Weekly blog from Octber 8th (late)

The most significant thing I learned this week was, through Robin's crash course, how to use Fathom.
Fathom raised two questions for me. First as a future teacher what can Fathom bring to the classroom. Second as a current undergraduate physics student, what can Fathom bring to my experience in Physics.
Fathom clearly offers a synthesis between symbolic representation of data and visual representation of data, and this synthesis seems to offer far more than the parts. We have always had tables and equations, and graphs. It is Fathom's ability to show the connections between both with such flexibility that is so powerful as a classroom tool.
More to the point was the question of whether Fathom could help me in my Physics Class. I got on a computer in the computer lab and Fathom's help includes some quick time video's on basic Fathom use (bring your ear buds(with a long chord)). These were great and had me beyond Robin's tour and building a graph for a lab I was working on. So In relatively short time I had a much better graph than I had been able to make in Excel. Then things stalled out. I was trying to label accuracy on my axes and I was not allowed to use non alpha-numeric characters (+/-).
I could not figure out how to add the and lines and arrows. The biggest problem of course was that my graph was only an image in my Word document that I submitted, there was no interactivity with charts since NSCC does not have Fathom. I think with time I could address these problems, but It must be included with any calculus of the effectiveness of technology: how long does it take to gain proficiency?
With Fathom I think you could set up a template with less that 20 instructions that could have done all I wanted to do. I think that falls on the teacher to do. I think it would be a great way to make graphs for science classes and to illustrate the synthesis I spoke of earlier I think it would be a great classroom tool.

Encounters with technology day 6

In my family there was always an aunt who was the central information keeper for the family. If you wanted to know what the latest family news was or what the history was on any cousin aunt or uncle she would know. With her death and the loss of the original family home she lived in the family became more difficult to stay in touch with, or at least stay up to date with. When the internet came along it heralded great promise to get the family back together, at least to stay in touchwith. But soon the banality of the web took over and with email and web pages the only real ways we could interact with the web the promise waned. When one cousin starts discovering conspiracy theories and sending out email warnings you tend to ignore all the emails that cousin sends, eventually when you change email you don't tell that cousin.
Web 2.0 is changing that, slowly, which is good because we are able to acclimate to it. Now I am friends with many cousins on Face book and I can check out their pages on my schedule. If they are ranting about some conspiracy theory they are not ranting to me, I am just a spectator, as I was at my aunt's house as she might have related their latest theories. I can laugh about it and move on but I am in touch as much as I was through my aunt.
This really hit home when by accident I searched my name on videos on Google. I came up with hits for two of my cousins who had video's on You Tube. Suddenly I was not only hearing about them from my aunt, I was watching their home videos and in one case their animation shorts from their art classes. I caught up with them over a few days of screen time.
The metaphor of web 2.0 as my aunt rings true for me and it really took writing this blog to make me see it.

Encounters with technology day 5

My grandfather had traveled in Europe in 1912 and kept a journal. Many years ago I had transcribed it in simple text and it sat. Now I am actually laying out the route he took on the continent and inserting parts of the journal as text at the appropriate locations: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=112894907586536329163.00046dd0d33388ec4c76f&t=h&z=7.

It is kind of like he is blogging, some new bits and pieces appear on the web as I find the time. I really like that I able to get the journal out there. Only a handful of his many descendants have seen the original. The original is nice, but it is written in a loopy cursive which is a hard read. The reading is much easier on the computer. The really cool part is how it opens the journal up. OK here is where I trumpet the power of technology. I read the journal as text but it is really much more enlightening to read about his train going through a valley and switching to satellite photos to see the topography. Then he visits a castle, I can search for images of it on the web and see what it looks like, and this is actually harder for others rather than me just embedding the images into my map.
We have a little plan forming which is retracing the trip in 2012 on its centennial. I am not sure the journal alone would engage my boys but the Google Maps form of the journal just may. More later.

Encounters with technology day 4

The big theme I have been hesitant to tackle concerns cultural attitudes toward technology.
I am not a big user of text messages. I have an old cell phone, and I get charged by message on my plan. The charge miffs me since it takes so many less network resources to send a simple text then to carry even a short phone conversation. I do use and insist on text for certain situations. If I need and address or phone number or a simple list of information I want a text if possible since I effectively get a hard copy on my phone. I also send texts if my information is the same kind of stuff. I request (by voice) the initiation of any texting.
Tonight I got a text from a phone number I (and my address book) do not recognise. My name was misspelled, and there was no from line or any indication of who it was from. Clues told me the message pertained to one of three houses that I offer warranty services on. I have never used texting to communicate with the three clients who might be associated with the houses. The text effectively scheduled me to come out to the house (whichever one it was) after 2:30 tomorrow. I was a little annoyed at it all. I had a little rant to Kathy about "who texts when their house is doing...?" Kathy pointed out that some people text in situations where they can not talk (work, in and audience) . OK but when your boiler is "dumping" water on your garage floor don't you find a place to make the phone call? I think phone calls like that are tolerated at work.
This is turning into a rant.
I think that when we use technology a lot we can forget that for those that don't, what we see as a reasonable way of using the technology can be confusing to others. If you have a qwerty keyboard you might underestimate how quickly and easily one can reply to a text with a simple cellphone. If you text with folks a lot they have your phone number and thus do know who you are, you don't need to sign your messages. The funny thing is most people still introduce themselves if there is any doubt when calling someone.
So let's imagine Harry in 1920, he gets a new phone and he starts calling friends on it. Now Harry is used to just starting in on conversations because Harry is used to face to face conversations. Now he has to be told that on the phone he has to introduce himself, even to people who know him well. A learning curve for Harry.
With all the technology today there seem to be varying learning curves. I think I am on the receiving of one, but perhaps I need to master my own. It can be hard to tell.

Encounters with technology day 3

I am not an early adopter, out of financial necessity. I was trying to imagine what I might adopt if time and money were not an issue. When I really think about it I really covet ecological technology. The idea of getting our house off the grid: solar, wind, energy efficient, that would be cool. I sat on the computer today, a real grind, every so often I looked out the windows and thought I should build some storm windows this year. I guess that could be my energy efficient technology.

Encounters with technology day 2

I am still trying to work out the three separate systems that each of my three separate classes uses, Catalyst Web Tools, PB works, and Angel Learning (at North Seattle Community College). I hope that I continue to use them because there is a certain learning curve associated with each one. I wonder how the natives deal with such different systems. The low tech past had a much simpler set of skills needed to navigate academics (allowing me to make some very big assumptions about literacy and language) they were reading and writing. I am still not spending all my time doing assignments, I am getting fluent with each system and it distracts a little from the core subject I would rather be focusing on. Not to complain, perhaps this is the empathy I need for students. My Physics instructor assures me her learning curve is much steeper than that of the students not by virtue of her experience but simply because she is the teacher who has to set a lot of it up.

Encounters with technology day 1

I have been working all week on a small remodel, opening up a closet for the installation of a closet system and media center. I take for granted all the modern tools that all carpenters use. There are the saws that can shave off fractions of an inch off a board, all the air collection additions that allow you to do work in a furnished room with almost not dust, but the tool I certainly could not work without in remodeling is the nail gun. This is funny to me because in class there were a lot of metaphors involving hammers, better hammers etc. The nail gun is the ultimate better hammer its greatest and most important quality being that is can sink a 16p nail into wood with basically no vibration, impossible with a normal hammer and nail. So nearby plaster does not crack, cups do not fall off shelves upstairs. It is really remarkable. There is a price of course, cost of the equipment, complexity of the equipment, and safety. I have twice been injured by my use of a nail gun. I am going to think about what the cost are of technology as the week progresses

48 hours on Twitter

I certainly learned about Twitter and I learned a little about the other members of the cohort.
My experience with Twitter took a turn I was not expecting. I signed up my seven year old son and sent out an email to his closest relatives. Currently my 75 year old mother is on Twitter following my son (only 2% of Twitter users are over 65), they are separated by 3000 miles and do not see much of each other. So we have a soon-to-be-native, and an immigrant who is sort of still in the old world. The thing that made this happen is that from both of their points of view Twitter is pretty easy to use by both independently. They have both exchanged news about themselves which was slightly banal but does reflect their day to day life.
I got to interact with my son learning to use Twitter and this was huge for me. He learned about the shift key which was prompted by the spell checker always saying he was misspelling proper names by not capitalizing them (so he learned that the first letter of proper names are capitalized). The spell checker allowed him to work his way through all but his worst misspellings without my constantly calling out spellings. The spell checker was fascinating to him, looking at the choices and getting to choose the right one because he recognized it spelled correctly. It was all fascinating for him but but not for long, he quickly absorbed the lessons he learned and used them to move into new territory.

My kids are not exposed to a lot of media. They don't watch much TV, they play a video game called Crayon Physics which requires them to draw pictures that obey all the laws of motion in order to move a ball, but no wii. We don't impose this on them (well obviously we do) but it just seems that is the way we have all evolved as a family. Don't worry they play hard. Twitter seems a great start to his "nativness": it is teaching all the lessons I want, communication, writing and spelling skills, and basic computer fluency. Are there any computer naysayers who think this is a corrupting influence?
So Twitter: cognitively appropriate for 7 and 75 year olds and gateway app for young natives?

Weekly blog from Ocober 6th

What was the most significant thing you learned in class this week?
The main point that was sent home to me this week was that while technology and the web offer promise of efficiencies and productiveness there is a steep set up curve. I have now been in classes for four school days and it has all been about getting used to new systems. It isn't that all my time is spent on the systems themselves, there has been some content absorbed, but a certain lack of fluency in navigating the systems has made my class and home work a little more hectic.

It is not just that I am an technology immigrant. It turns out that I'm the only student in Physics taking notes on a laptop, and there was student grumbling about the class not being listed as a distance learning class (it isn't). Lots of the younger (native) students were having trouble making sense of the class interface and the separate homework interface. I already am becoming more fluent and my self consciousness of being an immigrant has made me hustle to stay ahead.

Robin's goal of a paperless class is great but not having that several paper syllabus that gets handed out the first day took a little adjustment.I think I am finally getting a grip on all the online components of the Technology class.


What questions do you have and what do you want to learn more about?

I really would like to start to understand how we can critically evaluate technologies and teaching methods. This is what I would like to delve into in this degree. I think that first I have to settle on what we are trying to accomplish in education and when I have a clear sense of that I want to learn how best to address accomplishing this. If Twitter is a great teaching tool I really first need to articulate what teaching is before I can address whether Twitter is an effective tool.

What applications do you see to classroom practice based on what you learned?

With my limited sense of education and pedagogy the single strand that seemed to unite this last week was a germinating sense of community. In every case of the technology curve it was clear there were others on my path and all signs point toward these technologies showing me a little more about the people and subjects in the classes than I would traditionally see. This is no critical evaluation but I sense that this new expanded view can help the classroom.