Skype

My first experience with Skype was about a year ago, and it was simultaneously exhilarating and depressing.  My dad was using his webcam to talk with one of my cousins and her husband in Belgium, who had just had their first child.  

It was exciting, because I was talking with a cousin, face to face, that I hadn't seen for 4 years.  In fact, since my family moved to the States when I was a toddler, that's been the norm: we could only afford to visit Belgium every four or five years, which meant years would pass before we'd see each other's faces.  But now most of the family has Skype accounts, webcams, and high speed internet.  And here I was, speaking Flenglish (one of those crazy half-n-half hybrid languages, like Spanglish) with Sophie and Charly, and I was looking at their beautiful newborn son.

At the same time, however, I was acutely aware of the fact that this was a brand new technology that my dad had adopted before I had.  Now don't get me wrong.  My dad is brilliant, but this is also the same man who cannot for the life of him use any hand tool for its intended purpose, and who believes most objects can--and should--be fixed with duct tape and bent coat hangers.  Trust me, it stung...

The other day, I was having trouble posting to the Willamette Ed Tech blog.  I also happened to be logged into Skype.  Barry Jahn rang me up and asked how things were going.  After I explained my troubles in an instant message (my work laptop doesn't have a webcam), we tried a few things, and quickly solved the problem.  Score one for Skype!

In an educational setting, Skype can have a lot of uses.  I imagine that I will primarily use it to get the students to connect with people outside of the state, preferably out of the country.  In the afternoons, I could also leave Skype up and running, so students could contact me for help with their homework.  The simple idea of making our world smaller through the use of various communication technologies would go a long way to get kids prepared for the realities of today, while simultaneously preparing them for even greater capabilities in the future.  

a student's blog

I just helped a student of mine create his own blog.  Here's the link.  I help him with writing, so he may be posting some of his stories, in addition to whatever he wants to post from home.

Rethinking Our Schools, 2.0

I've had some interesting back and forth about a recent blog post already. See below, or click here for the post in question. Anyways, here's the conversation Neil and I had this morning:

Hey, Sheldon,

Barry pointed me to your Rethinking schools post. Thanks for a very interesting take on things. I wonder, though, if I have the exact opposite reaction that you do.

With the accessibility of knowledge so facile, you are dead right about validating what knowledge is worth knowing and why I think so. And yet, in working through the questions you wisely pose, I end with less faith to know what is what. I find myself more willing to admit "I can not really say." Well, I can say, but not because critical thinking has gotten me there.

To put it another way, critical thinking has gotten me to the point of questioning what I do know. Of course, what then does that do to my teaching?

Take care,
Neil


Neil,
You raise an interesting question, because it goes along with my personal mantra: education is the progressive realization of ignorance. If I then have ready and instant access to the majority of human knowledge, it only serves to underline the broad swaths of information that I do not know.

Don Rumsfeld is infamous for many deserved reasons, but I often think of a quote of his. "We don't know what we don't know." While it received some criticism (and a hilarious bit by John Stewart on The Daily Show), I think it was possibly the only prescient and humble thing Rumsfeld ever said. Which brings me to my point, which I feel I must stand by:

Given the overwhelming flood of information, the only thing that will keep me from drowning is the ability to know what to breathe in, what to exhale, and what to vomit out completely. I call this skill critical thinking.

Sheldon Lesire

Sure, why not?

Here's a mind blowing thought:

Super computing no longer has to be in the realm of massive universities or wealthy multi-national corporations.  A school can build its own super-computer (you know, the type that model supernova explosions, or calculate nuclear decay of weapons-grade uranium) for less than $4,000.  And what device do we have to thank for this enormous potential?  Why, the Sony Playstation 3, of course...

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=51668

Even Conan O'Brien appears to be learning at an exponential rate...

Web2.0 - Rethinking our Schools

In the videos "Shift Happens" and "Pay Attention", the basic premise is that we are educating kids for jobs that will be substantially changed from their current state, if indeed they have even been invented yet.

My initial reaction is...duh!  Is this supposed to be the shock that it seems to be?  When engineering students were entering college shortly after WWII did they have any inkling that they'd be designing jet aircraft for a completely revolutionized air travel industry?  Or that they could be designing components used in the Apollo moon shots, or, or, or?  It seems to me that this has been the state of things for quite some time...the only change recently is the proliferation of trade agreements and communication technology that has made this flow of information and development much more rapid.

The main focus of education should then be on developing critical thinking skills, rather than imparting a broad base of static knowledge.  For example, take my iPhone.  When I bought the thing shortly after its release two years ago, I simply lost the ability to say "I don't know."  (Much to the chagrin of my wife, I can assure you...)  Any information I could possibly want or need is literally seconds away, and with Google Maps, Google Search, and the whole internet in my pocket, I simply cannot offer that excuse anymore.  What it has forced me to do, however, is sharpen my critical thinking skills, and anything I pull up I must pre-screen: 

• Is this valid?
• Is it accurate?
• Is it biased?

Fortunately, I had incredible teachers and professors who took the time to hone this skill in me, so I do it automatically, instantly, without hesitation.  I don't need to know copious amounts of trivia (although, with my memory's penchant for it, this is lamentably unavoidable), but I do need to know what to do with the information I can get my eyes on.

This, then, is the primary way in which I feel education has changed with the advent of the internet.  No longer is knowledge static.  What students need to be able to survive in such a rapidly changing environment are the tools that enable ready adaptation.

My Favorite Web2.0 tools

As I understand it, Web 2.0 refers to the extensive use of user-generated content in web sites that began to become more popular a few years ago. This marked a change in the medium from the Internet using a more traditional model in which content was provided mainly by large corporations in a top-down fashion, to a system in which content is created and shared by large groups of online users...more "bottom-up", so to speak. I use Web 2.0 tools daily, and have a few favorites.

• iGoogle. It's basically a customizable homepage, with built in RSS readers. It allows me to get a quick overview of several websites, check my Gmail, check the weather, and even solve a few chess puzzles as a mental exercise. Maybe not technically Web 2.0, but I use it to link to several blogs, so I'll include it.
• YouTube. A phenomenal tool which can also be used as the world's most successful time-waster. A couple of my videos are on the site...mostly short films I made as Senior projects in high school.
• For good measure, I'll also include Facebook. This tool allows me to know mundane details of the daily goings-on about 300 of my closest friends and former classmates that I wouldn't otherwise know, find out 25 things about them, and then find out 25 more things about them.  I can even fill my day by perusing copious amounts of pictures from 21st birthday parties, much adored kittens, backyard barbeques, and places people went when I wasn't invited. How did I ever manage before the hourly onslaught of status updates? In all seriousness, though, I love that I can connect on Facebook with family in Belgium just as easily as with fellow teachers in my district. While it's not exactly a productivity tool in my case, I appreciate being able to make quick connections and small talk with friends and family around the globe.

the two most significant uses for a blog...

In my semi-informed opinion, the two most significant uses for a teacher's blog are to disseminate information, and to invite increased participation by my students.  It would be great to have a single, central location for my students to get anything they need from me, and frequent blog posts on my part would facilitate this.  With the comments section, students could contribute to the conversation, ask questions, and help each other.