Post #12: You Are What You App, in the App Generation by Gardner and Davis

In this book by Howard Gardner and Katie Davis, the characteristics of generations of 20th century learners are delineated through a review of the media available at certain periods of time. Media such as books and movies, are referenced to compare previous generations learning influences with today's 21st century youth, and how they develop and manage their identity, intimacy and imagination in the environment of the many available "apps". Cross-referenced against this backdrop is the generational perspectives from each of the authors and Mr. Gardner's grandchildren.

The implications are that this phenomena has taken a life of its own, and cannot be stopped. The reasons for why this was allowed to happen is subject for another blog, but in fact, that is the way it is and there is nothing anybody can do about it.  Students are now allowed, and in fact, encouraged to bring their technology device into school and use it.  The pressure is now on teachers to make use of how the students are spending their time on their technology device and gear their lessons towards use of those applications.  But is really going to work?  Once again, I would ask for the research showing that this is an improvement over other teaching methods, and what the effect on teacher "burn-out" is.  Teachers already drop out at a rate of 50% or more within the first five years.

I am not of the "saber-tooth" mindset as I might sound.  Experiencing the transition and loss of student attention spans as the technology continues to evolve, gives me the perspective of both environments. The book pointed out numerous references and studies which supported the implications of how students develop in the midst of using all of these apps, but there were a few more which I wanted to know about.  First, the authors gave a superficial assessment of the role of parenting and how socio-economic factors might skew the generalizations being made, which they acknowledged as being superficial.  Second, I wanted to see some results from the neurologists on the affects on the brain from all of this digital stimulation.

As I traveled back over this Thanksgiving break, I had two airport instances where I could observe a child using their phone in close proximity to me so I could oversee what they were using it for.  The first was a teenage son playing a car video game on his phone, for a period of around 30 minutes. That in of itself is not that remarkable, what was remarkable was that the boy's father was playing the same game, while sitting next to him.  They were talking as they played about different strategies and techniques of the game, that was the limit of their discussion.  So, while it was good that there was discussion, it was limited to that topic only. This is a very limited observation so the conclusions are speculative, perhaps since they have a rapport, this makes it easier to discuss other topics such as school performance or safe sex.  The second instance involved a little girl, about 9-11 years old, sitting next to me on the plane.  For the length of our 2.5hour flight, she did nothing but play a video-game, feverishly on her phone, something like "candy-crush". This made me wonder about the brain-development question I raised earlier.  This girl did nothing but stimulate the visual cortex part of her brain for that release of dopamine, and perceived happiness.  After 5 years of that what is she prepared for in high school?  I don't think it's going to be good.  Again conclusions are speculative at best.

In the end, my observations lead to the conclusion referenced by the title of this blog, and that is, "You are what you app", or more accurately, you are what your apps make you. Digital brain programming, Pavlov would love it.  When this generation leaves high school to enter the next stage of their life, given the shortcomings listed by the authors of fear of taking risks, and not being able to develop deep relationships, I am not optimistic about how they are going to be able to deal with the issues of identity, intimacy and imagination, but they will be able to do nothing but "Own it", "Just Wear It", and try to "Stay Classy".

Post #11: Get "NetSmart" by Harold Rheingold   (from email)

Mr. Rheingold asks us in his book to take the “mindfulness” that we began using in Affordance Analysis, and apply it to how we pursue and take in information from the internet.  He begins by asking internet perusers to follow something similar to Buddhist/Hindu techniques for breathing and meditation.  The intent is to calm the mind and body, so that it can focus and not be distracted by the sideshows of advertising and social media.  Once focused, the peruser must sift through the data presented and decide which is relevant, with a process he calls, “crap detection”.  The interconnectivity of the Internet provides the infrastructure for people to participate in topics on the internet that they deem as relevant, and should they choose, to be able to join in the digital discourse on that topic. Collaboration results as the participation continues to develop and can lead to new social opportunities. So as the peruser navigates their way through the social networks on the internet, they gain a sense of belonging to a particular community.

Personally, I frequently do the breathing techniques to achieve what Mr. Rheingold is necessary to navigate your way through the social networks of the internet, but I use them to focus on my personal priorities in what I need to get done in the near future of my daily routine.  I think that having “Net Smarts” is akin to having “Street Smarts” but applied to the internet.  Growing up in New York City or any other city, you kind of get that as part of your growth process.  So for me this is another application for something that I already do.  I think that Mr. Rheingold has outlined a process that seems fairly intuitive to me.  I avoid the distractions of social media, and frankly don’t want to spend my free time on it.  Now that schools want us teachers to also use social media as a communication tool to parents, colleagues and the local community, I feel some reluctance to use my free time to do that.  It can lock you into these social networks and take away from other things that you might want to pursue.  I’m sure we all one or two people on Facebook, who publish comments about every aspect of what is going on in their lives.  While it may be interesting and okay for them, I’m not willing to spend my precious free time as part of that as a frequent activity. Even though, in some cases, it may prove to my detriment.

As I commented in class, I believe that Mr. Rheingold sees the social networks as something ultimately positive, if you can go through the process of getting“Net Smart”. He sees the milk glass as being “half-full”, while I on the other hand do not want to spend my free time in unending social networks, see it as “half-empty”, and am just glad to have some milk. Got milk? "Sorry about that chief."

Post #10: I Can See Clearly Now, with Copyright Clarity by Renee Hobbs and implications in my teaching practice.

This book introduced the laws and examples of copyright infringement and what entails "fair use" to avoid any of the legal pitfalls associated with copyright infringement in teaching environments.  The useful examples of what is and what is not copyright infringement help illustrate how it can be used successfully in the classroom.

For our BiteSlide.com project, one of my tasks was to find three famous scientists of our assigned decade, 1901-1910. One of the scientists that I selected was Nikolai Tesla, a Serbian who emigrated to the U.S. in the late 19th century and was a prolific inventor of original devices and theories.  Since he was was more concerned with the scientific endeavor than the business side of making money, many of his patents were illegally used by others, at his loss of opportunity and for their profit. The most famous of these thieves was Guglielmo Marconi, so-called inventor of radio.  However, he had illegally used 17 devices, each covered by a Tesla patent. It wasn't until 1943, years after Tesla's death that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision that gave Tesla the credit for the invention of radio. But who cares at that point? Name recognition and money had already been given to the wrong people, while Tesla died in poverty and obscurity. Tesla, stoic and above it all as usual said, "It does not bother me that people steal my ideas, it bothers me that they have no ideas of  their own."

In my practice, I do follow the "Fair Use" guidelines about transformation, use in an educational setting, one-time, not for profit, to develop my own lessons.  I give credit in many instances where I have not transformed the material.  For the students we use the website, TurnItIn.com, to check for plagiarism of submitted, supposedly original student work.  We depend on  the Media staff to train the students about proper use. As a physics teacher of mostly seniors, I am not going to teach them the details about what is and what is not copyright infringement. We kind of subcontract that out to others, but I have my other content constraints which I am judged on more strenuously. So the bottom line, you do what you can with what you have. "And upon your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness," -- Carl Spangler, Greenskeeper, Bushwood Country Club.

Post #9: New Habits are Hard to Break: Critical Evaluation of Internet Web Pages

Don't worry, I know we didn't have to do a post this week, but as the title says....  Anyway the only reason that I am posting this week is because I came across something last night and I cannot believe it even though it passed my Halo Evaluation, Review and Observation criteria, aka "HERO".  After looking at the bogus web sites, it is not that difficult to quickly pick up on the clues for them turning out to be "unreliable".

However, try as I may, I cannot get this piece of information to be proven as a fallacy.  If it is true, then why hasn't Hollywood made a B-Movie out of it like they did with SharkNado I & II, or MegaGator versus Sharktopus?

Ok, so here is what I saw on "River Monsters" on the Animal Planet channel.  Apparently a fossil has been found dating back to just before the Triassic Period of the dinosaurs, some 250-290 MYA, for a shark-like fish called by its genus, Helicoprion. It actually is related to the "ratfish", another attractive fish, that roamed the oceans for some 40 million years before going extinct.  So here's the crazy part, instead of rows of sharp teeth in the upper and lower jaw, it's teeth were arranged in spiral, like a buzz saw, but the teeth kept unwinding from the center. The teeth were located vertically in the fish's jaws, I don't even know how it could eat like that, but apparently it did. Anyway, the Smithsonian Institution link is below.  So enjoy.....buzz.....

http://paleobiology.si.edu/helicoprion/

Post #8: Implications of The Information Diet, by C. Johnson: Where there's a will, there's a way.

      I found this book the most readable due to the author's writing in a kind of storytelling fashion.  Including a lot of recent historical facts about the machinations of media and the people that create it. It began with the author's awakening to the media machine in Washington, DC and his growing cynicism over the true purposes and effects of the use of media.  The last half of the book is suggesting a way to proportion your daily intake of information, both digital and hard copy.

What I see in my teaching is that the information that I provide to the students must battle with all of these other sources of information.  And it's a losing battle. There is no diet for teenagers, parents are mostly unaware of what their children are looking at on their phones all day.  When I walk down the halls of my school, students have their faces buried in their phones, they wouldn't notice a Leprechaun riding a unicorn go by.  To top it off, there is no way to enforce it, and that's when they are IN SCHOOL.  What happens when they get out?  Even more of the same, I'll wager.

In class, our group of Shawn, Muffin and myself came up with a device for students to manage their information diet called, "The PIE", for "Planned Information Expenditures".  It consisted of colored pieces of paper, cut into overlaying circles.  I cut slits into each circle so it could be visible from the top side and each color represented a part of the information diet: Red - POV/Diversity; Blue - Skill Development; Green - Local/Social; Yellow - Entertainment; and Purple - Shopping. You could change each layer's portion of the whole circle and the idea was to indicate consequences of too much of any one area.  The idea is that this disc could fit in a binder as a reminder to students during the day on how their information time should be allocated.  This could also be adapted to an app, but the enforcement and parent tie-in would have to be worked out to be effective. Whatever device is developed, students and parents must have the will to follow it, otherwise there's no way it's going to be worth anything.

Post #7: Students as Designers and the 6th Design Principle: "To cross the ocean, you have to be willing to lose sight of the shore."
The design principle of letting students be designers means breaking from the "usual method" of traditional lesson design and planning,\. That involved reading content guides, addressing standards, and learning the objectives so that you could develop your lesson plans in a formulaic manner.  In the "designer's method", the content, principles and "ends" lead to the "design".  From that an authentic problem is developed as a student goal. The teacher scaffolds the students, supplying them with what they need to know and do to be successful at addressing the authentic problem. Links to tools, activities and culture must be made to the authentic problem before the "planning" can begin.

At every teacher evaluation for the past 12 years administrators want to see how you organize your lessons, how the objectives are stated, and if they are aligned with state and county standards.  In recent times there is a concerted shift in that paradigm towards authentic lessons and I see where these design principles address that and more. We are doing PBL and OttW in baby steps but this is where they want us to go.  So much so that I feel that the old lessons are not going to be accepted in the future, even if they worked. I have two "beefs" with this trend besides the obvious one of that the old ones work, why get rid of them?  First, that this continues a never ending stream of new initiatives that are just window dressing for telling teachers how they should teach.  Second, that this is just making schools as the main technology marketplace for technology companies.  After we have adopted all the technology and 3 years has gone by, what is the update maintenance going to be for the hardware and software?

Part of me, getting cynical as I get older, also thinks that there are no longer administrators who can tell what an "effective" teacher looks like, so they need these tokens that they can check off a list and feel like they can tell.  I began with a navigational reference relating how we must let go of the "usual method" to adopt the "designers method." I will end with another one, "Captain, I don't think the matter-antimatter engines can take the strain much longer."

Post #6: Teachers as Designers and the 5th Design Principle: "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"
As I read articles such as "Professionalism and Teachers as Designers" by Calgren, I (1999) and "The Creative Spirit of Design" by McDonald, J.K. (2011) I find myself at odds with the authors as far as how their articles correspond to the old riddle.  To get good lessons you have to try them and go through an iterative improvement process. So which comes first, a good lesson or the design of a good lesson?  The crucial points of the articles are a bit cloudy in my head, but my take on the articles is the following.  First, that teachers need to change the way they prepare their lessons by "disembedding" their tacit knowledge acquired by acquaintance and let students, instead, go through that process.  Second, that the design process of the lesson must occur in some virtual practice, prior to use in the classroom (before action). Third, that a "creative spirit of design" approach provides more opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, multiple outcomes and an examination of assumptions in unconventional ways.  The 5th Design Principle discussed in class summarized this as "Good learning designs are anchored in the creative spirit of design by teachers who recognize their before action role as designers."

As stated above, I research what has been done already in developing lessons, I am a firm believer in not "reinventing the wheel", if the "Ends" are met.  I synthesize the research into my lesson and perform "affordance analysis" to match tools and symbols as appropriate.  I do play it through my mind before putting it into action, and I use my own creativity in boiling down a lot of words from many sources into the essential ideas of the lesson.  In my opinion and practice, you have to go through a process of trial and error, reflection and improvement each time you do the lesson.  I have been doing this for 13 years and it is still the same.  The other reality-based constraint I brought into our last class discussion on this topic is that time is a factor.  When I say that, I mean time is a multi-faceted factor.  You have a certain amount of time to get the "improved" lesson ready (virtually), and it must be delivered within a calendar time frame that is coordinated with curriculum guidelines.

It's great that Sweden 16 years ago started telling their teachers what they need to do in their time out of school, but I stated that (good) teachers already spend as much time on school work out of class as they do in class and I don't see this idea, as presented, too realistic where I sit.  I think it would take too much time out of what doesn't already exist, spare time for teachers to decompress.

Post #5: Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning: 

      In developing the 4th Design Principle (Knowledge) in class, the readings discuss how it's not just "What You Know", but also "Where" and "How" you learned it.  Specifically promoting activities that are situated in the culture that the learning activity and tools can be applied in.  This is demonstrated by the example of learning new words in the context of daily conversations versus by looking words up in a dictionary.  Enculturation involved the idea that tools "can only be fully understood through use, and using them entails both changing the user's view of the world and adopting the belief system of the culture". Cognitive apprenticeship supports learning in a domain by enabling students to acquire, develop, and use cognitive tools in authentic domain activity.

      I think it means that someone can own a tool and know its name, but they may not know the proper use of the tool as defined by the culture that they are working/living in.  Learning must include authentic activities that relate to that cultural purpose, and give the learner opportunities to demonstrate their knowledge in the real world.

     In my practice the physics lab activities that we do in each lesson all have an origin in authentic application. Projectile motion is the current lesson I am teaching and it can be related to ballistics analysis in military and forensic science professions.  Whenever possible, I use computer simulations to replicate authentic activities to make this apparent to the students.  For my labs, I always try to bring in authentic activities to the labs so that connections can be made to real-world activities and the students can pursue that further as their understanding and interests are developed.

Post #4: "Mind in Society" by Lev Vygotsky and the Third Design Principle

As a constructionist, Vygotsky believed that cognitive development depended upon the use of "tools", so associations could be made with its environment. Tools such as symbols and speech allow for socialization to do work and eventually internalize the symbols.  Once internalized, generative thought could morph them into a new tool to perform new kinds of work.  Through play, the conscious realization of the purpose of activities is realized.  At the end of development, rules emerge and create a relationship between situations of thought and their  real-life counterparts.

I had a very difficult time reading this book, especially the first half, but from our discussion in class I got some better understanding.  So higher psychological functions such as reflection, synthesis and application of new tools developed from internalization of previously learned symbols and tools. Symbols such as speech, graphics and numbers allow for socialization and assimilation into culture. By using a tool or symbol to do work, the mind realizes the usefulness of it and helps move activities from "what I'm ready to learn to do", across the "zone of proximal development" into activities that "can be done independently".  Speech is the main tool, I think Vygotsky is saying, that has the most bang for the buck in cognitive development because of the way it leads to socialization, internalization and new generative thought.    

For my classes, I'm using a new data analysis software tool to look at graphs of moving objects, which the students download for free onto their own laptops, so that they can do the analysis of the data graphs of the change in position, velocity and acceleration motion in one dimension on their own. When they look at each of the three graphs it helps associate each part of the motion with what is really happening. In studying motion, we also use "arrows" to symbolize the direction of the object's change in position, velocity and acceleration, and sometimes they don't point in the same directions.  Both of these tools help the students internalize the relationships of changes in position, velocity and acceleration. This internalization will then be synthesized in the next chapter when we study projectile motion, which is linear motion but in two dimensions.

Post #3: Affordance Analysis & How it Enables Us to Meet the 2nd Design Principle


In the 2nd Design Principle covered in class, we learned to be mindful in consideration of the social and societal consequences of technologies chosen as part of the design.  Affordance Analysis gives a methodology to properly match learning tasks with learning technologies in a constructive design.

This means that to match learning goals to techniques and tools constructively and effectively, a study of each technique or tool is necessary to see how well it is suited to those goals. Taking a two-headed approach, with Learning Goals and The Tools at the top of each prong, the analysis "boils" down to the essential qualities of each  header, and how they can come together to be used effectively.

As part of the discussion I mentioned in class, we as teachers are presented by our administration with a short list of applications to be used in assisting how our teaching is delivered to students. Administration wants us to use these applications as they are paying for them, so we are obligated to use them.  Teachers have a choice of Content Management Systems (CMS) to use from in Loudoun County Public Schools, including a Native CMS on the Intranet, Edmodo, and VISION.  There may be others that I'm not aware of but these are the main ones provided.

The Affordance Analysis I performed incorporates the discriminating affordances of "Temporal", "Navigational", "Emphasis", "Synthesis", and "Access-Control". The "Spatial" and "Media" affordances are the same for all of the CMS.  The Learning Goals of the CMS is to provide an accessible repository of supporting educational materials to support the needs of students.  From the Learning Goals side of the Affordance Analysis, the Products and Activities include delivery of class notes, hyperlinks to online lab activities, and supportive materials for students to self-assess themselves on materials covered in class. The required affordances that fall out of this are mainly in the following affordances: "Media" for reading, viewing, printing and watching; "Temporal" for accessibility; and "Navigational" for linkability to other activities.

Out of the three CMS choices, the tool I use is VISION because in addition to meeting the "Required" affordances, it provides more extensive user-customization ability, and is easier to use than the native CMS.  The affordances provided by Edmodo might also work, but from observations of other teacher usage of it, I do not see enough of a discrimination in it that warrants "re-inventing the wheel", when I have already gone over the learning curve with VISION.  VISION provides a constructive interaction, accessible over the internet with tablets, pcs or smart phones providing students with a supportive learning tool to assist them with the content learning goals.

Post #2: The 2nd Design Principle and the Victorian Internet.

1. Technology advances are a series of trial and error experiments.  Edison said, "I didn't invent the light bulb, I found 2000 ways not to make it." The telegraph evolved in several places in Europe, notably France and England, after many iterations of design changes.  I don't think that people use the 2nd Design Principle in developing the technology, nor in the early days of limited mechanical technology, how they were going to be mindful in its application.  Back then you could try to apply the technology if you thought it might work in a certain application or not.  In schools and classrooms today, the mindful application of technology is essential for teachers to keep control of their organization and effectiveness, otherwise they become encumbered by the technology. In my classes we are experimenting with students bringing their own laptops or tablets to do labs in class.  In a lab we did today, the students got their data from the lab equipment and then had to open the file in a third party software program to analyze it and print it out.  We don't have that program on our computers anymore and would take an act of god to get it loaded on them at this point.  During the school day, I can walk down the hall faster than our network can send a message to a copier.  So when students tried to download the analysis software, it would take forever.  So it works out that the students can download on their home network and finish the lab at home.  It gave me more time to focus on the data collection and setup of the lab and answer student questions.
2. The unforeseen social implications must be managed to keep them positive.  In the Victorian Internet, all the telegraphers became an online social community, and they could identify each other from their transmission styles.  As part of the data collection in the lab today, students had to export their data to a USB flash drive connected to the lab equipment.  About half of the students had the flash drives so people had to share the flash drives between lab groups, which turned out to be a positive, collaborative experience because everyone helped each other get their data file copied and sent to their personal email.  So that was a good interaction.
3. One of the generalizations made from this reading is that it speeds life up.  That's good in some cases. Because I had to work with a cohort (PLC), up until 30 minutes before the class started, to make sure we were all going to do the same thing, I had no time to test the downloaded software out or make sure it will read the data file.  The odds are in my favor since the lab equipment manufacturer is also the author of the software analysis tool.  But I always like to check it out so I can head off any issues with the program.  This builds confidence in the students and prevents potential disengagement in future labs.  So the technology was mindfully chosen, but not without risk. 

Post #1: Sabertooth Curriculum and the 1st Design Principle:

1. What did I learn?: The purpose of education is to meet the needs of society and continue the evolution of the human race as derived from the P.I.C.K.L.E. principles.
2. What does it mean and what supports that position?: This means that the essential expectations for good design of education is to include Problem-Solving, Information Adept, Community Participant, Knowledgeable of content, Literate, and Ethical Decision-Making skills.  This position is supported by the survey of the web pages for NEA, Common Core Standards, and Partnership for 21st Century Skills.
3. Which are the ways in which it might impact my practice?: In Loudoun County Public Schools this year we have an initiative called "One to the World", where communication of student work is disseminated outside the classroom, relating to the "I" & "C" in PICKLE. LCPS also has integrated Project/Problem Based Lessons which is in line with the "P" of PICKLE.