Stumbled scross a new gem of a blog called Ideas and Thoughts, put together by Dean Shareski at Prairie South School Division in Moose Jaw, SK, Canada. Good stuff. I wanted to repost some content from a recent post that showcases the following video of Taylor Mali (know for this passionate piece of slam poetry). In this one, Taylor pontificates on the general inability of our student to speak declaratively. Hadn’t really thought about this before, but it rings true with me.

In case you hadn’t realized,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you’re talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you’re saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)’s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren’t, like, questions? You know?

Declarative sentences - so-called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
as opposed to other things which were, like, not -
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don’t think I’m uncool just because I’ve noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It’s like what I’ve heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I’m just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?

What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally . . .
I mean absolutely . . . You know?
That we’ve just gotten to the point where it’s just, like . . .
whatever!

And so actually our disarticulation . . . ness
is just a clever sort of . . . thing
to disguise the fact that we’ve become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since . . .
you know, a long, long time ago!

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.

This mornings keynote was presented by Daneen Frazier Bowen and she followed it up with a breakout session on the characteristics of our digital-centric students (I hereby refuse to use the ‘N’-word). Her keynote was very interesting, as she slipped between different personas - she is really a very talented actor. Her characters represented different types of typical students and sent a powerful message about the disconnect that often exists between teacher and students. We often make suppositions about how students are interacting with their technologies and perhaps we need to create a dialog with students to better make decisions about how the technology is used.

George Balanchine - There is no such thing as original content

“Stories are facts, wrapped in emotions that compel an awareness with which we transform our world”
Changing our Organizations Through the Power of Story, Systems Thinker Vol 17 No 4

 http://handouts.davidwarlick.com

http://labs.digg.com/swarm
Visualization of digg that represents people using digg. 

Wikipedia, in the days leading up to the last election, had to block the IP addresses of every computer on capital hill.
Made a good point about wikipedia perhaps being somewhat unreliable, but at least wikipedia puts warnings about the questionability of its content - unlike textbooks or newspaper. Something to think about.  We were taught to assume the authority.  We need to teach kids to prove the authority, not assume the authority - this is the basic literacy.

Discussed RSS technology and aggregators.  We are now training the information to find us as opposed to going out and finding the information.  Used Google News RSS feeds to illustrate this point.

Students need to do more than write, they need the skills to express their arguments compellingly using all kinds of media.  Illustrated with an assignment to produce a video assignment given by a teacher, who asked her students to design a video, not as an assignment, but as a video that she could use to encourage her student in the following year to become interested in a Shakespeare unit.

lulu.com –> David used this site to publish his books.  Anyone can use this service to publish.  Printed on demand and even provides a complimentary storefront interface.

“Stop integrating technology, and start integrating literacy.”

We try to make our children the students we want to teach rather than teaching the children that they are.  Illustrated by not allowing cell phone, etc in classroom.

werenotafraid.com
“Whisper to the world”

Well…its official…I’m a moron. I blogged the entire class notes for the first class this Tuesday and then closed the damn browser without hitting the publish button. Oh well. Live and learn.

Course Syllabus

Basically the gist of Tuesday was to introduce the primary focus of the course, whiich is to design and develop an online lesson. We can use an existing course management system (Blackboard, Moodle, etc.). Dr. Owens showed us a couple examples - all basically developed using Word and linking between various components. Nothing special. The requirement is simply to create one lesson.

___

Update - He wants me to give a presentation on how to put a class together in Blackboard next Tuesday May 22nd. Plan for about 1.5 hours and show everything they need to know to put a class together in Blackboard. There’s about 20 students so make 25 copies of handouts.

Writing Objectives:
A - Audience
B - Behavior
C - Condition
D - Degree

Today is presentation day.  Click the following link to access the powerpoint for my presentation.

Final Presentation

I focused today on some technologies that can be effectively integrated into instruction to better differentiate instruction and more easily perform formative and summative assesment.  I focused on the use of the interactive whiteboard and electronic student response systems.  I also talked a little bit about classroom use of blogs, which I feel are key not only to encourage students writing, but to encourage lifelong learning and continuous professional improvement.  I use a personalized Google as my home page, where I RSS feeds of my favorite blogs including…

http://weblogg-ed.com/
http://davidwarlick.com/2cents
http://www.teach42.com/
http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/
http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog
http://www.speedofcreativity.org/

Check them out or comment to this post to suggest other reads that might be useful.  Regular reading and occaisional thoughtful reflection on these writings have helped to broaded my horizons and become a lifelong learner.