It's a flakey world

(wrote this quite a while ago, and now I'm wondering if we have made any progress in using these tools this year)


Just finished with guiding 8 classes of freshmen and one class of juniors through setting up their own web portal. For now, it's a pretty toy for the most part, but with the steps we're taking in trying to really use the technology in transformative ways, it should become more and more useful to them.

It's one of those chicken and egg moments. Do we wait until their teachers begin making assignments and asking for research that demands an understanding of and use of a variety of web tools, or do we introduce the tools to students (and thereby teachers)

wow. just ....wow.

I'm totally blown away by the controversy over President Obama's scheduled speech to students. How is this in ANY way controversial?? It strikes me as mildly positive, perhaps a bit mundane, but far from controversial. The absolute "threat" that some people seem to feel about simply hearing a speech, is enough to give one pause. I'm afraid that folks must be afeared that their offspring are as addlepated as themselves. Junior will be suddenly "polluted" in his mind after twenty minutes of speaking by a politician, albeit a politician elected to the office of President, and a pretty fine orator. Good heavens!

I asked a serious question about this topic on a very large listserv of which I am a member, which elicited a number of fine, thoughtful responses. Interestingly, those responses were primarily in support of allowing students to hear and discuss the President's address. I also garnered a number of responses that were heated, and probably sincere, but woefully lacking in logic. My request had been for logical, reason-based arguments against allowing students to listen to the live speech. I got nothing that I could put into that category.

And so we head into the weekend. What a week it has been. wow. Just...wow.

How long is too long?

Very interesting comment today by a bright and quite thoughtful young person. She said words to this effect (I may not have the exact wording) "The way I look at it, if I can't figure it out in 15 minutes, it's not worth learning." Some background: we were talking about new presentation tools (e.g. NOT PowerPoint) so her remark was addressed to learning new technological tools. But so interesting. If this were the case for me, I'm afraid I would not know much of anything about the tools I've learned to use.

Her expectations are quite high, both for the tools (they should be entirely intuitive) and for herself (I should get this quickly). Not sure how I think about this. Maybe it's just a natural outgrowth of her expected level of comfort with technology, or maybe her constant technological experience leads her to believe that things should come fast and easily.

So where does intellectual persistence enter into this? Is it important? Should we be concerned about this attitude? Does it apply only in the realm of trying to master new tools, or is it just as prevalent when trying to grasp new concepts or ideas? This might involve me for days to come.