Not Enough Information

May 27 - I just posted my Too Much Information blog, but it was in my desktop 'to edit' folder for over a month. I've seen the flip side of the coin and have come to realize that perhaps there are times when there's not quite enough information.

The recent events here in Thailand kept me glued to the TV and computer as I tried to get up-to-the-minute information about what was happening in our city. For once, I wanted AS MUCH INFORMATION as I could get. I wanted to know that my family was safe, and I wanted to know where that enormous, billowing cloud of black smoke was coming from that I could see from my front porch.

Besides the usual frustrations of lop-sided reporting and borderline propaganda by major news agencies, I found myself equally annoyed with self-proclaimed 'journalists' on Twitter. When anybody can don the "media" pass, you get a lot of misinformation.

I finally ventured out of hiding the other day and drove past a building that was supposedly set on fire during the rampaging after the crackdown. Not a trace of damage could be detected. Thanks to Twitter, I thought one of my favorite neighborhood movie theaters was torched. Nope; it's fine too.

Who are these Tweeting rumormongers? Is anyone holding them accountable? How am I supposed to know if they are telling it straight? Perhaps Twitter "journalists" should apply for a Reliability Rating. Joe On The Street has a 4-Star RR since he also writes for Time Magazine, but Mo On The Scene has a rating of 1 because he is accountable to no one. Do you want a mob of fans? followers? people who LIKE you? Then prove your reliability.

Until then, I say, "No thank you, Twitter, for your up-to-the-minute misinformation, I'm going back to The News at Nine where it's easier to spot the slant and tilt my head to compensate."

Too Much Information

April '10 - I use this phrase on a regular basis in my home. When my daughter wants to tell me the details about what happened to her little friend in the bathroom at school, I hold up my hand and say, “STOP! Too Much Information!” When my son wants to describe the reproductive activities of our pet hamsters I say, “WHOA! Too Much Information!” When my husband lists all the different places we could visit on our upcoming trip … you get the picture.

I am forever trying to find ways to simplify my life. Perhaps I am a very unusual person, but I hold out hope that there are other people like me in the world, people who prefer fewer choices and fewer demands on their senses.

Shopping is overwhelming for me – there are just too many options. I grew up in Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. We had three, count them, three choices of breakfast cereal and yet we somehow managed to survive. I don’t need 70 options - and I don't want 70 options.

I’m so glad I live in Thailand where commercials are censored; I’d rather not be bombarded with the latest information on all the new products or trendy new TV dramas that demand my immediate attention. If I want to know what’s on TV I’ll look in the TV Guide. If I need something, I’ll go shopping.

I’m one of those people who rarely turns music on; I don’t wear headphones when I exercise. This is not because I don’t enjoy music, but because when I add extra sounds to my environment, I miss out on the natural music of my surroundings: birdsong, the whisperings of leaves in the trees, children laughing and shouting, even the sound of my own rhythmic breathing when I exercise. If I want music, I’ll sing. Too much noise is sensory overload for me.

I recently finished reading a book – yup, a real, hold-it-in-your-hands-and-turn-the-pages book (call me old-fashioned) entitled “How We Decide” by Jonah Lehrer. He begins by explaining how experts make decisions. Their years of training and practice become a solid foundation for their decisions. The pro quarterback doesn’t evaluate each play and make a conscious choice about which receiver to throw to, he just gets a feel for the action on the field and then lets his instincts direct his hand. There is just TOO MUCH INFORMATION coming his way during a 15-second play for him to analyze. He has to rely on his emotions – yup, you read that right, his gut tells him when to throw the ball and to whom. According to Mr. Lehrer, this holds true for most other skilled professionals as well.

Mr. Lehrer then goes on to describe a multitude of studies which show that when people are asked to explain their reasons WHY they should choose one type of jelly or wine over another, or why they should buy the new house in the suburbs, or why they like this poster more than that poster, people are far more likely to make a bad choice that they will later REGRET. Thinking too much about their likes and dislikes, and having to justify their thoughts, actually causes them to choose something that is not the best choice for them.

Mr. Lehrer explains that 'overthinkers' are relying on one myth that we as a society perpetuate: rational thought and informed decision-making should guide our choices.

A friend of mine is considering which preschool is the right one for her daughter. Our babysitter is trying to choose just the right college. A colleague is considering several job opportunities. My neighbor is looking to buy a car. Each of these decisions is highly complex. With a multitude of factors to consider, how does one weigh the pros and cons of each factor and arrive at the most logical, rational decision?

Mr. Lehrer states, "The main problem is that the human brian wasn't designed to deal with such a surfeit of data. As a result, we are constantly exceeding the capacity of our prefrontal cortices, feeding them more facts and figures than they can handle. It's like trying to run a new computer program on an old machine; the antique microchips try to keep up, but eventually they fizzle out." (pg. 158) Our frontal cortex, the part of our brain responsible for rational thought, is new on the evolutionary scene. However, our limbic system which is responsible for generating feelings, is located in the brain stem, our primitive brain. This is a brain part that we have in common with dinosaurs and therefore, quite a bit older on the evolutionary timeline. Modern man tries to use our newest, and most glitchy brain region to determine the best course of action when we would probably be better off trusting our most evolved and experienced brain region - and trusting those gut feelings.

Thank you, Mr. Lehrer! I've been waiting for someone to validate the way I make decisions; a) get a fair idea of what the options are, b) see what my wallet can responsibly manage, c) pray and sleep on it if it's expensive or really important, and then d) go with my gut feeling. This old operating system seems to be working just fine, so can anyone tell me how to jam those annoying program update pop-ups that keep interrupting this blog entry?

Should I post all my reflections and questions?

I recently read a thought-provoking blog, If Only Time Was Really An Issue by my course instructor Jeff Utecht. It encouraged me to take time, as an educator, to reflect. So I did. On my computer I tapped out a reflection on a recent teaching assignment, thinking it would make an interesting blog post and fulfill this week's posting requirement for the tech course. However, those thoughts will not be published. Turning in a hand-written reflection for my teacher to review requires a certain balance of courage and trust, but making my reflection public in a post which anyone can read, infringes on my sense of privacy.

I have had the wonderful opportunity this year to work as a substitute teacher in classes all across the school. I have seen the programs at work and have tried my best to keep student learning on track as per the plans left to me by the teachers. I am very excited about the new programs the school has adopted for Math, Science, Reading and Writing, and I am impressed with how each teacher implements the programs in ways that meet the specific needs of the students and skills/personalities of the teacher.

In jotting down my reflections, I realized that I have a lot of questions too. I will be joining the faculty next August and am thrilled to finally be a part of such a dynamic, hard-working, thoughtful and talented group of educators. I trust some of my questions will be answered in time, but I am not certain if it is wise to pose all my questions here. For the time being, I think I will guard my reflections and questions, but the maxim "Leave no answer unquestioned" will be nagging me.

Adding an image to a blog.

Today I learned the steps for adding an image to my blog. If I don't write it all down, I will forget the steps within days, so here it is.

Steps for adding an image to a blog.

1) Sign in to Blogger and select New Post
2) Search for image from
http://search.creativecommons.org/#
from their Flickr, Google, Yahoo ... links. For this post I chose Flickr.
3) Choose your image. I think this little girl is trying to remember the steps to adding an image to her blog.
4) Select the All Sizes button then select the size of photo you want to use (select from: square, thumbnail, small, medium, large, original). Small is recommended for photos posted to blog.
5) Control click on the image and Copy Image Location.
6) Return to Blogger. Select Add Image icon and paste image location into the box Add An Image From The Web - check to see that the URL ends in .jpg.
7) Choose A Layout - I chose to put the image on the right hand side of the page.
8) Select Upload Image. Click Done.
9) Return to Creative Commons and highlight the URL in the web browser.
10) In Blogger, click on to select the image in your post, select Add a Link back to the image (photo icon), and paste URL into dropbox.
11) It is also recommended to cite your source back to the artist/photographer through a link in the post. Photographer's information can be found on the right hand side of the Flickr page. For example:

Little girl trying to remember how to add an image in a blog post by: Andrew Eick

Reflection on Process of Creating Final Project

I like to think I am a very practical person and would rather not spend hours designing a project that will never be used. Since I am merely a substitute teacher and do not have a class of my own yet, I decided to plan my project for implementation next year when I will have a class of students - perhaps in the 4th grade at ISB.

One of my professional goals is to incorporate the use of new media in my classroom. As a parent I have enjoyed looking at photos and videos on my own childrens' class blogs, and this seems to be a good way to communicate the goings-on in the class to parents and other interested individuals.

Expecting 4th grade students to COLLABORATIVELY DESIGN AND MAINTAIN A CLASS BLOG seems a natural way to communicate with parents and to keep the learning of technology, writing, and reflection skills authentic and relevant to the students. This is what I decided to do for MY FINAL PROJECT, and I hope my future students will find the task challenging, enjoyable and engaging as they work together and take ownership of their learning, and also the sharing of their learning with others.

With my idea drafted and approved by the teacher, I began to look through curriculum documents which would guide my project. I explored ISB's TAIL Standards, ISB's Integrated Language Arts Outcomes, and the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS-S) and was pleased to find that my project met such a range of standards.

Using the template on the class wiki was quite easy. I found the program itself straightforward and easy to use.

I wasn't quite sure what content was expected under the Six Facets of Understanding, so I had a look at my classmates' projects and at the exemplar, and was able to figure it out. The same was true for the GRASPS Task section.

I must admit that I basically just made up the Enduring Understandings. I wasn't sure if these needed to come from a curriculum document.

I noticed a lot of different responses in the section of "Lesson Notes". Some projects did not have any notes listed, others had detailed lesson plans. Since I will not begin to implement my project until next school year, I decided to simply record some ideas and resources in this section. I am very thankful to Chrissy Hellyer who led a session on Classroom Blogs during the Professional Development day, April 6. I looked at most of the resources she posted on her PD Day google doc and added the links to my project.

One site in particular seemed helpful - Sylvia Tolisano's Blogging Unit for Download. I know that sometimes when you go back to find a helpful article, it has vanished, so I printed out the lessons in order to have them on hand when I start to teach in August. However, there was one drawback, there are multiple links in the documents and these were simply printed as links without the actual URLs on the document. If I want to follow the links, I will either have to copy them all now, or pray that the site is still available next year. For this reason, I included both a link and copied the URL in my project document. It doesn't look pretty, but if someone (not sure who) finds my project interesting and wishes to print it out, they will have all the URLs for the links.

One point of frustration for me was trying to find ISB's curriculum documents on the school website. I was assured that they were there, but finally had to ask the curriculum coordinator to send them my way. They were on the "Curriculum Office Blog" which doesn't seem to have a link from the school's homepage. (I have had other problems finding links on the school's website. For example, I would think that the High School's publication, The International, would have a link on the school website, but I was unable to find it. Not even the search feature on the site was helpful. Perhaps I need a course in basic web browsing.)

With my project and this blog completed, I can take a deep breath and celebrate completing the work for this course - I think - I still haven't been able to find that nifty document that shows what work of mine is recorded as having been completed and what assignments are still outstanding. I do have another blog post in draft form, just in case I need it.

With that said, I am very glad I had the time to take this course and I hope I don't forget everything over the summer break. I've become rather attached to my RSS Reader, and I am looking at each blog with a critical eye as I plan to implement my project, but the jury is still out regarding Facebook, Delicious and Twitter.

My reluctance to embed an image

I've noticed this week in reading the class blogs that many people are adding images and videos. So far, I have embedded links, but I have not included images in my blogs and was wondering if this was a class expectation.

Then I read this article, and was encouraged a bit.
Nation Shudders At Large Block Of Uninterrupted Text

Messing Around and Hanging Out with Facebook

Reading Reflection by Caryn Macky

Last week I took the plunge and 'got' Facebook. Why did I wait so long? Because I was afraid an old boyfriend would find me. Why did I finally join Facebook? I found out that that old boyfriend had just died of cancer. I didn’t even know he was sick. I wish I had been able to reassure him that I had forgiven him and did not hold a grudge. I was aware of what technology could accomplish, but I allowed fear to hold me back.

So, now I’m “out there” and I’m wracking my brain to see if there are any other unresolved relationship issues from my past that will need to be addressed. Joining Facebook was a bit of a leap of faith for me – a step into the unknown.

The first day on Facebook I spent my entire lunch break tootling around, and “messing around … tinkering, exploring, and extending [my] understanding.” (Living and Learning with New Media pg. 20) After my students left for the day, I spent a couple more hours on my profile and privacy settings. Then I typed a VERY LONG email to an old friend to express my fears about 'social networking' sites, my perceived loss of privacy and anonymity, and my concern that the time I spent maintaining my online relationships would interfere with my offline?/real-time?/tangible?/in person?/f2f ? (what’s the word I’m looking for?) relationships. I chalked up 4 hours of screen-time the first day – a marathon for me.

I'm still trying to decide if I've made the right choice. Already I've had to spend minutes of my life trying to decide whether or not to accept friend requests from far-flung former classmates. These are minutes I WILL NEVER GET BACK!

Out of a whopping 160 posts in just 5 days, only two were remotely interesting and relevant to me. What have I gotten myself into? Is Facebook just a waste of time? I’m sure I have much better things to do than read about who went shopping and what they bought. Give me a break!

My husband asks why I even bother with Facebook. My reply is that I want to know what Facebook is.

He responds, "Now that you know what it is, you can ignore most of it."

Actually, I don't just want to know what it is – I’m sure Wikipedia could give me a decent definition; I want to know how it works. I want a deeper understanding. Besides learning the 'critical details' of who left the sausages on the counter overnight, I want to discover what deeper purpose Facebook serves. Facebook is a reality that I know very little about. I want to be able to make an informed opinion about its usefulness.

In Living and Learning with New Media: Summary of Findings from the Digital Youth Project, the authors of the Digital Youth Project state that one of the study’s goals is “to understand how media and technology are meaningful to people in their everyday lives.” (pg. 7) That’s what I’m looking for too … MEANING.

In Shaping Tech for the Classroom, Marc Prensky states that, “these computers become extensions of the students’ personal self and brain.” That is a frightening thought. “Hello Cylons, here we come!” Is this really so? Are students’ identities so completely tied to their online profiles that their social lives suffer when, heaven forbid, Facebook is blocked by the school?

Yenning Lee writes for ISB’s High school publication, The International. It seems that the blocking of Facebook was a subject of deep concern for the students who, “use Facebook at some time” when they have access to computers in class. According to a survey conducted by Mr. Bradley, the High school principal, “Nearly 70% of students in the survey admitted that they get off-task [during class] and the number one thing they did was go on Facebook.” Mr. Harter, the High school technology and learning coordinator stated that, “if social networking is interfering with learning, then educators have to do something about it.”

Oooh Hooo! Marc Prensky would have a heyday with that quote! He would argue that the students who are on Facebook during class are merely doing an “old thing” (passing notes) in a “new way”. He would say that if we “first consult the students,” we will see that what they have LEARNED is to take “advantage of digital technology and to use it to their advantage … using their connectivity, and maximizing their hardware … to develop their skills in …” yada yada yada. Sorry, my train of thought, like Marc’s, jumped the track somewhere back there.

Now, where was I going with all this? Oh yeah, the deeper purpose of Facebook.

In Living and Learning with New Media I learned that “hanging out” isn’t what I remember it to be. It seems that the use of new media plays an integral part in facilitating socialization for today’s teens. This was confirmed by Ms. Lee’s article in The International. I was interested to learn that ‘hanging out’ often leads to ‘messing around’ (also, not what I remember it to be) as kids help one another create their profiles and share interests through and about new media. I was comforted to know that “the vast majority of teens use new media to reach out to their friends; [and that] they overwhelmingly define their friends as peers they met in school, summer camps, sports activities, and places of worship.” (pg. 19) WHEW! As a parent of a pre-teen, these savory bits of information will be filed away for use in the near future. I need to be aware that my children may consider Facebook and other new media a “necessity” in maintaining their social relationships. I also need to remember that in order to avoid violating their trust, I need to respect their privacy online as well as offline.

I still haven’t made up my mind about Facebook. I’ll give it a few months to see if it is the right tool for me as I strive to maintain my social relationships across the world. That is how I view ‘new media,’ they are new tools. With a hammer I can build a wall or tear it down. The hammer is just a tool. With Facebook, and any other new technological tool, I can build people up or tear them down. Facebook was blocked at ISB because it was being used to tear people down. For me, what it comes down to in the end, is RELATIONSHIPS. How will I choose to use the tools at my disposal to build people up and to build meaningful relationships?

Ms. Lee warns her fellow students that “Facebook, like other social networking websites should be used with caution and responsibility since after all, the internet is serious business.” I agree. (Is it ok to mention that Yenning was my student when she was in first grade? I’m so proud! She’s turned out pretty well so far and the only time we used the computer together back in first grade was to draw on Kidpix. By the way, she still smiles when she says “Hi” to me in the hallway, I think that says something about relationship, don’t you?