SpongeBob SquarePants, a thoroughly modern character

So the new of the day is that watching SpongeBob SquarePants causes attention problems in four-year-olds.  My question is, "What's wrong with that outcome?"  That is, why should one of my favorite cartoon characters be any different from the nightly news that I watch.  America's nightly news programs routinely jump from one overly-sensationalized story to the next, offering snippets of information, including sound bites from what should be thoughtful and carefully crafted speeches.  Between these "news stories," we are subjected to equally frenetic run of commercials.  Most annoyingly, before departing from news to commercial we are given a teaser statement for what will be coming up "next," which is apparently newspeak for sometime before the end of the broadcast...maybe.

A short attention span may be just the thing these four-year-olds will need for keeping up with what's important in their future world.  And when it comes to "waiting before eating snacks," why would we want to?

"Discussing New Literacies"

"Profiles and Perspectives: Discussing New Literacies" by Michele Knobel and Colin Lankshear introduces two kinds of "stuff" that constitute what makes a literacy "new": the technical stuff of hardware and software, and the ethos stuff that involves "the kind of mindset informing a literacy practice."  Knobel and Lankshear reference Powerpoint as an example of a technical advance that doesn't offer much new with respect to the ethos of literacy practice. I would agree. (This is not to say that Powerpoint doesn't offer something of value in the technical stuff arena. The contribution of the two kinds of stuff can be relative.)  Moreover, I would argue that something like Prezi is an example of a presentation application that offers more in the way of ethos, and not just because of the associative nature of how it presents information (versus Powerpoint's being linear).  Prezi also places different cognitive demands on its composer to recognize and articulate the multidimensional relationships between elements as well as a concept of the whole that is not present with Powerpoint.

What I find particularly interesting in Knobel and Lankshear is a statement they make regarding multitasking.

What constitutes technology "integration"?

Technology integration is something that many educators are struggling to understand both conceptually and in practical terms.  Educators in Maine have been asked to focus on TPCK and SAMR. In Florida, the conceptual framework is apparently the Technology Integration Matrix, "a video resource supporting the full integration of technology in Florida schools."

In the interest of full disclosure, I must say that I am suspicious of all such attempts to define technology in matrix-form.  I find the danger in these approaches is the suggestion that one box and only one box (e.g., top right or bottom right) represents satisfactory pedagogy when it comes to technology integration.  Whether intended or not, the implication is that this one box represents full integration, and when a teacher is not in that box, it represents failure.  I consider the mix of technology-based and non-application oriented approaches to be more complicated than that.

Internet Futures

Sometimes I feel as if I can barely keep up with the pace of change in technology...and sometimes I'm not sure I want to.  Wired Magazine recently published the article The Web is Dead, Long Live the Internet,  suggesting that a major shift in cyberspace may be in the offing.

Two decades after its birth, the World Wide Web is in decline, as simpler, sleeker services — think apps — are less about the searching and more about the getting...Blame human nature.  As much as we intellectually appreciate openness, at the end of the day we favor the easiest path.  We’ll pay for convenience and reliability.

Essentially, what Wired is saying is that we've been through the Wild West times in which everyone and anyone could take a hand in shaping the Internet by the way we use the World Wide Web. New sheriffs may be on the scene...and I'm not sure I want to see an end to the gunslingers.

Teachers must be confident with technology

"Teachers must be confident with technology to effectively employ it in their lessons" is an article posted at the National Writing Project website by Paul Epstein, a reading, writing and technology teacher at Ruffner Elementary School in Charleston, WV, and co-director of the Central West Virginia Writing Project.  Epstein's article includes a  link to Teachers are the Center of Education: Writing, Learning, and Leading in the Digital Age, a report by the NWP and others that tells the stories of nine teachers "who are quietly but effectively making revolutionary changes" with the use of technology in their classrooms.

Free Technology for Teachers

One of the most prolific sources of information about technology that is oriented toward teachers' practice is provided by Richard Byrne at Free Technology for Teachers. One of Richard's entries entitled How I Pick Blogs introduces three questions he uses to test blogs:

• "does this have real relevance to a classroom and is it universally accessibly?"
• "can the average teacher access this in five minutes?"
• "can students access this quickly and is the advertising classroom-safe?"

a related post by Richard, What I Read First, lists ten blogs that top his recommendations.

iLearn Technology on blogging

As with any new pursuit, those working to adopt and integrate technology into their lives and classroom practice appreciate the stories (both horrific and inspirational) of those in the same situation.  An interesting story recounting one teacher's experience concludes by asking others "Do you want to form an alliance - with me?" How this alliance might work is covered at "Let Me Show You Inside a Secret Blogging Alliance."

This teacher's story is part of the iLearn Technology site, where this teacher also provides great classroom ideas that are distinguished by the way this teacher includes both the tech reference and the application concept.  This is one of my favorite RSS subscriptions!