POD PEOPLE

       We are a very fancy type of ape, you and I. All this flitting about in the sky in giant metal birds powered by explosive dinosaur juice and defying the laws of gravity like we were meant to do just feels so...pedestrian. Every day we edge the frontier of technology further and further into "holy crap" territory. Yet we seem to forget that we still have a few little quirks that could be settled with the proper application of this new-fangled space tech. I'm not even referring to some bleeding edge science here, I'm talking about podcasting.

What has alien science wrought!?

    Earlier I spoke on the uses of web 2.0 tools to aid  education all over the world. Podcasting is a simple tool that doesn't require a vast economic or time investment. All it takes is a digital audio player, and some one with access to a cheap microphone and the internet. In an age where kindergartners are marching around with $500 iPods like we used to do with PEZ dispensers, there is really no excuse as to why educators haven't been given the greenlight to provide these aids for their students.  Missed lectures become something to listen to on a commute, study groups have the entire audio notes at a buttons touch, able to be edited, paused, and re-listened to for easy access review. Can you imagine the margin these things could provide for public education? Home-schooling parents would have access to a database of lessons for their child at the price of an audiobook.

"Mommy doesn't think you need part three of World History. That $3.99 

Is going to mommy's Mary-Kay wish list."

   Granted, not everyone has access to the interwebs, but that shouldn't stop us from making these things available. Education is struggling enough without intentional hamstringing. Everyone can have easy access to cheap digital audio players, and lessons can be combined with e-activities. As a young student, I missed a great deal of school due to a surgery. If I had access to the myriad of tools available to the student today... I wouldn't have had to play catch-up... I could have gotten ahead.

WEB 2.0 !!!

   Sounds all hip and cool, right? Throw that out there at the next round table discussion at your local Starbucks and see the eyebrows rise in admiration for your competency on current terminology! Really, though, "web 2.0" is just a fancy way of saying, "HEY! You know this internet thing we've been abusing by splattering cat pictures all over the place? You can TOTALLY use this stuff for helpful education techniques!"

"There's more to the internet than LOLcats!?!?"

   We've been using this things for years without noticing their true potential. It's like King Arthur was given Excalibur and he used it to finally nail that stubborn floorboard down... you know, the one you always stubbed your toe on when going to the dungeon; totally not utilizing that tool effectively. We all grew up dreaming of a cool buzzy future where we could communicate via vid-screens and send information instantaneously. We've had that technology for YEARS now, and what do we do with it?

"I have to send Betty this cute kitten I found on the interwebs!"

   Education without boarders, people! Wikis, blogs, social bookmarking, voice thread and videoconferencing, these are the tools available to efficiently and cheaply educate the world! Sorry, my soap-box is a bit creaky so I'll step down for a bit.  

   All the logistical costs of people with disabilities, long commutes to local colleges and housing for those who must re-locate to attend become nothing when the classroom is easily accessed and available via the internet. Web 2.0 isn't the future, it's the present. We as educators have access to these wonderful tools, and it is to the benefit of our future generations to utilize them to their fullest.

Look at all that techno-stuff! Let's hope they don't fund it with "Tuition 2.0"

  Taking a look at remixing information from different sources, like a photo and a caption from a book, to make a new comment on a subject, it's time to give an example below.

          Take this image of James R. Jones, a grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. When paired with the quote, from Cedar Crossing, the nonchalant nature of a man calmly driving to a hate rally is paired with the nostalgia of an old Texan. This juxtaposition between the hatred for another man and the comfort of "the good old days" conjures up a disturbing feeling.

"Everyone knew the others, them Ku Kluxers, them clan members would get together out in the dark of night and talk about the good old days and to plan forays agin' they didn't think was upholding the old ways." (Busby, 22)

   Ah, the internet, a vast digital world in which one can venture forth into the collective unconsciousness of man, and also view a disturbing amount of fan-fiction. We sometimes forget that the internet IS a real breathing world unto it's own, complete with roads to travel... and bad people along the way who wait in ambush; who may or may not be hiding in digital bushes. We think ourselves veterans of this digital world as we march along and spread our very special opinions upon any who would read our YouTube comments.

"My thoughts and ideas are revolutionary! I better post them in a

hostile manner on an obscure YouTube video."

   In reality, any one of us is susceptible to being the victim in an information highway robbery. Why then do we expect our younger generations to fair any better? As instructors we have a unique position that can aid in the safety of online traversal. We expect that, just because these young'uns know their Pokemon Index (that's PokeDex to those cool cats out there) numbers forwards and backwards, that they are more savvy than you or I. Really though, they have simply grown in the digital age and may not realize just what exactly their online footprint reveals or impacts.

   I'm sure there are tons of commentaries about online safety and protecting yourself, but I want to focus on a specific malady, online bullying. Now, we love to characterize these would be digital ruffians as slack-jawed, socially inept, skag-trolls, but what happens when the one doing the bullying is a 12-year old who has no idea what the ramifications of his actions are?

Behold, the face of digital tyranny!

   Education is key here. The anonymity granted by the internet is a mighty power, and we just hand it to children without any sort of guidelines. Grenades are also very powerful, and we train those we expect to utilize them in the proper skills necessary (I would advise against playing hacky-sack with an M61-F). A great introduction to this world wide back-and-forth? http://www.netsmartz.org/Parents 

   A great introduction for the uninitiated or "Newbie", this site offers many paths of safety to trundle upon. The internet is a superb thing, and a natural evolution in the world wide discourse of our species that provides an almost limitless possibility for our children, but so was the Serengeti... and we taught our children to watch out for lions.

I warned Timmy about those hyenas! Now they have his credit card information.

   "It has to be true, I found it on the internet!" - Future generations of the planet.

     Anyone who takes information at face value is set up for some of the worst human interactions in history. We all know this, right? Now you sit there,no doubt in a fine tweed jacket with your monocle and bowler, reading this blog post and expound, "Jove! My information is always rightly solid. No tomfoolery to be had in my discussions". I myself would have said so without a moments hesitation as well, had I not learned of some of the easy and "been there the whole time ,you dolt, why didn't you see them" techniques available to we proud and boisterous surfers of the World Wide Web. I fancy myself quite the technophile and have been using these fancy computation devices my entire pseudo-adult life. However, it appears I was not privy to the incredibly simple link: and easywhois tools available.

NO! My precious digital street cred!

  Before, when researching a topic, I would simply bang away at a major search engine until my desired information could be sifted from all the ads about divorce lawyers and cheap cars sales. Am I interested in why Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening? Ah, here is an easy website at the top of the search results that promise me all I need for a swift completion grade. The website seems legit enough, what with her picture and name at the top. So what if it tells me that the entire book was a metaphor for her favorite can-opener that was lost on a trans-Atlantic flight to New Zealand? 

   If I knew nothing about Chopin, and fully believed her ability to time travel (to Kiwi-land of all places), I would turn in a research paper that would be destroyed, and possibly unintentionally hilarious. 

"I'm sorry, Timmy. There were no Deinonychi at San Juan Hill."

   So, how does one check the legitimacy of a website? If only I could  see what other sites linked to it... 

Just by going to Google, and typing in "link:" then entering the website address you have it right in front of you. Like finding the contact list of your hated frenimie, all of the sites friends and dirty little secrets are there for your mocking pleasure. Still not sure if it's a legit or quit site, as you kinda believe the part where Edna Pontellier is a metaphor for the Vietnam War? Try www.easywhois.com . Type in the site and watch as all the personal information on the site is made available. It's like Facebook for webpages, only they don't offer to freely share how big your aunts bowel movement was last night.

Your life is awesome and I want to be you.

   So easy! I had never even thought to check the legitimacy of the site itself, always scouring for citations available on the page. After coming upon this information, it dawned on me that I wouldn't want my students to go about their research in the way I had been. As entertaining as it would have been to grade a paper that insisted that Mark Twain was a robot overlord from the far future, I doubt that the lesson would be learned. As the massive super-highway of information that is the internet gains more drivers by the day, the march of educational technology will be more and more subjected to the influence of anonymous sources. We and our students must be more conscious of the information we are redirecting... misinformation is the death of learning. 

    It seems to me that there is a rift between the technology available to the educator and the experience and willingness to experiment. With this technology, this crazy jumbled series of tubes, we as educators have the ability to utilize these fantastic digital tools to make our lessons available, engaging and, dare I even dream, fun for those who wish to learn.

   Hi there, by the way. My name is Rami Bdeir and I am a madman. STOP! Before you scoot that little cursor over to the back button in hopes to salvage any sanity you may have expended here, let me explain. If you looked at my name and the language center of your brain slightly imploded, don't worry, it is a natural reaction to seeing those letters arranged like that. I am originally from a tiny country in the Middle East, one of the ones that hasn't been relevant since the '90s, called Kuwait. I came to stay in the U.S. when I was quite young, something about a war or some such, and have lived in North East Texas since I was a child.

 

Ahh, childhood memories.

      After getting over my initial disappointment at the lack of cowboys and gunfights I realized that I LOVED going to school here. School was this magical land where knowledge flowed from a fount of plenty that was watched over by these angelic beings called teachers.  MAN, I wanted to be one of them! 

    I was determined to become an educator, and in the true sense of the American Dream, I strove with the loving support of my family to attend University and count myself among the great scholars. Of course then reality happened, and I was left alone and abandoned by my family at 16 and suddenly becoming a teacher seemed just that, a dream.

    Put away your tissues, and NO I will not sell my story to you, Lifetime Channel! I strove onward and finished Highschool and slowly started to earn my own way into college. Who helped me with this impossible task? TEACHERS! Those saintly arbiters of success and willpower drove me onward!

My 9th Grade Fine Arts Teacher

   And now, here I am using a blog to communicate my hopes and dreams to the world! There were those who called me mad, who said that my dreams were unobtainable. But I stand...er, sit here and boldly go into the great expanse of future educational techniques. Also, possibly, because this is an assignment for "Intergrating Technology into Curriculum". You can laugh at that last part, but also realize that I, and possibly you, am standing on the edge of the evolution of education. Not only am I going to be a teacher, but in this class I am going to obtain the (l337) skills to instruct future generations of mankind, using the immensely expanding field of technology.  

   This may not be exactly what my assignment outlined, but I do believe that  future educators need to resonate on the same frequency of their students. Becoming immersed in the same Internet culture and communications that they utilize is paramount to the passing of important lessons from one generation to the next. Even if it's literature... It's not classic if it can't communicate.