I'm Back

But I'm going to bed.

new plan, sort of

The angle of my article has changed considerably with a new interview about the future of education.

Here are some extra, more relevant, leads:

Students rely on new technology in their everyday lives, but are teachers and students ready to embrace cell-phones in the classroom?

Cell-phones, chatrooms and video sites are making their way into the classroom, but some students and teachers are not ready for this new technology.

Youtube videos and social networks, often criticized as distractions, are now being embraced in Garneau classrooms.

To allow students to use the internet in class is often deemed distracting, yet some educators are embracing youtube and facebook as today's newest teaching tools.

Leadsies

Rumours about banning youtube have spread around the school causing debate on the value of internet in education.

Youtube, often criticized as a distraction, is now being touted by both students and teachers for its education value.

Youtube won’t be banned at Garneau, but teachers and students are still debating its value to education.

new and improved 30 words

1. ethnography
2. wiki
3. blog
4. geographic
5. technology
6. addicted
7. sanitize
8. catastrophe
9. diversion
10. procrastination
11. textual relations
12. tabloid
13. typography
14. taboo
15. trashtalk
16. whambam
17. cyberspace
18. social utility
19. exhibitionism
20. graffiti
21. mediocrity
22. fragment
23. puzzle
24. googling (say it fast)
25. stupidity
26. blogger
27. a milllionbillion
28. cataclysmic
29. fatalistic
30. bibliography
31. cellular tellular phone
32. plasticity

Almost all of these words are related to my videos in the last post. A few aren't related and I'll admit, a few aren't even words, but I also have a few extra and another list of thirty, so I thought I'd take some licence with my word choices.

youtube and education

This video is about more than just youtube, it's an informal analysis of education today. It makes me think about the time I spend on the computer, doing my homework, reading actual texts for school and searching to find information online. If I think about it, the only textbook I actually use this semester is for math. For biology and writer's craft, I'm much more likely to google any questions I have. This movie highlights impact of technology on study habits and communication.

At the end of the video is a link to the blog Digital Ethnography. I looked through the blog and found a page of youtube stats about the types of videos posted and the people who post them. Then I realized there is an entire youtube project with videos about the project (which is a study of the culture of the digital world on youtube), why we youtube, the history of youtube, the authenticity of youtube, the community of youtube, and the sound of youtube. Basically, if you want to learn about youtube, this is the place to go.

I found the reasons why people youtube intriguing. Some people say they do it because they have no social life, others youtube to escape reality, twelve percent say they are addicted to youtube and sixteen percent want to be famous. There are many more reasons if you follow this link and find out for yourself.

These videos, especially the first one also deal with distraction. In the clips, students write about multitasking and facebooking while watching a lecture. They talk about doing what's relevant to their own life and weeding out the rest of what they are taught. Still, the clips don't condemn the Internet for the distraction it provides. Instead, the filmmaker has realized that the move towards technology based education is an unavoidable and forward step. Education needs to shift with the introduction of new technology to avoid alienating students who would prefer to google over reading a blackboard or would rather go to an online encyclopedia than buy hundreds of dollars worth of textbooks.

30 Words

I had to miss writer's craft today and go to biology instead and I wasn't happy about it. I ended up making my list of thirty words while the teacher talked and I now have a very biological theme.

1. catastrophe
2. tori tarsali
3. coagulate
4. polypeptide
5. symbiotic
6. vicariance
7. centrifuge
8. cyanide
9. niche
10. inexactitude
11. squabble
12. nestle
13. squirrel
14. cataclysmic
15. derision
16. nebula
17. semblance
18. polyploidy
19. zygote
20. scruples
21. Galapagos
22. punctuation
23. phenolphthalein
24. xylene cyanol
25. typography (for ms parrish)
26. oort cloud
27. cellular tellular phone
28. pyloric sphincter
29. wriggle
30. spliceosome
31. squabble

And yes, these are related to my youtube video, since my youtube video was about biology.

To carry

If education were grade two math, youtube would be the flashcards.

Youtube is the flashcard of highschool.