Education, Technology, and Society 2013

Link to Midcourse Feedback https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Sh64VzzH7DNVZp7eO_yxvQj4GlIuzAN2fHycAqDRY9c/edit?usp=sharing  

As a mother I thought it would be a little bit strange to work with kindergarteners who are not my own. But the staff at our school, and all the wee ones have made it all feel incredibly natural. In addition I have gained a new, perspective about the life my son leads every weekday at school.
We have, as a group, been able to formulate a plan, and begin implementation in a smooth consistent way; not just because of the cooperation of the group and the school staff, but because we have been able to share scheduling, and ideas using google docs. It has saved us time and allowed us to work on the fly.
My apprehension about using tech is less about privacy, but more about how difficult the internet intentionally makes it for one to stay on task. The idea of an ebook has led me down several interesting rabbit holes on the web. In the process, I am learning to develop efficient search strategies. Of course I am unsuccessfully trying not to follow every slightly interesting new link. The class itself has made me hyper aware of how much time I am using to do specific tasks on the internet. Though, finding a way to be consistently focused is something I have yet to develop. Yet, I am starting to feel like the internet may not be all that compatible with focus, and my idea of what it is to focus, and to learn is widening. Sometimes it feels really exciting and freeing to get caught down the rabbit hole.

Our group managed to set up a meeting with Ms. S to discuss some questions we had regarding our schedules, and the project that we are planning to do. Ms. S managed to give us a good idea of how this project might work, and she helped rearrange times for us to go to the kindergarten to observe the classroom and kids for a bit. We all went to observe at different times, so we can have a good idea of how their day works. I went to the kindergarten from 8:45-10:45am and observed the first part of their day, which consists of kids choice, recess, and snack time. The kids get to choose what they want to play with, among a good number of activities such as painting, reading, playing doctor, and etc. 

We are meeting up again this Sunday to start planning our project and lesson plans, since by then all of us will have observed different times of the day and have a pretty good idea of how the kindergarten works. We're using google docs and google calanders and also sharing them with the Kindergarten teacher and Ms. S so that they can always comment, suggest, and help us out with our project. But our project is centered around the idea of "growth," and is divided into four parts. We are also hoping to be able to contact an elementary school at Ghana and collaborate with them. For now, we want to have a final end product of an e-book, a hardcopy, and a video. The e-book will be the one that we will be constantly updating, so everyone can follow the project along the way.

This week our group has been trying to figure out the logistics of our placement visits. We're so excited to get involved in the classroom. 

Right now I'm just feeling excited to actually get involved. I think our group has a solid framework set up for how we want to navigate our placement, so we're now just waiting for input from the teacher. I can't wait to get started.

            Last week my group had a Skype meeting with the co-director of Arise, to try to get a basic understanding of what our goals are for working with Arise.  It is a relatively new program and their website did not provide us with a significant amount of information about the formal structure or clear programs, goals, plans, and objectives of the company. So, we were hoping that talking with Mr. B. would provide us with that clarity that we were seeking. Some members of our group seemed to feel as though not much progress was made during the Skype call since he did not really provide us with any specific tasks or actions he wanted us to perform for him. However, I felt like this was an indicator in its own form; we are going to have to put just as much thought into generating projects and collaboration activities as Mr. B and his partner are. One of the things that we were able to get out of the Skype call was the importance of story telling in Ghanaian culture. So, we took this and ran with it when looking forwards and attempting to create a plan for our engagement in this exchange. We began brainstorming ways that we could use technology as a form of story telling and we played with the idea of that being the theme for one of Arise’s workshops. An idea that arose in Alice’s facebook conversation with Mr. B was the creation of introductory videos that could be shared between the participants in the workshops and us.

After speaking with Mr. B, the primary contact for Arise, Alice, and the rest of the group, we've been able to finally solidify some main ideas for our collaboration. In the beginning, it was evident that there needed to be some more conversations about finding a common ground between Mr B's vision for Arise and the group's vision for what we'd like to gain from the experience after the termination of the semester.

Google docs has made it easy for the group members to add, edit, or make suggestions for new ideas at the same time or during our personal time outside of class. We have also shared the document with Mr B to keep him updated on where we stand on the placement. It also gives him the opportunity to comment on our ideas which I believe will be very useful in the future.

Something that I've realized in group collaborations such as this one, it's important to have clear deadlines for nearly everything so that all participants can always be on the same page. With this in mind, we've added a "Weekly Goals" at the top of the page to add our placement homework. During conversations with Alice, Mr B revealed that he would like each of us to make a video introducing ourselves and our interests in Arise and education. We thought this was an efficient and easy way to share a bit more about ourselves, so we decided that the videos should be finished by Tuesday of next week.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/03/casting-the-hunger-games-in-praise-of-katniss-everdeen/72164/

MISSION: POSSIBLE

OUR TOP THREE PRIORITIES FOR INQURY IN ED 255 IN STUDYING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN CONNECTING NETWORKED EXPERIENCES AND EDUCATION

Our class wrote these together.  Feedback welcome!

1. Creativity and Structure. What are the relationships between learner- driven inquiry and organization, creativity and standardization, and how do online experiences interact with/inform/reflect these relationships? (EMERGENCE)

2. Access and Social Inequality. who has access to the Internet and who doesn’t? where? and to what (including e-labor and e-waste)? How do different people/groups create and use access?  What do we need to know to think well about this and how it impacts high access spaces? (POWER)

3. Human Development.  How do our growing/changing bodies and brains interact with and get shaped by networked experiences?  Opportunities and opportunity costs? How is identity  shaped and changed by (and shapes and changes) online, networked experiences? (IDENTITY)

4. Institutions and Communities?

I feel like this is an interesting NYtimes article that is relevant to our discussion on technology today. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/fashion/step-away-from-the-phone.html?pagewanted=all