Technology: Let's get Ubiquitous!

My overarching goal as I enter the classroom is to help my students become successful human beings. We have been exploring our role as moral educators, but one facet of our responsibility as teachers is much more tangible: we must prepare our students to be employable and viable in tomorrow's job market. "Our students will most likely obtain jobs we cannot even imagine. In 1992, the U.S. Department of Labor's SCANS report noted that at least 80% of all jobs in the next two decades would require workers to be technologically fluent. This means if workers are not well prepared in using technology to succeed in the workplace, they will be forced to take low-paying jobs with limited potential for advancement." (Swain & Edyburn, 2007) We are nearing the end to of the two decades mentioned in 1992, and witnessing the reality of the forecast: many (of course, not all) lucrative jobs reside in realms that require extensive technological expertise and training. Thus, I will be doing a disservice to my students if I exclude technology from my curriculum. I will strive to create fluent technology natives whose opportunities are not bound by limited technological knowledge.



I see the challenge of overcoming technological access issues being a matter of logistics and asking permission. "...you can find out discreetly which of your students do and do not have access to computers and the Internet at home and then point those who lack these resources to places in the community where they can turn to gain better access (e.g. public library, community technology center, Boys and Girls Club)." (Swain & Edyburn, 2007) I took classes at Portland Community College for a year and a half before entering Concordia, and witnessed the incredible connectivity available on college campuses. Considering PCC and Concordia have large classrooms equipped with MANY computer stations, I will likely contact colleges that are proximal to my school and request the use of their services for class sessions, and for proctored after-school sessions. I am probably a raging bleeding heart liberal when I see education, and all the components that facilitate the best education, as a basic human right, but I will exploit my optimism to the fullest extent if it will help my students.


This is a bleeding heart! In Duluth!

Using technology in the classroom, even if students do not have congruent outside access, if my responsibility. It is also my responsibility to broaden the access of all of my students, until we approach technological ubiquity. Swain & Edyburn speak of the availability of discounted computers and open-source software (2007); I will do my best to put technology into the hands of all of my students, to create the best futures possible. FreeGeek, here I come!

Powerful Point!

My favorite part of the presentations was the passion each person demonstrated for their topic. For example, Marc's dynamic demonstration of tennis serves created an emotional connection to the material. Maya's sharing of personal experiences brought Espanol to us. And Peter's incorporation of our class passions, legal pad and the sad trombone, instantly enraptured me.

My attention wavered when faced with slides devoid of pictures, or slides that consisted of a substantial amount of unspaced text on a simple background. I see Powerpoint as a means of organizing talking points, not communicating paragraphs. If I find myself divulging blocks of information, I create multiple slides to break up the thought.

I fear that the text in my slides was lost in the busy-ness of some of the pictures. I would make sure that I choose my pictures very wisely, as to maximize the ability to create highly contrasted text. Also, I would choose a topic that actually relates to science, OR I would narrow my topic to a 5-minute celebration of foods wearing hats.

I LOVE Powerpoint. Powerpoint is an excellent means of organizing ideas, conveying information visually, and a great way to manage time during presentations. The greatest fault of Powerpoint is that the presentations are a reflection of the work that goes into creating the presentations, so a presentation that is devoid of creativity or inspiration will not engage the audience. Powerpoint is a great tool if it used wisely and effectively.

Chatspeak: Chaucer lives!

When I read this assignment, I was foaming at the mouth at the thought of constructing a list of 75 reasons why I hate chatspeak. But, after I read the point/counterpoint article "Is Chatspeak Destroying English?" I realized that this assignment has nothing to do with my loathing of the atrocity "ur" (as opposed to you're), but everything to do with the evolution of the language that has reshaped education through the ages.

I love Greg Monfils' (the gentleman who penned the counterpoint argument) tribute to Geoffrey Chaucer, a man who knows a little bit about written communication in a non-traditional form. When Chaucer, Virgil, and Dante Alghieri cast off the constraints of traditional language, and chose the pen of the vernacular, it made written communication accessible to the excluded masses, and changed the face of information forever. I am not likening chatspeak to an epic tale of the afterlife penned in Italian, but I am acknowledging its place as an offshoot of the language that will characterize a generation.

10th grade geometry. The only thing I remember is that two girls created their own cryptic language, sort of like a convoluted pig latin, and babbled in this language incessantly, marginalizing the teacher from their epic 15-year-old conversations. Luckily, my friend Tiffany had the song "Double Dutch Bus" on vinyl, so we learned the izza language, which has since been adopted by Snoop Dogg. I remember feeling so cool saying "fo' shizzle," and the memory is quite fresh, because I probably said "fo' shizzle" yesterday. I also remember preparing grammatically-correct English and History assignments, because my passion for "The Double Dutch Bus" remained on Tiffany's turntable. I am with Greg Monfils: creating a language is a means to assert generational identity, and I will trust students to keep chatspeak bound to cell phone screens and informal correspondence. I do not think that chatspeak is destroying English, but instead forging its way as the digital generation's vernacular. Dy-no-mite!

Cyberbullying

The STOP Cyberbullying website defines cyberbullying as using online media to threaten, harass, humiliate, or otherwise target a child, pre-teen or teenager. I took the STOP Cyberbullying quiz to gain perspective on where I stand in the online realm, and realized, OH NO!, I was once a perpetrator of cyberbullying. One of my Sailors left his email account open, and I took a few liberties with the access...I won't go into detail (you would be surprised how magnificently the written language centers of your brain can function after being fueled by fresh salt air), but I feel like a complete jerk for how I acted in that situation. Perhaps the fact that he offered to build me a water/electricity hookup in his front yard in Kentucky if I ever buy an RV will ease my troubled soul.

The problem that schools face is that the effects of cyberbullying must be incredibly pervasive to warrant intervention. "Tinker v. Des Moines Independent
Community School District (1969) provides that a school may only restrict student speech that causes a substantial and material disruption of school activities because students do not shed their constitutional rights, including their right to free speech, at the schoolhouse gate." (Taylor, 2008) Thus, according to Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), social disruption and emotional disruption are not compelling enough to intervene in students' online lives; instruction, content, and school life itself must be impacted before measures will be taken to dissipate cyber issues.

I think that the root of cyberbullying is much deeper than jaded comments posted on social networking sites. In my most optimistic voice, I will say that we must strive to instill a sense of self-worth and value in our students, as to eliminate the need to cyberbully in the first place. In a perfect world, where self-esteem ran rampant, the need to regulate cyberbullying would dwindle as self-images blossomed, and schools would be leading students toward cyber lives that did not necessitate negativity.

Back to reality: how will I deal with cyberbullying in my classroom? I will utilize technology extensively in my assignments, building a cohesive electronic community, in which my students are called upon to utilize cyberspace etiquette. If the proper way to use resources is taught and modeled, students will have the tools to resist/deter/conquer cyberbullying, and progress toward becoming better cyber citizens.

Rachel Hermans of the World, Unite and Take Over

Being a Rachel Herman is boring. When I was in school, there was another girl named Rachel Herman in my Sociology of Marriage class. Once I received a scathing email from her roommate telling her to pick up her dirty underwear from the middle of the floor...I replied timidly, "maybe you have the wrong Rachel Herman? p.s. sorry about the underwear." Thus, when I searched the 'net for myself, I was not surprised to find out that the boringness of the Rachel Herman legacy lives on.

Searching for my name wielded a photographer (http://www.rachelherman.net/), and a fabrician (go ahead, treat yourself to a new duvet http://www.rachelherman.com/products/duvets/index.html), but nothing of yours truly. Searching for the email address I use in the professional/educational realm produced no results; searching for the email address I use with my friends conjured a mostly-defunct MySpace page that is not accessible unless viewed by a "friend." So Cyndi Lauper and a person posing as Blanche from "the Golden Girls" can view all of my pictures, but no potential employers.

Searching for the "handle" formed by the first part of the email address I use with my friends elicited slightly more interesting results. I found that my Photobucket account was public, and the photo used as the "thumbnail" was the photo most recently added: a picture I stole from my friend's Facebook account in which she is making the "who farted?" face. I don't think that she would care that I borrowed her picture (because it makes me laugh until tears stream down my face), but it did make me realize that deleting pictures from the past and making my account private was a very important leap toward my future in the education biz'. I also found an archaic account I opened on another photo hosting site, and promptly tried to delete it; unfortunately, profiles can't be manually deleted, so the best I could do was delete all of my pictures and email the website ITs asking them to delete my profile. My YouTube account has no videos or personal information, and my Ebay site is devoid of potential smear campaigns. Thus, this assignment has been a catalyst for an important event: leading an increasingly boring life. Yessssss.

Teachers are held to higher standards, and rightly so. Being a teacher is a 24-hours-per-day gig, insinuating that professionals within the teaching domain should have the cognizance to realize that they are setting an example for their students at all times. I don't personally condemn the actions of other people, but I am not the person making the decisions; I will forever conduct myself as if a person at TSPC is reading every word I publish in cyberspace. I will not let myself become a victim of context or misunderstanding.

Fueling my neurosis: "Recent reports in the media have shown teachers being reprimanded for what school districts consider 'inappropriate activity.' The
content on these questionable pages includes candid photos, racy or suggestive song lyrics, and references to sex or to alcohol or drug use. Venting about personal
frustrations at work has also caused problems. While completely banning teachers from having social networking profiles seems downright draconian, some school districts have taken a range of disciplinary actions, including dismissal, against what they consider to be questionable uses of social networking sites by teachers." (Carter et. al, 2008) As a person who came of age in the Facebook generation, I see the benefits of social networking, but I also see the potential for out-of-context, that's-not-what-I-meant, I-can't-believe-my-friend-posted-that disasters. No, thanks.

Before I begin interviewing to become a teacher, I will definitely delete my MySpace page, and maybe my Facebook page. Social networking is not a priority in my life, so I will have no qualms about parting ways with it. Call me paranoid, call me boring, but hopefully, call me employed.

Digital immigration: practicing my non-regional diction.

Confession: I am a technology immigrant. 8-bit Nintendo: did not purchase one until I was 24 years old. Typing: learned on one of those typewriters with the letters on metal sticks that swing toward the paper with enough force to stamp ink onto the manually-inserted sheet of paper. Telephone: when I was 13 I graduated from an antique dial-phone to the transparent-plastic neon wire telephone that Kelly Kapowski had on “Saved by the Bell.” But, as limited as my technological beginnings may seem, I have had the advantage of maturing amidst the evolution of technology, and connecting quite intimately with it (I eventually cemented my typing skills on a Tandy computer!). I love the idea of likening technology fluency to speaking with an accent, in that “…to adapt to their environment, (people) always retain, to some degree, their "accent," that is, their foot in the past” (Prensky, 2001); my only hope is to emulate Veronica Corningstone, Christina Applegate’s character in “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” and “practice my non-regional diction.”

My dream is to truly connect with my students, and teach them in ways that benefit them as much as possible. To realize this dream, I must ditch the New England accent that occasionally creeps in, and master this non-regional diction.
During high school, the technology in the classroom consisted of a blackboard with the available option of a pull-down projector screen OR a map of the world. Some teachers had overhead projectors with which they could display transparencies, but that was rather rare. College was more of the same; I remember preparing a lesson about how gender roles progress over the life span, and handing the guy at the copy shop a 3 ½” floppy disk so that he could print my picture of Blanche Devreaux from “The Golden Girls” onto a transparency in black and white. I literally remember my first powerpoint presentation, a guest lecturer in my statistical design class talking about statistics specific to psychological research. I was blown away; this lecturer had truly accepted the challenge to “…engage them at their level, even with the old stuff, the stuff we all claim is so important, that is, the “curriculum.” (Prensky, 2006) I needed to learn the statistical component of psychology to be effective, but she created a visual presentation that truly flowed, and kept the students rapt. It was a poignant taste of technology in the classroom, but I actually learned more about technology once I exited the academic environment.

War is fought with powerpoint. Literally. Top-secret war exercises that challenge the strategic and tactical capabilities of the world’s most powerful leaders are actually hours-long powerpoint presentations in which high-ranking military members quake in fear as they deliver visuals of bad news to even higher-ranking military members. But what a great classroom to learn the subtleties of visual technology! Don’t tell anybody I told you this, but one of the actual scenarios I entered into the war exercise database I maintained was an exploding soda machine, except the person who wrote it called it a pop machine. I had to create training materials that appealed to all of my new Sailors, embracing those from the heart of the Mississippi Delta as well as those from the center of the Bronx. If I learned anything in this environment, it is that technology unites learners; I was a technology immigrant teaching to a group of technology natives, and I learned quickly that “…if Digital Immigrant educators really want to reach Digital Natives – i.e. all their students – they will have to change.” (Prensky, 2001). I made all of my material about my Sailors, for my Sailors, which resulted in very successful training. The next step was trying to convince my salty old comrades that this was a valid venture…that was not very successful.

I have embraced the evolution of technology, but I still speak with an accent, because I have only experienced the revolution from an immigrant’s perspective. I will do my best to overcome the generational difference…for my students’ sake.

Introduction!

Howdy! I am Rachel Herman, an aspiring teacher of High School Biology and Middle School Integrated Science. I am a native of Alexandria, Virginia, and I moved to Portland two years ago with my incredible partner Jake. Prior to joining this graduate program, I provided comprehensive care to adults with developmental disabilities, an experience that redefined my purpose in life. I served as an officer in the United States Navy for 5 years, which allowed me a glimpse of brotherhood and comraderie that can only be achieved by six months spent in a 120-degree-Fahrenheit machinery room that is 5 decks below sunlight. I earned a Bachelors of Science in Human Development from Cornell University in 2003.



If fate happens to deposit you at the Bloomsberg Fair in Bloomsberg, Pennsylvania, be prepared for a wondrous sight: for a mere $2.00, you may view the World's Largest Sewer Rat. In actuality, it is a dumpster with some straw at the bottom, and a capybara nestled in the straw. Observe the capybara, and perhaps you will understand why it is, officially, the raddest animal on the planet: