Cullasaja Capers

Chapter 13. Selected Issues in Educational Computing

2006-12-12T18:16:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-10T09:04:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-10T08:42:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-10T07:38:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-04T17:20:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-21T19:59:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-16T20:00:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-15T21:05:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-03T09:21:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-03T08:44:00.000-08:00

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.)

An Interest in Weather Prompts a Trip to Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory

2006-10-24T17:15:00.000-07:00

The Fifth Grade has been studying weather for six weeks. Two facets that have been of interest are cloud formations and weather instruments. One of the international centers for hydrologic research is located near Franklin. The class took a field trip there last Friday. Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory, US Forest Service, has been keeping weather records and conducting experiments about the effects of water on the forest since 1934. Because of their continually maintained data, scientists come from around the country and even from foreign countries to develop their theses and dissertations at Coweeta. One of the scientists, Randy Fowler, showed the students a power point presentation about the research at the Station and then conducted a long hike to see two weirs used to record data about the runoff from the watersheds. The students also saw the Farm Experiment, now reforested. It was there that early scientists proved that mountain farming in vertical patterns created erosion and damaged the riparian areas around streams, not only at the site itself but further down the stream as well.

Chapter 6. Comprehensive Composition

2006-10-24T16:48:00.000-07:00

Students have been able to use the Internet as a resource for many years. Now they can also create websites of interest to students in many locations. Because website browsers are such a diverse group, it is more important than ever that boys and girls use correct grammar and syntax in their presentations. They will want to put clear and interesting video and pictures on their sites. To do this, students must put great care into their productions using timing, automation and theatrics to illustrate the material that they are presenting.

Digital convergence requires a common standard. It allows the composition, calculations and communication to be merged or synthesized into higher level forms and designs. Sites using virtual reality, electronic sensors, remote control and computer programming are already found.

The first basic construction is video composition. It is built on desktop publishing. Webpage publishing goes far beyond just the still image. It has been used since 1994 and is therefore quite new. Sometimes we use the expression"multimedia" to stand for this more sophisicated type of computer presentation. Boards of Education across the country are encouraging students to broaden their use of computer technology. It is very likely that the district that employs new teachers will require them to help their students integrate these skills into their basic computer use.

Learning how to put a video onto a website will take some planning, reading and improved writing so that the small presentation will flow along with the composition the student will include. This merger of video and text documents in the same display is totally unprecedented. It attracts and holds attention and helps the person watching retain the content much better. A new teacher may be the one to bring the technical expertise into a school and lead her class in more creative directions with their Computer Technology grade requirements. A teacher who can show both her class and other teachers how to expand their techniques holds a respected position in the school. The older analog equipment may be retired when she gets a grant for new digital equipment. These will produce better and faster videos and help the students achieve more professional results in their computer lab efforts.

4. Thinking and Spreadsheets

2006-09-26T17:48:00.000-07:00

This chapter highlights the dynamic nature of mathematical knowledge over time. Spreadsheets are able to illustrate concrete mathematics for younger students (pets, hair and eye color, favorite ice cream, etc.) into the more advanced abstract form (number) on the same chart. Spreadsheets provide a dimensional perspective of numerical thinking.

Reminding the reader that Euclid described geometry in the fourth century and Gallileo in the Middle Ages invented the telescope, proving the the Earth rotates around the Sun, the author displays many photographs of the famous astronomer and some of the concepts he saw. Whole new mathematical preception and disciplines emerged.

Also illustrated was the Mandelbrot Set of photographed fractals. Fractals are nonsymetrical, geometric shapes. Recently they were difficult to measure because of their uneven sides, but now scientists can. A modern mathematician, Cythia Lanius of the National Order for
Educational Statistics for Kids, wrote the article about fractals. Non-linear mathematics is an example of a new discipline. Many of these studies could not be represented until the discoverors became digitally literate. In the future, software that converts numerical data to 2D and 3D may be available.

As teachers, we can point out to students that mathematics is important, powerful, growing and exciting. It provides another language of expression. We should also make every effort to show them. And if it is not in our personal expertise, we should find local sources to visit. There is, for example, an observatory in Otto from which beautiful colored photographs from space have been taken. Examples of these photographs can be seen at Three Eagles Outfitters in Franklin. The outdoor center also sells professional telescopes and equipment.

2006-09-26T17:33:00.000-07:00

"Making Rain" for the Supervisor

2006-09-26T17:21:00.000-07:00

My Internship Supervisor Louise Burrell came to our Fifth Grade on September 25th to observe my fifth science lesson. I emphasized Evaporation, Condensation, and Precipitation; but these were long words. It was much easier to illustrate the concept with an experiment. I placed a hot pot, filled with water, on a noisy cookie sheet. When the steam began to come out of the spout, I held a large flat saucepan with about an inch of water and many ice cubes over the steam. The students were asked to watch the bottom of the pan for the "rain" to fall. Glop! Glop! Glop! It did!

3B. Collaboration Requires Cooperation

2006-09-26T16:59:00.001-07:00

Collaboration requires cooperation from participants who have agreed to work together. From varied positions on the subject, a single focus for the essay must be reached. Although there is room for chapters, illuminating research and results gleaned from each of the authors, most papers find support and interest if their contents move in one direction.
This sounds like it would be easy, but it is more difficult than a reader would think. Most writers think that their contribution should be highlighted. It takes some time to develop consensus and find the proper place in the paper for each contribution.
Politness has always been useful in successful collaboration. When the group meet in person, they discuss and they argue. Sometimes the conversation can get heated! Now that many conferences are held over the phone or on the web, conversations was recorded. It is more important than ever to think before you write or speak to your collaborators.
Using Internet sources of information helps cooperating writers reach consensus and create segues more quickly because all have access to the same engines.

3B. Collaboration Requires Cooperation

2006-09-26T16:59:00.000-07:00

"Rabbits" is a Wikipedia" Example

2006-09-13T19:25:00.000-07:00

3A. Writing and Word Processing and Thinking

Word processors are powerful assistants. Computer networks and the World Wide Web have provided ways to practice the art of writing. Traditional writing has been changing, moving from paper to computer-based processing. This also transforms the nature of teaching. Windows XP and Macs now come with tools to write for this new medium more effectively. It changes from writing to movie with ease.

Links are very important. They can be made between documents on Microsoft Word. They can be scattered on hard drives on the Internet and attached around the world. Groups can even do collective writing and conferencing.

They can edit a “wiki” on “wikipedia,” for example for anyone to read. I looked for a site on rabbits. I have been raising purebred rabbits for twenty-five years and showing them regionally. I am currently the rabbit judge at the Macon County fair where we have supervised the Rabbit Department since 1976. As I have for many years, tomorrow night, I will judge the rabbit competition. I thought maybe I could add a section on wire cage construction if there wasn’t anything on “wikipedia” about this. There was not. The site however wanted personal information and that discouraged me. I read the material that was on the site including the edits. Some were accurate, and all interesting.

Using an Anenometer

2006-09-11T17:39:00.000-07:00

Today fifth grade used a homebuilt anemometer to further examine weather instruments. It was made of scrap lumber with a revolving windvane made from paper cups. All the cups faced the same way. The harder pairs of student blew into them, the faster the anemometer spun. The boys were slightly better"blowhards" than the girls. Then we took it outside to the breezy playground for a second set of observations. Experiments are fun!

Editor Passes the PRAXIS!!

2006-09-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

Your editor received news from the ETS Saturday that she has passed the PRAXIS exam. If she passes her four classes this semester, she will be certified in both B-K and Elementary Education. Yeay!

Web Use by Educators GROWS!

2006-09-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2B. Introduction to Web Processing.

In a recent survey, Michigan State University reports that children who use the Internet perform better than those who are less “web savvy.” Children should have the writing tools of the future: word processors, online networks, and computer software.

Quick pathways between different sources of data, stored in public places on the Internet are created by linking text files. Linking between peoples is an ancient form of building community and distinguishing one set of human beings from another. The brain is the original linking device. When the brain’s links fail, conditions like Parkinson’s Disease may develop. This chapter illustrates many different neurochip paths. I looked at several. Schools can develop a more realistic connection between real world problems, real world composition and classroom composition by using the Web.

The chapter illustrates the Webpage of a school in Thailand. These children in the fourth and sixth grades have mapped points of interest in Samut Prokan. They have a weekly poll that starts each Monday. They write funny stories and cartoons on their Google site. I liked the Thai alphabet, although of course I could not tell one letter. (When Thais immigrate to the United States, they learn English. Our cartons and instructional signs are not printed in Thai, as we have now done for some groups arriving. - Editor) I also appreciated the Boy Scout photo, (The International Jamboree was held two years ago there.), and the picture of the Thai boy drawing with the beautiful set of pastels.

“WebQuest” is a service used by educators. It features scavenger hunts for ideas and facts. Students can create scavenger hunts too.

A new age of information sourcing occurred several thousands of years ago when people learned to read and write. They used stone tablets. For the first time, oral thoughts could be preserved. People had the same difficulty then, obtaining the tools and setting up paths of communication, as our parents did utilizing radio and TV, and as we do now with all the opportunities available on line. The confusion of getting the communication going in the short term is vastly offset by the advantages of broader information sourcing.

The ability to publish on the Web from elementary, middle and high schools will enhance their school and classroom leadership capabilities. Communities will feel that the schools have more sophisticated and universal interest in national policies and that the professionals in school systems deserve even greater admiration, respect (and remuneration) than they are awarded now.

Students make a barometer that works!

2006-09-06T17:05:00.000-07:00

During the period of low pressure last week, the barometric pressure in a homemade barometer I brought to class dropped steadily. Today, three teams of the 5th grade class made the barometer themselves. With the sunny weather, the yellow water in the barometer rose very quickly and proved the experiment with ease. One of the students will build an anamometer and bring it Monday. Tomorrow the lesson will be on clouds.

Multimedia Changes Communication Dramatically

2006-09-06T16:47:00.000-07:00

Chapter 2. Media Integration

Live Internet video is more realistic than video animation. If the computer student looks at some links of digital transportation of the New York Thruway, the New York City Department of Transportation and the Dallas High Five Interchange Project, it is easy to see that the resolution is better. (I enjoyed the Thruway clip. I drove between Buffalo and Syracuse University on the Thruway for many years as a college student.)

Internet video seems to help the student grasp social studies and science lessons depicted in these three links. It stimulates different kinds of thinking. This helps students’ and the teacher’s ability to integrate the barrage of new information over the web.

An example of this is the “Flack” program that can mix live and archival media and “text pushers.” Media Integration has power for communication and brings personal or corporate power to those who know how to use it. Some of the popular types are slide shows and slow frame rate video, GIF and 2-D animation and Flash/Shockwave animation in both linear and non-linear designs.

Linearity is the most common to people using the computer. It illustrates ideas in a familiar way, following a sequential order. Animation lends itself easily to the linear style, as does Power Point and GIF.

Multimedia progresses to Uni-Media and then to Unimedia. These advances illustrate how composition leads on to comprehension. It can be adapted to cell phones, handhelds, desktops and web servers. Multimedia will change communication as dramatically as the development of the written word did in the past.

Chapter I: Reflections about Cyber Learning

2006-09-05T12:14:00.000-07:00

Chapter 1: My Reflections about Cyber Learning

“Effective writing: Contemplation or observation of calm intent, a careful
Consideration that goes beyond recall.” Not a summary!

Learning how to create a blog, edit it and add to it, has been very interesting. The layout and composition is “old hat” to me, as I have been writing for newspapers for many years. I had never looked at a blogsite and knew nothing about them, except to observe replies using blogs on CNN!
Although I bought a “Professional Office” for my computer, there are still things that the machines do at the Computer Center that my system will not do.
Here are a few things from Chapter one that I noted:
The chapter talks about conceptual focus versus technical focus. It introduced the student to “computer speak (OS)” using learning and teaching, grammar and syntax, hardware and software and discussed the different needs in the class room. It discussed an “Active Board.” My classroom at Cullasaja School has an Active Board, and it holds the students’ attention. The teacher has used it to teach the states of the United States and to do Roman Numerals and mathematics. She uses a pen like a “mouse.” When I did my first lesson on “Hurricanes” last week, she scanned a graphic of a hurricane, used the Active Board and I was able to show how the air currents and the winds move to create hurricanes.
The chapter introduces new sites, such as CROP (Communities Resolving Problems) and KAAMS (Kids as Airborne Mission Specialists). I had never heard of these activities that elementary school children are able to access and interact with other schools. I am sure that this is very sensible to them, but it was a new level of learning to me. The most important lesson that I learned is that people are expanding computer use rapidly, and teachers need to keep up. Many of the services are a big improvement over traditional techniques, children learn better, and teachers from different areas can plug into peers’ teaching activities and exchange ideas.

School Has a New Principal

2006-09-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

Scott Maislin, former Assistant Principal at Franklin High School, is replacing Gary Brown. Mr. Brown has been selected as Principal for the new College High School. Mr. Maislin has taught many different subjects including second grade, reading, and middle grades. He loves sports. He is a certified Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Referee and works some of their football games!

CULLASAJA CAPERS

2006-09-02T08:37:00.000-07:00

Insight into activities at a small elementary school on the banks of the Cullasaja River. Faculty at this school is highly certified and interactive. Student body numbers 107 youth from rural homes. Grades K-5 exhibit high ability in creative arts and problem solving derived from their Appalachian heritage. This small area drew national attention as the location of the Peaks' Creek Landslide that killed five people.

Editor of Cullasaja Capers is a certified kindergarten teacher, completing her final semester in Elementart Education at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee NC. She is interning in 5th Grade.