All The Young (Edu)Punks

I suspect that if you have bookmarked me (first off I’m honored, secondly, I’m honored!) you will want to continue to follow me at the new home. So: Robot Vs. Robot. Please come visit me, adjust your feeds/bookmarks/rabbit ears for best reception. I’m also on Twitter as @dietsociety.

So, as part of the ADED 4F35 course at Brock University, I had to articulate my personal teaching perspective. Of course, being a punk, and holding those idea(l)s closely, I had to tie educational theory into my personal life. Here’s the video. I was really unimpressed with the idea that my creative side (a huge part of who I am and the part of me that I most value) had to write an essay. Blah. Thankfully there was an option to do something “creative”. I didn’t do so well on the marking rubric for APA citation… but really does that stuff matter? I guess if I’m writing for publication… which I’m thinking I might do.

My Teaching Perspective Is Based on Who I Am from Jon Kruithof on Vimeo.

Hi all… I haven’t lost touch with my educated self, I’m just bogged down in facilitating the Searching the Internet distance ed course, taking the Brock Workplace Learning course and up to my neck in SQL statements putting together a giant database of courses for the institution I work for. Plus there’s some big plans going on here with the consolidation of LMS’s that might happen over the next four years. Anyways, lots of work, and not many new insights for the last couple weeks.

If you’re reading this well, you might be a blogger. The EFF re-launched their legal guide for bloggers… it’s an interesting read if you have a bit of time to spare. A lot of things covered that I wouldn’t necessarily have thought of. Of course, I’m not located in the US, but many of you are (and many of the rules there apply elsewhere as well). Enjoy.

See, see the ugly sky
Marvel at its big moss green depths.
Tell me, Nathaniel do you
Wonder why the vogon ignores you?
Why its foobly stare
makes you feel tired.
I can tell you, it is
Worried by your farble facial growth
That looks like
A peaches.
What’s more, it knows
Your smack potting shed
Smells of mucus.
Everything under the big ugly sky
Asks why, why do you even bother?
You only charm festering garbage.b

I was thinking the other day, always a dangerous idea, about the redefining roles of the “teacher” (or instructor or professor, to me these are all people who do a similar job, just in a different manner sometimes). If the ownership of knowledge is becoming a way of the past, what happens to the really good teachers who have a narrative that typically resonates with the students? Are those narratives disappearing? Chances are, no, those narratives are changing, but not disappearing. Maybe the narrative is what one pays for in the future of education. Maybe that’s where education makes it’s money in the future – by making the teacher the celebrity to be consumed based on how popular/interesting/insightful they are. Make the information free but keep the interpretation and way it’s delivered behind the wall. Maybe.

I saw on the OLDaily an article that railed against technology testing at the K-12 level in the US, sort of a “No Child Left E-Behind”. A ridiculous idea at best. Even if it is a good, well designed test about technology (and that’s like doing a great big test on literature… what kind of literature??) who’s to say that this test will not be outdated and passe by the time the test is written, vetted, collaborated on and approved.

The other thing this idea reinforces is the gap between the haves and have nots… if you are unable to access a computer on a regular basis, your skill level will lag behind those that do. Over time, you can catch up, sure, but is your technical capacity really that important in grade 5? Or grade 8? Is it so important to test something that doesn’t start to come into play until much later in life? Or maybe we all could spend a little more time teaching and modelling critical thinking? Yeah.