21apples

Do Students Have To Learn From Experience? Laptops And Students, Oh My!

Posted by arvind s grover Wed, 25 Oct 2006 02:05:41 GMT

As a tech director in a 1:1 laptop school I have the opportunity to see a wide range of student treatment of their computers (see picture). We start our program in the 8th grade. In a whirlwind of excitement we do our best to keep students from overloading their computers with questionable software that’s going to inflict spyware, popups and the like onto their machines.

In the most recent drama, some of our pro-Mac students (we use Dell’s) have installed software that makes their Windows machines look just like Mac OS X. They also convinced lots of others to do the same. They soon realized that their hacking around caused a number of functionality issues (like not being able to see their address bar in Internet Explorer). In the process of cleaning up the machines we learned that we had to insert the Windows XP CD to replace missing system files – wow, is this Windows 98 or what? Couldn’t remember the last time I had to insert a XP cd. When installing the software students were asked if they wanted to overwrite “essential operating system files.” What do you think they did? They clicked “yes” to everything. In fact, students who were helping other students made sure to tell them to click yes to everything.

After all our discussions about operating systems, reliable software, etc, at least 10 students (out of 40) took the leap. Did they have to individually learn from from the negative experience? Was there a way as teachers we could have prevented this? Is this just normal teen behavior? Some students certainly don’t take those risks, but is that more about their innate risk-taking or does it have to do with the education they receive? If only the answer were so cut and dry. I think it is a mixture of all these things, but letting older students mentor younger students might be a way to “learn from experience,” even though Peter Senge thinks that doesn’t exist (read his great book). All I know is, we should be able to get better and better from year to year. Less trouble, less of the same mistakes made each year. But we don’t. We are a school, but are we not a learning organization?

Do you have particular grades that go through the same challenge each year? How do you deal with it?

Technorati Tags: 1:1, Dell, education, laptops, learning, Mac, Peter Senge, experience, software, teachers, teaching, technology, teens, The Fifth Discipline

Posted in teaching | 2 comments | no trackbacks

Watch David Warlick's K12 Online Conference Keynote

Posted by arvind s grover Fri, 20 Oct 2006 03:38:30 GMT

I planned to go to bed early tonight after I finished writing my parent-teacher pre-conference writeups. Instead, I started watching David Warlick video keynote address for the K12 Online Conference and I couldn’t stop. As usual, David was spot-on on everything he was talking about and finished his keynote talking about how we all need to be 21st century learners – obviously I liked that since my blog is called 21apples (find out why) and my weekly webcast with Alex Ragone is called 21st Cenutry Learning.

This “conference” is so interesting because it is all going to be conducted online. You can read about it, participate in live events, check out the agenda, see a map of who all is involved, visit/edit the conference wiki and more.

A wonderful opportunity for teachers, technologists and everyone in-between to learn more about technology in education. How can we do it, why should we do it and more. If you want to use the Internet, computers and tech in general in your school, “be at” this conference. You can even get graduate credit for participating in this online conference.

On a side note, David Warlick’s Hitchhikr website will be charting all the blog posts and Flickr pictures connected to this conference.

Technorati Tags: conference, David Warlick, K12 Online Conference, k12online, K12online06, Learning Blog, NYSAIS-EdTech-2006, graduate school, school, schools, students, teachers, teaching, technology, wiki

Posted in future, resources, teaching | no comments | no trackbacks

Programmer Uses MySpace To Bust Child Molesters

Posted by arvind s grover Mon, 16 Oct 2006 23:43:01 GMT

A benevolent programmer at Wired Magazine used his skills to create a script that crawled through the MySpace user directory looking for registered sex offenders who are using the site. Guess what he found? Over 744 sex offenders, over 400 of which were registered child sex offenders using their real names on MySpace. His search technique was only good enough to locate people using their real names who identified their zip code within 5 miles of their real address. They could have beat his system by using a fake name, fake picture or fake zip code. Not very hard to do.

There is real danger with these sites. Criminals are using these sites for their own malevolent purposes. In the article, the author argues that MySpace is still a good thing for kids, but warns:

It’s all up to MySpace. We can’t count on parental supervision; howmany teenagers looking for a space to hang out in with friends will accept one occupied by parents? We can’t count on peer policing; nobody reported Lubrano for his inappropriate comments.

We definitely can’t count on teenage street-smarts. Swagger isn’t judgment. Young Jacob is a smart guy, but even after he politely rebuked Lubrano for hitting on him, he made plans to meet the man at a Pennsylvania amusement park.

His argument is one for technical solutions, perhaps influenced by his own “success” of finding predators electronically. However, there are much bigger questions to be answered here: what kind of men are we raising who could do things like this? What kind of situations are we exposing our children to if they are able to go meet strangers in real time? What kind of decision-making are we teaching if our children can’t understand these risks?

I am an educator and have always believed that education is the answer. However, just educating children on social-networking is not enough. We must also be educating on how the media portrays men and women, how our own biases impart patriarchal views of women and how all of this is contributing to the violent world to which they are constantly exposed.

Technorati Tags: article, children, education, educators, Internet, legal, MySpace, online, safety, school, schools, social networking, teaching, technology, youth

Posted in media, net generation, news, safety, teaching | 2 comments | 1 trackback

Collaborative Desk for Students

Posted by arvind s grover Wed, 11 Oct 2006 02:40:00 GMT

I spent my day off for Native American Peoples’ Day (formerly known as Columbus Day) hanging out at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. I was most interested in the architecture and design exhibit – Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind has me thinking about how right-brained (more artistically, less algorithmically oriented) folks are about to take over the world. One of his pieces of advice on how to get the right-half of your brain going is to get to design museums. I heeded his advice and had a great time.

While looking at some furniture I came across Jean Prouvé school desk (France, 1937). I thought the desk simply and elegantly displayed what a collaborative school was all about. It was a shared desk. One piece of furniture, two students, having to learn to work together and share a space. In my grade school days, we had double-desks, but each had a distinct area of its own, separated writing/working surfaces. This desk is just the opposite. One complete top for both seats. There are many ways to do this in modern classrooms of course, but I like the idea that this desk is fixed. There is no opportunity to pull apart (as we often do in modern classrooms). Even if you are working on separate tasks, with the Prouvé desk, you are in it together.

How many people think this desk would sell now? Anyone have furniture like this in their school?

Technorati Tags: A Whole New Mind, collaborate, Columbus Day, Daniel Pink, design, desk, furniture, Jean Prouve, MOMA, museum, Native American, France

Posted in culture, future | no comments | no trackbacks

MySpace or Their Space?

Posted by arvind s grover Sat, 07 Oct 2006 01:16:07 GMT

MySpace is such a clever name for a website. People think of it as theirs. Our students often get into that argument with teachers and parents. “Why are you in our stuff? It is not for you it is our space.” According to latest study, over half of the people on MySpace are over 35 years old and only 30% are under 25. Teens make up just 12% of the MySpace members.

Does that make it uncool for kids? Probably not, but it might make other sites like Facebook and Bebo more appealing. That is until the adults come in and ruin everything. Is there a space where adults and younger people can live harmoniously? I wonder if there is a way to create that space relatively safely. I just think schools need to be organizing the online social network to provide some kind of insulation while giving students the social contact that they so obviously crave.

Technorati Tags: AP, article, Associated Press, Bebo, Facebook, MySpace, parents, safety, school, schools, social networking, students, teachers, teens