In Richardson's recent 1/31/07 podcast, one of the fascinating things I took from his speech was his idea of "citizen journalism," in which people use tools such as camera phones, download it to the internet, and can make it available to anyone in the world.
Richardson said that one example of the benefits of his "citizen journalism" idea is that a man was tazored (sp?) viciously, and someone put it through the internet to bring the social injustice to life. In a way, it was like a virtual newspaper article, and the nice part of it was that the story would never had gotten into the newspapers because it was witnessed by a typical citizen, not a newspaper journalist.
Richardson makes it clear that students should learn how to be social activists in the ELA classroom by becoming journalists themselves. They can be aware of social injustices and justices by using different technologies, such as blogs, podcasts, and wikis.
I believe Richardson's idea is great. The point of it is certainly beneficial to people all around the world.
However...and here is my resistance to the technology rise...
There are drastic disadvantages. The idea of "privacy" is completely different now with these technologies. In fact, I can make the claim that there is NO privacy anymore. Yes, camera phones can capture things like riots, beatings, etc. But they can also invade someone's life through a peeping tom, someone or people who want to bring to life someone's inner personal world.
Isn't that what the paparazzi is for? Yes...I understand their roles are very different...but just try to understand my path here.
I want my students to fight and be aware of social justice. Absolutely. Without a doubt. It is part of my Teaching Philosophy. But on a different grade than what Richardson is saying.
I see the benefits of technology...I really do! And I want to and will embrace many different technologies with my students...even though I may not want to or be equipped to. Yes, I will learn from my students as well as educate them.
But I want my students to think for themselves, not have a computer think for them. Podcasts, blogs, wikis, the students can all make these...wonderful! Now...can you use more critical thinking to use your resources (texts) to bring the ideas to your outside worlds? Or are you only trained to use your tools in an isolated way?
I understand...technologies, IMing, all of these things, bring communication to the fingertips. I see that! But I don't see how students are becoming any smarter using these concepts than with using Constructivist ideas that are not "paperless."
I will use paper in my classrooms...I will, and I want to. I will use technology...I will, and I want to. And I want to educate my students and follow the mainstream ideas (ie blogs, etc).
But ultimately, I am the authority and the educator. I can show my students that just because something is "innovative" does not mean we have to use it without using other ideas.
No...I am not going to use rote memorization and make my kids sit in rows without any collaboration at all. Of course I would not...but I think we are using students' inability to communicate effectively and lack of literacy and meeting these problems with easy solutions that really do not pin-point the bigger problems. The problems are still there!
Instead, I want to embrace multimedia content, but also make students understand that they can use their own brains to think. They don't need a button to make things happen. Their button is their mind...use it!
I like technology...it is helpful, exciting, and fun when you make it yourself. But there are other things we can do, too.
I will not go paperless...but I will use the best of both sides.
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3 comments:
Our minds are on the same path. I am honestly getting a little tired of how much technology is taking over everything. I refuse to allow my students to have the attitude that the computer is going to give them all of the information they need and that it will fix all of their mistakes. Like phil said in his post, nothing education has come out of facebook or myspace and I have no intention of limiting my students to the computer. Of course these tools are great, advanced, fast, and can do great things, but they cannot do the work for our students. I really enjoyed Will's pod-cast and got a lot of information and ideas out of it, but I don't agree with him on everything. Not every student is alike so we should not assume that they are all going to like using a computer and/or will want to get all of their research from one.
I am firmly behind your " i will not go paperless." I agree. There s just something different. I feel we can not get away from certain things. I am for change but certain things i am firmly grounded in. Another thing that i cringe at the thought of is e-books. It is an ok idea and it makes things a lot cheaper easier i guess, but i feel like we should never take away the physical book. I like having a novel in my hand, being able to highlight it and jot notes in the sides. I have taken an online course were i was forced to use an e-book. Was not that bad, but truly no substitute for the tangible text.
Staci you make some great points. I agree with you.
I will also use something from both worlds in my classroom. I can't see myself encouraging my students to go totally "paperless," especially considering that quite often mistakes are found much easier when there is a hard copy to look at. Students need the one-on-one interaction of working with other students, something that is not always do-able on the internet - yes I do realize that we have cameras to connect us with each other, but sometimes this can be distracting from the real lesson that is being taught. In this instance I would want my students to be listening to the lesson and not concerned wtih what Susie or Johnny are wearing that day.
Also,I agree with you regarding the not so pleasant side of mobile phone cameras and I believe I have commented in previous posts my distrust of what can and is done with this technology today.
It is sad, in some respects, that journalism seems to be on the way out, especially when regular people can report upon something that is occuring (don't get me wrong I think this is also a good thing). It does kind of make it seem like journalism is blending with tabloid reporting. It makes me wonder what the future of journalism is going to be and just how truthful will it be then?
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