July 7, 2009 Class
At the beginning of class we talked about how we will be wrapping up this course with lesson plans. I will be doing my lesson plan eighth on the ninth. When we give our lesson we must explicitly state what the goal is for student understanding in the lesson. It is important for students to know what we expect them to get out of the work teachers give them. We were also given details on a rubric about our web site; this can be found at rubistar. My web site is coming together nicely and I think it should work pretty well.
The first digital domain for the day was a game site at www.funbrain.com. This has many games that do not appear to be very educational. They might be used to practice math facts and other memorization skills, but they lack the ability to encourage upper level thinking. The next review was on a children centered virtual world found at www.b.whyville.net. Because the focus group for this site is children a major concern is safety. It appears that in order to make an account, a parent’s email must be entered. This allows any inappropriate interaction between people in the program to be shared with a child’s parents. I hope this is adequate to protect children, it is better than nothing. The virtual world itself allows students to earn virtual money and use it to buy items, property, and such. This site may help develop budgeting skills but with very little at stake perhaps it might have a negative effect of making it appear that earning money is easy and being wasteful with it is OK. The final digital domain review for the semester was on Zoo Tycoon. This is a simulator that puts students into the role of designing a zoo. Players control many aspects of zoo design and operation including layout, admission price, exhibits, hiring help, and writing grants. Once again the player must manage money. I think managing money in this game is of greater benefit than in b.whyville. The game allows children to see directly how setting a price affects the availability of money for the zoo, it will give a better idea of economics in a fun way for children.
Class continued with a “virtual walk” around the local city. The teacher had taken pictures of many of the old buildings to contrast their construction to buildings built today. We noticed that the buildings had an old style of architecture and had the company or association’s names engraved in them. It is interesting that their construction suggests that the building had a heritage when it was built, calling from the Greeks. The fact that they had their name engraved in the building hints at a certain aspiration of permanence. The owners who constructed the buildings intended to be around forever. Today signs are made of a temporary and cheap plastic. Plastic is easy to get, work with, and dispose of. So too are the companies that these signs publicize. Our plans are not permanent, or set in stone. Our future will change and perhaps the businesses that are formed today have no intention of being around five years from now. This mirrors technology. The technology we have today will be outdated in a short time. We do not know what programs might be successful two years down the road. It is a quickly changing aspect of human life and one which we cannot create too much attachment to. Things that are digital are easily manipulatable. They can be changed with the click of a mouse. This is the world that we are quickly becoming more engulfed in.
We then discussed who owns information. Do textbook companies need to charge large amounts of money to schools trying to educate people and does this charge somehow imply that the company owns something that is not attainable elsewhere? The state of California has started working on an online resource for teachers to compile information about school subjects. This information is free to others to use as a virtual textbook in their class. This will save the schools money and provide teachers with more options when educating their students. Required readings can be tailored to a teacher’s style, instead of the teacher’s style reflecting the textbook. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology puts out another resource for learning. They have a website found at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm where people can download lectures, course materials, and tests given at MIT to the students. This means that anyone with an internet connection can now get an education from MIT. It is an amazing resource that makes information almost free to everyone. One can get instruction from an advanced school without paying a cent or stepping foot in the classroom. Knowledge and education should be about being available to everyone. This site makes it possible. It is surely a site I will be exploring in the near future.
