Today’s site is a great one that can be used for a wide range of ages. It is a Math Dictionary which not only gives great explanations for mathematical terms but is also interactive in that it allows the users to see the term in action. I have used it in my class not only as a demonstration term but also as a way for students to explore concepts being taught in class as an intro or a fun extension.

The site is A Maths Dictionary For Kids .

The creator also has some great tools for writing linked from the site as well as a maths site for older students.

Just as a teaser, here is one of the videos on education which is very relevant to where our education system needs to go.

Today’s tool is not really that interactive and probably not really usable for my Grade 3 class. However, it is kind of a neat sight that gives a different perspective on world statistics. It basically takes the map of the world and distorts it to reflect a variety of statistics. The site is called Worldmapper and it provides users with a number of different topics on which to compare data on. Here is one in the education category:

Territory size shows the proportion of all spending on primary education worldwide that is spent there, when measured in purchasing power parity US$.

Now, though they have information on how they create the maps, I don’t know where they get their information. But it is a neat site and the goods category would be useful when discussing where our goods come from which is something I discuss with the children as part of our look at trade between communities. One of the activities I used to do was to get students to find 10 goods at home and write down where they were made. We then surveyed the class and created a graph on the countries and the numbers of goods found for each. Using worldmapper, it would be interesting to see if the data matched. This might also work well with the site, Gapminder which, “enables you to explore the changing world from your own computer. Moving graphics show how the development of all countries by the indicators you choose.” Here is a video demonstrating it’s use from TedTalks: 

I’m a little late this week with edtech thursday. I had a busy day with a whole bunch of things going on. Anyway, I thought I would continue with looking at web2.0 graphing and survey tools.

I was originally introduced to a neat tool called Zoomerang a few years ago. Unfortunately, they have gone to a more fee based model. There are some aspects of it that are still free but it has sort of lost it’s appeal to me as a tool. One tool I have started using is Free Website Polls (www.free-web-site-polls.com). It is a nice and easy poll creator. It’s not fancy which is part of its appeal. Once the poll is created you can publish it to your blog, either on the side bar or within the blog itself. Anothernice thing is that you can only vote once. Clicking on one of the selections willtake to the results page where you can see the results.

So, how do we include this in our class?

Well, first of all, there are so many connections to math. You could set this up with students and get other schools participating. Our class will set one up on the class blog and collect data on favorite subjects. We will then use the Rich Chart Live to post the results on the blog. You could do this with any subject. For Language Arts, you could use it as a way to predict what will happen in a next part of a book you are reading. You could also have a book contest where you have students reading a selection of books and poll which book is the class favorite. Students could then do reviews of the book stating why it was their favorite, posting those answers to the blog.

How do you use online polling in your classroom?

But it’s so addictive!

The problem I see is the continuation and encouraging of conversation. How can we encourage discussion or build on ideas if we are spending all our time reading. I find that by the time I am done reading all the blogs, I don’t want to spend more time responding. When I open, my aggregator and see all the blogs that have new entries to read, I’m trying to go through them as quickly as possible, not only to read them but also to keep them from piling up. On one day, I can have as many as 45 or more entries to peruse. As Scott points out, how can you respond to all of them? You can’t. This also affects the quality of responses you do have the time to make. How can we really create change and promote ideas worth discussing if the discussion remains shallow? Now I am not saying that all the discussions I have read are shallow. This is definately not the case. However, if my experience is anything to go by, by the time you have written a blog entry, you don’t really have time to spend producing well thought out arguements or ideas. When I look at a blog and see the shortness of some comments, I wonder how the discussion can continue to be meaningful and insightful.

Something else I am seeing just struck me last night as I was going to sleep. As I continued to gather blogs that interested me, I needed something that would compile them into one area that I could quickly access. I use a nice program called Vienna for Mac that has really been useful and easy to use. While Vienna is a great program, it has also taken away that personal aspect that the actual blog attempted to create. You often don’t get to meet the author of the blog, so the blog itself is your only connection to that author. How many hours did you spend creating your blog, adding pictures, videos, backgrounds, etc? If you’re like me, you probably spent a fair amount of time personalizing your blog. Why? Because you want people to get an idea of who you are; your thoughts, interests and some aspects of your personality. When a person comes to your blog and connects with your interests and ideas, they’re encouraged to respond. They want you to know their ideas and develop that relationship. Your blog has created that environment. When using blog aggregators, you lose that personality. All of a sudden, it is just a list of blogs and comments that you quickly work your way through. There is no personality to it; nothing to encourage people to connect. I find myself making more of an effort to respond when I am on an actual blog. When I use Vienna, I just tend to scroll through the blogs with new comments and move on to another task. I am more of a passive consumer of ideas rather than a producer or contributer.

As more and more information is given to us, through blogs, social networks, etc, are we actually going to regress? Are we going to use these tools less and less because we lack the time to develop meaningful conversations through these tools?

Ian

I came into this discussion, with a fairly firm stance on the laptop program in Africa. My worries are that we are bringing technology into impoverished areas and strongly encouraging its use without thinking about life and needs from their perspective. I’ve always had this image in my head of an African child holding the laptop in their hands, looking in the eyes of the CEO and saying,”Well, this is very nice but how about a stable government? Steady, well paying jobs for my parents so I don’t have to go out and support my family? Electricity that I can depend on?” Are we really giving the people of these countries what they need? Or are we assuming that we know best and that giving them this technology will solve all their problems. An interesting comment in the discussion was made using the term “Cultural Imperialism” (David Rothkopf, 1997). We are imposing a culture that they are either not ready for or is so different from their culture that we end up destroying cultural values in an attempt to infuse it into their own way of life and culture. Providing physical schools or the like may also not be the answer but my thoughts were that it would be hard to move your society forward even with the surge in wireless technologies, cellphones and internet cafes. How far can you go as a country if you can’t provide the necessities for your citizens. In her article “The Fellowship of the Microchip: Global Technologies as Evocative Objects”, Sherry Turkle (2004) states that

“the digital divide does not simply separate those who have access to computation from those who don’t. Rather, even if the very important issues of access could be resolved, there is still a divide between the large mass of users and those who are empowered by computation to do more than play games. Making the leap depends on having food, clothing, and access to educational and social resources that are not found in cyberspace” (p. 99).

However, Edna made a good point that has challenged my stance and made me re-think. She put forward the notion that these technologies may be the catalyst that will eventually bring about changes in their society. More access to technology will increase the spread of ideas and communication and encourage the changes needed to help these countries. No longer is information the domain of the rulers. No longer can governments scare, intimidate and withhold the truth from its citizens. The people in these countries will have access to information and resources that will ultimately bring about change. While this may be true, it has led me more to ponder the old chicken and the egg analogy. What comes first? The technology or the infrastructure?

Or will both be devoured?

Rothkop, D. (1997, June 22). In praise of cultural imperialism? Effects of globalization on culture. Foreign Policy, Retrieved June 13, 2007, from http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/cultural/globcult.htm

Turkle, S. (2004). The fellowship of the microchip: Global technologies as evocative objects. In Suarez-Orozco, M.M. (E.d) & Qin-Hilliard, B.D. (Ed.) Globalization Culture and Education in the New Millenium, 97-113. Berkeley: University of California Press.