03.12.09
Teens want to use more technology in the classroom- Pew Research Center: Writing, Technology and Teens
Pew Research Center: Writing, Technology and Teens.
If you think that students are not aware of their writing skills and abilities in the classroom, you’re wrong. In the past few days, there has been a lot of discussion concerning what’s wrong with our educational system. The problem is not the teachers directly, but the curriculum. A curriculum that, in most cases, is not differentiated for all learners, addresses diversity and includes technology.
This report shows a disconnected of what we think teens know or think about education. According to the report, teens are more aware than what we give them credit for.
“Even though teens are heavily embedded in a tech-rich world, they do not believe that communication over the internet or text messaging is writing.
“Despite the nearly ubiquitous use of these tools by teens, they see an important distinction between the “writing” they do for school and outside of school for personal reasons, and the “communication” they enjoy via instant messaging, phone text messaging, email and social networking sites.
- 85% of teens ages 12-17 engage at least occasionally in some form of electronic personal communication, which includes text messaging, sending email or instant messages, or posting comments on social networking sites.
- 60% of teens do not think of these electronic texts as “writing.”
The report goes on to say.
“Teens are motivated to write by relevant topics, high expectations, an interested audience and opportunities to write creatively.
In our focus groups, teens said they are motivated to write when they can select topics that are relevant to their lives and interests, and report greater enjoyment of school writing when they have the opportunity to write creatively. Having teachers or other adults who challenge them, present them with interesting curricula and give them detailed feedback also serves as a motivator for teens. Teens also report writing for an audience motivates them to write and write well.”
Here is what Carol Ann Tomlinson has to say concerning differentiation in the classroom.
“We learn more enthusiastically those things that connect to our interest, and we learn more efficiently if we have a suitable background of experience. We also lean more efficiently if we can acquire information and express our understanding through a preferred mode.” – Tomlinson, C. A. (1999). The Differentiated Classroom- Responding to the Needs of All Learners. Alexandria: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Teens and Technology Integration
“Teens believe that the writing instruction they receive in school could be improved.
Most teens feel that additional instruction and focus on writing in school would help improve their writing even further. Our survey asked teens whether their writing skills would be improved by two potential changes to their school curricula: teachers having them spend more time writing in class, and teachers using more computer-based tools (such as games, writing help programs or websites, or multimedia) to teach writing.Overall, 82% of teens feel that additional in-class writing time would improve their writing abilities and 78% feel the same way about their teachers using computer-based writing tools.
What I find most encouraging is that a lot of teens write outside of the classroom especially black teens.
“Non-school writing, while less common than school writing, is still widespread among teens.
Black teens are also more likely to write music or lyrics on their own time.
- 47% of black teens write in a journal, compared with 31% of white teens.
- 37% of black teens write music or lyrics, while 23% of white teens do.
- 49% of girls keep a journal; 20% of boys do.
- 26% of boys say they never write for personal enjoyment outside of school.”
We have a lot of work to do. Let’s put that stimulus money to good use.
03.08.09
Here is what I think killed the newspaper business.
It is becoming a regular occurence day after day. Many local print newspapers are dying. Many blame technology, but I think technology only facilitated their downfall. You see, newspapers were largley family businesses and locally centered, but the boys in banking and finance realized early on that their is money in newspapers and media in general for two reasons. They can bring in huge profits, and they realized that if they controlled the media, they could shape the financial perspective to their advantage thus making more profit. For a time, it was good. Profits soared due to advertising and subscriptions and their ability to shape the news was working.
In their attempt to shape the news, one critical thing happened. They forced a dumbing down of the conciousness of the public which allowed them to sell more papers. This slick, free market, sensationalism reporting surplanted good, honest journalism. After a while, no one really wanted to know what really happened, just give the 3 minute version, show a few video clips and call it a day. Rush Limbaugh calls it the “drive by” media, but it was his conservative buddys who owned a lot of the local media through FCC laws that turned the market into a “all you can grab” sale and greatly profitted from its existence. Of course, this left the black and brown communities high and dry because according to the GAO they weren’t even invited to the party.
No one cared about black and brown issues unless someone was getting shot, arrested or getting shot while they were getting arrested. This slick hyper-sensationalized news had us going. Some journalist crossed over. Many did not, but the management upstairs was determined to sell newspapers at any cost. Along came the internet. It was new, fast and free. Many papers tried to tie their subscriptions to the web in hopes of keeping the revenue flowing, but it didn’t work. Blogs sprang up, and anybody who thought they wanted to be a journalist could. The internet provide a way to bypass all of the control factors set in place by the media giants, even they had to bow down and get with the the internet craze.
Here is what has happened. The fast pace, free market strategy impaired critical thinking and the demand for the same from journalist. Things that should have been covered were ignored. Fact and a little things like the truth fell by the wayside. Now that we have marginalized the content into a slick, fast pace, up to the minute format, traditional means of media became obsolete. The internet was a much better resource for transmitting, facilitating, and aggregated this type of streamlined content.
What traditional media outlets were trying to do with a staff of hundreds could be done with one kid and a cell phone. It doesn’t take much to be a “journalist’ in this hour. All you need is a good wireless plan and you’re in. I use to podcast, but I really didn’t like how it went because it didn’t finish out like what I was used to. You see, I grew up listening to Tony Brown, Max Robinson, George Curry and now Roland Martin. I realized that as much as I like listen to Roland Martin. I am not Roland Martin. It took years of studying and refining the craft of journalism to get to where he is today; therefore, I will listen to these guys when I can and blog when I feel the urge and use twitter here and there. Listening to real journalist helps us reflect and encourages real thought and meaningful conversation and Socratic questioning as Dr. West puts it.
This is what the newspapers and good journalism was about. When they left their true mantra, they fell vicitim to a system that they did not fully understand. What I am trying to say is that the internet is not known natively for this type of journalism. Had they stayed true to their purpose, the internet could have facilitated a true evolution in journalism where we would have seen a marriage of the net to true journalism, but instead, it took them out. What’s the answer? A return to the true nature of journalism. It looks like that newspapers may have to go nonprofit for a season. Say it ain’t so, but it is what it is. Money has to stop being the driving force for everything in our society. The love of money is the root of all evil, not terrorism. My people are destroy for lack of knowledge because thou has rejected knowledge, I will reject thee- Hosea 4:6.
I chose to use scripture here to make a point. We have often heard the passage used in church to signfy the absence of knowledge. Knowledge being translated as perception, understanding or discernment, but this is referring to the rejection of knowledge. Having had it presented, but rejected out of one’s own volition. In this climate, now more than ever, we must chose to know. Chose to know the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and become discerners of truth by reason of use to know what is real.
How high can you count? Census Bureau Needs to Strengthen Testing of 2010 Decennial Systems
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09413t.pdf?source=ra
Report from the GAO (Government Accountability Office).
From the article,
In preparation for the 2010 census, the Bureau planned what it refers to as the Dress Rehearsal. The Dress Rehearsal includes systems and integration testing, 6 as well as end-to-end testing of key operations in a census-like environment. During the Dress Rehearsal period, running from February 2006 through June 2009, the Bureau is developing and testing systems and operations, and it held a mock Census Day on May 1, 2008.
The Dress Rehearsal activities, which are still under way, are a subset of the activities planned for the actual 2010 census and include testing of both IT and non-IT related functions, such as opening offices and hiring staff.
The Dress Rehearsal identified significant technical problems during the address canvassing and group quarters validation operations. For example, during the Dress Rehearsal address canvassing operation, the Bureau encountered problems with the handheld computers, including slow and inconsistent data transmissions, the devices freezing up, and difficulties collecting mapping coordinates. As a result of the problems observed during the Dress Rehearsal, cost overruns and schedule slippage in the FDCA program, and other issues, the Bureau removed the planned testing of several key operations from the Dress Rehearsal and switched key operations, such as nonresponse follow-up, to paper-based processes instead of using the handheld computers as originally planned.
Through the Dress Rehearsal and other testing activities, the Bureau has completed key system tests, but significant testing has yet to be done, and planning for this is not complete.
03.02.09
Attention followers-Read this and re-tweet-SAVE OUR ECONOMY!- Mortgage Holiday Plan
Let’s create some buzz about this plan. National media only wants to talk about Rush Limbaugh’s speech this weekend. Let’ show the media what Web 2.0 can do.