Digital Divide

The digital divide is the divide between people who have access to technology, like computers and the internet, and people who do not. As the article says, it also means the difference between people who know how to use this technology and those who don't. After all, even if someone has a computer, it's no good if they can't use it, or if they don't know how to use it to their own advantage. This divide is unfortunate because people without access to technology are often kept from information. Additionally, the article says that the digital divide is especially "prominent" in education, because some schools have lots of computers whereas others do not. Furthermore, the digital divide is somewhat gender-biased, with women having less access to technology than men. The digital divide also leads to discrimination of people with disabilities, since many technologies do not have accommodations for these people.

The second level of the digital divide is a newer divide. It refers to the divide between people who make stuff on the internet and people who use it. As the article says, with the internet, many people have been able to make their own content, like videos and blogs. However, many more people are not able to make this content, maybe because they don't know how. The article says that even though there is so much user-created content out on the internet, it is created by a small number of people. That is the second digital divide.

I think the idea of having more free wi-fi hotspots would help bridge the digital divide. That way, people could access the internet even if they can't afford to have it in their own home. The only problem with that is that they might not have a laptop, computer or smartphone to begin with.

Looking over my old lesson plans, I don't think I do very many of the things on the list, but I guess I do some. For example, I do to only use technology when it's helping learning, and not just use it for the sake of using it. I know that was one thing that always annoyed me in school - when we would use technology just to use it. For example, I had a teacher who was obsessed with powerpoint, and we would use it for literally everything. We were all experts in Powerpoint by the end of the year, but I don't think it helped us all that much. Also, I think if I were in the classroom, I would encourage minorities to use technology, like the list says.

I don't think I would add anything to this list. I think I would eliminate or change number 5 because it doesn't make that much sense. I agree with the part that says technology can't take the place of face-to-face communication, but I'm not sure about the part about "oppressive dialogue dynamics." I'm not sure how these two ideas are related.

FLVS, etc

1. I would let my child take a class from FLVS, but only for certain subjects, like ones that I didn't consider that important to their education, like PE or Health. I wouldn't want them to take important classes online because I don't think they would learn as much. I actually took a class from FLVS in high school. I took PE online, which is a pretty ridiculous concept. I had to do certain exercises and get my parents to sign off on it. Honestly, I didn't always do my exercises and my parents signed off on it anyway. I think it was okay that my parents did this because I was a pretty active kid (I was on the crew team at the time) and I didn't really need to learn about exercise. But I know from experience how easy it is to get through those online classes without actually learning anything, or by learning the bare minimum.

2. I would only let my child go full-time if they were very sick, so sick that they would have to be out of school for several months.

Students and copyright

I would teach my students the basics of copyright, like that, as the article says, a work is copyrighted as soon as it comes into existence. The owner doesn't need to apply for a copyright. I will explain to them why people need copyrights, like that, as the article says, they need an incentive to create something, which could be risky and might not pay-off. If people don't get paid from their work, they have no reason to do it. I would then tell them about fair use, which allows use for more academic things, like research and criticism.
I would just try to lay out all this information as clearly as possible, and in the most straightforward, "layman's" terms. I would also go over some examples. For instance, I could say to the class "What if I wanted to take this song and upload it to Youtube without paying the owner?" or "What if I wanted to write a critique of this song?" I would ask the students to come up with their own examples, too. Then, throughout the class, I would make sure the students were violating copyright laws in their projects, and if they did, I would go over the rules with them again.

Case Study Response

1) The girl who hurt Natalie should be punished, obviously. I don't think she should necessarily be kicked out of the school, if this is her first offense, but she should definitely receive more than a warning. She should have to pay for the damages. She should also have to preform community service or something like that. Maybe that would help her grow up a little. Someone should also tell her not to believe everything she reads on the internet.

2) Juicy Campus is not responsible for what happened, not in the slightest, unless whoever owns the website said "now go key this girl's car," which I'm pretty sure he did not. The owner can't be held responsible for his readers actions.

3) Social networking becomes cyber-bullying when one of the people in the online interaction no longer feels comfortable, or when they begin to feel unhappy, threatened, etc. It also become cyber-bullying if it continues after the uncomfortable person expresses his discomfort. If you continue to say something mean to someone after someone asks you to stop, that is definitely bullying, even if you don't intend to be mean.

4) Could Natalie's situation have been prevented? That's a good question. I think Natalie probably should have been more careful about what she posted on the internet. As my dad always says, posting something on the internet is like putting it on a billboard on the side of the highway. So if you're going to post something, first think about if you'd want it on the side of the highway.

NY times article

My initial reaction was "I can't believe they're spending so much on technology while cutting teachers." I was especially surprised at this since the article said they had just recently updated. Also, what they were doing didn't sound that important. It didn't seem like they were buying some helpful new device for learning, or even new computers. They were just putting in new wiring. But as I read on it started to make a little more sense. Like, they said they weren't allowed to use this money for operations kind of stuff, like hiring teachers. Actually, I don't think that rule makes much sense, but if that's the rule, then I guess they have to follow it. Also, I liked that they said they were trying to prepare students for the future.

What worried me most about this article was the idea that they are trying to move learning online. Combined with the facts about the amount of teacher jobs they're cutting, I started to wonder if they're planning on having children take online classes. That sounds like a bad idea to me. I personally hate online classes, and have a hard time keeping track of them, and I'm a semi-responsible adult.

If I were the superintendent in this case, I think I would try to change the rule about not using the money for "operations" stuff. I mean, I would use some of it for technology, but I would also use it for other stuff, like keeping teacher's jobs.

More Powerpoint stuff

1) One criticism the author had was that Powerpoint is not serious enough, not smart enough, for people to use in their businesses, or in serious presentations, like a work. As he says, "Powerpoint will no do for serious presentations..." To support this claim, he says that these presentations don't relay enough information. Instead of helping the presenter, People who use powerpoint get lazy and relay less information. Furthermore, he says that the bullets don't bring "intellectual discipline" to the presentation, but just help things look organized, without actually organizing them. I find this claim kind of ironic, since many professors use powerpoint in class, and class is a very serious and intellectual activity. I don't agree that people relay less information when they use powerpoints. I have seen lots of Professors provide information that is not on the slide. I do agree that powerpoints can seem kind of silly, but that often depends on how they are set-up. For example, they don't seem very serious when they have too much animation or color, but they can look serious if they are very uniform. Overall, I don't really agree with this arguement.

2) The author also says that Powerpoints are pushy. He says that, in these presentations, the speaker tries to dominate over the audience. The speaker tries to force the audience into his little bullet-point set up. He says that they are "aggressive" and "overmanaged." I think this arguement is just plain dumb. There's nothing remotely aggressive about Powerpoint. Yes, I suppose the audience does have to follow the speaker's line of thinking, but that is true of any presentation.

Week 4

This author discussed PowerPoint. Here are three of his main points, and what I think of them:

1) Power point slides contain too many graphics and charts, which often misconstrue or misrepresent information. Moreover, the charts sometimes over-simplify the information, or they simply do not present it in the best way possible. I'm not sure what to think of this claim, not being an expert in graphs. But it seems like a reasonable claim to make. It seems like people would want to simplify graphs for powerpoint, because if you put something up on the screen with eighty different lines going in different directions, it might give people headaches. And you don't want to give your audience a headache, so you might try to simply the chart. I suppose this isn't a bad thing as long as you don't lose information, but the author suggests you do, in which case that seems like a bad idea.

2) Because of the small size and low resolution of PowerPoint slides, People often shorten information in order to fit it on PowerPoint. They mold the information to fit the PowerPoint, instead of the other way around. The author cited the example of a slide from a statistics class, which said simply "Correlation does not equal causation." He said that this was way too simple an explanation, but typical of powerpoint, as it tends to, as he says, shorten everything, "turning everything into a slogan or a sales pitch. I completely agree with this point. I do think that powerpoint oversimplifies everything. In fact, when I first learned about making powerpoint, they told us to simplify everything, because, they said, you don't want to overload people with information. This may be a good intention, but overall it seems like a bad idea. If the purpose of powerpoint is to convey information, and you're not accurately doing that, then powerpoint isn't doing it's job. And I for one have seen many a powerpoint show that has over-simplified or over-shortened a concept or scentence for the sake of not over-loading the slide. The worst is when the powerpoint text is so simple that you can't make out what you're supposed to be learning. For example, I took a class in Anatomy, and the teacher would use slides. She often had slides that said, for example, "Vegas Nerve" and then "Splits into two, enervates the muscle." Okay, I thought when I read that, what am I supposed to take from this?

3) The author also claimed that the bullet style outlining of PowerPoint ruins information and presentations. He says that it can over-complicate text or over-simplify it. He talked a lot about the complicated hierarchical structure of powerpoints, and how this is just too complicated. On this point, I disagree with him. I think that bullets can be really helpful for organizing information, for both the speaker and the audience. It's a really easy way to organize information, and it's a format that is instantly recognized by most people. It helps you see what is most important, and then what is most important after that, or it can help you see the sub-categories within a larger category. It can help you see how different parts fit together.

–What are the main points the author makes about the myth behind “no significance difference.”

–What is meaningful learning from your perspective? Give some examples and non-examples from your overarching statements.

–How do you see the role of technology in your view of meaningful learning?

The author points out that the question about whether technology makes a difference does not specify what it should make a difference in. He then goes on to list several areas where he thinks technology can make a difference, to a small or large degree. For example, he says that technology can make a difference in motivation. He says that students are sometimes motivated by talking with experts and that they can connect with these people using technology. He also says that technology can make learning a more social experience, like through IMs and message boards. He said that students are motivated sometimes by self-expression, and that they can do this through artistic technology programs. He says that technology can help learning be a more active process. For example, students can create their own databases. It can also help learning be a more cooperative process. Finally, it can help students use their knowledge in real-world situations. For example, technology can be used to simulate a real-world situation, like if an engineering class were to use build a virtual bridge on a computer program.

Meaningful learning, from my perspective, is when you remember what you learn, and, not only that, but that what you learn sticks with you throughout your life and actually applies to your life. Meaningful learning is when you learn something that you use all the time, or something that you can see happening in your everyday life. Meaningful learning is learning that changes the way you see the world and other people, or maybe learning that changes your interactions with the world and other people. For example, here is something that I have learned that I see in my everyday life: Erik Erikson's life stages. After I first learned this in my Adolescent Development class, I was amazed to realize that these stages really are acted out in every day life, and that I can see people going through them, sometimes. This new knowledge changed the way I think about people and their lives. A non-example would be when you learn something and you cannot see it happening. And, when you don't see it happening, or when you don't use it, you more than likely forget it, so it also doesn't meet that criteria of meaningful learning. For example, in high school, I took calculus. I never used calculus outside class. I don't see calculus happening all around me. As a result, calculus didn't really change much about my life, and I don't remember much of calculus.

I think technology could definitely help people achieve my idea of meaningful learning. For example, as the article said, technology can be used to simulate real-world scenarios, so this could help students see something that they might not normally see in their everyday life. For example, if a student in an astronomy class is learning about building rocket ships, he might not be able to build a rocket ship in real life. But he could simulate building one, and this would undoubtedly help him remember how they are built and why different pieces are important. I think technology could also help change people's views of the world and how they interact with the world and other people. Students could use technology to interact with people all over the world, and this could open their eyes to how different people live. For example, a class could use Skype to chat with a class in China. This might help these students see how Chinese students are like them, and how they are different.