Blog Post 8

This is How We Dream

This presentation by Richard E. Miller describes writing not with words but with multimedia--doing away with word processors and essays in favor of "composing" (possibly Miller's favorite word) a work that is a combination of videos, articles, sound, film--whatever you may find on the internet. He describes this as something that could replace the need for writing essays or research papers in schools. The only problem, he says, is we don't have a method for teaching this, it needs to be invented.

This is really what websites do every day, though. This isn't something new. I get on Tumblr every day, and I can find blogs dedicated entirely to one thing, with all the makings of the kind of project Miller desires for us to use in the class--videos, news report, images, articles, .gifs, sound files. And these blogs aren't run by university professors or teachers (well, not most of them), but by ordinary people, usually from the ages 12-25.

We don't really require teaching, because we are learning on our own. No one had to teach me--I saw the video and I knew instantly the kind of thing Miller wanted because I'd seen it so many times before. Not just on Tumblr, but on Livejournal, and, so far, Blogger. The only difference is the content is being brought there by more than just one person--it's the effort of hundreds or thousands of people working on one blog dedicated to one specific thing (LiveJournal). Or it's the culminated effort of them finding the information and simply placing it in a spot more accessible to others so that they may gather it all up and put it in one place (Tumblr).

But I don't really think it's something that needs to replace essays and research papers in school. Those papers aren't just written to combine all the information about a subject into a single word document--in schools they're proof that a person knows the information well enough. I could make a multimedia presentation and not know any of it, just scan the information to make sure it's the right subject and put it all in one place. But with a research paper, the writer has to know the information well enough to construct their own re-telling of what has happened.


Blog Post #12 by Carly Pugh

Carly Pugh's blog post almost embodies the kind of multimedia presentation Richard Miller described. I say "almost" because it's not really multimedia. In her post, she was required to think of an assignment that Dr. Strange might assign, and she came up with making a YouTube playlist of ten videos following certain guidelines. Teaching by example (an excellent thing to do, by the way), she created her own playlist featuring inspirational videos about creativity and celebrating or differences and similarities (Disabilities Means Possibilities was my favorite); instructional videos, like how to write an autobiography (which was very funny); and informative videos on some of her favorite authors, as well as a humorous video about one of her favorite characters, Mr. Darcy, and a preview for the 2008 BBC drama Little Dorrit (which I will definitely be checking out, as Russel Tovey is in it).

But as I said, it's not really multimedia. It's two at best, if you count the blog post she put it all together in. One if you're just watching the playlist on YouTube. But I think it's close enough to make no real difference. I think it's a great idea, making a playlist like that, as long as you can get the point you're trying to make come through clearly.


The Chipper Series and EDM 310 for Dummies

These videos are about students in EDM 310 becoming so frustrated with the class their willing to give up. In "The Chipper Series," the eponymous Chipper quits, but after a series of misadventures that involves starting a piloting school and getting fired from various jobs, she decides to join EDM 310 again. In "EDM 310 for Dummies," two girls go crazy over all the stuff they don't understand in the class, but luckily they can turn to EDM 310 for Dummies to help them get through. I suppose the message is, though EDM 310 can be quite frustrating for those not used to doing their own work, and learning on their own, since you can't just regurgitate everything you've learned onto tests for grades, once you understand the point of the class, and how to use the various websites and really become a part of it all, it becomes less like work and more enjoyable.

If I had to do a video on EDM 310, I'd want to do mock horror movie. Start off with a normal teacher, just teaching his class, when all of a sudden something a student says triggers a flashback to his days in college, taking EDM 310. The homework. The stress. Suddenly, everything in his life reminds him of the class. He can't stop thinking about it. He wakes up at night to the ghostly images of tweets to people he barely knows. He thinks of trying to escape, cutting himself off of technology, becoming an old-fashioned teacher who uses only books, pens, paper, and chalk. But it doesn't matter, because it's already infected him...


Learn to Change, Change to Learn

The ways people learn are constantly changing, but schools aren't. 21st century learning isn't about memorizing information--it's about what you do with and how you use it. But schools are still stuck on the memorization part. For schools, as long as you can repeat information back to them a few times, you're ready to move out into the world and face everything in it. But the world is not like that at all. You can't just memorize some facts which you will forget as soon as they are no longer useful for you. You have to be able to find information, make sure it's true, pull it all together, communicate with it, solve problems with it, work with it. But schools don't teach how to do that, they just teach the facts themselves and don't expect anymore out of you after that. I completely agree with all of this, but it's going to take a long time for the teachers of today to get the message, that learning has changed and they're the ones being left behind.


Scavenger Hunt 2.0



1.) Locate a tool that is similar to Twitter/Facebook and provides a social platform for teachers,
parents, and students. Create an account as a Teacher and write a paragraph or two about how
you could use this site in your classroom. Here's my post! (Well, actually, it's in my profile, because I couldn't figure out how to make the post public. I'm still working on that.)


2.) Locate the tool that most likely created this presentation.  Once you find the site, look at the
top right and click Pricing. Write a paragraph about the nice deal they make for students/
teachers.

I believe Prezi was used in that presentation. They have a really good deal, too, for educators and students. For absolutely no money, you can have what everyone else has to be $59 a year for, and you get all the same tools. But if you do want to go pro, and have that extra storage space and have it available on your desktop, you can upgrade to Pro for just $59, when it costs $159 for everyone else. Being and educator has its advantages.

5.) Find a tool to create a poll anywhere and at anytime. Create your first poll and post it here.

PollEverwhere.com has the answer!

Make your own poll voting question with Poll Everywhere