When Students Are Smater

Facebook is blocked in our schools. Today kids showed me how to access it using a proxy-server, and explained to me what a proxy-server is. This sort of forced me to do a double take in my consideration of technology in the schools....

As it stands now, the average student is much more knowledgeable about how to use technology and the internet to get what they want. They use applications from imovie, to powerpoint, to instant messenger with more efficiency than the average teacher could ever hope for. They know how to find information on the web with ease. What's the point of blocking websites if students can just find ways around the internet filter?

Perhaps rather then just trying to block them from what is available on the internet, we teach them how to think critically about it. In the presentation on internet filtering last week, the student interviews clearly indicated that filtering is pointless. The kids know what's out there. Instead of pretending that it's not there, why don't we give the tools with which to consider it?

Wikipedia: Another Testamant for Media Literacy

Last week during the presentation of Wikipedia, (Bravo guys, it was great,) there was an interesting comment made. Standing before the future teachers of America, Bob commented on the need for training in Wikipeida. The argument was based on the notion that Wikipedia is an informational source that can be edited by the public. However, I think this comment was simply a part of a larger and sometimes unspoken crises we now face: there has to be education in media literacy.

Yeah, I’ve written about it before, but I’m going do it again. So deal with it. There’s nothing you can do about it; this is my blog and I can put any type of information I want out there. And you know what? No matter what I write there will be people who read it, believe it, and support it. I think that swimmers are supreme beings because they have to spend so much time alone with their brains swimming back and forth. This heightened self-awareness puts them on a whole level. Now, there are people out there who will be mesmerized by the apparent logic of my logic-less prose. There are others of you who will go; “man, I’ve partied with swimmers. Those are some weird mother ……’s.” But my point endures, I can put out whatever information I want on the web, and there will be people who believe me.



This idea gets more interesting though when you realize that some of the flawed information available to people on the web isn’t as easily identifiable. Wikipedia is full of false information and you seldom notice it. However, there are other Medias that also are taken as fact too easily. Objectivity is impossible in language. Television news has been shown to report with clear bias, journalism can never escape it’s given frames. Too often we receive information that we take as knowledge. In a world of infinitely growing information, we must have to begin to consider the realities of knowledge.

The call is for media literacy, and I’m happy to report that there are some who realize its importance: http://www.medialit.org. However, I offer a simpler solution. Put the study of communications into the high school curriculum. Put it in as a unit in English classes. Honestly, what is more important for today’s students? What good is knowing how to identify alliteration in Beowolf if they think that Swimmers represent a greater realm of man?

Zen and the Art of Technology Reduction

Don’t get me wrong, I love technology. Right now I sit on my couch with my laptop connected wirelessly to the Internet as I watch football on my flat-screen TV with digital cable. Life is good. However, this technological bliss didn’t come without its struggles; the cable and internet are only set-up after 3 missed appointments by Comcast, my wireless internet only works after 2 hours on the phone with a guy named Sam who sounded like Apu from the Simpsons, and the eternal struggle to figure out how to use my new Macbook after using a pc for ten years. Technology is great, but it’s also frustrating.

I think though, that technology is made unnecessarily complex. This becomes clear in the simple example of my mentor teacher’s struggles to utilize technology in the classroom. What he wants is to set up something like ctools for his English classes. He’s tried out Google groups, Ann Arbor Public school’s moodle, and his own website through AAPS. I showed him how to set up his own wikispace and blog. Simply put, he’s floating in the sea of technology, able to keep his head above the water, but unable to swim with skill among the waves.

Beginning this semester, I feel the same way. I have a new Laptop, and a new camera, but the simple fact is that I barely know how to use them. To be honest, I’m still trying to figure out ctools, how to find my financial information on Michigan’s website, and how to make it so that I just have one email account. Classmates have said I’m good with technology; I can put together a wiki quickly, edit decent movie, and put pictures on my blog. But there is so much more that I know I could do. This week I’m gong to attempt to learn how to take pictures and put together a clip show. The sad fact is that this is going to take me a long time to figure out, and I’ll probably do it with less skill than if I were given specific instruction. It will be but another wave I learn how to ride for a bit before it breaks in the ocean of technology.

I know that my masters isn’t in technology, or even technology education, so there’s no real reason to have a more focused approach to technology. But given the sheer dependence of the program on different tools of technology, given the fact that they’ve given us such great technology, I wish we’d have the opportunity to really learn the ins and outs of what we have. Or maybe we could even simplify, try one thing at a time. Get used to the Macbook, then learn how to use the camera, then combine the two.

In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Phaedrus speaks of the importance of quality in a world obsessed with quantity. I think that the SMAC program might benefit if it were to take a moment to step back from the struggle for technological quantity, and focus on the cultivation of students who demonstrate technological quality.