My 13 year-old daughter and I had a long conversation about technology, its uses, pros, cons, and its consequences this weekend. The conversation, started by me, came after she had done a project at school for extra credit. Although she didn’t need the credit, she participated in the assignment. The assignment? To go as long as you could without the use of technology. In this case technology was defined as computers, TV, video games, handhelds, cell phones, and iPods or mp3 players or cd players. 

She lasted for a full 24 hours. Or as she put it, a loooonnnngggggg 24 hours!  When I asked her about her feelings and opinion on the assignment, this is what she said: 

“This was one of the toughest assignments I have ever done! This is who we are (teens) and it felt like I was missing a part of my life, a vital part to my exisistence. I mostly missed being connected with people. I felt lost. Even though I don’t personally know the people I talk to and I will never most likely meet them, they are a part of me and my life. I really like getting to know people from all over. Yeh, we chat about teen stuff like clothes and music and school, but we also talk about what it’s like where we live (especially when they are from another country) and world issues, such as the war in
Iraq. I find out that no matter where kids live we still have a lot in common.” 

The next part of our conversation was about the ban of cell phones and mp3 players in school. We talked about whether or not they could be used as learning tools instead of toys or gadgets that are a distraction to learning. She definitely felt that iPods could be used to record and listen to podcasts. She said, “This would be a great way for classrooms from all over the
U.S. to collaborate and connect on all kinds of topics.” Using cell phones she wasn’t so sure. We both thought that there must be a way to embrace this technology so it is no longer considered a distraction but how? She felt some kids would take advantage (unfortunately) of having their cell phones accessible to them. When I asked how she thought they would most likely be used she said, “Definitely text messaging.” She could see kids’ texting answers to tests.  

So how do we embrace this technology that has invaded our life, our being? How do we turn these so-called distractions into learning tools? How do we involve our students in the learning process while meeting them in their world?  

I know there has been some talk about students using cell phones to record teachers and then having it show up on YouTube later, much to the dismay of all involved.  

Vicki Davis of CoolCatTeacher has written a nice posting on how she’s handling this. Spies Like Us can be found at : http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2007/01/spies-like-us.html. 

There is no easy answer for what we are moving into. The speed of which things are changing is phenomenal. The tools that we have at our finger tips can also become weapons of mass destruction. How do we walk the fine line? We talk to our students constantly about these topics and how to ethically deal with them. We must instill values into our students. How? Talking and modeling. Don’t just talk the talk. Model what we preach.  

What do you think?

This is coming from Dangerously Irrelevant for all education bloggers. It is a request to participate in a short survey on education and blogging.

1. Complete the short and completely unscientific, but hopefully interesting, education blogoshpere survey;
   
2. Forward the URL of said survey to all other known education bloggers to ensure decent representation of the education blogosphere; and
3. Publicize said survey URL on their own blogs to foster greater participation in this most noble endeavor.

Survey results received by Sunday, January 14, shall be posted in the town square on Wednesday, January 17.

This is coming from Lucy Gray at   A Teacher’s Life ~http://elemenous.typepad.com/weblog/ 

 Follow this link to see how far the project as gone and add your info to the meme.

Link: Google Earth Community: Teacher Meme.

Then follow this info. to participate in the meme created by Lucy Gray.

For this project, I am choosing two questions and you can answer just one or both:

1) What has been your most memorable learning experience?
2) Who is the teacher that has influenced you the most?and why?

Here are the technical directions. Feel free to edit as you pass this on:

To create a placemark describing your most memorable teacher or learning experience:

1) Open Google Earth.
2) Fly to the address of your choice. This is the point where you will add a placemarks. It should be your work address or home address, whatever you feel comfortable with.
3) Go to the Add menu and select Add Placemark.
4) Drag the new Placemark to the exact location of your address.
5) Edit fields as necessary. Label the placemark with your name. Put your written text in the description field. Add an url to anything you think might be relevant  such as your website or blog. You can change the style and color of the placemark if you wish
6) When you are done, right click or control click on the placemark and select the email option from the file menu. Email it to me,  Lucy Gray <elemenous@gmail.com>. I will compile all the .kmz files and post the most recent updates on my blog: [url=http://lucygray.org.]http://lucygray.org.[/url]
7) OPTIONAL: Upload the .kmz file to your blog if you have one. Add a relevant tag so that it can be found in a Technorati search.  Possible tags could be meme, GoogleEarthmeme, or teachermeme.