Bullying 2.0

Two years ago, the sixth grade core teachers were required to help out the PE/Health department cover a unit. There were several subjects to be covered in this unit: nutrition, smoking, hygiene and (predictably for this blog post) bullying.

Bullying became my topic to cover with the 6th grades and it was considered a significant topic by the admin as a "consistent message to be sent to all middle school students at the start of the school year".

The majority of the curriculum focused on typical scenarios of the school yard bully, and what could be done to avoid him or her. We then shifted focus to cyberbullying.

The discussions were interesting because the initial reaction by the students was that cyberbullying was a less threatening means of intimidating victims. As we further examined the issues, the means, the outcomes and impacts of cyberbullying, a stronger awareness of just how damaging this kind of bullying can be.

At one point in our Apr 8 f2f, the instructor was asked if there had been any formal survey done on the prevalence of cyberbullying at the school.

In my class of two years ago, I did survey the students specifically about cyberbullying. The results that came back were negligible and those that did report to be bullied online, claimed only mild irritation and nothing that needed intervention.

That was two years ago. A lot can change in that amount of time - especially when technology is concerned!

I think a new survey should be created, and amendments to the ISB AUP should strongly reflect the wrongitude of cyberbullying!

Digital Fearmongering

Techin' PE recently wrote a very worthwhile entry on the issues of privacy and the online footprints that follow us through our digital lives (nice one Andy!).

In his post Andy mentions two common fears:
1. Our online behaviour from our deep, dark past follows us to job interview and university admissions tables.
2. The possible threat of others creating a negative footprint for us through rumors and online gossip.

Both scenarios are real and significant.

Special Guest from March 18th's f2f, Silvia Tolisano made mention to an entirely opposite and far more optimistic approach to tackling the issue of students' digital footprints. Tolisano endorses us educators to harness this unstoppable force and make digital footprints work for our children!

We should show our students that it is never too early to start down a good path that will leave nice footprints that reflects positively on us. This idea is similar to Friedman’s in his novel, The World is Flat: "In the future, you must be good."

It's optimistic, but not very realistic.

The extension of this "do good" approach sounds to me like we are asking kids to start building their ‘resumes’ in grade school! -Step out of line and run the risk of wide-spread and far-reaching ostracism.

How utterly stifling it all sounds.

The thing is, both sides of the footprint issue end up at the same place: an over-exposed and all-too-transparent society whose citizens are fearful of failure. As a teacher, it would be tragic to see risk taking and out-of-the-box thinking decline any further in our classrooms.

Copyright vs. Copywrong

The shear amount of content I've stollen from other people off the internet is simply staggering.

250 Gigs wasn't enough to hold all the movies, images and endless lists of songs... 250 GB turned into 750 GB with the purchase of a 500 GB HD, then a 1 TB HD to back it all up.

The quantities of zeros and ones. The storage space it required became increasingly less of an issue as hard drives just kept getting cheaper and cheaper...

At some point in this process, it was not only the storage space that got cheaper; the content in my opinon started to lose some of its artistic value as well.

Surely the artists who spawned these imaginative creations never aspired to have their work randomly fired through cyber space, or shared for free between computer links.

Most of them I'm guessing don't want to work for nothing.

On the other side of the free-share story, file sharing communities have helped to launch bands like my brother's : The New Deal , and gained them much popularity amongst those with complementary musical taste.

For more on good sharing, check out this video about artist who want you to view, listen and use their content.

Teacher's Crystal Ball

Networked learners. Google docs. RSS feeds. The Horizon Report. GeoTagged Everything. Smart Objects. And that’s just the next 5 years…

Maybe Marc Prensky was right after all and these dusty old curriculums teachers cling to are getting in the way.

But where I would chose to deviate from Prensky- is what curriculums are getting in the way of.

I commented on a few blogs recently that teachers should all be equipped with a crystal ball to see what the future will look like. What a 21st Century learner needs to know.

Based on global projections about the health of our planet (made with today’s technology), the number of friends you have on Facebook, or the number of hits on your connected blog, won’t mean a thing!

Food and water shortages, diseases and epidemics, pollution, deforestation, energy consumption… Technology isn’t the cure. It is the problem itself.

Today’s learner needs to know how to use a divining rod, and a fishing rod; how to harness the wind, and brew ethanol.

Making videos with a phone is easy.

Swimming or Skimming?

In his article in the Atlantic, Is Google making us Stupider, Nicholas Carr describes the feeling of losing his span of attention.

He describes how he used to love immersing himself into words and books and lengthy prose; but now, with computer-based reading occupying increasingly more of his reading, he struggles to read past a few paragraphs. Instead of thoughtful and involved reading, he is gleaning for ideas, while being bombarded by competing images and advertising.

He describes his transformation as the difference between swimming and Jet Skiing.

Carr is certainly not the only one having the experience of peeked distractibility online. But what are the implications of this kind of transformation in reading?

Is this phenomenon, as Carr suggests, making us ‘stupider’? Or are we, and our students benefiting from seeing more?

Perhaps online reading about: gardening, adventure travel, global issues (or any wide variety of topics), could actually be a richer experience for students (or any learner) if accompanied by images, links, and pop-ups.

If that is the case, then to deny our kids online reading, and promote books is an educational crime.

Is the pursuit of slow the equivalent of a thumb in the eye of the speed boat of technology? Does it behoove us all to get on the boat now or risk being left behind to become obsolete? (Have you noticed this about technology; at a certain point, if you’re not on Facebook, or you don’t’ have a cell phone, you’re a pain in the ass!?)

I think what it comes down is this: like any Jet Ski ride, the adrenaline rush is great at first, but eventually the ride has to either go somewhere, or come to an end. Extending the metaphor, at some point, students will find an area of interest, get off the Jet Ski and swim in the words.

And the reading will be more powerful because they will have found it on their own. Our job as educators, then must be that of guide and life guard.

Pendulum Swung too Far: Marc Prensky VS. Nicholas Carr

In his article Apopt and Adapt, Prensky makes a case for more technology in schools. Perhaps that's putting it too mildly. He implies so much more technology is needed that schools' curriculums are getting in the way of technology.

He argues that teachers and school are too conservative, too slow, and that schools: teacher and administrators, hang on to curriculum as if it is the last bastion of culture and the way things were. If Marc Prensky were to walk out of his software training and Games design office and into virtually any other business setting, would he really expect to find the technically advanced demographic that he isn't seeing in schools?

Prensky complains that although teachers have started using programs like powerschool, they are not changing their assignments. (Does he know what powerschool is?)

For our kids to be able to finally join the 21st century, all schools should be one-to-one, and all lessons, activities, and assignments should be digitally based. Because after all, the computer has become "extensions of the students' personal self and brain".

Nicholas Carr makes mention to the ideas of AI (artificial intelligence) and the computer as an extension of our brains in his article "Is Google Making us Stupider?". Carr desribes the possibility of becoming a society of "pancake people" spread too wide and too thin with access to uncountable volumes of information at the touch of a button. And how Google is working toward programming AI.

Although at times, I sensed that Carr was deliberately making a Socratic case in his article, I think that he too would find fault with Prensky's extreme position on the over-use of technology in schools.

Beating up on Bloom

Is it academically cliche to repeatedly defame old theories and theorists?

If so I apologize...

I just think that any taxonimist worth his salt should describe the entire specrum of the heirarchy on which they claim expertise.

Kate and Tess (my 2 year old twins) are curently learning and thinking at a mad rate. None of what they are doing are represented on Bloom's heirarchy because their thinking must not qualify as HOTS.

But if to them stacking cups and signing songs and learning signs is higher order, then, equitably speaking, shouldn't that qualify?

Evidently I am not the first to come to this realization. Dave did in 1975. Here is his take on it:

The follow up question is this: Could this model then also be interepreted into the world of digital thinkers?

Looking at a glance, the answer must be yes.

From banging on a computer mouse, to touch typing keyboard skills, to writing a first essay, there are applications throughout the spectrum.