Social Media in Education

Early in my college career, I often sat among my classmates being a bit jealous that many of them had brought some kind of laptop into class. After I was an upper classman, I realized that many of the people who had a laptop spent more time playing solitaire or updating their Facebook status than taking notes or engaging in the lecture.

Today kids in school are even more wired (and I'm not referencing caffeine). They are used to texting, tweeting, updating their status, and jumping from one browser window to the next at alarmingly fast rates. Sometimes it is enough to make my head spin.

I ran across this article in the New York Times today that talks about engaging students through social media. The thought of sitting in an English class talking about an article that we read is pretty interesting to me. One teacher even believes that her class is engaging more students.

I ended up being an English major in college, but I know that some of my high school classes would have been a lot more interesting to me had I had the opportunity to use technology. I fear that people are going to stop printing books in the future, because it is so much cheaper to have a digital copy of things. There is something about holding a book and smelling its musty pages that makes me want to read it. It is inviting.

My parents think it is crazy to have online courses. I participated in some in college, and while they had their unique challenges, I found that I was placed in charge of my education. I couldn't fake reading an assignment and posting something on it. The teacher could see when you were presenting an unsupported argument. And I found that I enjoyed learning more when I could engage myself in something besides a three hour lecture (yes, some of my classes were three hour night classes).

If this actually helps kids learn, what is there to lose? I would be interested to hear from some of you teacher types (I know you are out there) to see if you would be interested in implementing this. Or, tell me how you implement other technologies in your class to save time and money.

The End Is Here!

It happened.

My dad officially signed up for the Internet.

This might not mean a lot to you, but it is almost as shocking as the time that my parents bought a brand new car. It had gone all my life never riding in a new car that my parents had owned, and once I was out of the house they went out and bought a brand new car.

Dad has been worried about getting viruses on his computer. In all actuality, I don't think that he has ever been to a site that might give him a virus, or even adware. He is very strict about his computer usage, and will not bend or break to the whims of the Internet.

At least, not until yesterday.

Now that he jumped off the edge, he had all sorts of questions for me tonight. How do you set up a wireless router? Do you need a wireless router? Can both of the computers connect to a wireless router? Could his iPhone get WiFi through a wireless router? Do I know of any antivirus software for his computers?

I fielded the questions as best I could, but I can tell he is nervous. He made the decision, but is still acting leery.

This is where Mom comes in. While Dad was in playing with Munchkin, Mom let me in on the fact that Dad signed up for the Internet. Then she told me how excited she was to be able to have Internet access in her home. She said that she would probably even start looking at things like blogs more often. Who knows, she might even become a blogger herself.

Okay, she probably won't go that far, but I can see her thoroughly enjoying the fruits of last century's technology.

Why I Like Apple

Could it get any simpler than this?



Talk about making it easy to share! While I know that a lot of people don't like Apple because of how restrictive they can be with their devices, this might be an argument as to why they keep things this way.

All I need now is an iPhone 4, and iPad, and an Apple TV, complete with some sweet speakers that will connect as well via AirPort. I can handle the rest from there.

Introduction to Technology

When we were over to dinner at my parent's home this past week, my mother showed me a small card that she was very impressed with. It had a column with text in it that was next to a piece of clip art. My mind immediately started thinking of how to make it, and then quickly got bored because of the simplicity of the task.

After dinner was over, I mentioned to Mom that I could easily show her how to make something like that. She looked at me a bit skeptically, but took me up on the offer because she wanted me to install their scanner on the computer.

Before I go any further, let me tell you two stories about Mom that will help you understand her interactions with technology in the past.

Dad was a college professor in the Education department, and as part of that work, he started some of the first computer labs on campus (Funny aside: I now work with someone who helped him establish those first computer labs. Small world.). Dad was used to drawing things in Basic and typing up reports for his thesis and dissertation, so computers weren't anything that caused him worry. But Dad has his way of doing things, and if you stray from that path, you aren't doing it right, even if it yields the same (or better) results.

We had an Apple ][e at home for a personal computer. If you don't know the type, think of a large, dusty-gray looking box with two disk drives under a green and black monitor, and that is pretty much it. You had to have a 3 x 5 floppy disk inserted in disk drive 1 in order to get the thing to do anything of value. Mom helped Dad type up some of his reports and things, so she was a good typist. But if she ever needed to do anything beyond typing, Dad would start to explain it. Once he had an suspicion—even an inklink of a suspicion—that she was going to do something wrong, he would say (in a not so calm voice), "Ah, don't do that!"

Needless to say, Mom gets nervous about using a computer. She once called me to ask me if she was in trouble because she had just gotten an error message that told her that she had performed an illegal operation. Poor Mom....

My second story illustrates just how limited her interaction with the Internet has been. One day, she mentioned to me that she wanted to find some illustrations from children's books. She had never been on the Internet besides checking email, and I didn't really count that because they didn't even have a web-based email account. I brought Mom to the Google homepage.

Having grown up with this technology, I asked her to start typing in what she wanted to look for. She said books for kids, so that is what she typed in. Of course Google returned over nine million entries. I showed her the amount of entries that she had come up with, and she was floored. And then she innocently asked me, "Well, how am I going to get through all of these links?" I told her to get through them by using more search terms. I suggested maybe using art or artwork in there as well.

So what did she do? She erased the books for kids entry and put in artwork. I did a mental facepalm, and then told her to put all of those terms in. She just sat there and said, "Oh. You can do that type of thing?"

Don't let these stories fool you. My mother is very intelligent and capable. She just has never really had the opportunity to play around on the Internet, and because of her introduction to computers via my father, she is reluctant to just play on the computer.

I told Mom that I would show her how to make the card, and then let her do one while I was there. At my suggestion that she try one herself, she laughed and rolled her eyes. I opened up Pages for her, and showed her how to make a quick card using one of the existing templates in about two minutes. She kind of blinked, a bit surprised that it was over so fast. I could tell that she hadn't ingrained what I had just showed her—despite the fact that she was taking meticulous notes on a sticky pad that was nearby—so I had her take the drivers seat.

She opened up Pages again, and we started looking through the templates. She quickly said, "Now, I don't remember which one you used. Why don't you tell me?" Instead, I asked some leading questions, and she selected a different template after recognizing the one I had used. She put the picture that she wanted in, and then I showed her how you can zoom in and use a mask to highlight part of the picture.

I had to help her pull her chin off the floor. Not only was she amazed that she could zoom in and out, but she was amazed that she was doing it. I had her do a few more copies on the same template while I was there, and then we went to go get the cows in. On our way outside, she walked up to Dad, starting to tell him excitedly that she could make a card with a picture and writing, and that you could zoom in and out, and focus on one flower from the flower bed, and that she could do it all herself. Dad just grinned, and threw out a characteristic, "Wait a minute. You know how to do all that?"

For those who don't know Dad, he was joking. If I ever got a 98 on a test, he would ask me why I didn't get a 100. That is just how he is.

Mom indignantly retorted, "Yes. I did three in there just now. John showed me how."

Still grinning from ear to ear, he turned to me and said, "Don't teach her too much. I might not see her anymore."

Now that I have introduced Mom to technology, I am sure that next time I go over there that she will have some cards printed up on photo paper awaiting my inspection. The fire has been lit, and it is going to start consuming her until she can get everything down. And I'll be glad to be there to help.