The Sound of My Voice

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This week you will have the opportunity to hear me.



I made my own digital story. And this is what I had to say about learning...

(Turn up your Volume)

My Digital Stories

I really liked the Animoto website. All I had to do was upload the images that I wanted and pick a song and I was done. No fuss, no muss. Simple and to-the-point. It told my story just the way I wanted it to be told.


So I tried out another Digi story software. This one isn't as easy as the other. I used a lot of my time to crop, resizing, and rearranging images. I also wasn't able to control how fast each page was going by, so the audience has to rush through each page really fast. I didn't like that. I was also unable to preview what it would look like.


So I found the VoiceThread to be a little less animated. There isn't much flare to it. A bit on the boring side. I think it would better if I could actually talk if I had my headset with me. It would add another dimension, and in that case, there would be audio and visual. However, there is only visual right now. Also, the test is barely legible, which is a con.

Are Our Children Safe?

PBS Frontline released a documentary, "Growing Up Online," about the cyberspace and the dangers of the availability the Internet has among teenagers. It touches on bases of cheating, online chat rooms, forums, social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, Myspace), predators lurking online, cyberbulling and a whole lot more. As I begain to watch this documentary, I began to think about my unborn children - one day I will have child(ren), and I began to think by that time the Internet will be even more prevalent then it is now. I cannot imagine what the next break through idea on the world wide web will be. Chances are, it will be even more accessible.

One question that I consistently thought about: Is our children safe? Dateline: To Catch a Predator with Brian Williams is on TV frequently updating the public how many predators they've caught in the last X months. It is for sure that there are child predators because Brian Williams said so. However, the Internet has also become an escape for teenagers. It has become a separate world where they can be whoever they choose or be the true person that they are on the inside and express. The world wide web has become another realm of expression for all and any that are in need of it. One of the interviewee said, "The Internet is a very willing listener." And that is so true. Has the Internet made our teenagers into cyber-junkies robots who can only express ourselves through an optic wire?

Our teenagers are sharing more and more of themselves on the Internet. Another interviewee said, "Acting on impulse that is when things get into trouble." The fact of the matter is I was a teenager once and I did spontaneous things as well, however, I never had digital camera or YouTube to display to the world how free I could be. When you are a teenager, if you post that video, you might not be able to get your dream college or job. It sticks with you. Who'd knew that one button and cause so much consequence.

What about the parents, don't get a say in this? When I was a teen, I had episodes where I believe that my mom didn't understand me or I felt lonely and depressed. Every time my mom asked me something, or stop me from going out. or ask me who are theses "friends" that I keep telling her that I am hanging out with - I always tell her they are just my friends. She was so worried, just like the parents in this video. A parent said, "I remember having secrets, but it is really hard when you are on the other side." I understand why my mother was so overbearing, because I am starting to feel the internet is a bad commodity. But can we blame the Internet? If we cannot, then who do we blame? Who do we blame for the children that hang themselves in the bathroom or closet? Who do we blame for these deaths? Can we blame anyone?

Speaking of Cyberbullying, there was a report that a mother posed as a teenage boy on Myspace and began talking to a girl at her son's school that rejected him. It was a messy revenge on Myspace and the mom began to bully the girl; eventually she commited suicide in her closet.

Are we no longer safe? Not even in our own house? Has our home turn into a place of distress from a safe haven? What are we going to do about this? Remember, I was one of those teenagers that were online and in chat rooms talking to strangers. Yet I knew what was right from wrong. How well a child behaves is a reflection of the abillities the parents to teach their child. If parents believe in their abilities to foster and nurture their children, and they believe they have done the best job possible, then shouldn't they trust them to make good judgements? That's what I will do. Trust them by trusting myself that I am a competent parent and believe my children know the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. But I will always have that question that lingers in the back of my mine: Do I true know everything about my own flesh and blood?

School = Money?

So... Apparently, we are now trying a new system where children get paid to go to school under one pretense: that they get at least a C in a core subject area such as English, Math, Science, and History. So I looked around and apparently this has been around for awhile. ABC and MSNBC have both reported in 2005 that Chelsea High School has a similar program; instead of paying for good grades, they are paying kids to just come to school for the sake of attendance. School officials claim that as long as kids come to school it will boost test scores.

Well... So what's the deal? Before reading Earn an A? Here's $50, I thought this was outrageous! I have been a CPS kid all my pre-college life, by the way. It reminded me of high school, when I was a freshmen and we got our report cards in division and the girl that sat next to me said, "Woo! My mom's going to give me $40!" She later explained to me for every A she got on her report card her mom would give her $20. I was complete cynical about the whole idea of exchanging grades for money towards her. Since growing up with a single parent home with hardly anything, where I get a new pair of shoes once a year, and being told by my mother in her broken English, "School is money. You get education, and you get good job. Then you make lots of money." And for a long time, I believed her. However, that never stopped me from thinking, "Why can't I have this money now?" So in some odd universe the article in the Chicago Tribune made sense to me. I still thought about what my mother said to me. Then I read the different perspectives offered, honestly, I am torn.

A blogger from monster.com said that it is wrong and that is not what school is about. Also, Mike Frazier openly said, "This money should be spent on something more worthwhile. Education is important but at what cost? With the values that this sort of plan entails, students will have no value for their education." They are both right. What are these school officials thinking?! Have we become a society that has demoralized everything and not even leaving education a little shred of dignity left, especially, our low test scores, and the fact the other countries are kicking our butts at educating the youngin's? But, is it completely wrong? This provides a chance for students to lose that job at Mickey D's and focus on school cause it is paying much more than $6/hr. because they are trying to feed their family. Simultaneously, these students can get the grades to go to college. Isn't that what we want: More kids in college? If you take another perspective, students are capable of getting scholarships (private or federal) because of their good grades, also, their economic needs - I'm one of them. So is it really so bad? Can the end justify the mean in this case? The money is not coming out of our taxes to pay these students money - it privatized! So basically, it's a scholarship. Isn't that the bases of scholarships, awarding monetary funds to students with good grades? Our society has been awarding scholarships of this kind of decades even centuries! Why has it all of a sudden become a taboo if it publized by a state institution? Despite that I'm being the devil's advocate, I still have my mom's voice resonating through the back of my mind.

My Tech Vision of Today

I found it interesting that this tech class and I are both on the same page; in terms of advocating change in education, especially because I have "A Vision of Students Today" as a link on my Facebook. As Jackie pointed out the percentages of how many teachers who aren't using technology, it did not surprise me as much as it made me realize that we need to change and reform the way things are ran in the classroom. Technology is changing constantly, as I had mentioned in the previous entry, and the majority of the educators are not using this technology wisely. Many of which, can help our children learn better than conventional ways of lecturing and taking notes.

In last week's entry, I spoke about the dire need to bring back creativity in our schools and technology is one way to do it. It does not even have to be expensive. There are open source softwares that we can tap into and utilize. It's 100% FREE! Through open source softwares for web designing or geometer's sketchpad we can pull the creative side of kids that we've never seen before. I spoke about subjects of Math and Science last week. These are the subjects that always and definitely have answers to any question. But with the Arts, English, and Music - there isn't a definitive answer - which what's so great about these subject areas. It allows people, in general, a form of freedom to express. And imagination can never produce the same outcome from two different people with different minds. We can see a whole array of works of art!

So as educators, we need to always be on the research road to find different resources to add to our lesson plans. And always pose the questions: How can I add technology into this lesson? How can my students use this technology to explore on their own and find something/or create something uniquely spectacular?

These are the questions that I ask myself everyday... I will continue to ask questions for rest of my life. Will you?

Creativity in our Children.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Sir Ken Robinson addressed his concern about the creativity that we are all born with and the imagination that we all have, slowly being crushed by education (ironic - given that the sole meaning behind education is to nourish and feed knowledge) and pushed down the hierarchy of education. That Arts has become less and less important. As it becomes less important, those who are gifted and talented in the Arts, believe their talent is somewhat of a frivolous thing. Except the fact that we are all different. We think differently, we imagine differently - why must we throw our uniqueness away and become more of the same?

Robinson demonstrated that there is an inflation on education. In our society today, we need more and more degrees to make ourselves more marketable. Because of this, we are no longer focusing to enhance our uniqueness, but the concentration on everyone to be the same - doing the same routine work. We need to begin to nurture and feed the creativity within each of us, especially start children when they are young and continue to encourage children thinking differently is not just okay, but extraordinary.

"If you are not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. " We need to encourage kids to think outside of the box. By that I mean, not dismissing or wrong the creative imagination expressed by them, but embrace it and praise them for being different. That's what I will do. Allow my students to explore their own insights in Math through methods of inquiry. I will empower them to think uniquely in their own way. We need to encourage children to be extraordinary in life and not ordinary. "Intelligence is diverse." We, as teachers, need to learn to allow creativity in our future class rooms; albeit, in projects or just plain exploration. Creativity is dying in the school system. It is up to us to stop it.

Thanks.

Let's look at the Techno World, shall we?

Q: Given the realities of our modern age and the demands of our children's future, is it really ok to allow teachers to choose whether or not they incorporate modern technologies into their instruction?

A: Incorporating technology into lessons should not be an option; children need to be aware and learn about new technologies. Those teachers who do not incorporate technology into their teaching are refusing to adapt to current trends and may not know much about technology themselves. In those cases, teachers who aren't techno savvy would not be able provide the environment for those students who have not learned the simple tasks involving computers. These old fashion teachers who refuse to learn about technology are simply withholding knowledge from students. There are so many ways in which using technology can improve a child's learning. By simply choosing to withdraw oneself from the techno-world, the teacher is also unwittingly choosing to withhold knowledge from students who can benefit from this new information. Incorporating technology in 21st century teaching is a must. Our world is constantly expanding and becoming smaller with new feats in technology and computing. It is ignorant not to take advantage of the gadgets that engineers created to make our lives an access to knowledge easier than ever before.