Creative Commons - E. Roberts

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, Ohio

Photo Attribution:

Image: "Rock Hall"

Image URL: http://farm1.staticflickr.com/91/217128162_45ccf8c5bf_m.jpg

Author: Sam Bobko

Licensed under Creative Commons

I might use this image in a geometry class or a design class to illustrate either pyramids or architecture, respectively.

Photo Attribution:

Image: "Snowfall"

Image URL: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7053/6907672895_488021cd59_m.jpg

Author: Eric Roberts

Learning Styles

I took a couple of online tests to determine my preferred learning style characteristics. Based upon Gardner's categories of learning styles, and the test I took, there was only one category in which I stood out as preferred (>3 of 5) and only moderately so. The score was 3.92 in Math/Logic which I suppose is reflective of being a mathematics teacher. A not so close second was Musical (2.29) and Self (2.29) with the rest scoring at the minimum or slightly above. I'm hesitant to investigate what it means to be so singular in learning style.

I've usually preferred to be an independent learner. I read the instruction manuals which come with the objects I purchase. I read for information (textbooks) rather than for pleasure (fiction). While I enjoy words and writing my own poetry, I seldom read the works of others. And my poetry tends to be rhyming verse (Dr. Seuss/Odgen Nash) rather than conceptual insights (Frost/Longfellow).

I didn't often enjoy group projects as the logistics involved in a rural school often meant one person did the project and the remaining students signed off on it as acceptable. Coupled with my general aversion to people, this usually resulted in resentment that I either was prevented from contributing or had little assistance in producing. (Very similar to my online learning experiences today.)

I excelled at standardized testing and could play the game well. I'm pretty good at the traditional game of school. I am much smarter on paper bubble sheets than I am in real life. Consequently I've become a much richer statistic than I am a human being, which allows others to tolerate me much longer online than in person. It's probably pretty sad that I'm so one-dimensional in my learning because it is easy to teach that way. There aren't many learners like me anymore. I'm becoming the dinosaur who stayed too long.

When class time has allowed (90-minute block schedule), I have employed group work and projects with my students. We explored and conjectured, experimented and discovered, and taught and learned from one another. While they (and I) seemed to enjoy it more and were more academically successful, I haven't yet been able to replicate those more time-consuming learning processes in a more traditional/less innovative schedule created by budget cuts (though we've really just cut time and opportunity without cutting staff or saving money; but that illusion is for another blog post).

PC Security

I viewed a few tutorials, most of which were of little use to me because I own a Mac, which is the only device I have control over. So, learning information of a trivia nature is less motivating knowing that I can't really implement any of it. While I work in a PC environment, I do not have administrative rights to make any of these changes (or download any software).

The Wireless Networking setup tutorial had a couple tips that I didn't use much. Not broadcasting my SSID name is one I'll try. I currently am without Internet access, so I guess I'm running a fairly secure setup. I don't know that I'd share this information, as I currently am using it to wardrive my community in search of default username/password combinations which will allow me to access my online class (for as long as my laptop battery will last at 35 degrees).

I've been dissatisfied with the default Windows Backup utility since Windows 98. It was nice to hear that there are free tools which perform the same tasks (Karen's Replicator backup). The fact that one can customize when and how much of a backup is done is very useful. Some of my files I need backups of more frequently than others. Video files change very little after completion, but my gradebook changes sometimes hourly.

I was fascinated by the Intrusion Detection and Prevention software and, again, was pleased that there were free versions (if only for PCs) which might allow me to identify when/if intrusion is happening. If I can find equivalent Mac versions, I am interested in checking it out.

Overall, these tutorials were superficially instructive. However, their dated (2006) content makes the value of any information largely suspect. As fast as technology changes, a 5-6 year old tutorial is at best anecdotal or amusing.

RSS Feeds

Most of my comments to blogs have been of a "thank you for posting" nature as I have been following for such a short time, that I don't feel I have anything more to contribute.  I hesitate to ask questions before more thoroughly investigating previous blog entries that may answer such a basic question as I may have.

I do see the ease of finding updates to content using an RSS Feed. If, of course, the site you're intending to track provides an RSS feed. Not all sites do. And not all sites are updated, either. Several of the sites we're asked to follow (Weblogg-ed, NCTE Literacy Education, and EduTech Today Newsletter) haven't been updated in months or even years. One starts to question if they are worth reading at all, if only for a historical perspective on a topic. Luckily education cycles around often enough that in 10 years it will all be new information again.

I did find some updates of articles I read earlier in the semester in the Rapid eLearning Blog from Adobe. I found an article I was interested in (producing Captivate training) and a few days later there were follow-ups to the same article topic. While there is not enough content in a blog entry to implement much, it does give me ideas for further exploration on a topic when time allows. (Although I'm still trying to figure out how to stop time long enough to learn and teach in the same decade.)

I'm not sure how I would use RSS feeds professionally. It might be a good way to deliver content to students, but I think there are much better delivery systems than RSS feeds. It's certainly something that students should be aware of setting up to possibly follow their own interests. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, most of their own interests are not academic in nature. So this would not be a professional application for them, but personal. If I had time to read more than article titles, this could be a way to keep up with the (n)ever changing educational horizon.

GTD ...or not.

At last! A system which promises to allow me to Get Things Done. Of course I have so many things undone, that setting up the system prevented me from getting more things done. But that's often the case with "new" technology. The promise to make life easier often ends up as another task which, because it is so easy, allows us to spend more time completing tasks which would ordinarily be dismissed as not worth the effort. So far, my GTD process hasn't allowed me to G anything D.

My first thought was to set this up with my phone as my inbox, since that was a device usually with me. This became cumbersome as I'm not allowed to have my phone on at work. So, I needed to try to remember everything I needed to remember until after work so that I could out it in my inbox so that I could deal with it "someday". Consequently, even entering things into my Inbox was a deferred item because it took longer than 2 minutes. Quickly abandoned this process as I couldn't remember all the items I meant to remember to put into my Inbox to process.

I tried a paper planner (like a Franklin) once upon a time and found that I wrote things in it, but never checked it frequently. So, checking the list of things to do after they were long overdue wasn't effective.

So, I'm back to my tried and true: The Mental Inbox. If I remember to do it, then it gets done. If not, it is deferred to whenever I remember to do it, unless of course it's after the time which it needed doing. Then it gets deleted, by default. It works pretty well in the sense that I feel caught up most of the time. It does cause an inordinate amount of stress (which I'm getting used to) worrying about the things I can't remember to do. But I figure if it's important enough, I should remember it. And if I don't remember it, then I suppose it wasn't really that important. It's really a terrible system, but the high ratio of "doing" to "planning to do" time has most other systems beat. Until something better comes along...

Social Networking

I'm not sure social networks do fit into my workflow. I've attempted to use Twitter with students, but most of them do not follow/participate via Twitter. Facebook is popular, but our Superintendent has strongly advised against using Facebook to connect with students (and some states have actually passed laws against teacher-student Facebook connections).

Students primarily use social media to, well, socialize. I primarily do not use social media. I still call people when I want to contact them. I have a phone wired into my house. Quaint, huh? So, the idea of using social media, or making my classroom more social and less academic, seems counterproductive. The students are already using social media for social purposes. I'm hesitant to think that they would welcome the opportunity to use social media to help with their homework (apart from requesting correct answers to specific homework problems, but even that is more efficiently done by borrowing a completed paper).

Perhaps I'm not social enough personally to see the use of social media professionally. Perhaps the "technology have nots" in my classroom make me feel guilty whenever I try to have them use "technology" for an assignment. I usually need to create an alternative assignments for the 30% of the class who do not have access. Perhaps social media's time has not yet come.