arzeisel14

Blog #5
http://wedderburn-college.blogspot.com/

I love wikis.  

I am getting tired of everyone praising the wiki. I talked recently with a friend and he informed me about how practical wikis really are. The whole system has already crashed at least once and it costs a lot of money, you have to pay a yearly fee. I think this cost, which for me was $77, is ridiculous. In a education system were money is being taken away, it is foolish to expect to use such an expensive system. So basically, even though wikis offer a nice new tool, I think it is just another means for big business to turn education into an industry and make money off of the Education System.

The industrialization of education is a great concern for me. I think this has become a growing trend in society and needs to stop. Everywhere we turn, we can see it. Standardize testing, school contracts on learning materials, and new technologies which are being forced upon the next generation of teachers and their students. We need to be very critical of these new advancements, which have basically been put into the mainstream learning process and have produced a uniform education for all students. If I have learned anything this semester it is that learning doesn't occur in the same way for all students and thusly, grading all students, or expecting the same educational outcome from them is absurd. Students are so different.

But getting back to wikispaces. Teachers should have the choice for what technology they use to teach their students. It is cool to inform students about wikis and other technologies but there are other means which cannot be forgotten. A lot of the benefits of wikis are within other programs as well. We can never be satisfied with one technology and must use our abilities as a consumer to keep things mixed up. We must be really careful with wikis, and not allowing it to become a monopoly on schooling.

http://heyjude.wordpress.com/2007/10/22/write-your-thoughtsor-stream-that-news/#comments

 Blog #4

"But what about the option of using this as a blogging tools for kids?"

I am new to the blog world and am only blogging for my C&I class at Illinois State, but I am very interested in learning about how the blog world works and all the new ideas within it. I have found that the Blog World is very confusing and seems to be unorganized. However, Bloggers seem to be very dedicated to their blogs, and they must be in order to find blogs they want to subscribe to and keep updated upon.

What scares me about how vast the blogging world is becoming is the involvement of children. do kids really need to blog? I think not. How dependent do we want our children to become on Blogging? Also how will parents who have had no experience with blogging teach their children. Is this yet another subject area that children will learn from someone other than their parents? The World is getting to complicated people. We don't need blogs, kids don't need them, and they only keep us infront of our computers more. We do too much, to the extent that normal functions of people within society, that have been occuring for hundreds of years, are being put on the back burner. I would rather be a father who teaches his children to play baseball than to be the father who spends all his time on a computer while teachers get paid less to teach my children more pointless stuff in school, were they are already over burdened and stressed.

Blog # 3 

So let me see if I can disappoint some people and come at this from an entirely different direction. What if I suggested that it was our fault.

I really enjoyed reading this blog. As a soon to be History Teacher I have a vast appreciation for primary sources and the way research used to be done. Today we do not have to deal with library catalogs, old books that are falling apart, dusty libraries, or unhelpful library attendants; we have the internet. The internet has made research and fact finding easier and quicker than ever. However, with this ease, trade-offs have arisen. Students today have so much information at their fingertips that they do not know how to sift through fact and biased fiction. Maybe this isn't such a good thing. When students had to spend a good amount of time and effort to find a source they didn't just use the first thing they found, they had to scrutinize each source to insure that they didn't waste their time with a poor source that could discredit their research.

Sadly for us teachers, teaching students how to deal with internet sources will be another job that we will have to tackle in school 2.0. No one in society wants to accept their role in raising the future generation. Parents aren't parents, policemen are corrupt, politicians sell out for the highest dollar, and sport athletes are drug users who beat their girl friends and criminals. These role models are no more and teachers have to face this shift in society head on. I will the one to suffer with students who haven't been raised by their parents, see the dollar as the almighty, and cut every corner that they can. The internet allows students to cut corners in research and proper citation. To combat this teachers will be forced to be the examples of how to use literature appropriately. Citing information is never fun, and for teachers it will become an arduous task because of the levels of information we have to cover in our courses. Doing this will be an addition burden in our already heavy loads and responsibilities. I really hope we will get large pay raises.

http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/2007/09/12/shhh-im-googling-my-facts/#comment-399982

http://durffsblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/empowering-relationships.html 

"Podcasting is another web 2.0 that solidifies relationships. I did some podcasting with primary students today. They were reading their books and will encourage those people important to them to listen this evening. Listening to these voices will bring families closer. I use web 2.0 tools to reinforce those things that are already important to our lives. Relationship is one of those things." 

I have just recently learned about skype and have slowly began to incorporate into my daily life. I have already been thinking of all the great ways I will be able to use Skype in my future classroom but for whatever reason I didn't think of it as a great way to strengthen relationships. I have always seen the internet and cell phones and other technology which connects people, but not face to face, is not good. I have heard the studies and the theories that state we are becoming a less social society. This is why I believe I couldn't see the ability skype has to keep relationships close. New technologies besides skype can thusly be used for the same thing, to strengthen relationships. The example I think you were getting at in your blog was on the lines of... A child comes home from school and gets asked by his/her parents about what he/she did in school that day... This child who may not remember completely the events of the day or not know the best way to describe the day can upload a podcast or other digital recording and show his/her parents what he/she did that day. this use of these new medias will allow the parents to enter their child's classroom and their world and better understand them. New technologies will allow the family to be a closer and understanding unit. I LOVE THAT. Technology in the family, how awesome.

Illinois State University's Hibbert R. Roberts Lecture in Public Policy will be delivered by Manfred Steger, professor of Global Studies and academic director of the Globalism Institute at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Steger will present "The Rise of the Global Imaginary: Modern Political Ideologies in Transformation" at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 4, in the Old Main Room at Bone Student Center. The lecture is free and open to the public.         --- http://www.mediarelations.ilstu.edu/news_releases/0708/0708/stegerlecture.asp ---

Today I will be summarizing the above stated presentation. ---

• Ideologies are the only way to map out the political landscape.  Liberalism, conservatism, communism, fascism, socialism = the great ideologies of the last 200 year.   We will never live in a world without ideologies or "isms".
• A lecture of political policy.  Arguing for a neutral conception of ideologies.  They are part of who were are, but we should be critical and ask why we believe what we believe.

Here are the questions he asked in his book ---

• Is there something new compared to things that were? 
• Have we moved past things (post)? 

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• place poligamy - what is the community I belong to? Each aspect of life can become global.
• ideology and religion were seperate for very long.  Only now have they been put together.
• China - One World, One Dream! - What World, Whos Dream?
• belonging - what is a community, what is normal, values do we need to share?  Nation didn't work realistically, we can only imagine the perfect American, German, Pole and etc.  communties are too big since the "Nation" to truly belong to one.
• Colonialism and Imperialism spread the ideology of "My Nation" to "My Globe"
• Ideologies are borrowing more and more from each other and they are tranlating the global system into shared thought and policy

1. Now there is a small backlash against the Global, with Israel, the Balkan Countries and so forth.
2. If capitailsm doesn't get regulated globally, we will all be dead (conflict, environmental issues, etc)
   1.  a global market can not exist unregulated, were the great rule  is selfishness and looking out for your own gain  now.  Regulated for the benefit of all.