The term "networked student" describes a student who learns in a non-traditional manner. The networked student's learning does not solely depend on the teacher as the knowledge dispenser nor does this student depend upon a textbook as the ultimate source of information. The networked student plays a major role in his or her learning and is able to access many sources of content. The networked student is able to connect and communicate with other students, professors and experts.
Obviously, digital literacy is essential for the networked student as different domains require different ways of thinking and communicating. For instance, while it would be perfectly appropriate for a person to use grammatically incorrect language and misspelled words for instant messaging services, this same manner of communicating is unacceptable for e-mail correspondence. Furthermore, once a person puts something out into the internet, it is there to stay and it is extremely important for teachers to help students understand what is and what is not acceptable.
Also, although students can benefit from the fact that they have access to a huge number of people, this ease of access has a downside as anyone is able to post whatever content they want on the internet. This means that students need to know how to differentiate reliable and unreliable sources of information. Teachers are critical in helping students navigate the vast amount of informational sources on the web.
Since the networked student has greater control over his or her learning, the traditional teacher's role needs to likewise evolve. The teacher needs to be viewed more of as a guide. The teacher helps the student understand how to verify sources, how to effectively communicate, how to use his or resources effectively, and how to extend the student's networking possibilities. Furthermore, the networked student's teacher needs to craft assignments and projects that encourages and motivates the student to research, to learn, and to be creative.
Personally, I find this style of learning to be awesome. In my opinion, the textbook and teacher as knowledge dispenser is an outdated mode of teaching and does not reflect the age we live in. It should come as no surprise that students fail to find the value of studying an ancient civilization via a boring textbook/lecture format when their lives are filled with technology. Students would be much more engaged if they were able to choose an aspect of the lives of a civilization and were to put their findings on a class website or make a podcast. Also, the students would probably appreciate having an expert give a guest lecture or be interviewed via class webcam. Networked learning requires a greater use of available resources which serves to improve overall student learning.
Although new technology and I have not always been the best of friends, I can see myself embracing this model of learning. It is much more fun and engaging for the student which I know is necessary for the student to learn. Also, I like the idea of the student having greater control over his or her learning because that is what I always wanted my schooling to be more like. Additionally, I found this great website that addresses the rapidly expanding amount of information and knowledge being produced today. This site explains this rapid expansion of knowledge and offers ways to helping students learn in an age in which knowledge is constantly being expanded.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Friday, October 23, 2009
Socrates Glog
I love Socrates and decided to make a glog about him. It's not too fancy but here it is:
Great Service Learning Ideas!!!
Some Ideas for Service Learning Projects:
These ideas were presented by my classmates. However, I did not write everyone's name down and I could not differentiate between the Megans soI gave everyone a nickname Flava Flav style.
C-Dog: Voting is not the only way to participate in a democracy. Students create podcast/video as a public service announcement. Then, students write letters to their congressmen. This projects aims to raise the students' awareness of controversial issues and instructs students how to appropriately react to them.
Zebra- This project is best demonstrated during a unit on voting rights. Students choose a subtopic to focus on and the class creates a voting rights museum. Then, students could teach younger student's about the subtopics via Skype.
Mistah- Students interview the elderly at a retirement home and learn about those people's stories. The stories are recorded and uploaded to youtube.
A-Town- getting voters registration/info- observing trends. Motivate people to vote/ learning issues.
Meemee- Service learning project that explores the issues surrounding human trafficking and purports to spread awareness of these issues. Students work in groups and answer questions about human trafficking and learn about any relevant legislation. Podcasts, slideshow, brochure are created by the students and compiled onto website as a resource. Then, students engage in letter writing to congressman to support/change legislation.
Jellybean- Students engage in a military letter writing campaign. Students create a wiki to write to military members and servicemen can write back to students.
Q-ball- Students will learning about Veteran's Day by completing a 30 min interview with a vet and will learn about their role in the war. Before interview, students will research war history. Students will record the interview via podcast. The purpose is to increase public awareness of our veteran’s contributions to society.
Germ- This project raises student awareness of the war on drugs. Students will examines the consequences, intentions, and impacts of this "war". Students will explore questions like: Should marijuana/drugs be decriminalized to generate tax revenue? Students will also evaluate how taxpayer money is spent to arrest drug offenders and maintain the prison system. Students will create a wiki that goes over the many facets of the drug war. After completing this research, students will write to their representatives.
M-Slice- This project aims to support our soldiers in a way that involves more than letter writing. Students create a website to encourage donations and send out care packages to members of the military. This is a long term project and students manage the website all year. The students will learn from soldiers about the geography of the soldiers' location and students will increase their awareness of current events.
Lizard- Project that involves Operation Christmas Child. Students will learn about different cultures that celebrate wintertime holidays. Students put together their own Christmas boxes and conduct interviews with OCC volunteers. Students will also blog about their interviews and discuss what they learned through the experience.
E!- This projects aims at improving the lives of the elderly. Students give the elderly a life satisfaction survey. Then the students teach the elderly how to use technology to communicate with their family members. After the elderly get some experience with technology, they take the life satisfaction survey again and students evaluate the effectiveness of their instruction.
Lil'J- Project aims at increasing cultural awareness. Students will learn about immigration issues and that everyone comes from somewhere else. Have students poll other students about their personal heritage like where their parents/grandparents were born. Students can create a wiki for each country of origin that they find and present their findings for school wide viewings and hopefully start a tradition of a multicultural fair.
Mellow- Project works with Habitat for Humanity. Students work with the organization and find out how much it costs to build houses and learn about cost effective methods of building homes. Students will interview families who have received homes from Habitat. Students will create a podcast/video blog to document interview.
Lady- Students will interview the elderly at a retirement home and ask questions about their daily lives. Students will also reflect on their own daily lives. Interviews will be recorded and presented via podcast. Students will celebrate the completion of the project at the nursing home and watch the interviews with the elderly.
Mako- Students are grouped and learn how to contact their representatives concerning issues of importance. Students keeps track of issues via a class wiki. Projects get students to learns about citizen participation as well as to get students to connect with their representatives. Students also make a biographical sketch of their congressman/representatives. (Storybird)
Kiki- Students go to a nursing home and ask elderly about their personal experiences. Questions asked are something like: What do you remember? How did this event shape the rest of your life? Students create videos about the individual. Videos should include details of history, historically appropriate music. Purpose is to see how people’s lives are impacted by an event in history.
Jiffy- Students learn about the environment by going to parks. Students learn about the impact of littering and help clean up parks. Students do clean up as well as raise awareness of conservation and the human impact on environment. Students will make a video psa about parks.
Grandy- Students will look at voter turnout and voting trends. Students will see how social networking sites disperse info during election times. Students will also look at how gov't affects a citizen's life over time. Students will visit a retirement home and interview elderly about their voting trends. Also look at how media affects voting habits. Class then makes a podcast of oral history and shows the project to the elderly. Students continue correspondence with elderly via letter writing.
Neeno- Students learn about becoming a responsible citizen. Students will learn about voting and campaigning and will learn about process of political action in a non controversial way. Students will analyze Google motion charts to look at trends and will record finding using blogs and wiki spaces.
An-G- Students will look at the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Students choose topic based on individual rights and research their topic. (Ex. Free speech- how we got there? What does this mean today?) Students put info on a class wiki. To get students talking to other people the class can host a 'get it right' fair and create an interactive display on their topic.
Trucker- At risk students set up a pen pal letter writing activity with Japanese students. Project aims to help students expand cultural horizons and dispel stereotypes. Students write to each other about their perspectives on World War II as a way to learn about bias. Class creates a website to explain what they have learned. Assessment: write a paper about stereotypes and bias.
Alli- Students examine newspaper articles concerning the Patriot Act. As a class, the students create a questionnaire and interview people about their knowledge concerning the Patriot Act. Students create wikis to display info and spread awareness of the federal government's powers.
C- Students research a person, place, or landmark associate with the Cold War. Students will write an article and upload it to a class wiki. Students will need to take photos and write questions to ask experts. Students will work with local newspaper to generate press and raise awareness of the community's history.
Gigi- Students will study the history and geography of Haiti. Students will network and blog with a school (most likely private school) in Haiti. Students will ask about how much their schooling cost and what it is like to go to school in Haiti. Students in US will collect money and supplies to send to schools in Haiti. Students will try to understand misconceptions about each others cultures. As a final project, students will present what was learned to the school and the community.
These ideas were presented by my classmates. However, I did not write everyone's name down and I could not differentiate between the Megans soI gave everyone a nickname Flava Flav style.
C-Dog: Voting is not the only way to participate in a democracy. Students create podcast/video as a public service announcement. Then, students write letters to their congressmen. This projects aims to raise the students' awareness of controversial issues and instructs students how to appropriately react to them.
Zebra- This project is best demonstrated during a unit on voting rights. Students choose a subtopic to focus on and the class creates a voting rights museum. Then, students could teach younger student's about the subtopics via Skype.
Mistah- Students interview the elderly at a retirement home and learn about those people's stories. The stories are recorded and uploaded to youtube.
A-Town- getting voters registration/info- observing trends. Motivate people to vote/ learning issues.
Meemee- Service learning project that explores the issues surrounding human trafficking and purports to spread awareness of these issues. Students work in groups and answer questions about human trafficking and learn about any relevant legislation. Podcasts, slideshow, brochure are created by the students and compiled onto website as a resource. Then, students engage in letter writing to congressman to support/change legislation.
Jellybean- Students engage in a military letter writing campaign. Students create a wiki to write to military members and servicemen can write back to students.
Q-ball- Students will learning about Veteran's Day by completing a 30 min interview with a vet and will learn about their role in the war. Before interview, students will research war history. Students will record the interview via podcast. The purpose is to increase public awareness of our veteran’s contributions to society.
Germ- This project raises student awareness of the war on drugs. Students will examines the consequences, intentions, and impacts of this "war". Students will explore questions like: Should marijuana/drugs be decriminalized to generate tax revenue? Students will also evaluate how taxpayer money is spent to arrest drug offenders and maintain the prison system. Students will create a wiki that goes over the many facets of the drug war. After completing this research, students will write to their representatives.
M-Slice- This project aims to support our soldiers in a way that involves more than letter writing. Students create a website to encourage donations and send out care packages to members of the military. This is a long term project and students manage the website all year. The students will learn from soldiers about the geography of the soldiers' location and students will increase their awareness of current events.
Lizard- Project that involves Operation Christmas Child. Students will learn about different cultures that celebrate wintertime holidays. Students put together their own Christmas boxes and conduct interviews with OCC volunteers. Students will also blog about their interviews and discuss what they learned through the experience.
E!- This projects aims at improving the lives of the elderly. Students give the elderly a life satisfaction survey. Then the students teach the elderly how to use technology to communicate with their family members. After the elderly get some experience with technology, they take the life satisfaction survey again and students evaluate the effectiveness of their instruction.
Lil'J- Project aims at increasing cultural awareness. Students will learn about immigration issues and that everyone comes from somewhere else. Have students poll other students about their personal heritage like where their parents/grandparents were born. Students can create a wiki for each country of origin that they find and present their findings for school wide viewings and hopefully start a tradition of a multicultural fair.
Mellow- Project works with Habitat for Humanity. Students work with the organization and find out how much it costs to build houses and learn about cost effective methods of building homes. Students will interview families who have received homes from Habitat. Students will create a podcast/video blog to document interview.
Lady- Students will interview the elderly at a retirement home and ask questions about their daily lives. Students will also reflect on their own daily lives. Interviews will be recorded and presented via podcast. Students will celebrate the completion of the project at the nursing home and watch the interviews with the elderly.
Mako- Students are grouped and learn how to contact their representatives concerning issues of importance. Students keeps track of issues via a class wiki. Projects get students to learns about citizen participation as well as to get students to connect with their representatives. Students also make a biographical sketch of their congressman/representatives. (Storybird)
Kiki- Students go to a nursing home and ask elderly about their personal experiences. Questions asked are something like: What do you remember? How did this event shape the rest of your life? Students create videos about the individual. Videos should include details of history, historically appropriate music. Purpose is to see how people’s lives are impacted by an event in history.
Jiffy- Students learn about the environment by going to parks. Students learn about the impact of littering and help clean up parks. Students do clean up as well as raise awareness of conservation and the human impact on environment. Students will make a video psa about parks.
Grandy- Students will look at voter turnout and voting trends. Students will see how social networking sites disperse info during election times. Students will also look at how gov't affects a citizen's life over time. Students will visit a retirement home and interview elderly about their voting trends. Also look at how media affects voting habits. Class then makes a podcast of oral history and shows the project to the elderly. Students continue correspondence with elderly via letter writing.
Neeno- Students learn about becoming a responsible citizen. Students will learn about voting and campaigning and will learn about process of political action in a non controversial way. Students will analyze Google motion charts to look at trends and will record finding using blogs and wiki spaces.
An-G- Students will look at the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Students choose topic based on individual rights and research their topic. (Ex. Free speech- how we got there? What does this mean today?) Students put info on a class wiki. To get students talking to other people the class can host a 'get it right' fair and create an interactive display on their topic.
Trucker- At risk students set up a pen pal letter writing activity with Japanese students. Project aims to help students expand cultural horizons and dispel stereotypes. Students write to each other about their perspectives on World War II as a way to learn about bias. Class creates a website to explain what they have learned. Assessment: write a paper about stereotypes and bias.
Alli- Students examine newspaper articles concerning the Patriot Act. As a class, the students create a questionnaire and interview people about their knowledge concerning the Patriot Act. Students create wikis to display info and spread awareness of the federal government's powers.
C- Students research a person, place, or landmark associate with the Cold War. Students will write an article and upload it to a class wiki. Students will need to take photos and write questions to ask experts. Students will work with local newspaper to generate press and raise awareness of the community's history.
Gigi- Students will study the history and geography of Haiti. Students will network and blog with a school (most likely private school) in Haiti. Students will ask about how much their schooling cost and what it is like to go to school in Haiti. Students in US will collect money and supplies to send to schools in Haiti. Students will try to understand misconceptions about each others cultures. As a final project, students will present what was learned to the school and the community.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
What if twitter and facebook existed during the Holocaust?
Social networking is amazing. As Shirkey explains in the video, no longer are we forced to hear the messages sent by the privileged few who for a long time, controlled access to media. We, the individuals are the news creators and conveyors. In my opinion, social networking encourages connections and communications across all levels of human society and we are able to learn more about the rest of the world by forging bonds with each other. Now that we can connect with individuals, it will be much harder for us to confuse the messages sent by a tyrannical dictator as representative of that leader's people. By communicating with normal people across the world, we are more likely to see a group of people as oppressed by a bad governement rather than as evil members of an evil country.
Considering how powerful social networking is, could you imagine how the events of the Holocaust would be different had people had access to this medium of communication. I can imagine that on November 11 1938 (Kristallnacht) we would see the facebook statuses of German Jews would be something like:
"Fuck Hitler youth for trashing my Dad's store" or "being forced to leave by Nazis."
Although the Germans were pretty good at stealing all of the Jews personal belongings, it would be possible for a few people to sneak in a cell phone to the concentration camps. Could you imagine how people would react to videos of stacks of dead bodies? I'm fairly sure that had the US population received such horrifying images, the US governement would have intervened before Pearl Harbor and would have at least bombed the railroads leading to Auschwitz and the other death camps.
Furthermore, had Jews living in the ghettos observed their fellow men being led to their deaths via cell phone videos, the Jews may have been able to coordinate an effective resistance against the Nazis or at least have had a better idea of what was really going on.
Also, when we consider the earthquake in China discussed by Shirkey, no one denied that the earthquake happened as far too many were instantly reporting their observations as it occurred. Had the Jews had access to this technology I doubt that Holocaust denial would be an issue. It's pretty hard to claim that millions of people are involved in a conspiracy at the same time especially when the medium that would connect the consipirators is the same that others would be using.
Too bad this technology hasn't existed for longer but now it is up to us to use it responsibly and ensure that these horrible things don't happen again. How do you think the Nazi's would have used social networking sites? Perhaps to unify the Hitler Youth? How do you think that American Nazi sympathizers would have reacted in this situation if they were seeing images from Jews and Nazis during the Holocaust?
Considering how powerful social networking is, could you imagine how the events of the Holocaust would be different had people had access to this medium of communication. I can imagine that on November 11 1938 (Kristallnacht) we would see the facebook statuses of German Jews would be something like:
"Fuck Hitler youth for trashing my Dad's store" or "being forced to leave by Nazis."
Although the Germans were pretty good at stealing all of the Jews personal belongings, it would be possible for a few people to sneak in a cell phone to the concentration camps. Could you imagine how people would react to videos of stacks of dead bodies? I'm fairly sure that had the US population received such horrifying images, the US governement would have intervened before Pearl Harbor and would have at least bombed the railroads leading to Auschwitz and the other death camps.
Furthermore, had Jews living in the ghettos observed their fellow men being led to their deaths via cell phone videos, the Jews may have been able to coordinate an effective resistance against the Nazis or at least have had a better idea of what was really going on.
Also, when we consider the earthquake in China discussed by Shirkey, no one denied that the earthquake happened as far too many were instantly reporting their observations as it occurred. Had the Jews had access to this technology I doubt that Holocaust denial would be an issue. It's pretty hard to claim that millions of people are involved in a conspiracy at the same time especially when the medium that would connect the consipirators is the same that others would be using.
Too bad this technology hasn't existed for longer but now it is up to us to use it responsibly and ensure that these horrible things don't happen again. How do you think the Nazi's would have used social networking sites? Perhaps to unify the Hitler Youth? How do you think that American Nazi sympathizers would have reacted in this situation if they were seeing images from Jews and Nazis during the Holocaust?
Service Learning Project
Title: Increasing Youth Voter Participation.
Area of service: Civic Responsibility
Grade level setting: 9-12 (preferably 11-12)
Subject learning: American History/Civics
Preparation for service: The students will research various voter surveys and think of good questions. These questions will be discussed by the students and the students will compile a class voter turnout survey using a tool like surveymonkey.com. Here is an example of a voter turnout survey I made which includes questions that are likely to show up on a class voter turnout survey. Click Here to take survey
Students will send this survey to their voting age friends and relatives and collect the data. The class can break up into groups and analyze the results for each question and come back together as a class to discuss the findings. As a class, the students will discuss the best possible ways to reach young people and increase voter turnout based on the data.
Action: Since this step depends upon the data collected by the class, examples of action may be creating posters for display on the campus or using their social networking sites as places to promote voting.Students will use whatever resources necessary to raise awareness and increase voter turnout. Perhaps they will try to influence young people by creating a podcast or video and broadcasting the project over the school's tv station.
Reflection: This project would best be done during an election year as it will be easier for these students to analyze the effect of their activism. After the election ends, the students (either in groups or individually) will present what they learned from the data collection process and analyze how their participation influenced others in the form of a PowerPoint presentation, podcast or poster.
Demonstration of learning and impacts: This project would be a great supplement to an American History or Civics course during an election cycle. It is imperative that students not only that voting is important, but learn how to encourage others to participate in this process. Also, it is important for students to learn how to collect and understand data and then, based on the data, choose an effective course of action.
Celebration: After the election is over and students have presented their findings, the class should have a "political party" and celebrate with food. Students can dress up in their patriotic attire and the teacher can give away prizes for the best dressed patriots.
Standards met:
» SS.912.C.2.2: Evaluate the importance of political participation and civic participation.
» SS.912.C.2.3: Experience the responsibilities of citizens at the local, state, or federal levels.
» SS.912.C.2.5: Conduct a service project to further the public good.
» SS.912.C.2.8: Analyze the impact of citizen participation as a means of achieving political and social change.
NETS:
Web applications used:
Students will use an online survey creator like surveymonkey.com, which is free. I had never used this website before and I was easily able to figure out how to generate a multitude of questions. This application is a great way for students to formulate the types of question they want to ask and is in a format that is easy for people to fill out.
It is likely that students will have a social networking page and their pages will likely become an important part of this service learnign project. They will use their pages to send the survey to voting age friends and relatives and to raise awareness about youth voting.
Furthermore, students may find online news sources and may want to submit editorials or opinions to express their passion about a particular issue and set an example to show that young people are paying attention to political issues.
Also, many students will choose to present their finding and personal action to the class in the form of a powerpoint presentation or podcast.
Assessment: Students will be assessed on particpation as everyone will have to contribute to the question generating process in creating the survey. For instance, part of the grade will concern that each student contributed to the survey creation and will need to have at least 5 voting age people complete the survey. Students will get fewer points for fewer returned surveys. Also, when students present their findings and report their particpation to the class, the teacher will assess whether or not the students acted appropriately considering the data collected (For instance, if 70% of the surveys returned showed that the people get their news from the internet, then a student who becomes active in online discussion boards and posts links to news stories on his facebook page would be appropriatelt acting considering the data.
Area of service: Civic Responsibility
Grade level setting: 9-12 (preferably 11-12)
Subject learning: American History/Civics
Unit description
Investigation of needs: First students will research typical voter turnout for young people and will examine why young people tend not to vote as often as older people. Students will hypothesize reasons that explain this voting trend and consider political issues that are most relevant to young people.Preparation for service: The students will research various voter surveys and think of good questions. These questions will be discussed by the students and the students will compile a class voter turnout survey using a tool like surveymonkey.com. Here is an example of a voter turnout survey I made which includes questions that are likely to show up on a class voter turnout survey. Click Here to take survey
Students will send this survey to their voting age friends and relatives and collect the data. The class can break up into groups and analyze the results for each question and come back together as a class to discuss the findings. As a class, the students will discuss the best possible ways to reach young people and increase voter turnout based on the data.
Action: Since this step depends upon the data collected by the class, examples of action may be creating posters for display on the campus or using their social networking sites as places to promote voting.Students will use whatever resources necessary to raise awareness and increase voter turnout. Perhaps they will try to influence young people by creating a podcast or video and broadcasting the project over the school's tv station.
Reflection: This project would best be done during an election year as it will be easier for these students to analyze the effect of their activism. After the election ends, the students (either in groups or individually) will present what they learned from the data collection process and analyze how their participation influenced others in the form of a PowerPoint presentation, podcast or poster.
Demonstration of learning and impacts: This project would be a great supplement to an American History or Civics course during an election cycle. It is imperative that students not only that voting is important, but learn how to encourage others to participate in this process. Also, it is important for students to learn how to collect and understand data and then, based on the data, choose an effective course of action.
Celebration: After the election is over and students have presented their findings, the class should have a "political party" and celebrate with food. Students can dress up in their patriotic attire and the teacher can give away prizes for the best dressed patriots.
Standards met:
» SS.912.C.2.2: Evaluate the importance of political participation and civic participation.
» SS.912.C.2.3: Experience the responsibilities of citizens at the local, state, or federal levels.
» SS.912.C.2.5: Conduct a service project to further the public good.
» SS.912.C.2.8: Analyze the impact of citizen participation as a means of achieving political and social change.
NETS:
| . | Research and Information Fluency | ||||||||
| Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. Students: | |||||||||
|
| 5. | Digital Citizenship | ||||||||
| Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. Students: | |||||||||
|
Web applications used:
Students will use an online survey creator like surveymonkey.com, which is free. I had never used this website before and I was easily able to figure out how to generate a multitude of questions. This application is a great way for students to formulate the types of question they want to ask and is in a format that is easy for people to fill out.
It is likely that students will have a social networking page and their pages will likely become an important part of this service learnign project. They will use their pages to send the survey to voting age friends and relatives and to raise awareness about youth voting.
Furthermore, students may find online news sources and may want to submit editorials or opinions to express their passion about a particular issue and set an example to show that young people are paying attention to political issues.
Also, many students will choose to present their finding and personal action to the class in the form of a powerpoint presentation or podcast.
Assessment: Students will be assessed on particpation as everyone will have to contribute to the question generating process in creating the survey. For instance, part of the grade will concern that each student contributed to the survey creation and will need to have at least 5 voting age people complete the survey. Students will get fewer points for fewer returned surveys. Also, when students present their findings and report their particpation to the class, the teacher will assess whether or not the students acted appropriately considering the data collected (For instance, if 70% of the surveys returned showed that the people get their news from the internet, then a student who becomes active in online discussion boards and posts links to news stories on his facebook page would be appropriatelt acting considering the data.
Friday, October 9, 2009
The Machine is pretty awesome.....
I have often pondered about how the web helps shape our identity and thus I found this video to be fascinating. This video gives us some great insight into how social networking technology is changing the way our society defines ourselves at the level of the individual. I believe that social networking technology is morally neutral and it depends upon the user to bestow it with moral value.
The power of the new web medium reminds me of how the printing press changed society. After people had access to the printed word, each person was able to create meaning for themselves and no longer had to rely upon the established religion to explain the truth. We are in a similar situation today; no longer must we rely upon the privileged few who possess access to information. One merely has to make a trip to the public library to access the most powerful networking tools our planet has ever seen. This technology provides a venue for any person to showcase themselves as whatever he or she desires. And what does it mean to have an identity anyways? Are each of us a static entity that never changes? Or are our personalities dynamic and shifting?
Although this technology may sound like a tool for the devious, it is a great way for an artist to showcase his or her works to the world and receive feedback or potential buyers. Personally, I love exploiting the web to promote my own dress line. A friend of mine teaches hula hooping classes and posts video on youtube to attract potential students and buyers for her hula hoop line. Also, I think it is great that the individual has an easy way to access his or her person in the 3rd person (by replaying video, rereading posts and comments on facebook etc). Part of being human is making mistakes and learnign from them. Replaying video is a great way for people to see themselves as others view them and making improvements where need be. For instance, I was able to watch myself on stage at my brother's last performance. Before I watched the video I was extremely nervous because I thought I would stupid or awkward. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I watched the video and was able to see how I could improve for next time.
I think social networking should be integrated in the classroom. Think about how students could study the impacts of historical events today by connecting to students in other countries and asking them questions. This direct connection also allows us the posisbility to see how others live as they wish to be seen. Rather than labeling a group of people as the enemy, we would likely be more open minded about the people had we been in contact with that group. Social networking really is a great tool of the people for keeping their governments in check. Now that sharing information is so simple, it seems somewhat dubious when Congress refuses to post legislation online for people to read before it comes to vote. Think about how soical networking influenced how we viewed the Iranian election.
I wouldn't say that I look at social networking differently because of this video because I have already thought about how awesome this tool really is. This video certainly reinforced my beliefs and makes me want to use these tools to my advantage. I would like to know how you use social networking sites to project your identity? Have you ever lied on your facebook interests/relationship status etc to influence the way a person views who you are?
Thursday, October 1, 2009
iTunesU: Hinduism
Megan and I did our collection on Hinduism. We selected some awesome videos that showed Indian culture and Hindu religious ceremonies. Although the videos did excellent job demonstrating how Hindu beliefs influence the culture, they were fairly long and may not grasp the attention of students for long periods of time.
I think the best way to incorporate these videos would be to play short clips and then to ask students questions about the film. By stopping the video and engaging the students, the teacher is better able to guide the students in their thinking and learning. Furthermore, I was hoping to find a podcast of someone directly reading Hindu scriptures. Maybe I am bad at searching, but I could not locate any. It would be awesome to have students hear the Vedas spoken rather than read.
If this lesson were part of a religion unit or being taught along with Buddhism, it would be good to have students observe the similarities and differences of each. Teaching tolerance has a great lesson idea that asks students to compare religions and analyze how religious interpretations of an issue (women's roles, marital equality, etc) change over time.
If I were teaching this lesson along with Buddhism, I would assess students' understanding by asking them to first complete a Venn diagram comparing the two religions. Now that the students have the basic differences between the two, students could work in small groups and create either a podcast or powerpoint that elaborates on what the students filled in on their diagram. For instance, one of the differences between Hinduism and Buddhism is that Hinduism, unlike Buddhism, has no founder of the religion. On a Venn diagram, this would be expressed simply: "no founder" on the Hinduism side and "founded by Siddartha Gautama" on the Buddhism side. The class can come together as whole during discussion and create a master Venn diagram for the class so everyone has the same resource.
Of course, this simple discrimination of facts is an incomplete assessment of the students knowledge. The teacher can then divide the class into small groups of 3 or 4. Each group is assigned a few details from the Venn diagram and then has to elaborate on them via powerpoint presentation or podcast. For instance, group A is assigned founders of the religion. They could create an amazing powerpoint discussing the evolution of Hinduism that discusses how various gods came to be worshipped. Students could include Hindu images of the Gods and cold discuss common misconceptions in Buddha's appearance.
Furthermore, since each student in the class needs to be responsible for knowing the information provided by each group, the teacher could provide a note taking worksheet that students complete as they observe their classmates presenting. The teacher could also instruct students to post their presentations on the class website so the rest of the students can access the materials to study.
I think the best way to incorporate these videos would be to play short clips and then to ask students questions about the film. By stopping the video and engaging the students, the teacher is better able to guide the students in their thinking and learning. Furthermore, I was hoping to find a podcast of someone directly reading Hindu scriptures. Maybe I am bad at searching, but I could not locate any. It would be awesome to have students hear the Vedas spoken rather than read.
If this lesson were part of a religion unit or being taught along with Buddhism, it would be good to have students observe the similarities and differences of each. Teaching tolerance has a great lesson idea that asks students to compare religions and analyze how religious interpretations of an issue (women's roles, marital equality, etc) change over time.
If I were teaching this lesson along with Buddhism, I would assess students' understanding by asking them to first complete a Venn diagram comparing the two religions. Now that the students have the basic differences between the two, students could work in small groups and create either a podcast or powerpoint that elaborates on what the students filled in on their diagram. For instance, one of the differences between Hinduism and Buddhism is that Hinduism, unlike Buddhism, has no founder of the religion. On a Venn diagram, this would be expressed simply: "no founder" on the Hinduism side and "founded by Siddartha Gautama" on the Buddhism side. The class can come together as whole during discussion and create a master Venn diagram for the class so everyone has the same resource.
Of course, this simple discrimination of facts is an incomplete assessment of the students knowledge. The teacher can then divide the class into small groups of 3 or 4. Each group is assigned a few details from the Venn diagram and then has to elaborate on them via powerpoint presentation or podcast. For instance, group A is assigned founders of the religion. They could create an amazing powerpoint discussing the evolution of Hinduism that discusses how various gods came to be worshipped. Students could include Hindu images of the Gods and cold discuss common misconceptions in Buddha's appearance.
Furthermore, since each student in the class needs to be responsible for knowing the information provided by each group, the teacher could provide a note taking worksheet that students complete as they observe their classmates presenting. The teacher could also instruct students to post their presentations on the class website so the rest of the students can access the materials to study.
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