What?

The history teacher at my placement is a huge supporter of technology. She even has her students bring in their personal laptops to class everyday because all of their work is online. At my last visit, she was encouraging her students to use their school email addresses to communicate with each other instead of using Facebook as a means of communication because not everyone has a Facebook. Her point was that it isn't fair to use social media when communication via that means isn't accessible to everyone. However, she proceeded to tell her students that they should take out their smart phones and sync their school email to their phones.

So what?

This stuck out to me because I found it to be odd that this teacher was willing to accept that no everyone has a Facebook but she then made what seemed to be a generalization about smart phones and the ability to sync email. It made me think about how we think about Facebook now. In class, I recall we marveled at the fact that everyone in the class had a Facebook or at least enjoyed it. My placement teacher applauded those who didn't have a Facebook because they are off the grid and colleges/employers won't be able to see anything about them online. I just found it to be interesting that she was happy that not everyone has a Facebook but she made the quick assumption that each of her high school students had a smart phone.

Now what?

What

After talking to the teacher and observing in class, I think the level of students in the class can be very different. How comfortable they are with technology can also be quite different. Several students brought their own laptop to class. When the teacher asked them to work on the assignment, some students started coding right away while others spent most of the time reading instructions.

So what

This is almost inevitable for the school since there is only one class about Java and students who want to learn computer science do not have much choice. The teacher said that in order not to leave any student behind, he purposefully slowed down a little and made the class a little easier. But is this necessary a good thing? How about the students who are more advanced?

Now what

Is it better to divide the class into different levels or should it stay the way it is and encourage the students help each other to improve? The more advanced students can show their classmates who are struggling how to do it. I think sometimes it is also important for the teacher to prepare something for the advanced students.

  Before playing Minecraft on computer, I thought it would easy. I tried the ipad version one or two months ago and quickly lost interest when I was just puting a block here and there. I guess I played it wrong. But anyways, before downloading the game on my computer, I was still skeptical why the simple game can be so popular. I thought it's just like building something with random blocks in different colors. I was wrong. It was so difficult that I couldn't survive the night. I was killed in explosions and by spiders and zombies. I think my experience would be much happier if someone who has played it before would explain what I should do in the game for me when I don't want to read all those online. Overall, I think the game can be interesting if you know how to play it. Maybe I should try to play it again tomorrow.

  I do belief the gaming experience is transferable. The transferable part is probably not a specific skill to make something since people will never have to make ,for example, a pickaxe outside of the game. I don't know how the multiplayer minecraft game works. But other multiplayer games, especially multiplayer online games requires and improves teamwork and communication skills if the players play in team. That kind of skills can be transfered  to other games and outside of the game as well.

I could not get Minecraft to work on my computer. It was the most frustrating thing ever! After Mikah (my lovely roommate) started playing I wanted to play too and I spent about an hour trying to download all of these different things. Minecraft ended up not working and so I ended up watching Mikah "struggle". Mikah spend about a good 30 minutes trying to get wood as suggested in the youtube videos. We could not figure out how to get the wood until our friend Ashley came in and called her brother. Later that night, he called and told us exactly how to get wood. Rather than clicking over and over we realized we could just hold the clicker of the mouse down (duh?). Are we too old and out of touch? I felt that I was so lost in technology that I could not even get Minecraft to work on my computer. It's safe to say that Mikah and I have not played it since... If we incorporated this into the classroom, there would have to be a demo and the glitches on certain computer types would have to be figured out! 

In this week's reading, I was particularly interested in James Taylor's account in Doing Life. In his interview, Taylor expresses his desire for the Parole bill to be passed, which would allow people (presumably lifers) to be judged on a case-by-case basis for release. Taylor says that the bill would "do much to raise the hope level, the desire for betterment, reaching for the future with some hope." While I agree that such a program would encourage inmates to be on their best behavior, I can't help but think that so many of the interviewees attributed the turnarounds they've made to the fact that they were lifers. If that no longer the case, would these people who understood the need to be positive and active as a way to survive the inevitable fact that they would die in prison, still have the same mindset. So then, might such a bill encourage "good behavior" just to get to the light at the end of the tunnel, rather than encouraging true self-growth and betterment? Because Zehr's book revolves solely around lifers, I'm just honestly not sure if these significant turnarounds have been noted in non-lifers. As one of the interviewees said, it's hard to fake remorse. I feel like a program like this may encourage those who really haven't made strides to attempt to fake progress. I do, despite all that I've argued, believe that some people really do change and deserve to be recognized for that. I just have a hard time understanding the possible repercussions of such action. 

What?

I saw a lot of personal technology that would definitely not have been allowed in my high school.  There were some students with earbuds wrapped around their ears or sitting around the necks.  There were also cell phones that would appear and then disappear whenever Ms. E came around.

So What?

I’ve always wondered how important these tech-restricting rules were in school.  It seems to me like the students are still motivated and get their work done anyway.  Is it a matter of trust?  Can a teacher trust high schoolers to manage their own distractions and do what they need to do, or will it become the teacher’s problem to compete?  Personally, I’m all about trusting students.  When they’re out of school, they’ll need the skills to navigate life likely surrounded with technology, and hopefully they can navigate it in a productive way.

Now What?

I am very curious to find out about the school’s policy on personal technology and the reasoning behind it.  I already see that this school is very intentional in the way it is run, and Ms. E is very intentional about how she conducts her classroom.  I intend to also inquire about how the theory of their technology limits or non-limits matches up with the reality in the classroom.

Everyone also has a SECOND POSTING DUE for the whole 360 early next week. Please review the postings everyone did, on returning from fall break, describing the sort of activism that interests you--and then BY TUESDAY @ 5 PLEASE POST AS A COMMENT HERE a description of your current thinking about our final projects for this class.

How have your own thoughts about your project evolved? Do you see your project as standing alone, or as allied w/ others? What independent actions, and what clusters of activism, can you now see emerging among our proposals?

We will meet for pizza from 6-7:30 on Wed, Nov. 7th, in the English House Lecture Hall, to discuss and organize further. Before coming to supper, please also read the second round of comments posted here, and arrive ready to share your thoughts towards next steps.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy it was a feeling of difference that struck me at my site, rather than remarkable visual changes. I was recently reading Derrida's thoghts on the difference that a letter (specifically "a" between difference and différance) can make; that was my inspiration for this account of my morning...

Autumnal

Bare

Calm

Dull

Envision

Frigid

Golden

Hues

Invigorating

Jagged

Knotty

Luminous

Macabre

Nature

Overcast

Pieces

Quiet

Recovery

Soft

Tumultuous

Undone

Voracious

Waking

Xenogenous

Yearly

Zonated

I was really struck while reading Doing Life this week, especially Tyrone Werts' assertion that the criminal justice system is something akin to slavery--we can oppose certain elements of it, like the death penalty, as cruel and unusual punishment, but we are complicit in allowing the whole, flawed system to continue. I have always considered myself very against the death penalty, since I think it is entirely inhumane and torturous, as well as hypocritical. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, and so on. I'd always just figured that the better alternative was to keep someone imprisoned for a life sentence, where they wouldn't be able to get out and commit another heinous crime, but where they would have a chance to continue their lives and better themselves. Tyrone Werts complicates this for me. Is it really ever okay to lock someone up and throw away the key for the rest of their life? I am still fully against the death penalty, and hope to work to see it repealed in all states across the US, but maybe more attention should also be paid to an anti-life sentence movement--as we have seen, it is an incredibly damaging and often unfair practice, almost as much so as the death penalty is. 

My older sister pointed me to this. It is relevant to our readings/discussion from today.  

to read

to listen