the champ: a reflection of the ever-increasing gap

so sometimes i like to play this little game with myself. it definitely puts me in my place and reminds me about who i am and what i can afford. the game is called, "go onto apple.com and see how much the most expensive computer can be."

the last time i played was about a year and a half ago. the reigning champion clocked in at just over 5k. needless to say, the new heavyweight champ is well over this.

this is the current price for a power pc with all of the frills, and i do mean ALL of them. of course, this gives us a bit of a skewed image of just how expensive this computer really is, but i think it does provide a meaningful message. we are seeing computer companies cater more and more to the higher end.

but perhaps this is just the embittered rantings of an avid apple user who feels that the company is making super high end products and super low end products. is there still a computing middle class out there?

what has and hasn't worked

it's been three weeks exactly since we started school, and it hardly feels like it's only the forth week. honestly, it feels as if i've been doing this all my life. it's still a little bit strange sometimes when i stop and realize that i am a teacher now at my former high school. but in all honestly, there really isn't anywhere that i'd rather be.

when the "experts" say that our generation is wired, i don't think they quite knew the extent of the truth that they were speaking. i really think the field of psychology or sociology will be revolutionized in the next decade or so when researchers really examine the fundamental differences in cognition between this generation and any that have come before it. i can write my lecture notes on the board, but if i put that exact same information on a powerpoint, then the students pay more attention and remember the information better. the overhead projector is ancient technology now, and the digital projector reigns supreme.

all in all, i think i have been having tremendous success in my classrooms. this might be due to the fact that upon completing my masters program, i suddenly and instantly became a master teacher. but i suspect it might be because i was trained in belleville michigan, a district that has struggled for the past few years, and now i am in northville, one of the best public schools in the state. most of my "problems" come from my non-AP class, exploring psychology. here, i find that demonstrations rule the day. lecturing for thirty minutes is a wasted thirty minutes if there isn't at least three demonstrations in there somewhere. they must constantly be writing, seeing, and doing. once, i tried to lecture for most of the hour.

mutiny.

weeds and a farewell to meat

this entry actually has nothing at all to do with teaching...

have you ever had a bunch of weeds infest your lawn or garden? it completely defies the laws of living things. you can pull them and keep pulling them, but they'll always come back. this morning, i spent a good half hour pulling weeds out of the cracks of my brick patio. without their upper parts, they shouldn't be able to photosynthesize and thus, should die shortly thereafter. nope. they keep coming back.

speaking of things that keep coming back, i must take my hat off to george lucas and whoever is making the saw trilogy (oops, i meant... saw series). after reading the reviews for the new starwars clone wars animated movie, i wanted to become a movie critic. they use such colorfully negative words to describe things. alas, mr. lucas is still a money making genius though. the average person would have quit years ago. at least our movie appetites can be sated by the seemingly endless stream of saw movies. stay tuned for saw xii "getting cut up in space"

for all the ominvores out there, like myself, we are faced with a growing problem. since so much of our corn is going into making ethanol, cow feed is beginning to cost more and more. compounded by the growing cost of fuel, cattle farmers have had to sell off huge portions of their herds to offset the growing price. the problem manifests itself when there are no more cows to sell to offset the cost of keeping them. i hope they keep the double cheeseburger on the dollar menu still.

revived! (plus a scary dream)

so i thought it was high time i started up this blog again as an account of my first year as a teacher.

so last night i had a dream that is probably one of the greatest fears any teacher could have. it was the first day of school and i had nothing prepared. no syllabi, no seating chart, and i didn't even know how to log into zangle. i was pretty screwed.

the class began with me asking my class how they would define psychology. as they answered each question, they had to say their names for the sake of me and their peers. from there, i jumped off into a lecture about the different subfields and approaches to psychology based on what they had answered previously. then to top it all off, they split into groups to begin analyzing a specific scenario based on a specific approach i gave to each group (biological, cognitive, behavioral, etc). soon, i heard the rustling of books being put away. in a furious rage, i shouted, "the bell doesn't dismiss you. i dismiss you!"

when i woke up, i decided it was either a very good or very bad sign for me as a teacher. it could be very good in that it suggests i could even teach in my sleep. not just teach, but also randomly come up with a lesson plan on the fly. it could be very bad in that it shows how my lessons involve very little thought and just sort of fall together as they go.

here's to hopefully making tenure in the future.

reasons why we're in MAC

we love jeff and liz

Money isn't the answer

Willow Run Middle School is a technological paradise. When I first stepped into the school, I was amazed at the new-ness of their building. This facility makes me want to learn. It’s clean and well kempt and quite modern. On the walk over to Shirley’s classroom, I made a comment to her, “I feel as if I’m in Jurassic Park.” Remember in the first movie with the opulent main building? Try visiting Willow Run’s library, and you’ll begin to wonder where the T-Rex skeleton should go.

I could hardly believe the extravagance of technology here. A Smart Board in every room with a ceiling-mounted digital projector is coupled with a laptop-cart, complete with a full battery of thirty laptops. Gone are the days of the analogue clock. Even their time here is digitalized. Naturally, the kids don’t waste their time or energy turning an ordinary pencil sharpener. Each room is equipped with a desktop computer linked to a color laser printer that can be accessed through the wireless network and printed to from anywhere. The ceiling is no longer a place just for lights anymore. Here at Willow Run, speakers are poised above the students and distributed evenly throughout the room. Knowledge now comes in 5.1 surround sound.

But there are some relics of the past that have lingered and endured in this room. The lonely overhead projector has become a shelf for boxes and papers. The only other technological eyesore is an ancient television mounted in the corner. Its screen is as big as the computer monitor just a few feet below it. Where’s the wall-mounted eighty-inch DLP television? This is shameful.

At Belleville, I have no windows. I would enter into a death-match with any of the other teachers there if it meant I could win a windowed room. It’s sad because a majority of these “windowed rooms” only have openings that are a foot and a half wide. Shirley’s room has six large windows. Each window is three feet wide and about six and a half feet high. It’s pretty much a whole wall of glass that’s broken up by intermittent windowpanes.

Big Brother is always watching you in Willow Run. Every room has a little hockey-puck shaped glossy black thing attached to the ceiling. Big Brother is always watching. After I finish writing this, I’m going to go look for O’Brien.

It seems blindingly obvious to me that money isn't the answer to bridging the achievement gap. this school is state of the art in almost every way. yet it functions similarly to schools that in much greater disrepair. perhaps amazing technology and amazing facilities aren't all that they're cracked up to be.

but honestly, i would jump at the opportunity to steal a classroom out of willow run and use it for myself.

techno-dependence

alright folks, this one is short and sweet.

we are so dependent on technology. knowing about it and how to use it has become a very critical aspect to our daily lives. just the other day, we were providing our students with time during class to type up their papers that were soon due. not all of the students have computers at home. the question that arose for me as an english teach is this: english class has always been there to teach students about communication and language. but technology has taken that definition to the next step. a student who cannot type will fare very poorly in today's english classroom, while he or she could have done perfectly fine twenty or thirty years ago. have we become too dependent on technology?

a conversation in the grad lab the other day poked some light hearted fun at this issue. we were talking about our thoughts concerning what we have learned thus far in MAC. among the comical responses we were offering up, someone said that one thing they've learned is that before MAC, they were able to live without a laptop, but now they cannot survive without one. we all agreed that we would most likely purchase macbooks in june.

we are the smart kids

when i was in high school, i almost always did very well. (except for in English, where i got only B's and C's, which is terribly ironic...) however, i also KNEW i would do well. i remember going into AP biology exams feeling very confident i would get at least a 95%. i would play little games with myself to see if i could get exactly 95% every time. indeed, i was a big nerd, and it's a wonder that i had friends in high school.

when i came to college, i was very nervous about doing well. i was taking two of the lsa's toughest weeder courses at the same time. but i came out of high school so confident in my brilliance that i didn't even care. i had the freshman dream. [get great grades, work out every day, and have a hot girlfriend]

when i got my first exam back, it had a big 39 on it. i looked at my gsi, "was this scaled to a 40 or 50 point scale?" he looked at me with a look of confusion, "this is out of 120." a part of me died at that moment. from then on, i was TERRIFIED of exams. i had this notion that i was bad a calc and orgo, and i couldn't seem to get over it.

this trend continued throughout my freshman year and it wasn't until sophomore year that i came out of my slump. it was cognitive psych class, and i was going into the final. i had an average of 86%, but the final was worth quite a bit. my grade could still sway either way. the realization came to me the morning before the final. the difference was confidence and self-perception. as i sat down for my final, i said to myself, "you're going to ace this exam. you're probably the smartest guy in this room right now." grade on final exam: 116/117. grade in class: A

while i am at Belleville, i constantly hear kids/teachers talking about how dumb they are or how bad they are at whatever. while i'm at the International Academy, i constantly hear kids/teachers talking about how great they are and how good their school is. maybe it is arrogance, but maybe it is reinforcing an attitude of excellence.

maybe if you get a bunch of kids to really believe they are the smart kids, then they really will BE the smart kids.

a different view of teaching

this entry walks the fine line between "technology" and not "technology" related. my reasoning is that this is about a process, which can be defined as technology and can also be patented. it is something i have never seen before in schools, and i think it would serve my fellow MACers well to know.

we have all heard of the term "alignment." a nineth grade english teacher works with tenth grade, eleventh grade, and twelfth grade english teachers to make sure their english curriculums don't overlap and have a steady flow. this makes a lot of sense. a student would probably not want to read romeo and juliet three times in three different years in high school. but this system produces separate modules of knowledge that are discrete and often lower in relevance because they stand alone and aren't inter-connected.

at the international academy, teachers between subjects work together and collaborate. in this way, a student who learns how to analyze literature in an english class revisits that skill set in a math class and then in a physics class and then a biology class. problem solving skills learned in math are used in history, chemistry, and french. in the end, it is less about teaching students specific content as it is about teaching them skills and knowledge about how to think and use their thinking. they learn that truth as defined by math through proofs and logic cannot be the same kind of truth for physics which is done through observation and experimentation. it produces students who are intellectually well rounded and adept at learning.

after the leaving the school, i only had one thought on my mind. "sure this works with a school of 600 kids where the teacher to student ratio is AMAZING and where all the kids are extremely intelligent (some more so than even the teachers) and where parents and students alike are all highly motivated about the child's education. now how might this work in belleville or a place where these factors don't exist?"

if i could tell you all the answer to that question, then i'd quit the program and start my own school of education because i would have solved one of the greatest mysteries of our field. how do we re-tailor this hyper-effective system that is only fit for a small niche of the population? things that work there cannot work elsewhere because of the unique atmosphere and culture they have established. someone in our class once said "schools don't make communities, communities make schools." i use to fully agree, but i do think the IA has produced its own sort of community outside of the communities boundaries as kids come from all over lower michigan. how do we create a community and environment where students want to learn, feel comfortable with challenge because everyone else is in the same boat with them, and where they hold high expectations for themselves and their learning.

i cannot believe that such a way does not exist for even low motivated students.

at the international academy

the international academy is perhaps the ideal school that any student teacher can only dream of teaching at. in most of our placements, we teach classes that are upwards to forty students in size. the largest class i observed was thirty students, although they make about as much noise as a class of five (if one existed) at belleville.

it is interesting to note that they do not consider themselves very technologically advanced as a school. all of the students have access to just a single computer lab that contains roughly forty computers. in my opinion, this is more than enough for a school of six hundred students who happen to also all have access to computer and broadband internet at home.

each classroom i visited contained a ceiling-mounted digital projector. most of rooms also contained a tablet monitor for teachers to write directly onto the touch screen and notes would be displayed through the projector.

in the only room i saw without a tablet monitor, the teacher found a creative way to use the dry-erase board in combination with the projector with great effects. the notes and sample questions were displayed via projector and the teacher would write straight on the board between the lines of displayed text.

perhaps the most interesting point from today is to learn that the international academy uses internet software like zangle and blackboard. i made note of this because belleville uses the exact same resources, but with vastly different results. parents at the IA can check their student's grades at any time, and online grades are rigorously maintained. if they chose to, they could even receive a daily update to their child's progress. with blackboard, the students are able to access course materials online. it's kind of like a much more user friendly version of c-tools for high school. the students seem to do well with it.

at belleville, parents constantly call about student grades because they check one day and their students have six missing assignments that cause their grades to be well below the failing mark. irate and concerned, they call three days later. my mentor teacher then must patiently explain to them in many cases that their students have turned in the respective assignments since they last checked and that grades are in fact updated online. blackboard is also available at belleville, but to a much lesser effectiveness. this is probably due to a combination of factors that involve availability of internet access from home, internet literacy, and motivation. one senior in my honors english twelve class came up to me last week complaining that the resources for their anglo-saxon unit didn't have any information in it. "there's just a whole bunch of links." i asked her if she had clicked those links. she had not. this basic internet using skill that i have taken so much for granted may not be so common in all of my students.

as a concluding remark for today's observations; technology is good, but it is rather difficult to exceed community and social standards. highly motivated students will make due with the same kind of technology. this is not the cornucopia of wealth and technology like i had thought it was. it was not like the el durado of all things good and great. it is just another school that makes due with what it has. it's a converted kindergarten building and the classrooms are of a fitting size for only really little people. it makes me reconsider the definition of "resources" and how people and community resources all combine and meld together in this abstract and turbulent space we have come to call "school."

the bare necessities

the room was easily ninety degrees. as i look around, there are three boys for everyone one girl. actually, that's an exaggeration. there are about fifty to sixty people in this room, and there are five girls total. the kids are all hunched down with their work in front of them as they pant from the sweat and heat.

what is this room?

it's not a sweat shop, and we're not in the third world. this is a testing site, and these kids are here from a regular english ten class to take the plan test. they are the ones who just don't care anymore about school because they associate it with failure and defeat. they don't care about school because they see that the school doesn't care about them. how can they think otherwise when they're sitting in a room that's over ninety degrees.

it's so strange to think of air conditioning and heating as a technology because it seems so standard to our lives now. but the reality hits home during the hotter months when the a/c frequently breaks down at belleville, and during the colder months when parts of the school don't receive heating.

but when we consider educational technology as technology that facilitates student learning, we should also consider the little things that set the environment such as the light bulbs or the running water. after all, how can student take learning seriously when they're asked to go to school under such ridiculous situations?

film technology

we've all been through high school, and we all remember LOVING movies. i remember some of my less memorable teachers would slot whole weeks to finish up a movie for a particular class. unfortunately, i don't remember anything that i was "suppose" to learn.

this isn't to bash movies or media in the classroom or anything. the issue i have is when we educators use it as a crutch. i believe such a devise should supplement a lesson. it's kind of like the seasoning that adds flavor or flare and makes everything taste a little better. but has anyone ever tried to eat a pound of salt or a kilo of pepper? you just can't eat seasoning for a main course.

as teachers, it's sooo easy to show a video. but we also much consider the quality of service we are providing our students, and the price they are paying to watch a screen.

hypothetically, let's say there was a group of 53 fifth grade students who are paying on average $35,000 a year for 40 credits to graduate from this hypothetical elementary school. now, let's say that they watched a video for the entire class period of a three credit class. how much are these students paying as a class to watch a screen? let's see.

3 credit class / 40 total credits = 0.075
$35,000 total per student * 0.075 = $2625 total for this 3 credit class
$2625 / 15 total class periods = $175 per class period per person
$175 * 53 total students = $9275 total for this period for all students

so when you begin to take the reigns of your class, which some of you may already have started doing, be mindful of how you are "spending" your class time.

first blood

i think i may be the first MACer to have total computer failure. i woke up this morning and open up my laptop. it says there are updates available for office. i click okay, and it starts to download. while this is happening, it also says there is an update for itunes available for download. i click okay. office updates fine. itunes stalls and freezes halfway through, and i'm lead with no choice but to "force quit" (the mac equivalent to pc's ctrl+alt+del). i thought this was fine, and i close my laptop and head off to a make a presentation.

and then it happened

i arrive twenty minutes early to review my notes and such and to make sure my powerpoint is working. my computer won't wake up. confused, i try pressing the buttons, i swivel my finger around on the touch pad, all to no avail. at last resort, i press the power button and force a shutdown. i wait with baited breath. i press the button again. it makes the "baaaauuum" sound for the startup, and my heart is soothed a little. but then the unthinkable happens.

the gray screen of death.

that gray screen you get at the beginning of every start up, the one that lasts for only a few seconds, it stays there. the little loading circle spins into oblivion as the computer locked in an unending cycle of booting.

so i was forced to give my presentation without notes, without a presentation, and most of all, without my shield of technology. i had to rely on actually speaking, actually moving, actually clarifying questions and blank stares. it was harsh. without my handy little clock in the top right hand corner, i had to be mindful of my pacing. without an outline in front of me, i had to actually remember my main points and connections.

oh technology, you are a fickle mistress.

i hope ron doesn't yell at me too much tomorrow...

unlikely technology

this morning, i slowly jumped out of bed at 5:50 only to realize that it was saturday. three hours later, i get out of bed again and hope in front of my computer. while checking email, i notice that ms. ruth has messaged me over gchat about our 402 reading, which she lent out to someone and hadn't gotten back. she then asks if i have a copy of mine and a scanner.

i glance around the room. no scanner.

but in my hand is the article and on my desk is my video camera. so i decided to try my hand at playing james bond, and snapped off a few pictures of the article. i felt very crime-scene-investigator-like. surprisingly, the pictures turned out quite well and the font is readable.

unfortunately, the pictures our camera takes are rather big, and would surely clog up any inbox. so, i used fugu to upload the pictures onto my afs space's public folder. from there, i sent ruth a link to where she could just download them herself. if anyone else is in the same boat as her and is missing the readings (which are not otherwise online) you may share in our digital bounty.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~larryliu/402%20Reading%20for%20Ruth/

back to basics

i spent some time talking to one of the recent graduates of the program who was mentored by my mentor teacher. i had seen the school before, and i had a hint about the poor conditions. but after talking to her, she says the extent of the classroom technology doesn't go beyond an overhead projector.

all through my life, i've been in classrooms that had at least one computer. in elementary school, we had old apple computers. in middle school, each teacher had a computer in the classroom. in high school, each department had its own computer lab.

but as there was a ton of technology present in all of these schools, i feel that teachers must not only be knowledgeable of that technology, but must also be able to use it effectively. in elementary school, we spent an hour or so every week in the computer lab playing oregon trail (which was such a great game). in middle school, we learned to type. in high school, we used those computer labs to sometimes for word processing, but it was more of a way for the teacher to make sure the students did their work.

so the question comes down not to how much technology we have, but what we do with it. still, i wonder just how much technology i could teach if all i have is an overhead projector.

we are education

reading the "we are the internet" article really made me think about not only the age we are in, but also the progression of that age and how it affects the way we learn. like the article said, people (including experts) were TOTALLY wrong about what the internet could do. i particularly liked ted nelson who envisioned the internet as the sum of all human knowledge. as impressively grand as that idea is, it's also a bit sobering to realize that even he came short in truly grasping what the net could actually do.

with this initial misconception in mind, i wonder how well we are actually understanding the internet now. being in the information age, our lives revolve around the sharing of ideas and information. everything from our commerce to our national defense is directly linked to how effectively we can send information to where it needs to be. it's staggering to see how far we've come. my mother has always been skeptical of business majors because she thinks they're in the business of making money out of thin air. but when you think about it, making money from the internet really is kind of like making money out of nothing.

back on point. we might learn about all these things with technology and how to use them, but what is that doing to us as educators? i think as we begin to think about implementation and usage of technology, we have to keep in mind that it could very easily explode into something as huge as the internet. but i think this is important for us to grapple with as teachers because as future educators and possibly leaders in our field, we could possibly say that "we are education."

but still, it's hard for me to really have that kind of open mindset though just because it's so broad and uncertain. where can technology go in the future? anywhere.

where exactly is anywhere?

english and technology

this thought came up during 650 this morning when we designed lesson plans for re/mediation. our group focused on technology's affect on language. as we considered how we can teach our students about the impact of technology on writing. the thing we were going for is the students to realize that technology is so deeply ingrained in writing that they MUST think of them together and in relation to one another. from the invention of the hammer and chisel in the caveman days to gutenberg's printing press to word processing, it all affects not just what we write about, but also the way we write.

to really drive the point home, we planned two activities for two class periods that would require the students to write two short research papers; one using no technology beyond printed media and pens, and the other using only electronic sources and computers.

i think as educators, besides just using technology in our classrooms, we should help students to realize the technology around them. they've been born into a world so fast-paced and inundated with gadgets and such, that they take it for granted. helping them to think about it also helps them realize how much it affects the way they think and learn.

storyboard

my pedagogic creed

it's amazing and almost a bit shameful.

reading through the fanciful writing, i was amazed at how progressive this guy's thinking was. then, to my great chagrin, i realized that his creed was written in 1897. they say change is always slow to happen, but it's been over a hundred years!

in connection with technology, it makes me wonder just how quickly technology can be reformed if the pedagogy has taken so long. but perhaps this is too pessimistic a view. it is clear that the technology reform is happening pretty quickly, and that gives me some hope for the reform of the rest of education as well.

the whole idea of wikis in the context of teaching leaves me with a kind of mixed feeling. it's sort of like the taste you get in your mouth after drinking coffee. as i can see that it could be a very useful tool in teaching and organizing instruction, i also see it as an issue of availability. maybe i'm playing to role of the raincloud during everyone else's parade, but i am skeptical as to who can really use these tools.

i'm going to be teaching in belleville high school that has a very limited number of computers within the school. furthermore, the students themselves vary greatly in their access to computers at home. how should we address this in a sensitive way? hearing about all of these different tools, i get very excited to both experience them and use them, but i know not every child in my high school has access to a personal laptop, a legion of computers, and wireless internet pretty much everywhere.

i wonder how i'll be able to use these tools in a belleville classroom.