Rees Be Blogging

Rattling On

2012-02-25T17:53:00.002-08:00

Nothing gets to me quite like the silences between people. Technology has pushed us so far apart and it bugs me. While not overtly about it, I doodled a small poem that encompasses some of my feelings about this hushed separateness. No claim to poetry, no rhyme, rhythm, or form.

A Morning Fog:

The day is breathless this morning,

A stifling thick

Has lain itself across the world,

A most welcome intruder.

Echos of the dawn,
Are choked off by the
Unmoving, stagnant mist,
Leaving shadows gasping for light.

Downtown silhouettes,
Hunched, hands tucked into pockets,
Stand, blasting white air,
Waiting for late transit busses.

Others walk hurriedly,
Steps muted on the wet concrete.
We are all together within the fog,
And yet miles apart,
Divided by the intentions
Of a rogue social evolution,
And rapidly spinning farther from each other,
As the generations turn and turn.

The University grounds lay
Flecked in frost,
While peaks and Corinthian columns
Are lost in the struggle between
a blue light and the white haze.

Black silhouettes now give way to
Pastel colour.
Yet backs remain hunched,
And steps still brisk.
Together in the fog and yet
Eternities apart,
A gap ever growing.

We are all drowning in the quiet
Of the mist,
But the noise that propels the silence
Is deafening,
Is resounding through time
To ages we will never know.

Oh, finally, the Sunrise!

Musings

2012-02-20T20:59:00.001-08:00

Now that my blog quota for the course has been filled, I am free to muse as I wish to an audience no longer built in by course mandated requirement. I therefore write to no audience and simply wander through my thoughts aimlessly, punctuated only by the soft click of the keyboard. While the vastness of the Internet as a global community continues to grow, create, and evermore divide into itself, I imagine this blog to be washed away by the great tide of web-thought existing in cyberspace.

Doing two things at once has, in this day, become a skill highly coveted by many. It finds itself redundantly typed onto millions of resumes and becomes a source of pride for those who appear to multitask effortlessly. Technology has served to only increase the number of tasks being minded simultaneously by an individual. Many children of Canada can text, listen to their iPod, check Facebook, and do homework all at once, perhaps Seinfeld is even playing in the background. University students often require multiple applications at once on their computers as they write papers and surf through endless databases of academic articles. Is there something missed as we become engrossed in multiple technological tasks? Or are we still able to be fully aware of our surroundings – the dog pacing the hall to be let outside for example… my dog loves to pace!

The professor argued that as we multitask (checking Twitter during a lecture is me multitasking at my finest) we miss a lot of pertinent information, but is this true? And if so, what are we missing? While technology allows us to navigate many avenues all at once does it deter our attention from a real time moment? Is the light of the moon on a bright winter night, as you stop to look up and admire, dimmed by the sound of a text to your phone, and then the app you downloaded to look up the moon phases? Did we just miss something as our faces become illuminated not by the glow of the waxing moon, but by the light of the iPhone 4S? Or are we enriched by our ability to perhaps engage, access, and appreciate all of it at once?

...VLOG??

2012-02-04T18:46:00.001-08:00

The crudest editing money can buy...

... there's a gazillion 'ummms'.... such a noob

Also, when I was talking about my twitter feed going back only so far.. I should have said that I'm just too lazy to go back and check all of the ones I have missed over the past few days. In reality, I think the Twitter feed goes on infinitely into the past... haven't tested that yet, obviously.

BeBlogging x 4

2012-01-30T07:54:00.000-08:00

One of the things I found quite useful this week was the Mindshift report, which gave the top 12 (I think 12?.. too lazy at the moment to go downstairs and check the actual number) tech trends to watch for in the upcoming year. Relationships (just like Chris Penner said) are absolutely fundamental to creating a good community classroom. They provide the foundation from which all other interactions between teacher and student, and student to student grow from, either productively or unproductively. I am a firm believer in the power of relationships and as a teacher they are my first priority (not the curriculum!). Anyways, a big part of relationships is respect, ideally mutual. As teachers in a rapidly advancing technological world, we need to earn the students’ respect and a major part of this is to keep current with technology and other trends, and to be adept at working with all that is tech. There may be little that is more degrading than a teacher fumbling with technology in the computer lab in a school, while the kids are snickering and drawing caricatures of the teacher in paint (not at all writing from personal experience). We need to keep their interest and look cool and confident while doing so, however with the large workload involved with being a teacher this can be a difficult feat, especially when every day it seems as if there is a great new app that is awesome for classroom learning. The Mindshift report may be an excellent resource to check back with annually to be kept abreast of what is happening in the electronic world. Being able to keep up with the Mindshift trends is a far better strategy than using old and boring technology that will have the students yawning and playing solitaire behind your back.

The Kaiser report on the other hand seemed fairly one sided. While not overly surprised by the almost 8 hours of media exposure statistic, I was surprised by the one-sided descriptors used, namely “horrid”. I think it can be too easy to jump to conclusions with stats like these that are presented in a purposefully negative light. What percentage of this occurs within school? Kids often have computer lab times, or movies presented in class and I imagine this exposure would be viewed as less negative. Additionally, perhaps there is research being done for homework online. There is a lot that goes into a statistic like this, but the common conclusion to leap to is that it is all nasty television, Facebook, YouTube, and texting. While this may make up the bulk of the 8 hours, it is not all bad, and every statistic should be looked at from both sides, which the Kaiser report presentation failed to do

Ye Olde Blog

2012-01-19T10:00:00.001-08:00

The blogging continues…

The astrolabe pretty much blew my mind. I am so dumbfounded by a technology that is so old, yet so complex… I have no idea how it works, despite Tom’s step by step guide. All I know about the astrolabe is that it somehow represents the sky on a 12” plate that is really pretty. Despite my lack of understanding, I am so intrigued by the astrolabe, perhaps more about what it signifies than the actual workings of it. I agree with Tom that progress is a change in which something is gained and inevitably lost. While the gains are exciting, I mean I would take my iPhone over an astrolabe any day in today’s world (and will get just as excited as the next person when the iPhone 5 arrives), there is also a sense of despair over what has been lost over time – at least for me. The astrolabe does represent a much deeper connection and understanding of our sky than any iPhone ‘Night Sky’ app could. With the astrolabe we must really think and consider the sky and our thoughts as the astrolabe acts to mediate between the two. I think as technology continues to grows, its role as a mediator between what is real and our thoughts expands. I often feel, despite a love for technology, that it is dividing us more and more from our natural world, and each other. For example, people will text their friends prior to engaging in conversation with a stranger when a bus is late, or spend days inside on their computers living in a virtual world. I think it is sad that this is becoming more and more the accepted norm for communication, as it hasn’t always been this way. I feel a strong sense of despair over this, even though I would text my friend over talking to a stranger (hypocritical I know), because I think society is ever losing something fundamental and natural to our existence as technology continues to evolve. Communication and connection to our earth and each other has always been part of survival in the natural world, we should be no exception and yet technology may end up turning that primal rule onto its head.

Blogged Out

2012-01-12T09:31:00.000-08:00

To begin, I enjoyed the historical TV episode we viewed on Tuesday. It was neat to see that with the minimal technology available at the time they were still able to make a film that was entertaining many decades later. I surprised myself in that I enjoyed the film. Usually old movies bore me because my eyes and ears tire of the lackluster effects, having been accustomed to high def, surround sound, etc. The film exampled the rapid evolution of technology from then to now.

I also enjoyed the bad powerpoints. So often key elements in technology are difficult to observe because of the seamless flow of technologies (ie. powerpoints) when they work and are created properly. By turning run of the mill assignments (trying to make it the best you can) on their head and purposely doing things wrong, it was much easier to understand how and why those elements are considered incorrect. I believe by highlighting these errors in a very visual way, I will be better able to remember them when I go next to create my own powerpoint. I think the bullets and bombs are going to reverberate in my head for quite some time.

I like the idea of Wordle as I really love visually interesting things, which Wordle very quickly and simply creates. I am struggling myself to think of a way to incorporate this into my classroom, I think the kids will get it, but I don't know if it will really help to drive home any key concepts. Might just be a fun little computer period though. Open to ideas on working the wonderful Wordle into the classroom world.

Opening Blog

2012-01-05T10:04:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Blog of 2012.

I am really looking forward to seeing what this course has to offer. I think I have a lot to learn, despite really enjoying technology. I have no idea what a Wiki or Wordle is yet.. all in due time I suppose.

I am really excited to learn about new things to help engage my class. My CT didn't use any technological aspects in his teaching, so I am excited to hopefully incorporate some of what I learn in this course into my second practicum. I think the kids would enjoy something new. I already have ideas about how to bring in some fresh technology and am getting some inspiration from this blog idea. My friend, who is teaching English in Japan, and I were hoping to get some sort of pen pal system going to help her kids with English vocabulary and my kids with their composition. If we could somehow connect the classrooms through blogs we could exchange information and 'letters' more frequently and include pictures and links to things that the kids might want to share with their blog-pal. I am quite interested to know how adept my friend's kids are with technology and if they would be open to blogging.

I really like that this class is smart phone friendly, namely Apple friendly to start with. I love my iPhone and am continually inspired by the amount of things it can do and offer. Perusing the App Store is always quite eye opening and I find a lot of Apps geared towards educating kids. Those apps in particular would likely be much better suited towards an iPad however, and as soon as the funds are available I hope to purchase one of them and find ways to incorporate that into my classroom teaching. I am hoping there will be more App ideas suggested in class as one cannot simply know about them all.

Wishing you all continued blogging success