed for our class is an excellent resource for all the students in the class. For the 80 students or so in our class we are all connected through this wiki space, all the information you need is right there in front of us, it is also very user friendly. We can correspond to anybody in the class by just clicking on a link. Unlike some online classes I have taken which involved linking up to a server, using specialize software, usernames and passwords, wiki spaces and blogging is a way much easier way to communicate with a group of people.
"With every new piece of technology, to make this technology work, you have to change your teaching practices," Seely Brown said. "
I do believe that this type of teaching will only work for the experience students. This works for me but some students in our class (ED 4862) are having a hard time with this technology. Just having to open an account for some is very stressful and time consuming. At the Secondary level I believe that this would only work for students that have the capabilities to work with technology and others in a group. Some students that works in a group tend to hide in the corner and if a student doesn’t know the language of the technology being used they just would become a ghost in the project. Just like anything, it is easy to fall behind if you are not familiar with the information and it’s even easier to get left behind in technology. But at the same time, its just as easy getting caught with technology.
In the hidden price of technology in the schools Healy concludes, "several responsible educators I interviewed deem up to 85 percent of current software not only 'worthless' but possibly damaging.
In my experience with the students I worked with in alternative is that technology and software makes it too easy for them. Example, I have a grade eight student that uses Rosetta Stone for French and he admits that we hasn’t learn anything from it even though he is making his way through the program. I see him use it as a video game, `Most times he just guesses the answer`. He does the work on the program because it’s in the curriculum and he can’t stay in the class during French because of his behavior. I do believe that most kids guess the answer and their class marks to not match their capability to comprehend French.
In Epic 2015 shows us the future and I believe it, in 2001 after 911 people were scared that their privacy was going to be invaded by the government in search of terrorist. It’s not going to be the Government sneaking into our lives, it going to be Google. Microsoft and Google are become so powerful that it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if somehow they find a way to buy the planet and rename it Planet Google. There are going to be so many ways to educate our future, schools are going to become very high-tech, but I believe you will never replace a teacher.
I do agree with this approach. The wiki space that was developed for our class is an excellent resource for all the students in the class. For the 80 students or so in our class we are all connected through this wiki space, all the information you need is right there in front of us, it is also very user friendly. We can correspond to anybody in the class by just clicking on a link. Unlike some online classes I have taken which involved linking up to a server, using specialize software, usernames and passwords, wiki spaces and blogging is a way much easier way to communicate with a group of people.
"With every new piece of technology, to make this technology work, you have to change your teaching practices," Seely Brown said. "
I do believe that this type of teaching will only work for the experience students. This works for me but some students in our class (ED 4862) are having a hard time with this technology. Just having to open an account for some is very stressful and time consuming. At the Secondary level I believe that this would only work for students that have the capabilities to work with technology and others in a group. Some students that works in a group tend to hide in the corner and if a student doesn’t know the language of the technology being used they just would become a ghost in the project. Just like anything, it is easy to fall behind if you are not familiar with the information and it’s even easier to get left behind in technology. But at the same time, its just as easy getting caught with technology.
In the hidden price of technology in the schools Healy concludes, "several responsible educators I interviewed deem up to 85 percent of current software not only 'worthless' but possibly damaging.
In my experience with the students I worked with in alternative is that technology and software makes it too easy for them. Example, I have a grade eight student that uses Rosetta Stone for French and he admits that we hasn’t learn anything from it even though he is making his way through the program. I see him use it as a video game, `Most times he just guesses the answer`. He does the work on the program because it’s in the curriculum and he can’t stay in the class during French because of his behavior. I do believe that most kids guess the answer and their class marks to not match their capability to comprehend French.
In Epic 2015 shows us the future and I believe it, in 2001 after 911 people were scared that their privacy was going to be invaded by the government in search of terrorist. It’s not going to be the Government sneaking into our lives, it going to be Google. Microsoft and Google are become so powerful that it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if somehow they find a way to buy the planet and rename it Planet Google. There are going to be so many ways to educate our future, schools are going to become very high-tech, but I believe you will never replace a teacher.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
My last Post.
T GIDDY will be going offline soon, I started this blog for class and it was fun but I wish I really had the time for it, most times everything was so rush. Yesterday I put my first video and sideshow on here using Photobucket, its not much and I capable of doing better work but it was just a test, that's why there is no story to it. I wish I had more time to really get to know how to use all the different types of options blogger has to offer. I`m one of those guys that only uses technology if its an advantage for me. I have to admit that I will probably never blog again, but I will definitely use Photobucket. It funny how I never heard of it before, I love the fact that it is so easy to use and you can access it from anywhere. I do see myself getting into design, I like making logos and posters. I need to find something out there that can lead me down this path. I got to learn how to use Photoshop and Adobe Photo. Until next time, Peace in the Middle East.
Tyler Gideon
Tyler Gideon
Monday, April 21, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Blog reading becomes a habit, study says
News Reading a blog can become as much of a habit as checking e-mail, a new study looking at readers, rather than bloggers, suggests.
Researchers from the University of California-Irvine presented their study, which they said was the first to look in depth at the readers of blogs, on Wednesday at the Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in Florence, Italy.
In a release, they said that previous studies about blogs have typically focused on the writers, "largely overlooking those who go online to read, comment and participate."
With an estimated 57 million adults in the United States reading blogs in July 2006, doctoral candidate Eric Baumer, undergraduate student Mark Sueyoshi and informatics professor Bill Tomlinson decided to look at the relationship between blogs and their readers.
Canvassing participants online and through printed flyers, the researchers tracked the in-depth blog reading habits of 15 participants aged 18 to 31 through interviews, data logging software and questionnaires. The participants all identified themselves as blog readers and checked at least five different blogs two to three times per week.
They found that regular blog reading can become "an internet ritual," with the content secondary to the process of checking for new posts. The researchers said this is much like the routine of checking e-mail regardless of whether a new message is expected or not.
"Sometimes, even the usefulness of the blog content itself can be less vital than the activity of reading or skimming the blog to fulfill a person's particular routine," they said in a release.
The researchers also found that the date and frequency of the posts matters little to the readers, but the position of the entry on the page is important.
The report said that readers are more likely to read the most recent posts, unconcerned about age, and that they were not bothered when they couldn't read every post.
"Some would eventually catch up on old posts when the time suited them, while others simply choose the more recent or most interesting posts to read, skipping the rest," the researchers wrote. "This attitude challenges the commonly accepted notion that users feel overwhelmed with staying constantly up to date."
"A missed post is not usually a missed opportunity."
Other findings of the report included:
- Most participants considered reading blogs a form of "chilling out" or "wasting time."
- There is no firm definition of a blog, with participants pointing to aspects such as Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds and trackback links, as well as personal content and comments.
- Most definitions of blogs from participants included the word "journal" or "diary."
- Readers feel pressured to produce worthwhile comments in response to good posts.
- Readers are more likely to post on blogs belonging to their friends than on mainstream sites.
"With the increased popularity of blogs, various tools like Blogger and Movable Type have made writing a blog easy for a wide audience," said Baumer in a release. "But, until the technology embraces the role of the audience, the full social potential of blogging remains untapped.
"One of the goals of this research is to stimulate the development of tools to foster that social potential in terms of both readers and bloggers."
Such tools, the researchers said, include a logging tool to help bloggers learn about their readers and target content for them or a blog habit tracker for readers.
http://technology.sympatico.msn.cbc.ca/Blog+reading+becomes+a+habit+study+says/News/ContentPosting.aspx?isfa=1&newsitemid=blog-readers&feedname=CBC-TECH-SCIENCE&show=False&number=0&showbyline=True&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc&date=True
Researchers from the University of California-Irvine presented their study, which they said was the first to look in depth at the readers of blogs, on Wednesday at the Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in Florence, Italy.
In a release, they said that previous studies about blogs have typically focused on the writers, "largely overlooking those who go online to read, comment and participate."
With an estimated 57 million adults in the United States reading blogs in July 2006, doctoral candidate Eric Baumer, undergraduate student Mark Sueyoshi and informatics professor Bill Tomlinson decided to look at the relationship between blogs and their readers.
Canvassing participants online and through printed flyers, the researchers tracked the in-depth blog reading habits of 15 participants aged 18 to 31 through interviews, data logging software and questionnaires. The participants all identified themselves as blog readers and checked at least five different blogs two to three times per week.
They found that regular blog reading can become "an internet ritual," with the content secondary to the process of checking for new posts. The researchers said this is much like the routine of checking e-mail regardless of whether a new message is expected or not.
"Sometimes, even the usefulness of the blog content itself can be less vital than the activity of reading or skimming the blog to fulfill a person's particular routine," they said in a release.
The researchers also found that the date and frequency of the posts matters little to the readers, but the position of the entry on the page is important.
The report said that readers are more likely to read the most recent posts, unconcerned about age, and that they were not bothered when they couldn't read every post.
"Some would eventually catch up on old posts when the time suited them, while others simply choose the more recent or most interesting posts to read, skipping the rest," the researchers wrote. "This attitude challenges the commonly accepted notion that users feel overwhelmed with staying constantly up to date."
"A missed post is not usually a missed opportunity."
Other findings of the report included:
- Most participants considered reading blogs a form of "chilling out" or "wasting time."
- There is no firm definition of a blog, with participants pointing to aspects such as Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds and trackback links, as well as personal content and comments.
- Most definitions of blogs from participants included the word "journal" or "diary."
- Readers feel pressured to produce worthwhile comments in response to good posts.
- Readers are more likely to post on blogs belonging to their friends than on mainstream sites.
"With the increased popularity of blogs, various tools like Blogger and Movable Type have made writing a blog easy for a wide audience," said Baumer in a release. "But, until the technology embraces the role of the audience, the full social potential of blogging remains untapped.
"One of the goals of this research is to stimulate the development of tools to foster that social potential in terms of both readers and bloggers."
Such tools, the researchers said, include a logging tool to help bloggers learn about their readers and target content for them or a blog habit tracker for readers.
http://technology.sympatico.msn.cbc.ca/Blog+reading+becomes+a+habit+study+says/News/ContentPosting.aspx?isfa=1&newsitemid=blog-readers&feedname=CBC-TECH-SCIENCE&show=False&number=0&showbyline=True&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc&date=True
Virginia now requiring Internet safety classes in school
All those episodes of To Catch a Predator must have finally hit home for the Virginia legislature. The state is now requiring that public schools (all grade levels) teach "Internet safety" to their students. 2007-08 is the first school year the rules have been in effect. It is the first time a state has mandated such classes.
Many studies show that Internet solicitations are a real problem for underage kids. In 2006 the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said that 13 percent of kids aged 10 to 17 who used the Internet received sexual advances over the web. That's significant.
There appear to be few guidelines on what these Internet safety classes should look like or what they should teach. This 17-page PDF offered by the state of Virginia is heavy on enforcing school Acceptable Use Policies while offering suggestions on where Internet safety can be incorporated into virtually all types of classes (rather than suggesting standalone courses). English teachers might encourage writing about Internet safety as an essay topic, while history teachers may offer children "Safety Tips With Officer Buckle and Gloria." Many of the suggestions, however, are not focused on Internet safety, per se, but are rather about netiquette, awareness of inaccuracies in online advertising, and discussing public policy issues related to the Internet. Much of the education appears to be focused on assemblies with guest speakers.
I'm all for teaching kids a thing or two about how to behave on the web, and what to watch out for while they're online. But while they're at it, how about
http://tech.yahoo.com/blog/null/88814
Many studies show that Internet solicitations are a real problem for underage kids. In 2006 the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said that 13 percent of kids aged 10 to 17 who used the Internet received sexual advances over the web. That's significant.
There appear to be few guidelines on what these Internet safety classes should look like or what they should teach. This 17-page PDF offered by the state of Virginia is heavy on enforcing school Acceptable Use Policies while offering suggestions on where Internet safety can be incorporated into virtually all types of classes (rather than suggesting standalone courses). English teachers might encourage writing about Internet safety as an essay topic, while history teachers may offer children "Safety Tips With Officer Buckle and Gloria." Many of the suggestions, however, are not focused on Internet safety, per se, but are rather about netiquette, awareness of inaccuracies in online advertising, and discussing public policy issues related to the Internet. Much of the education appears to be focused on assemblies with guest speakers.
I'm all for teaching kids a thing or two about how to behave on the web, and what to watch out for while they're online. But while they're at it, how about
http://tech.yahoo.com/blog/null/88814
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