Chapter 13. Selected Issues in Educational Computing

Our Computer class at Western is about to take a final with a heavily-weighed essay question at the end. We will state a position about the increasing value of technology, debate the pros and cons of the issue, and then give the reasons for the position we support. To help us prepare for this assignment, our professor gave us a few of the controversial issues that beset technology and education today.
A few of the issues that caught my attention were: "Funding for Technology," "Does the AUP impose an unacceptable level of censorship on teaching and learning?," "Internet Regulation," and "Diversity."
It is important to use the general knowledge that we already have on these subjects to do some investigation on the extra sources that are available and try to develop positive and negative points to support each side of the argument. We should organize the facts that we discover and develop some theories, based on what we originally knew and what we have learned from our search. We will want to look at them from a variety of perspectives. We will probably do some predicting about the outcomes that can ensue from pursuing each program over the short-term and over the long-term. After we have done that, we will want to evaluate the main points to see if we can support them completely, partially or not at all. We may wish to come to our summations independently, or we may wish to ask the criticism of one or more other people with an interest in these subjects. Then we will be ready to make a statement about a technological topic and defend it with a number of strong, credible points.
On the "Funding" topic, I too am interested in how new teachers can persuade an established administration with a tight budget to invest in more technology. "Censorship" is a hot issue between arguments for First Amendment Rights and Safety for Children using Computers. And whether the Internet is doing all it can to promote and integrate "Diversity" to its huge audience.
At least, by doing some research and coming up with points about technology that can be promoted, the new teacher can present a more educated face to his or her students, peers and superiors.

Merry Christmas from Venerable Scouts in Franklin

Mike Swift has been in Girl Scouting for 50 years and is Curved Bar. She has been awarded the Thanks Badge, highest National Award, and the Award of Merit for Excellence in Scouting from Western Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church.She has led 8 troops, been to three national events, administered the district, is a nationally known Outdoor Trainer and a past member of the Board of Directors of Pisgah Girl Scout Council.
Dr. Lloyd Swift is an Eagle Scout, has been a leader, District Award of Merit and Silver Beaver recepient. He is a Director of the Outward Bound School. He is PhD director of Commissioners College for the five council area and a member of the 1910 Silver Bay Venture Crew that has put on the Silver Bay Display at Jamboree three times. He has been a member for 42 years.
They have four adult children: three Eagle Scouts and a Gold Award Scout. Two are currently adult leaders.

"Publishing" Their Animal Stories from Writers' Workshop

Intern Eleanor Swift received 98/100 points on her Internship Portfolio, based on the idea, lessons plans, organization and development of this unit.

The Fifth Grade poses on the playground steps with their completed books. Each student made their own cover, and the title page inside, on the computer. They also printed out research on the animal they met in their stories.

Chapter 12 and 13. The Four Ages of Educational Computing

Technology for thinking appears early in human history. Literacy is using our tool collection for thinking. History had another meaning for the word "compute," from which our current word "computer" comes. It implies "computation from information sequencing."
The first age deals with spatial knowledge of movement, handedness and tool making. The second is language and speech. The third is reading and writing, and the fourth is computer technology.
Ninety thousand years ago, early humans developed stone tools. Early techniques might have required over 250 different steps. Building required expression and gesture and probably developed into elementary speech patterns. These utterances possibly helped preserve directions for making the early tools.
People were the first computers, and non-oral language and hand-tools from the axe to the abacus emerged as the "first generation" of technology. Today this spatial area of intellectual capacity is refined under the categoies of geographic information systems (GIS).
People would not have been able to migrate from one land mass to another after the Ice Age without some comprehension for geographic space. To thrive, the species needed to constantly make mental maps of resources such as shelter and food. Today, NASA engineers are using the same concepts with very specialized instruments to investigate space exploration.
Anthropology indicates that, about fifty thousanad years ago, speech patterns developed. This led to significant development in art, music and religious expression. Certain gene mutations are also considered responsible for the changes in the human skull conformation at that time. Today, these mutations may be responsible for autism and other medical conditions in which people have difficulty talking and remembering.
The third stage is writing. At first mathematical notation was recorded on stone and wood. Between twelve thousand and seven hundred, storing of information was moved to scrolls and books. Eventually they used Arabic numerals for numbers and alphabets for letters. Three to eight percent of the world's population has trouble with reading disorders, like dyslexia, to this day. Writing was considered so basic to a nation's power that invaders often burned libraries to weaken the conquered country.
In the 1940's, the meaning of "computer" shifted from person to machine. The three prior stages of thinking technology are all critical steps to the creation of computer technoloogies. These increasingly influence major elements of the economy, the military the environment and medicine.

AG Students selected

I learned this morning that three students from our fifth grade passed the AG exam and are now included in the gifted group. We knew it all the time, guys! Congratulations.

Chapter 7. Using Databases Effectively

Finding information from databases can assist a teacher in doing better research, not only for finding broader information with which to teach but also for giving more depth to his or her own professional portfolio. This route is endorsed by the National Educational Technology Standards for Students. Using the CROP formula of Problem Finding, Problem Framing and and Problem Solving is one way to get started. This is exemplified in the pyramid CROP uses with steps SUP: Finding Process, Think: Shaping the Process and LEAP: Solving Process, one of the questions on our mid-term.
The tutorial highly recommended using the "Follett Software" system in our school libraries. This has three steps: visual, basic text search and power search.
I found some much needed information from the ERIC Search (Education Resources Information Center) about writing by children for my unit lessons "A Rat in Writing Workshop." From the regular search engines on the Internet, I found practically nothing. But on ERIC, I found twenty articles that were just what I had been looking for. I printed them off and will include them in my Internship portfolio.
I wish that I had had more time to look at the Social Studies database because Social Studies is my favorite subject (but it is Thanksgiving Weekend and, in addition to three portfolios and regular assignments, I also will be the hostess at a large family feast).

Science Projects Bring Interest in Weather

The class has just completed a long unit on weather, weather documentation and learning about weather instrumentation. Every student wrote a Power Point presentation about a certain weather phenomenon that interested them and supported it with a poster or exhibit.
Volcanoes, hurricanes, floods and snowstorms were popular topics. These exhibits can be seen along the corridor near the entrance to Cullasaja School. Janelle Watson is the teacher.

Chapter 11. Following the Rules for Using the Computer

Schools use a great deal of care when students learn to use the computer. They have to keep the students safe while helping them to benefit from the wonderful access media provides. Teachers especially have understand the broad issues.
Students should be aware, when they are investigating sites approved by the school, that certain material can be used for school projects without permission. It is "public domain." Other material is copywrited but it can be used with permission if its for educational use. The majority however is personally owned and it is against the law to copy it and especially to sell it.
State Departments of Public Education have AUP policies to keep records preserved in computers untampered with and not erased.
If an operator directs his message to children, asks children to participate or asks them for information, he must comply with the Children's Online Privacy Act (COPPA). It states that the operator's requests must be clear and understandable, and that no child under 13 can agree to any contract without their parents' permission. The operator is not allowed to change the offer without making that clear.
At Cullasaja School, there is a poster on the door of the Computer Room, stating that if a student finds anything suspicious or unethical on a computer, they should tell a teacher right away. Such concern must be tolerated in the name of free speech.

Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized:

In the first, it is ridiculed.

In the second, it is opposed.

And in the third, it is regarded as self-evident."

-Arthur Schopenhauer

Fifth Grade Tries Their Hand at Creative Writing

Our class is deep in the writing process. Students are using lessons, taught by both their teacher, Mrs. Watson, and their pre-service teacher, Mrs. Swift, to write essays about varied weather subjects . Violent weather patterns, such as tornadoes, hurrcanes, volcanic eruptions and mudslides are popular. Other students are writing about snow, rain and wind. Using the Internet, the students are incorporating a variety of graphics and photographs discovered there to illustrate the printed text. Several students chose the nationally reported Peak's Creek disaster that happened only a mile or two from their own homes as their subject.

Mrs. Swift is also teaching a five lession unit using "Writing Workshop." The students are composing and handwriting a fanciful book about a chosen animal who reads and writes and who meets the writer through a "Personals Ad" in the newspaper. This leads to an adventure the fifth grader creates. The student also uses computer graphics and illustrations . We see a Trout who begs a boy to help the fish look for new sources of food in a stream bed, and a girl who nurses the baby of a gorilla in the mountains of Africa back to health.

Chapter 5a. The Image in Reading

People wanting to learn about world affairs, politics, cooking and shopping, for example, used to find all their information from books and later from newspapers. Publishers discovered that pictures helped the sales of both books and newspapers, particularly exciting and colorful pictures. Newspapers began to put a colored photograph on the front page every day, starting a few years ago. Now there are colored pictures in the sports section as well.

As television moved from black and white to color, it attracted more interest too. Now we have images in color, live, from across the world with just a few seconds of delay. Movies as well, have learned to attract a bigger audience if it shows topics such as "galaxies colliding" or "bombs exploding with bodies fly through the air." Viewers are having more difficulty imagining literature or events in their minds because they are spoiled by all the created and live images coming into their homes "all the time" (as a network uses for its expression).

Instead of bucking this trend, Education has been trying to help teachers use the design animators' abilities to make the classroom environment more exciting. Educators could be reactionary and say, "It is important to invent images in your mind. We will just use print and force students to use their imagination. Otherwise, they may loose the ability, the way cinematography is leading us." But they haven't. Students now receive training on computers from age five up. The games, learning exercises, and information are full of film action and animation. Teachers use a large animated or action board to write and erase electronically. It holds the class's attention as if they are robots. This is understandable because they have watched television from infancy and are programmed to look attentively at rapidly moving objects.

Much good has come from the technology sector, and some individuals have been exposed and learned about topics that they would have had no other opportunity to think about. However, I believe wholeheartedly that "spoon feeding" from this same sector has prevented children from inventing their own costumes and their own fantasies, to require entertainment produced by others, to write letters poorly, compose copy unimaginatively, and prefer electronic scripts of all kinds. It may have even led to a reduction in self-esteem. Only a few artists and writers can reach the heights of creativity that the average person is exposed to every single day. When I was a child, in elementary school, we all thought we had the gift.

Dr. Houghton expresses regret that his sons in college are not encouraged to use technology in their term papers. I think that college is a little late to demand that students write beautiful basic prose, but maybe it"s "better late than never!" (This is just an opinon.)