Comments for 2¢ Worth

Comment on Homework on Wikipedia by Dave

Dave — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:18:29 +0000

Hmmm! What I was thinking was that it seems there are a lot of students out there writing on a lot of topics, many of them similar to the topics other students are researching and writing about. There can be only one Wikipedia article about George Washington or Nelson Mandela.

If you’re teaching Italian Literature, then there may be some room for contributions to Wikipedia.

Comment on Homework on Wikipedia by Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 13 May 2008 05:21:53 +0000

Why would logistics prevent all of us from sending our student’s to Wikipedia. Is it access? Most schools have labs yes? Many have one-to-one or close. Is it filtering? I hope not TOO many schools are blocking Wikipedia?

There’s really no reason “we” can’t do this

Comment on Homework on Wikipedia by Melanie

Melanie — Tue, 13 May 2008 05:13:51 +0000

Hooray for connected learning in action! Fantastic to know that not only is it happening in the world of education, but that it’s also working by engaging students, motivating them to work hard and learn more.

Just goes to show that learning with purpose is always a more engaging factor.

Comment on Another ” Aha! ” Video by Powerful video about change « California Dreamin’ by Rob Darrow

Powerful video about change « California Dreamin’ by Rob Darrow — Tue, 13 May 2008 04:51:31 +0000

[…] to David Warlick, Scott McLeod and Richard Byrne for bringing this video to our attention. (Darn, YouTube is not […]

Comment on Homework on Wikipedia by Michelle

Michelle — Tue, 13 May 2008 01:08:10 +0000

My small high school ESOL class is not at the wikipedia level but I did ask for the their research papers to go on the wiki in our Blackboard site. While this is limited to our school community, it really opened up their minds to what a wiki can be.

Comment on Another ” Aha! ” Video by U Tech Tips » Blog Archive » Utecht’s Daily Links 05/13/2008

U Tech Tips » Blog Archive » Utecht’s Daily Links 05/13/2008 — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:32:14 +0000

[…] Another ” Aha! ” Video | 2¢ Worth […]

Comment on Teaching Creativity by Top Ten Things to Consider When Writing a WebQuest | Suppl_eMINTS

Top Ten Things to Consider When Writing a WebQuest | Suppl_eMINTS — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:10:57 +0000

[…] Be creative. We really have to think outside of the box when writing WebQuests. David Warlick recently posted on his blog, 2¢ Worth, that the creativity we need to encourage in our students “will not […]

Comment on “Here Comes Every One” — What do You Do With Them? by Michael Staton

Michael Staton — Mon, 12 May 2008 20:52:35 +0000

I’m not sure I understand the question. I think the thesis of the book is that everybody is going to use their downtime as part producers rather than total consumers. And, even as consumers they will expect to interact.

There’s no thought of educator’s getting their time liberated. Instead, they’ll be spending more time by having to monitor their students habits and contributions as producers to the web.

Hopefully, there will be some web tools that will improve the efficiency of prep work and collaboration. However, all this book is saying is that we’re all going to spend a lot more time in front of a computer screen instead of instead of the TV.

Comment on Blogging Profiles Report by Jim Lerman

Jim Lerman — Mon, 12 May 2008 04:47:04 +0000

I added up the percentages in the first box, just out of curiosity. In doing this, turns out that the % of Total Population amounts to 104.3% and the % of Bloggers amounts to 105.6%. Kind of makes one wonder about the validity of the data, absent an explanation of why the totals come to over 100% in both cases and don’t equal each other.

In addition, there is no multi-racial category, which by some accounts constitutes up to 10% of the current population of the US. Seems to me that the only reliable conclusion one might draw from these numbers is that the racial distribution of bloggers pretty closely tracks their representation in the overall population.

Regarding the second set of data, what’s most surprising to me is that nearly half of the US adult population considers themselves to be regular users of instant and text messaging, viewers/users of video on the Web, and players video games. Those are some pretty big numbers to me (and perhaps helps to explain how Grand Theft Auto IV made 5 times as much money as the top grossing movie the week it came out)…half the movie-going audience was home on a computer and 9 out of 10 were talking on a cell phone. Not too many left to visitez au cinema.

Comment on Another ” Aha! ” Video by Jon Becker

Jon Becker — Mon, 12 May 2008 01:57:32 +0000

David at al.,
For what it’s worth, The Partnership for 21st Century Skills cited that report long ago (OK, maybe just last year) in their own report here: http://tinyurl.com/3d38uz (see green box at bottom of page 2). Having seen that reference from P21, I’ve been using it in my own arguments (see e.g.: http://edinsanity.com/2008/01/31/an-argument-for-digital-leadership/) I think it’s a pretty damning statement about our schools.

Comment on Reaching Out With Your Conference by Comment Challenge: Day 5 - 10 | Mobile Technology in TAFE

Comment Challenge: Day 5 - 10 | Mobile Technology in TAFE — Mon, 12 May 2008 01:28:56 +0000

[…] and Reframing Conference Social Tool Participation) were in response to David Warlick’s Reaching Out With Your Conference. Tony questions the value of social networking tools because of low participation rates in […]

Comment on Another ” Aha! ” Video by Alan Lutz

Alan Lutz — Sun, 11 May 2008 20:37:13 +0000

Dave, Thanks for your reply to my reply. I am still planning to show this to my staff this week as part of my Technology Coordinator’s “annual song and dance”. Except the principal is only expecting 20 minutes from me. I am trying to stir them up a bit and thought this video to be compelling. Hard for us more “informed techies” to take in all the facts, think how more so for the “regular teachers” whom we are trying to help along into the 21st Century. So many facts come at you and I do want to take this apart and reflect on several of bullet points with the staff. It’s kinda like the elephant. We may all come away from this with a different take. What strikes one is completely different than another’s take. I’ll stay tuned for more of your insights.

Comment on This Stood Out by Dave

Dave — Sun, 11 May 2008 11:37:52 +0000

I think it’s a good question. The answer, to me, is to use the access to cell phones as an opportunity to teach the etiquette of cell phones in public and the ethical use of information.

I, too, would love to hear how they are doing this.

Comment on Interneting New Source for Primary Source Content by Dave

Dave — Sun, 11 May 2008 11:31:30 +0000

I agree with you, Larry, that the site leaves much to be desired, and I agree, especially, that it is about as useful as my first attempt to shuffling playing cards.

But the same could be said of our first attempts at building motor vehicles, the printing press, lighter-than-air travel, etc. Lots of missteps, each with a jewel from which someone else will learn.

I continue to believe that our information access in the future will look a lot more like this than the card catalogs drawers I grew up with.

Comment on Another ” Aha! ” Video by Dave

Dave — Sun, 11 May 2008 11:25:12 +0000

Alan, I agree with you that the information here is open to questioning, which I did all the way to Cullowhee yesterday. I’ve added a paragraph to the blog post (see above).

Comment on “Here Comes Every One” — What do You Do With Them? by vejraska

vejraska — Sun, 11 May 2008 02:33:40 +0000

I totally get this conversation, but let me just say that I see time like I see money…use what you have, because more does not mean better. I can’t say that I do not love the idea of more time to grow and collaborate, and all the other great things that have been mentioned here. The fact remains, however, that there always seems to be someone out there who thinks they know what you should do with your time. I work for someone, they pay me, and until they really understand how important real collaboration is, any time I have inside of school hours will be taken up by what they think is important. I use our first attempt at PLC as an example here, and don’t think that I didn’t love having a district that actually gave us an hour a week to collaborate- that is great. The ideals ran high in the beginning, and we were all hopeful that our pleas for time to work together had finally been heard. We really wanted our time to be useful, but the truth is that most of us have forgotten how to work together really, and the idea of flexible groups was just too messy for the administrators to handle, and so pretty soon we were in groups not according to what we wanted to accomplish, but what made sense to someone else. Our time was being planned for us, and the district was deciding what we should produce with that time. The time I had before PLC is now taken preparing products or assigments for the time we have been given. We didn’t know what to do, and they were too impatient to give us time to figure it out. We’ll try again next year, but really the time is not mine, and more is not better. The people who need to get this conversation, don’t get it yet…how can I help them get it? That is my question:)

Comment on Another ” Aha! ” Video by Alan Lutz

Alan Lutz — Sat, 10 May 2008 21:10:42 +0000

David, I also found this video today and enjoyed it. I plan to share it with my faculty Monday as I help take them to the next level. You were better than I at finding the source. Thanks for sharing that link. I noticed, though, that the dates on the page are for 1996 and a cumulative average for 1989-2000. I would certainly like to HOPE that education has come up a notch or two since then. It always takes so long for government data to get tabulated and made available to the public. Is it still valid by the time we get it? It DOES make a great sound bite at the beginning of the video, I’ll grant!

Comment on Another ” Aha! ” Video by Patricia Cone

Patricia Cone — Sat, 10 May 2008 19:37:21 +0000

Hmm…I didn’t watch the video so my comments may be completely off the mark…I’m reacting to the statement that education is considered part of the industry sector. Schools are factories? I’ve often been disturbed by the assumption that schools and businesses are one and the same. Someday (when I’m retired) I’m going to write an editorial, “If we ran businesses like schools”. One of the first things a business run like a school would have to do is give everyone who applies a job..and change the job to a doable one if the new employee couldn’t do it.

Comment on Interneting New Source for Primary Source Content by Larry Cebula

Larry Cebula — Sat, 10 May 2008 16:05:33 +0000

I am mystified at the praise for this National Archives site. The tagging feature is all well and good, but the site is confusing, lacking in fundamental features (such as an effective search engine and document descriptions) and not very useful. I blogged about it here: http://northwesthistory.blogspot.com/2008/04/flash-over-substance-national-archives.html

Comment on This Stood Out by Doug Spicher

Doug Spicher — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:19:28 +0000

I am curious how these schools have teachers handling phone calls and text messages coming in during class. Also, if you saw the cell phone video out of Baltimore, MD., would giving the phones to kids encourage this type of behavior?