Monday, February 25, 2008

The Overdominance of Computers

I. Stacy Naden suga_bb@yahoo.com 02/25/2008

The Overdominance of Computers Lowell W. Monke

II. Overview of Article

This article was from a point of view that feels that technology is being used at such a young age that kids are becoming dependant upon it without learning other very important developmental steps such as morals, relationship skills, outdoor activities, the arts, time unstructured play, and conversations with adults. The author feels that technology is being placed in classrooms without any valuable skills being emphasized or learned by students. Computers are aiding in the students development and replacing the other very important things. The author doesn't think that computers are helping any longer, rather he thinks they are hindering education and should be utilized at a more developed stage in the education process such as high school, where the students can utilize computers as a trade and gain the necessary skills to use them. The overall point is that computers are debilitating rather than enabling when they aren't used as an aide in teaching other, more valuable human skills.

III. Bulleted Reference Points:

  • Essentials in the early years
  • Moral preparation
  • Authentic experience
  • Technology users work in the abstract
  • Great power and poor preparation
  • Are computers helping achievement?
  • Machine dominated lives
  • Computers in high school
  • 67% of nursery school students used computers in 2003
  • The cost of failing to compensate

IV. Reflection and significance to me

I find the author's point of view interesting. What I see in classrooms is not an over use of technology but rather, an under use of technology. I see a select group of students benefiting and focusing on the use of technology in their daily lives, yet this is an economic discrepancy. I think what the real problem is, is that there aren't good teacher to student ratios in the classroom to give them the adult interaction and conversations that they would truly benefit from. Perhaps, if the budget to increase technology in the schools were applied to increasing teachers in teh schools, then I can reason that eliminating technology at a young age would be wise.

I see the world depending on technology and functioning in the ways of technology. I don't see this as a problem derived in the schools, it's only mimicked by the schools for the purpose of participating in the economy. The quality of simple human interactions is minimized by cell phones, i pods, and general overpopulation. Human relationships are devalued and unnecessary when you can have friends on-line, play video games, or watch TV.

When kids learn to depend on technology at a young age, the outcome is similar to the essential school experiences as listed in Monke's article. The fault, as I see it, is not of integrating technology in the classroom at a young age. That may be a small fraction of an addition to the overarching problem of western society devaluing human relationships and replacing them with things that money can buy such as technology. This happens because it produces a very large profit for several people.

Creating the Rubric
Creating the rubric was easy after having done the project myself. I think if the assignment would have been to create a rubric before the project was assigned then it would be rather difficult to assess the elements of the digital story. I was able to reflect on aspects of creating the story that I had trouble with or that I would have done better on, and I selected those for the foundations of the grading rubric. I thought it would be important for students to develop a solid and thorough story map, seriously considering the content of their story. I also thought it was important for students to be creative and really strive to find unique elements to add to their story. I also thought it was important to assess the students use of technology. Did they use it to the best of their abilities? Did they try to learn new things? Did they utilize the transitions, auditory, and visual technical elements available in the movie making program? Finally I had the students assess themselves and their work: Did they do their best work, could they have done better?
I'm pleased with the outcome of the rubric, I think it's a good rubric to use in an actual classroom setting where the students are expected to create a digital story. If I were teaching this I would outline clear outlines in the beginning of the project, teach editing tools in the classroom, and give the students more specific guidelines in creating their stories.
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Digital Story Rubric


Evidence of Planning= 30 points

(15 points) Story Map is a thorough plan of the digital story
(15 points) Story line is engaging (it has meanining, climax, conflict, resolution, etc.)

Creativity= 30 points

Digital story contains unique elements:

(10 points) visual
(10 points) auditory
(10 points) content

Use of Technology= 30 points


Used the movie making program to the best of your abilities:
(6 points) read tutorials if there was an element that was unclear
(6 points) editing
(6 points) sound bytes
(6 points) smooth transitions
(6 points) story line flows with editing elements

Rate yourself: 1-10

How do you think you did?
Are you happy with the final results?
Would you have planned more if you had more time?
Would you change anything about your video?
Could you have used class time more wisely?

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Total= ______/ 100

Monday, February 4, 2008

Digital Story

http://www.youtube.com/user/Techcl8

Created this video and had a pretty okay time doing it. I had an exceptionally fun time with the sound effects.
I'm not all that pleased with the footage, but it works...
It makes me laugh still and I've been listening to it for quite some time.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with the project. I wish that I could have done more with the clips in the way of collage. I would have liked to paste a variety of images into the frames and had them floating. I wasn't able to figure out a way to do that with this program.