No scientific research will ever figure out exactly what Leonardo was trying to convey, or why exactly she was smiling.

New discoveries "don't take away the mystery," Menu said. "On the contrary, they merely add another layer to the meaning, which only makes things more interesting."

Article: It feels relevant: biological tactility in news media
The subtitle: Researchers see a body-brain link that might explain how multimedia affects viewer participants in deeper ways than print or television. What does it mean for journalism?

"Neurobiologists and cognitive psychologists—only two of many disciplines that give us insights on how digital technology impacts the senses—have conducted recent research and crafted theories, many of them tentative, on how the brain reacts to information. (For a dated yet excellent overview, see "Nature's Mind; The biological roots of thinking, emotions, sexuality, language and intelligence," by Michael S. Gazzaniga, 1992.)...

The latest research points to a general conclusion: online digital worlds like YouTube appeal to the whole body, from frontal lobe to the toes. This payoff from multimedia may be unique in communications history.

"Hansen and others, drawing from scientific research, conclude that the way a person receives and absorbs mediated digital information is a mind-body process. And the online multimedia experience is more complete, more biologically compelling than previous forms of media, including cinema. As Hansen puts it, the new media experience is "qualitatively different from …the ‘verisimilitude' and ‘illusion' of the cinematic image."...

"New technology enables unique multimedia perspectives that, in turn, open up new possibilities for story telling and may even be changing the way that humans process information. Digital technology, Burnett says, enables humans to "create the foundations for different ways of thinking. … Technology is as much about cognitive change as it is about the invention and the creation of physical devices." (102)...

This body-brain connection has profound implications for new media because it downplays "an abstracted sense of vision as the primary sense in favor of the internal bodily senses of touch and self-improvement." Hansen calls it "haptic vision," or vision that is engaged with the sense of touch.

"Instead of separating us from our senses by projecting virtual worlds, computers forge an internal body-brain link. "The source of the virtual is thus not technological, but rather a biologically grounded adaptation to newly acquired technological extensions provided by new media," says Lenoi"

Equally intriguing is the study of how a large percentage of incoming signals get rejected or filtered by the brain. The sensory input often fails to find an instant fit with an individual's meme-building materials, such as stored memories, competitive instincts, survival strategies and the potential for empathy. If journalists understood that process better, they might be in a position to offer stronger news that is both intellectually and biologically relevant.

Manovich says that the language of digitization is in an early stage, where cinema was 100 years ago. "We don't know what the final result will be, or even if it will ever stabilize. … We are witnessing the emergence of a new metalanguage, something that will be at least as significant as the printed word and cinema before it."

#1 It is about the content. Humor and everything comes second to content.

#2 It is OK to be funny, but be careful, sense of humor varies widely among people. If your humor distorts the message, limit the humor.

#3 Sound is essential! If a person can't hear you it hurts the message. Rerecord or redub things that you cannot hear clearly.

When the other three groups have posted their solutions each student must leave one comment on each of the other group's published work. Your comment must say either that you agree with their solutions or not. If not, you must include what you think the correct answer is and why. This means that each published solution set will have a total of twelve comments.

Frankly, I’m tired of technology as a second class educational citizen. It’s not OK not to use it.

Simply put, a good teacher must know when and how to use technology to help kids learn, and must demonstrate it conscientiously, creatively and continually.

It’s one of the most important steps in becoming a great teacher….

The worm, known as W32.pipeline, propagates when AIM users click on a Web link that appears to have been sent to them by someone on their buddy list.

They receive a message along the lines of, "Hey, would it be OK if I upload this picture of you to my blog?"

If the recipient clicks on the link, an executable file that looks like a JPEG will download into a Windows folder...

The best defense is for AIM users to be wary of clicking on links. If a user receives an unexpected link from a buddy, the user can always reply to ask if that person sent the link, to make sure it is legitimate.

• 21% of IM-ers in each of the Gen Y and Gen X age groups log onto IM several times a day, followed by 17% of Trailing Boomers (40-49), 15% of Leading Boomers (50- 59), 10% of Matures (60-68), and a mere 9% of the After Work (69 and older) age group.
• 35%, or the largest portion of those who IM for about an hour are Gen Y-ers. In contrast, the greatest percentage of instant messengers who IM for less than 15 minutes consist of Trailing Boomers (26%).

I happened upon this post, and wanted to let you know that you have inspired me to write more about each step I learn as I go along. For a while there I was feeling so far behind, that I didn't want to demonstrate my "late-adopter-ness" by posting things that everyone knows already.

And then I found this post, which made me realize that there are so many other teachers out there, just like me, that want to jump in feet first, but are just as overwhealmed.

Then I realized, we all have to try together. Post what we've learned, share what we try, and build on what we've read elsewhere. There's no place else to go but up.

Thanks for providing a starting point!

Tim Berners-Lee, the individual credited with inventing the web and giving so many of us jobs, has become the most prominent individual so-far to point out that the Web 2.0 emperor is naked. Berners-Lee has dismissed Web 2.0 as useless jargon nobody can explain and a set of technology that tries to achieve exactly the same thing as "Web 1.0."

From his [Berners-Lee] perspective it [Web 2.0] may be the same[as Web 1.0], after all he was creating on web 1.0. However, the average person wasn't. I did because I created web pages, but the average person just clicked and read and that was it. Now they are creators and are involved in the process.

So, I guess from his perspective he doesn't see the difference. But to truly understand the difference, you have to look through the eye glasses of the average web user and that is a perspective that Berners-Lee doesn't have.

Martin said...

It feels a little like the Wright brothers complaining about the inventor of the jet engine.

A judge denied bond Monday for a man accused of abducting and assaulting a 14-year-old girl and holding her in an underground bunker for more than a week before she was able to send a text message to her mother.

Forbes.com

"She knew he spent a lot of time on the computer in his bedroom but had no idea he was filling an online journal with hate-filled rants and violent fantasies. "We found there was a little change because he was a little quieter, but he still was normal at home, living with us upstairs, [sleeping] in his bedroom. It's not that he was alone in the basement or anything," she said."

1. Use a filter with some sort of parental control. You know the password and decide what types of activities you will allow them to do.
   
   I filter all pornography. After all, what little boy can resist typing "sex" into the Google box. Otherwise, I'm pretty lenient on my filtration. I currently block myspace and such but when they are ready, we will unblock it together and set up the profile together. My children are young for that right now but when they are ready, I want them to ask me so I know that they are using it.
   
   
2. Discuss with your child what they can and cannot do online. If they set up a profile, do it with them to make sure that their information is not revealing.
   
   (Never include their school, last name, phone number, social security number, address, or pictures of them by themselves.) This is just like discussing coming home from school, talking to strangers, etc. Communicate!
   
   
3. Do not allow them to "make friends" online without your approval. Your child's online experience should begin with communicating with those they do know.
   
   Require your children to allow you to "check out" anyone new before they add them to their friends. (I would do the first one with them.) Verify their identity by checking the person who referred them to you.
   
   Very often people say they are friends with one of your friends but that is not the case. The "friend of a friend" ploy is commonly used by predators to get into the social communications structure of a child. For how this works, a predator will observe several interrelated people and then "pretend" to be John Smith, a friend of your child. Although John Smith may be a real person, he actually has another screen name and your child is conversing with a person who is not "John Smith" at all. The way you check this out is by going to the person who "John Smith" says is his friend and sending them an e-mail.
   
   It could sound like this. "Hey. A guy named John Smith with a screen name of ___ says he is your friend and wants me to add him to my buddy list. Is he OK? Is that his screen name?"
   
   It is kind of like how my friends and I in college knew who the guys were to watch out for and we helped each other and had a signal for a person we knew was a "creep" and made that to one another. This is just a protection mechanism that we need to teach our children.
   
   I had initially posted to "not allow your child to make friends online" and that is a decision that some parents may choose to make. However, I do believe in progressive (gradually increasing) Internet freedoms and the rules for my 10 year old would not be appropriate for a 17 year old. Ultimately, they will make friends online, so when you are ready for that to happen, teach them how to make friends online.
   
   Also, they should absolutely never allow their child to meet someone that they've met online without consulting you. This is not debatable in my opinion.
   
   
4. When your child sets up an web page online, subscribe to the page over RSS or bookmark it and visit it daily.
   
   
5. Watch for their feelings. I have read that predators often search for people who say they are lonely or wanting friends or dissatisfied with life. It is important that although a child be creative and expressive that they guard their vulnerability.
   
   It is your job as a parent to respond to and be engaged in their feelings. Whether you think they are legitimate or not, their feelings ARE their feelings! Listen to them and respond appropriately. Sometimes just talking about it means a lot. If they are sharing things online and not with you, why?
   
   Many children get upset with the myspace practice of a person listing their 8 closest friends with their pictures. There is also a place for "boyfriend" and "best friend." This is difficult for kids as they are forced to choose their best friend. This can result in very real hurt feelings. Listen to them even if you don't understand it! If you don't understand it, get your own myspace!
   
   
6. Communicate with your child online by e-mailing them and visiting and posting on their online page. If you don't want to "embarrass" them with a post on their myspace, then visit their myspace and e-mail them about something they said. That way it is private, but they also know that you're watching!
   
   
7. Peruse the history on the computers used by your child. See if there are any patterns or websites that are new that are being visited a lot. Talk to your child or e-mail them about it.
   
   They should know that you are watching, vigilant, and involved and that you care. This helps them resist temptation. (We do mandatory drug testing at our high school because we know that this gives kids an excellent reason to "say no." Your spending time in their history does as well.)
   
   This is the only way Kimveer Gill's parents would have found this unless they didn't allow a computer in the bedroom.
   
   This is obviously for children living at home. (My parents always had a "My house, my business" policy that I subscribe to.)
   
   Some parents are uncomfortable with this "snooping" and "privacy" thing. I'm up front with my kids so I'm not "sneaking around' in their cache. I do believe that they have places that should be private. They have diaries and journals for that but they cannot be read by millions. I do respect their privacy. Their room is private. Our family computers do not go in their room because our family computers belong to the family!
   
   It is important for them to know that what they do on the Internet is public and does have repercussions. When they go to work, their business will look at what they view and people have lost jobs for spending time on innappropriate sites. We all have accountability whether we like it or not, so I'm sticking by this one.
   
   
8. Visit their classroom sites. If your child's teacher allows them to post in online classrooms and parents are allowed access, subscribe to or visit their sites. Participate. The teacher will be grateful (I always am) and you will be able to view and see what work your child is doing in comparison to other students. You actually become part of the classroom!
   
   Parent reinforcement is a powerful. You can comment (or e-mail offline) when they do things in their classroom. And, if for some reason, the teacher doesn't understand privacy (or just let something slip, it happens!) then you can point things out.
   
   I welcome parent and community involvement in my wiki and blogs. I love parent comments! It is a great thing and brings my subject material home, literally!
   
   
9. Discuss things openly with your child. View news reports and magazine articles and talk about the mistakes the children made and look over each of your profiles to see if there is anything you need to edit or change.
   
   
10. Be the bad guy! Look at the shout outs! Friends can post things on your child's page that can compromise their identity security and state things that are untrue. (A private joke about a skinny dipping event that never happened, for example or the date and time of a meeting!) Be the bad guy.
    
    While thinking about the best way to handle this and help kids, I asked students in my class if they would ever delete a shout out and they said "NO! That would be rude. I would not do it unless my parents made me!"
    
    I remember as a senior in high school that I told my parents about a party and said, "I'm asking you if I can go to this party but I want you to tell me no, OK." They said no, they were the bad guy, I couldn't go but I saved face. Do this for your children, it is a gift!
    
    Tell them the shout outs they have to delete. Be the bad guy! And if another child is causing problems on your child's web page, be the really bad guy and require them to delete that "friend" off their myspace. Can this cause problems? Yes, if you are dogmatic and obnoxious, you can turn a simple, tuck in your shirt to a problem. However, if you are open and have a good relationship with your child, they will usually be grateful.
    
    
11. Keep an open line of communication. I have a policy in my classroom and at home that if something bad comes on the screen that they are to leave it there and come get me immediately. Then, I can figure out what it is, why it is there and deal with the problem. I guarantee NO repercussions (as long as they didn't intentionally type it in) as long as they get me the moment it appears. It diverts problems. It opens communications and helps you see if you have problems with malware on your computer.
    
    All of our computer use is in the den or office. No one, not even me, uses the computer in the bedroom. All of our computer work is open for the public view and that is the way it is. Putting a computer in a child's room is like putting me next to chocolate... way to tempting!
    
    11B - **I added this later** But, as you know with the blogging thing, changing the title means that you lose all those hyperlinks, so we'll stick with 11B!
    
    Google your child. Nothing will probably turn up but you never know. Just in case, every once in a while, you should Google your child's name, nickname, city. Combine their name with the city. Potential employers and college scholarship committees will. Even if what turns up isn't your child, if it looks like it is them, it may be a problem. You can even subscribe to a Google "feed" of the search on your child's name. (Here's a tip, put your child's name in quotations and then type + the town. For example, "John Doe" +Anytown)
    

Your child is a precious, wonderful gift.

Get over the "privacy" thing with looking at your child's myspace and other online accounts. If a predator down the street who has a thing for 12 year olds is looking at her page, you'd better believe that it is your business!

You wouldn't let your child go to the mall in their underwear, why on earth would you let them be seen by millions in a picture in their underwear!

Get over it and get online with your child!
Get a myspace account. Get on your child's friend list. Get your child's e-mail and start using it! Learn to text them that you love them. Learn to use these internet tools and become a part of your child's life.

The consequences are terrible if you do not. If your child is living online it is your job to supervise online!

If this is important to you, then my book that will be coming out soon will be for you. More later. For now, it is time to talk to the kids!

Tags: myspace, DOPA, online safety, teacher blog, teaching, child safety, predators, coolcatteacher, Kimveer Gill, Dawson College, Parvinder Sandhu, VampireFreaks, education

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• A boy who has a muscule weakness and cannot build muscle wants to play football. Can he augment his strength or would he damage his arms so that he could receive a super human prosthesis?
• As prostheses become stronger and more useful, will these "super" humans be allowed to compete in sports or will prosthesis be considered sort of a steroid of the future? Can you imagine the heated debates that will occur at the top levels of sporting organizations? (Look at the money made by NFL players, from a return on investment perspective, "making" such players could be profitable!)
  
• As these items become more a part of humans, our current security screening procedures will certainly need to evolve.
• Could detachable prosthesis be developed for those working in industrial environments to allow better control of things? (e.g. the steel worker who could reach into a furnace with a titanium arm that he controls.)
• If such prosthesis are developed for industrial environments, what will be done to ensure that sweatshops take on a whole new sinister side as people are "added to" like computer hardware?
• The amputees of today may become the "superheroes" of tomorrow. What will that do to our society? (Is psuedo X-men possible? I shudder to think!)
  

"We teach what we know; we reproduce who we are."
Robert Schmidgall

Who are we?

Consultant: Which is the bigger problem contributing to Internet danger today, lack of knowledge or apathy?
Teacher: I don't know and I don't care.

There are still instances of these 'lone-gunman' hackers but more and more we are seeing organized criminal groups, groups that are often organized online targeting victims via the Internet," said Painter, in London for a cyber crime conference...

"Typically these groups engage in ID theft, carding (the illegal use of bank cards) and so-called Botnet armies where hundreds sometimes thousands of computers are taken over and used to infect other machines."

Because crimes are committed online a lot of people still don't understand what is happening," said Painter.

I am reminded of the mother who received a phone call from a telemarketer. The telemarketer says, "I'd like to talk to the person who makes the final purchasing decisions for your family."

The mother quips, "I'm sorry. That person is still at kindergarten and won't be home for another hour."

"In the United States certainly sentencing has become more significant in the recognition of the seriousness of Internet crime."

He said hackers were being viewed less as "playful villains" while organized cyber criminals were being hunted with the same vigor as physical crooks.

A few years ago, such programs, [laptop access] which aim to better engage and train students by giving them round-the-clock computer access, were introduced in schools across the country -- often with encouragement from the large computer makers, such as Apple and Dell Inc., that win the contracts. But now, some parents and educators are having second thoughts over higher-than-anticipated costs and the potential for inappropriate use by kids. At the same time, there is a sense that the vaunted benefits of constant computer access remain unproven. The programs are increasingly under attack -- and in a few cases are crumbling.

Perspective.

Perspective.

Perspective.

Far too many have lost their perspective.

There will be four "conference strands"-- two each week. Two presentations will be published in each strand each day, Monday - Friday, so four new presentations will be available each day over the course of the two-weeks. Each presentation will be given in podcast or screencast format and released via the conference blog (URL: TBA) and archived for posterity.

THE FOUR STRANDS ARE:

Week 1
Strand A: A Week In The Classroom
These presentations will focus on the practical pedagogical uses of online social tools (Web 2.0) giving concrete examples of how teachers are using the tools in their classes. They will also show how teachers plan for using these tools in the delivery of their curricular objectives.

Strand B: Basic/Advanced Training (one of each per day)
Basic training is "how to" information on tool use in an educational setting, especially for newcomers.
Advanced training is for teachers who have already started using Web 2.0 tools in their classes and are looking for: (a) advanced technology training (eg. how to write your own blog template or hack existing ones), (b) new tools they can make use of in their classes, (c) teaching ideas on how to mash tools together to create "something new," (d) a pedagogical understanding of how technologies such as Weblogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking sites, RSS feeds and others can deepen learning and increase student achievement, or (e) use of assessment tools to measure the effectiveness of Read/Write Web technologies in their personal practice and with their students.

Week 2
Strand A: Personal Professional Development
Tips, ideas and resources on how to orchestrate your own professional development online; the tools that support Professional Learning Environments (PLEs); how to create opportunities to bring these technologies to the larger school community; how to effectively incorporate the tools into your personal or professional practice; or how to create a supportive, reflective virtual professional community around school-based goals.

Strand B: Overcoming Obstacles
Tips, ideas and resources on how to deal with issues like: lack of access to tools/computers, filtering, parental/district concerns for online safety, and other IT concerns while trying to focus on best practice in the use of Web 2.0 tools.

CONVENERS & KEYNOTES
For organization purposes, each strand is overseen by a conference convener who will assist and coordinate presenters in their strand. The first presentation in each strand will kick off with a keynote by a well known educator who has distinguished his/herself and is knowledgeable in the context of each topic. This year's conveners and keynote presenters are:

A Week In The Classroom
Convener: Darren Kuropatwa
Keynote: Bud Hunt

Bud Hunt teaches high school language arts and journalism at Olde Columbine High School in Longmont, Colorado. He is a teacher-consultant with and the Tech Liaison for the Colorado State University Writing Project, an affiliate of the National Writing Project, a group working to improve the teaching of writing in schools via regular and meaningful professional development. Bud is also the co-editor of the New Voices column of English Journal, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English. A consumer of copious amounts of New Media, Bud blogs and podcasts about his practice and larger educational issues at http://www.budtheteacher.com.

Basic/Advanced Training
Convener: Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach
Keynote: TBA

Personal Professional Development
Convener: Will Richardson
Keynote: Ewan McIntosh

Ewan McIntosh is an educational technologist and teacher of French and German. Based in the Edinburgh area of Scotland he frequently works around the UK and Europe, leading student and teacher workshops and conferences. He is an experienced workshop facilitator in the area of Web 2.0 technologies in education across stages and curricular areas. Ewan blogs at http://edu.blogs.com

Overcoming Obstacles
Convener: TBA
Keynote: Anne Davis

Anne is known for seeing the educational possibilities in the use of weblogs with students in classrooms, having implemented wonderful ideas and weblog projects with students and teachers in K-12 classrooms and at the university level. She currently works at Georgia State University in the Instructional Technology Center in the College of Education as an Information Systems Training Specialist. Her weblog, EduBlog Insights is a co-winner of the Best Teacher Blog in the second international Edublog Awards, a web based event that recognizes the many diverse and imaginative ways in which weblogs are being used within education.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
We'd like to invite you to submit a proposal to present at the conference. If you have something you'd like to share with the community, both people who are new to blogs and/or experienced bloggers please email the appropriate conference convener above with your ideas. The deadline to submit a proposal (just the proposal, not the finished product) is September 30, 2006. One of us will contact you to finalize the date of your presentation. Your presentation may be delivered in any web-based medium (including but not limited to...podcasts, PowerPoint files, blogs, websites, wikis, screencasts, etc.) and must be emailed to your assigned conference convener one week before it goes live, (see above strands) so that it can be uploaded to the server.

The conference organizers are:
Darren Kuropatwa

Darren Kuropatwa is currently Department Head of Mathematics at Daniel McIntyre Collegiate Institute in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He is known internationally for his ability to weave the use of online social tools meaningfully and concretely into his pedagogical practice and for "child safe" blogging practices. He has more than 20 years experience in both formal and informal education and 13 years experience in team building and leadership training. Darren has been facilitating workshops for educators in groups of 4 to 300 for the last 10 years. Darren's professional blog is called A Difference (http://adifference.blogspot.com).

Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach

Sheryl is a technology/education consultant for the National Education Association (NEA), the Center for Teaching Quality, SRI International, the Virginia Community College System, the Virginia Department of Education, the Miami-Dade Public Schools, the Alabama Best Practices Center and adjunct instructor in the School of Education at The College of William and Mary. She has had several journal articles and book chapters published, been featured on public broadcasting television and radio shows, and is a regular presenter at local, state, and national conferences speaking on topics of homelessness, teacher leadership, virtual community building, and 21st Century learning initiatives. Sheryl blogs at 21st Century Collaborative (http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/).

Will Richardson

Will Richardson is known internationally for his work with educators and students to understand and implement instructional technologies and, more specifically, the tools of the Read/Write Web into their schools, classrooms and communities. A public school educator for 22 years, WillÂ’s own Weblog (Weblogg-ed.com) is a primary resource for the creation and implementation of Weblog technologies on the K-12 level and is a leading voice for school reform in the context of the fundamental changes these new technologies are bringing to all aspects of life. Will is the critically acclaimed authour of the best-selling book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Tools for Classrooms (March 2006, Corwin Press).

Conference Tags: k12online, K12online06

If you have any questions about any part of this, email one of us:
Darren Kuropatwa
Sheryl Nusbaum-Beach
Will Richardson

Please duplicate this post and distribute it far and wide across the blogosphere. Feel free to republish it on your own blog (actually, we'd really like people to do that ;-) ) or link back to this post (published simultaneously on all our blogs).

I spent some time over at edbloggernews this morning and turned up a great article from David Warlick that I had missed about Video Games in the classroom. It was a long one (as he promised) but worth the wade:

I suspect that this is a signature component of most video game experiences and also a core characteristic of being young today. This is dramatically different from my childhood, decades ago. Video games, as well as IM, social networks, and even the way that they are treated in the store, are far far far more responsive than my childhood experience. Within video games, every decision, action, collaboration, acquired feature or asset…everything is responded to in some way. Children and teens, today, are accustomed to being responded to. Those from my generation fear that pampered children will be spoiled, and this is probably a justified concern. Still, these responsive information landscapes, where they play, are intensely instructional. They are learning engines.

So how do we adapt our classrooms, instructional practices, and procedures, so that they respond to student learning, rather than merely facilitate teacher presentation? Something we need to be talking about.

As I add my one cent to the David's two, I think it is a matter of getting past what “we think” about a methodology and actually observe what is happening in the mind of the student.

• Are they learning?
  
• What are they learning?
  
• Are they engaged?
  
• Is this part of the knowledge base that they need to have to be an effective member of society?
• Are we pushing them?
• Are they motivated to take the subject with them into their lives?
  

By any means necessary must become the battle cry of teachers.

We will educate by any means necessary!

We will leave behind our preconceived notions!
We will go into territory where we do not feel comfortable!
We will go where our students congregate and interact!
We will do what it takes to reach the most disconnected and connected generation in history.

Education is a perpetual crisis that always leaves us one generation from anarchy!
Teaching must be done by
ethical,
wise,
people of character
who have education of their topic as their aim
and any means necessary as their methodology.

(Thanks to David Warlick for suggesting a reedit of these lines.)

My boring keyboarding class became much more exciting when I typed the lessons into text files and imported them into mavis beacon. The kids play games as they are learning to type! Engaging! Exciting!

Are we sitting around and playing games!? Yes! Are we learning? Yes!

I’ve had quite enough of the stuffy academic critic who frowns over their half glasses at those of us engaging children and reply with a “Humph! If they are having fun, they can’t be learning!”

I reply,

“You can force a child’s body to sit in a chair, but you can not require them to engage their mind! That is done by a good teacher! Give them access to a wide variety of tools, and let them teach!"

I am in the teaching, mind engagement business! Video games are engaging! They need to be harnessed for top flight, excellent, meaningful, EDUCATION!

As I read Kathy Sierra's cry to make passionate users, I am determining that I want to create passionate students! Passionate about learning! Engaged and excited in a world of knowledge and sharing!

• Username - The name you use to log into a service.
  
• Password - The password you use to log into a service.
  
• Display Name (Screen Name) - The name shown to others (should be a pseudonym)
• Verification (or Authentication) - Most services, require you to go into your e-mail and confirm that you set up the service.

Accounting (Elective for 11th & 12th graders)

• We've got our Future Profit Blog up and running. http://futureprofit.blogspot.com -
  
  I took a grade today for everyone who had signed up on the blog to post. We've literally worked at this for a week. MOST of these students have worked in the classblogmeister and wiki environment, but not all. Those who haven't are considerably behind those who have. It is amazing the difference and the importance of understanding these tools.
  
  
• I've modeled our work here after Darren Kuropatwa's Scribe concept.
  
  Each day, I have an assigned scribe to take notes for the day. It is their job to share the basic concepts we've learned. Those who've already posted have had me before and blogged within moments of class ending. Those who haven't, we'll I'm having to take extra time with them. Soon, I hope to have everyone comfortable in this environment and that the remainder of this week's posts will be online. It just takes time!

Computer Science

• We've enhanced our wikis using the videos that we've created. The five videos that are already uploaded include: Pop Up Blocker , Firewalls , the Spam Shark, and two Identity theft videos. The videos took some time, but once the basic process is learned, it becomes faster!
• We've set up our scribe notes blog at http://computers4teens.blogspot.com . You can see the daily notes of what we're learning.
  
• Our question of the week was about the Robomower.

Robomower (See http://www.friendlyrobotics.com/) is beginning to sell more rapidly in the United States.
The goal of the owners is to capture 10% of the lawnmower market in the United States. Read about the Robo mower and answer the following questions in complete sentences. You should have three paragraphs as follows:

1) Is the Robomower a computer? Why or why not?
2) If it is a computer, what classification should it be in? Why?
3) What will be their biggest obstacles to overcome for people to consider buying these robomowers? (At least 3 sentences)

Sometimes knowing the right questions requires more knowledge than just stating your opinion. In this post, I am asking for you to create five questions as your answer.

In the article, Movie Download Service Sued for Spyware many interesting issues come to light.

After you read the article, you are to post five questions on your blog that could be used to discuss your article:

1) LITERAL QUESTION - The first question should be answered literally from the article.
2) DRAWING CONCLUSION QUESTION - Write a question that forces a person to draw a conclusion.
3) INFERENCE QUESTION - Write a question that requires a person to make an inference.
4) PREDICTION QUESTION - Write a question that asks someone to make a prediction.
5) POSITION ON THE ISSUE QUESTION - Write a question that asks someone to take a position on the question.

Computer Fundamentals

• We've completed our first lesson of Microsoft Word and now are applying our intuitive learning method to writely. (See my Intuitive Learning post for more.) Using this model, we look at:
  
  1) menus
  2) toolbars,
  3) drop downboxes,
  4)help,
  5) panes, and
  6) dialog boxes.
  
  We talk through this process and it is amazing what we learn about the program within 5 minutes. Using this method, we talk through almost every feature of a new software program in 5-10 minutes time. Even though I somewhat "invented it" it is a expeditious way to teach it. (We use the mneumonic device "Momma told Daddy, 'Happy Pappy Day'" to remember the order to explore.
• We've completed a question of the week about Intuitive learning , and next week will be comparing and contrasting writely and Microsoft Word.
  
• We've almost completed posting our first wikis on our Microsoft Word lessons.
  

The process I teach them to approach a wiki is a multistep process:

Keyboarding

I've made a few enhancements to the blogs for my student's educational benefit:

Fishbowl to Ocean

Could you take a salt water fish out of a salt water fishbowl and pour it into the ocean and expect it to live?

"Of course not," they say.

I tell them that I have them in an environment more like a part of the ocean with a sharknet. We're part of the Internet but I'm the lifeguard watching. They also must watch because they are part of the ocean too. As they know, shark nets are pretty good but it is possible for a shark to get through so it is all of our jobs to keep watch and communicate with the life guards.