So glad you are here...
- © 2004-2023 Mr. Shupe Contact Me 0
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Technology helps us learn. Technology amplifies
what we are capable of. Ok, maybe I am not an amplifier, but with technology I can help others amplify their knowledge, understanding, senses, communication, and LIFE!
)Any type of literacy implies a mastery of skills, fluency and application of knowledge to a variety of unrelated and dissimilar contexts. Someone who knows only how to read one book would not be considered literate. A student that is truly literate in numeracy must be capable of recognizing patterns, applying logic, and manipulation of quantities in many settings, not just using a chalkboard or pencil and paper. The task of literacy is much bigger than a tool. So why do we keep focusing on tools?Any type of literacy implies a mastery of skills, fluency and application of knowledge to a variety of unrelated and dissimilar contexts.
Are you connected? Or have you isolated yourself intellectually?“You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank all that high on the truth meter. With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation.”
President Obama • May 2010 Commencement Address • Hampton University, Virginia
So that leaves me to comment on the third goal. Yes, our numaric system is Aramaic. But should our once proud Space Exploration Agency hold up it’s foremost goal to “make them (Muslims) feel good about their historic contributions to science, math and engineering”??!! Please!!!!“”and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations, to help them feel good about their historic contributions to science, math and engineering.””
NASA Director Charles Bolden
“The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.
Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.
Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.”
“We Choose to Go to the Moon”
President John F. Kennedy, 1962
“2. We are have some pretty big decisions looming on how we are going to handle an influx of personal mobile computing devices into our society. With the ipad, new iphone, android devices in both phone and tablet forms arriving, and the continued growth and popularity of netbooks, there are a lot more discussions of how we are going to respond to this trend as schools. These conversations center around network infrastructure, policy, instructional strategies, and preparing teachers for this change.”
credit: Henry Thiele
This was also major focus of my thoughts as I had just delivered the first iPad in Education workshop for Apple Professional Development and had participated in ISTE’s Leadership Bootcamp right before the general conference. It is another question that grows out of economics and the mandate placed on adult educators to manage the student’s learning experiences.
When my students were asked to participate in Rock Our World last fall, one of the first things I did with them was discuss branding. We spent a bit of time discussing what a brand is and how important it was to differentiate yourself from everyone else. I thought that this would be an easy exercise as I asked them, They couldn’t come up with anything significant.“What is the one thing that makes our school system different from every other school in the world?”
or
Maybe as a nation we have had so many things that our media tells us we should be ashamed of, that we have forgotten what we should be proud of.
or
Maybe our entertainment / virtual reality movies, games, tv shows have become so good that we have lost a sense of being amazed when solid rocket boosters hurl living beings several hundred miles above the earth.
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Our sense of adventure in space was seared by the last two shuttle accidents.
or
The many benefits of Space Exploration and the inventions of space related-technologies (velcro, metal alloys used in sporting events, insulating blankets, etc.) have virtual no popular association with the Space Program.
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Our culture’s heros have changed. We no longer honor our astronauts as explorers and hero’s, we only see them in the news when they are part of a scandalous love triangle.
I don’t really know what it is... or maybe it is all of those reasons and more. All I know is that the students never identified the brand of their school with the location of being on the SpaceCoast. And now we are down to a very uncertain future as the SpaceCoast. Two more launches of the Space Shuttle are scheduled and there is no manned launch program in the plans. In fact, the once proud US of A is going to rent seats on a Russian space craft whenever have a need to get to the Space Station or the Hubble.
What seemed like a futuristic, high tech name for a blog has become a historical reference of antiquity. Maybe I need to reexamine my brand...
Ed Tech Thoughts from the Spacecoast
“GREAT NEWS!!
After years of effort the Florida Legislature has passed landmark legislation allowing traditional textbook dollars to be used for innovation and technology in the classroom! Tremendous thanks go to the hundreds and hundreds of supporters in and beyond the Sunshine State to make this happen. However, the legislation won't become law unless Florida Governor Charlie Crist approves it, and that remains uncertain at best.THE CLOCK IS TICKING! We have until Friday, May 14 to make the case to Gov. Crist, so act now on behalf of students everywhere who will reap the benefits of this landmark bill.”
almost 20% of the respondents were from schools where each student was issued a computer )
At the Apple Distinguished Educator Summer Institute last summer, we were challenged to “Create Your Own Brand - the Brand of You”. Now in some ways this may sound egotistical and self-indulgent, but it certainly can be a useful exercise to consider who we are, what are our talents, our experiences and what we have to offer others. It helps us grow to think about what we are good at and what we can get better at, what brings us job satisfaction, what we can be passionate about.“For I say, through the grace that was given me, to every man who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think reasonably, as God has apportioned to each person a measure of faith.”
Shaul, Letter to the Romans
I hope to help others enrich, improve, and experience greater results as they learn. And this is what an amplifier does, it takes a small thing and makes it bigger and hopefully better. “It cannot be emphasized too strongly, nor repeated too often, that the most important cause of our educational shortcomings is not laziness, unionism, waywardness, stupidity, or any moral fault among the leaders of our educational enterprise. Rather, it is a system of attractive but unsound ideas. Known to educational historians as the progressive movement, these ideas took over in the United States during the latter half of the 20th century and remain very popular. The strength of the progressive movement—its lasting contribution—is its empathy with childhood. Its fatal flaw is its belief that the child-centered schooling it envisions can only be accomplished by resisting a rigorous academic curriculum and encouraging children to develop their skills using whatever content they find engaging.”
quote from the accompanying article The Anti-Curriculum Movement
What is the baseline... what is that common experience, skillset, minimum conceptual mastery level that we should ensure that all students have?
This is the stuff that standards
are constructed out of. I subscribe to what Psychologist Larry Crabb once coined as the mixed salad approach (he was speaking of Psychology Theories of counselling)- borrowing a little here, borrowing a little there, sometimes doing this, sometimes doing that. I think learning theories are also not monolithic, but deserving of equal time. So I appreciate the idea that Hirsch promoting that all students should have a common content- and it caused me to pause, and revisit that question for educational technology.