Week+3

A bump in my evolution...

I began my once weekly evolution again today by discussing parts one and two of '//Understanding Digital Kids//' by Ian Jukes.

Now, there are a few things I would like to comment on with respect to the discussion:

The first thing I extracted from dialogue and integrated into my new technological schemata was that kids' brains work differently. To understand the nature of the machine is to understand the emergent technical learner that is our student. However, being from a comparatively simpler generation and having the constitution of an LP-spinnin, technophobe I sometimes feel like the person in the above picture in that the pressure to 'plug in' and 'offload' is relatively quite strong and pervasive in many areas of life. I no longer remember names and phone numbers when I go out... my phone can do that for me. I no longer have to worry about the fact that I'm too lazy in class to copy down the notes... I can just take a picture of it with my smartphone.

Something's not right here...

At another point in the class discussion there were certain comments made about the use of green and red lines which highlight mistakes when typing in French. My apprehensions here revolve around a single concern: where do we draw the line? Isn't using spellchecker and grammar checkers **encouraged** in English class? If we're encouraging use of these tools in English class, then what is it? Are we getting lazier at teaching English or should we just, again, adapt to something that will probably become standard use for its applicability as an aid.

There was a comment made in class How do we remain entertaining? We are not there to entertain... we are there to educate. I do not deny technology's applicability to promote student learning. But at the end of the day, school is a place for learning and discipline... I wonder, am I regressing in my technological evolution??

Audacity:

 Above you will find a short podcast (audio only) that I created using Audacity software. The program itself is amazing and allows one to manipulate many parts of an audio track(s). In the above audio file I have taken a small portion of a commonly used beat and layered a voice introduction over the track. Once things were properly lined up I tried highlighting and editing a certain portion of the track but was met with poor results... Nevertheless, I was still able to add some effective bass boosting and fading effects to both the audio and voice tracks even though I was unable to produce the echoing effect I was looking for.

The use of audacity in the classroom could be quite useful as a means for student expression. Allowing a student to make a podcast for a project is a differentiated mode of instruction that would appeal to any student who has a penchant for either technology or audio. Since the technology is simple enough to use, it would not take a student who is not necessarily that comfortable with technology, much eff ort to learn. As an alternative to public speaking as well podcasts have a wonderful potential at easing some students fears of speaking in front of others.