The standards themselves are fairly easy to access from the “Browse Standards” tab on the left. However, the resources are a bit more difficult to navigate. There is a tab at the top titled “Resources & Videos.” Here‘s a link to interesting educational tools. Did you know you can follow GA Standards on Twitter? There are also many videos, though they require a plug-in which would not download on KSU computers.

The Frameworks site is helpful, as it provides a suggested curriculum (with unit topics & everything) that meets standards.

My favorite standard? ELA8RC1:

“The student reads a minimum of 25 grade-level appropriate books or book equivalents (approximately 1,000,000 words) per year from a variety of subject disciplines.”

Better get started now…tell students to have at least 5,000 words read by Friday if they’re going to read a million in 180 days.

General Thoughts:

Reading this article was, in a way, sort of scary. A slow realization dawned on me of just how much we really are inundated with media every day, all day.  “Media no longer just shape our culture – they ARE our culture” (pg 9). Yikes.

This article emphasizes instilling a strong foundation of critical thinking in students. I believe this to be a fundamental and necessary skill for any well-educated person, though the stakes are certainly higher in today’s society simply because our “critical thinking” hat is one that we can never take off.  There’s too much media!

I appreciated that this “Media Literacy Kit” equips teachers to teach their children how to handle the media, not hide from it. One solution to the deluge of media is to hide from it & pretend it’s not there – don’t get a TV, don’t watch movies, limit internet access, etc etc. However, that is really not a practical nor a sustainable solution. Kids must be taught how to deal with the media appropriately & effectively.

Small Criticism:

It seems to me that perhaps too much emphasis might be placed on learning how to find & assess information versus actually learning the information, to the point where it’s committed to memory. Of course (as I said above), I think the former skill is highly important and valuable in today’s society. But I do not think that the ‘assessing’ skill should be elevated to the detriment of the ‘actual learning’ skill.

Kind of like teachers in elementary school insisting that children learn to add, subtract, multiply and divide by hand – not by calculator. Why would they do that if the information is so readily accessible in a useful little machine that fits in your pocket? Students could “look up” the math information anytime they wanted. No. No, it is still very important for students to learn the hard facts of life, such as 2+2=4 and 100/10=10.

Similarly, I think it is still well worth memorizing certain things that contribute to a well-rounded, liberal arts education. In a democracy based on debate & discussion, it wouldn’t work if you had to stop every other minute to look something up. Could you? Yes. The information is there. Should you? No way – can you imagine how long that debate would take?

Learning facts is still important.

On a Practical Note:

I’ll definitely be using some of these ideas for discussion in my classroom!

Our findings:

- The Wikipedia entry is significantly longer, having 5 main subsections (Principles & Beliefs, History, Denominations, Symbolism, Culture) whereas Americana has only 2 subsections (History and Doctrines).

- Wikipedia and Britannica online are more comparable in content. However, Wikipedia has the added bonus of being pop-up free! (Major points in my opinion.)

- The printed Americana is a 1999 version. The last update to Wikipedia for the “Jainism” entry was today at 5:50 this morning. I need not elaborate on the benefits to having such up-to-date, current information.

- In thinking about such an entry in an American dictionary (Jainism is and Eastern religion), cultural bias issues arise. In print space is limited; editors undoubtedly choose to expound upon entries that are most relevant to Americans…thus, Christianity gets a bigger entry than Jainism. Yet through a venue like Wikipedia, people from anywhere in the world can contribute – US or India. Therefore, it is logical that the Wikipedia entry would be more complete, as it is not limited by space or by a population where perhaps 0.5% of us (or some very small number – I just made that one up) are Jainists.

To Sum Up: I’m becoming ever more convinced of Wikipedia’s usefulness & credibility as an official reference tool.

Hence my sincere joy in learning that the word “wiki” is not made up (as I once thought), but is actually another fabulous word from our 50th state. Yep – “wiki” is Hawaiian for “quick.” Who knew? Guess I missed the “Wikipedia” entry on Wikipedia. (Which is HERE for those interested in catching up.)

This fun little tidbit can also be found in Chapter 4 of Will Richardson’s book Blogs, Wikis, & Podcasts. Here, Richardson continues his discussion of technology in the classroom by positing that a use of and creation of Wikis – another type of collaborative online space – can add a lot to a classroom.

But what about the legitimacy of information that anyone can change & edit? Here’s one opinion:

Giving directions for one of those wonderful 20-page research papers, one of my college professors stated that “citing Wikipedia as a source is tantamount to admitting academic defeat.” Tough.

Richardson falls on the other side of the fence on this issue, arguing that Wikipedia is an accurate and an invaluable source. I found this part of the chapter particularly compelling, as I’m not yet sure how comfortable I myself am with this internet encyclopedia in an academic setting. The studies done by the University of Buffalo and the Denver Post are very heartening (who tested Wikipedia by placing false info which was quickly corrected, and who had experts “grade” Wikipedia, respectively).

Richardson exudes an optimistic outlook on the general good will of people and comments, “There are vastly more editors that want to make it right than those who want to make it wrong” (56). Additionally, “They do this with no expectation that their contributions will be in some way acknowledged or compensated” (57). I appreciated his confidence in the population and must admit that I had not considered Wikipedia from this angle. The idea of a class being among those who ‘want to make it right’ is appealing; what a great way to teach future voting citizens to hold others accountable!

And I must admit, I consult Wikipedia on a regular basis and have found it to be an incredibly useful tool….still have never cited it as an academic source, though. Maybe one day.

What about you? Would you let students cite Wikipedia on a research paper or project? I’d be interested to hear classmates’ opinions.

Since there was a link in today’s agenda to a BULLDAWG game that I have no memory of (cough, cough) since it never happened, I thought I’d share a few links to the GLORY, GLORY TO OLD GEORGIA!

Check out the awesomeness of the UGA blackout at the Auburn game in ’07 – Hand down, the best football game I have ever been to. (There’s no audio, but the clips are fantastic)

And just for fun, click here to see the Dawg’s grand entrance, and here to see Knowshawn & the others hoppin’ to Soulja Boy (not the best vid, sorry).

To fully appreciate the best football team on planet earth, I will now try to embed a video from the ’07 Florida game – my second favorite game, ever. (Did I mention I had a great senior-year football season???)

Gotta love Cory’s “Every Dawg” song.

Gooooooooooooooooo Dawgs! Sic ‘Em!!! Woof woof woof!

Or, in my case, Chapter One was not an assignment.

Down to business:

My English class is reading Will Richardson’s book about using technology – particularly, internet technology – in the classroom. He encourages teachers to embrace tools already familiar to most teenagers. Students speak fluently in Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Podcast, Wiki, & Blog….so their educators should work toward becoming fluent in these 21st century “languages” as well.

One key distinction Richardson makes in discussing these tools is their social use versus their educational use. Currently, the vast majority of these teenagers fall into the ‘social use’ category. They blog, facebook, & tweet about the crazy homeroom teacher, who is taking whom to prom, the big game on Friday night, and their woeful, annoying  parents. Thus, part of a teacher’s job includes guiding students away from the minutae of their high school life toward the vast world available to them on the world wide web.

Here are some ideas Richardson puts forth & my take on them:

• Creating a Class Wesite with a Blog: I think this is an excellent idea, especially his point that publishing homework, handouts, assignments, etc to the web eliminates a LOT of wasted time & energy spent hunting for lost papers or printing new ones. Speaking from personal experience as a student, it is extremely handy to have an online resource for a class (be it WebCT or TeacherWeb or a blog or whatnot). If you’re a worrier like me, it helps to see in print that an assignment really isn’t due until next week.
• The Blog as a Filing Cabinet/E-Portfolio: My criticism of this stems from a privacy issue. Quite simply, some students do not want every piece of work to be posted in a public place. Even if it’s just a basic literary essay about, say, Huck Finn, a teacher reading & commenting on the writing is very different from peers – or even strangers – reading & commenting. Because some students could be very shy about this aspect of blogging, I would hesitate to use blogs as a portfolio venue unless they were accessible only by the teacher and the individual student. Thoughts on this?
• Collaborative Space: One of the best benefits of blogging, in my opinion. I love the possibility of interacting with “primary sources,” like the authors of classroom books. What a neat experience that would be! Additionally, Richardson points out that with the internet, physical space is not a limitation – you could potentially communicate with anyone, anywhere. Puts a new spin on international pen pals!   In all seriousness, the implications of this technology are, as the author says many times, limitless. Imagine how you grow personally when you travel to another country and talk to people there; now, students could gain that benefit of international discussion without paying for an international plane ticket!
• School/Club Website: Not much to say here, except that a blog could indeed be useful for keeping more up-to-date information, as Richardson points out. The job of managing a school-wide blog might be time-consuming, though.

One final note on what Richardson terms “connective writing.” I believe this to be the heart of blogging – continually analyzing and re-analyzing your own thoughts, beliefs, and knowledge as you engage in dialogue with fellow citizens. It forces a deeper level of critical thinking & honing of writing/communicating skill…something every student (and teacher) could benefit from.

PS – Did you know that 2 new blogs are created every second? I didn’t until I read Richardson’s book. Crazy. So in the time it took me to write this post, roughly 10,800 blogs were born…..