The Dumbest Generation on Earth

Thanks to my literary and intellectual superior, I put the Kool-Aid aside and started reading -
The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30)

 

I am about half way through the book right now. It is a nice methodical argument and Bauerlein does his due diligence in breaking down the claims of new media enthusiasts by repeating test result after test result to the contrary.

My initial question... Does Bauerlein address the breakdown between educational technology theory and practice? Educational technology theory is designed to embed traditional literacy skills into technology integration. So in the case of library media instruction, a media specialist would read students a book or have them read a book and then have them create digital media artifacts after the reading experience. This type of thoughtful planning doesn't always happen. Bauerlein discusses how "screen" media is used at home to babysit kids. Does he take educators to task for doing the same thing?

The problem runs deep. Recently, I have observed my 3 year old nephew become obsessed with a hunting video game. There is no persuading him away from the game. We are going to have to find a way to reach the children of our generational cohort.

One foot into their attentional door might be to embed "traditional literacy" skills into entertainment systems. Or possibly to create authentic and relevant games that require students to read a book to be successful at the game.

I admit that my last paragraph really misses the point. Bauerlein argues that less reading is the problem and no amount of educational media bait and switch will take the place of sustained silent reading.

Bauerlein mentions how the rush to read Harry Potter was motivated by the need to obtain social capital. I don't believe that paying kids with pizza or parties will motivate them to read. Will he give clues to motivational potentials or will he just bash technology?

I guess I will have to read it to find out.

Educational Philosophy

Below is the first draft of the latest incarnation of my educational philosophy.   I encourage and appreciate your thoughts:

Dewey writes that, "education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself". In my view the primary objective of education is to enrich lives by preparing students for empowered participation in the conversations and decisions of the local community, the greater society and in an increasingly global and interconnected world. I believe students already posses an essential and innate ability to make meaning from their experiences. Teachers, however, play a critical role in how students develop and hone those abilities.

To prepare our students to those ends, I create learning opportunities that meet the essential goal of education. These opportunities are centered around developing, encouraging and promoting literacy. Regardless of context educational or otherwise, the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute and use printed, written and electronic materials, is tantamount to achieving the ends of education. I believe that the keys to unlocking the physical, emotional, economic and creative doors of potential for each and every one of my students are best obtained in a variety of literary pursuits.

I am driven to design instruction with an interactive approach that reflects the ongoing interactive discussions that take place in our communities. I incorporate methods such as Think-Pair-Share, Cooperative Learning, Structured Academic controversy and Jigsaw into my lesson plans. With this type of instruction learning can only take place in a warm, safe, honest and communicative classroom community where both teacher and learner take responsibility for managing their personal conduct.

I have a strong interest in the use of technology to transform literacy. When applied with the same rigor that goes into instructional design, technology will transform our relationships with the community, greater society and our interconnected global world. Web 2.0 or new media technologies decentralize media production away from a privileged elite and give the power of multimedia storytelling to our students. Modern digital tools make it easy and affordable for classrooms to produce media rich compositions. I am influenced by the technological pedagogical content knowledge framework and a social constructivist approach to technology integration. This theoretical tilt lends itself to promoting literacy across a variety of media and across all content areas.


Paulo Friere notes, "The future is something to be constructed through trial and error rather than an inexorable vice that determines all our actions." I believe, literacy or the construction of meaning is the tool that prepares our students for the world they are negotiating to inherit. Our future will be determined through our students ability to communicate the meanings they gather from their lived experience.

One too many mornings

I'm just one too many mornings and a thousand miles behind...

The end of the semester grind is in full force.  I don't have anything in particular to say, but I thought putting some words down might be just the motivation I need to finish up the final projects of the year.

I am closing pretty quickly on my first year of blogging.  I definitely learned a few things.  If this were a good post I would go into analysis of my one year reflections, but its not. 

I'm just one too many mornings and a thousand miles behind: