Week+2+Monday+Jan+18


 * Understanding the Digital Generation**

I found the article __Understanding the Digital Generation__ very interesting.

There was one thing he said that I thought was a bit silly. He said that students only retain 10% of what they hear orally, which means that the chalk and talk lecture method is close to useless. This is silly because the way you retain information from a lecture is to write notes. I went through my whole education doing this, and it works just fine. It is true that one needs to learn how to write good notes, and some students have never been taught. They rarely write notes while I'm teaching unless I say, "there are three points," or "three stages..." our unless I write things on the blackboard. One can, however, hand out graphic organizers or Powerpoint presentations with space for notes; this will help the students take notes.

All that said, I'm a highly visual learner myself and so multimedia presentations help me a lot. I am also very interested in how to convey the most information in the fewest words...I once found a web site about story structure in film that had only a sentence or two per page and yet conveyed everything that was most relevant about plot, suspense, and so on. I use it as a model for myself.

I really liked the point about TTWWADI. It is a real pain for newcomers to an institution! On the other hand, in some situations education needs to change cautiously, because otherwise it could be pushed this way and that by every new theory that came along.

I loved hearing that the brain could repair itself and could adapt at any age. This is great news for me! I need to learn a lot of new things in terms of technology and also in terms of French.


 * I hate MMORPG's**

I realize that I have an adversarial relationship to video games and RPG culture because I'm sad that both my sons and my best friend are addicted to them. Oh, and my husband too. It is hard for me to keep an open mind about them, even though I know they have many valuable aspects. I know that some RPG's are very creative; it's kind of like writing a narrative with a bunch of other people who share the same interests. I need to accept that RPG's are a part of life in the 21st century, and that they can be a positive and creative outlet.

I very much enjoy the online series [|**The Guild**], which is about a group of friends who play a game very much like World of Warcraft. The show is extremely funny but also sad, especially when the characters eschew real life events in order to play the game (one of the characters skips her sister's wedding in order to play all weekend while her husband's at the wedding.)




 * Our Class Jan. 18**

In class I learned what Web 2.0 meant, which was great since everyone talks about it all the time but I had no idea what it meant. I've already been involved with Web 2.0 without knowing it as I used wikispaces last term for several group projects.

I was quite excited by the possibilities of the SRS... Several years ago, I saw a video about a Physics professor at MIT who would teach a concept for 15 minutes and then put a problem on the board...students had to work in groups of 2 to solve it and then they'd send their answer to the teacher's computer. It must have been with a device like the SRS. This video impressed me very much because the prof knew right away what percentage of his large lecture class had understood the concept he was teaching. The students needed to be alert in order to grasp the concept and do the problem, and it must have also been fun, just as it was fun for us in class to race against the clock to send in our answers.

"Understanding the Digital Generation 2" says that 2 weeks after doing it, we remember "   about 90% that involves the teaching of a concept to others as well as the immediate application of the learning within the context of a real time, real world task or a simulation of that task" (7). Teaching with SRS could make it much easier to have students immediately apply what they have just learned.

I would like to try to teach grammar concepts this way, or French, or literary terms. I like the fact that the professor assesses the students learning and the students also assess their own learning.


 * Google Apps**

One thing I wonder about Google Apps...who pays for it? Why did Google invent it? I enjoyed the video that explained the value of Google docs, but I was wondering...what is in it for Google? Are they just hoping to sell lots of ads? How can they do this for free when Microsoft charges money for similar apps?

I very much like the feature that you can work on a document with people and see all your revisions. That would have helped me when I was writing an article last year.I also like the idea that Google Calendar can cut down on the amount of emails teachers get from students and parents asking when things are due, and that Google docs means that students can work on their assignments from home.

I enjoyed the assignments where we used Google presentations and Google forms. I managed to embed a video into my presentation of myself, but my drawings, for some reason, did not come thrrough. I do like the hands-on aspect of our class because unless I practice these skills I will never remember them.