Habemus Digitas

Anglonautes.com

Much of the country, as well as the world, has been captivated by the election of the first non-European Pontiff in over 1,200 years. Regardless of one's religious bent (or lack thereof) we can all appreciate the historical significance of this moment. The elevation of the first member of the Jesuits to the Seat of Peter holds special significance for those of us privileged to have been educated in schools run by the order. One of the primary missions of the Jesuits is to educate young people around the world and in this country they run such colleges and universities as Boston College, Fairfield, Holy Cross and Fordham. The Superior General of the Order, Adolfo Nicolas, recently gave a speech on the role of technology in our world today.


"When one can access so much information so quickly and so painlessly; when one can express and publish to the world one’s reactions so immediately and so unthinkingly in one’s blogs or micro-blogs; when the latest opinion column from the New York Times or El Pais, or the newest viral video can be spread so quickly to people half a world away, shaping their perceptions and feelings, then the laborious, painstaking work of serious, critical thinking often gets short-circuited.

[When] one can “cut-and-paste” without the need to think critically or write accurately or come to one’s own careful conclusions. When…the ugly or unpleasant sounds of the world can be shut out by one’s MP3 music player, then one’s vision, one’s perception of reality, one’s desiring can also remain shallow.
When one can become “friends” so quickly and so painlessly with mere acquaintances or total strangers on one’s social networks – and if one can so easily “unfriend” another without the hard work of encounter or, if need be, confrontation and then reconciliation – then relationships can also become superficial."

What do you think?

Diigo Home

As part of this class on Integrating Technology and Literacy I'm taking we are required to used the bookmarking tool Diigo. As with all new things, I was a bit skeptical at first. To me a bookmark is a thin rectangular piece of cardboard one inserts between two pages of a book to mark where they left off reading. I very recently began experimenting with this new tool and have found it to be a valuable way to organize class resources. I'll admit that I have some "go to" resources that I use each year when it's time to discuss certain topics such as the electoral college or political parties and I'll also publicly admit that each year I spend way too much time relocating them online. Now I have begun collecting them in my Diigo Library. This tool allows me to classify each by topic heading and easily retrieve them when the time comes.

If I Ran Things....

As someone who teaches government and Civics, and as a concerned citizen, there isn't a day that goes by in which I have at least one conversation about fixing the budget deficit. One can't open the newspaper, watch the nightly news, or even watch a comedy show without some reference being made to the inability of those in Washington to address the nation's constant budget deficit. A couple of years ago I discovered an invaluable resource for understanding this thorny issue. The New York Times created an interactive budget deficit game which allows the used to decide, by using any combination of tax increases and budget reductions, how to balance the budget. My students love "playing" this game and it is an invaluable educational tool for teaching and learning about the factors driving the budget shortfall.

Separation of Powers

Here's my animoto on separation of powers. I will certainly use this in my Civics class to introduce the concept and as a starting point for discussions. This is a concept that students have trouble with at first and I hope that this little presentation will make them more comfortable with the topic.

Really Simple Stuff

Really Simple Simplification (RSS) has been described as the "new killer app for educators" (Richardson pg. 71). The way it works is truly ingenious. The old method of reading online would generally entail one flipping from webpage to webpage or blog to blog opening up innumerable pages on your computer. By using the RSS feature, the information simply comes to the person rather than the other way around. People may subscribe to blogs, newspaper sections, online journals, or any other informational source of interest. You would then simply check your reader, I use Google Reader, on a regular basis to update yourself on the information and material out there. Once you have acquired a vehicle to begin collecting RSS feeds your "inbox" sill look something like the image below. As you can see, feeds can be subdivided into categories or topics.

Here is a PDF I found on the web on using RSS feeds in the classroom which provides a pretty simple overview and some straightforward instructions on getting started. The directions are so simple that even I could follow and understand them.  Now let's say, for example, that you want to receive feeds from the publication Education Week on topics of specific interest. You could access the list of RSS feeds available on the journal by clicking the previous hyperlink and then select by topic or grade level which feeds you wished. Updates would then be delivered to the reader tool which you could review and link to. I have just recently become familiar with this tool and must confess that it has saved me a lot of time. To quote Ferris Bueller, "Should you have the means, I would highly recommend acquiring one."

@Learning_Curve



flickr.com

I must admit that I have come late to the social media game. I always considered Facebook and Twitter to be for my students, people who subscribe to dating services, and those who have an unquenchable need for attention. About a year ago, however, I was convinced by a couple of my oldest friends to open a Twitter account. I must admit that it has changed the way I get news and information. I dare say that this social media vehicle is my primary source of such. I check my feed many, many, times each day. Twitter allows me to follow only those news outlets, people, or organizations in which I have an interest. Here is my Twitter feed at some random moment today.

These four tweets represent main areas of interest to me; sports, education, punditry, and political/social commentary. I can easily get lost in the Twittersphere at any moment. The primary challenge for me as am educator is developing ways to integrate Twitter in my classroom. I found some great suggestions in the Richardson book. For example the wiki, Twitter Collaboration Stories provides an abundance of valuable suggestions which I could certainly use in my government and Civics classes. Westlake High School in Austin, TX has a Twitter account in which one can find links to student work or live presentations. I follow many educators and professional accounts on my personal account and get some valuable suggestions for lesson plans.
In the spirit of increasing my usage of social media I have established an account for a history-themed trip I run every year. It is my goal to use this tool to send pictures back to all interested parties (parents, family members, students) and as a means of communicating with everyone back here in the "States" while we're in Ireland. We leave on Friday.

Hopefully there will be plenty of shots like this one coming back to Connecticut next week via Twitter. Here I am in front of Lenin's Tomb this past July. I am happy to report that he is still dead.

Animoto

Here's an Animoto I really liked and could use in a freshman World History class. It is on the "Seven Elements of Culture" and was recently created by Lyz who is taking this class in the West Hartford cohort. She is a 5th-6th grade Special Ed teacher. Even though this video was created for use by a teacher at a lower grade level it would be very useful as a catatlyst for discussion and to introduce the theme for the class.