My Time with the natives

I have been with my niece and nephew for about a week now and it has been quite the learning experience for me. Did you know that on your phone that is GPS enabled you can find out exactly where you are and how fast you are going? Creepy I know. I was driving down to see a light house on the Outer Banks with Caden (5) and he asked to hold my phone. I told him no, he needed to enjoy the view of the ocean and sound. But he then informed me that he needed to find out where we were and how much farther it is until we get there. I handed him the phone and it was unreal. He told me his dad taught him how to do that with a phone and there it was our little blue triangle on highway 12 going just over the speed limit heading right towards the light house. It even could tell me how much longer until I passed a gas station or a place to eat… It is amazing what we can learn from kids who are so open to technology.

YOUTUBE!!!

I love YouTube. I could literally spend hours on YouTube just looking at videos and searching for things that interest me. There are a lot of really crazy videos out there but some of the best can also be very informative. You can look up a video on how to tie and tie and follow the instructions given to make that perfect Windsor knot. You can also look up what your cookbook means when they say they want you to sauté something… well at least for me that’s something I need. The more I play with YouTube the more excited about it I become!

Life-Long Learner

 I always have to giggle to myself when people working on higher education talk about how we should make sure that students want to be life-long learners. I can’t think of anything less appealing for a high school student than to suggest that they also become life-long learners. Don’t get me wrong. I feel it is VERY important to want to learn and have a thirst for knowledge. This keeps us moving forward as a group. But when we are working with students and young adults, we need to be very sure that we remember our audience. It wouldn’t do to call it life-long learners. This term appeals more towards the older generation.  

Media in the content area

I love love love when teachers take the time and plan out lesions that will require students to develop skills that they will need in the future. It seems so important to me that when a student graduates high school and leaves the public school system that they should be able to type a paper quickly, know how to conduct a basic search and conclude what information is important and what isn’t on the internet. I know of very few people who can honestly say that they never come into contact with a compter at work. When I was in high school working at a fast-food restaurant we had to type the orders into a computer… It seems like computer literacy is something that we cannot escape so we should embrace it in the classroom so we can have well rounded students!

Learning Styles

I know I am jumping back a lot in this blog post but it has been brought to my attention by some friends that I have a strange learning style. I prefer to buy a notebook and write everything out by hand before I go ahead and type a blog post or a blackboard discussion. Apparently this is not normal behavior. I have always thought of myself as digitally savvy but apparently I am harboring some seriously old school ways. I tried to defend myself by saying they were cool notebooks but I don’t think anyone was going to fall for my persuasion… I guess I am less of a digital immigrant than I thought I was...

The Literacy Rainbow

When I first sat down and took a look at literacy it dawned on me how crazy our world has become in the last 100 years. In 1911 not all that many people could read and write. But by 2011 we expect people to not only be able to read and write but we also want them to know the difference between RAM and a ram. It blows my mind to think about how far we have come in such a short amount of time. I can’t help but wonder what type of literacy we will have next… I guess for now only time will tell.

FACEBOOK!!!!

I’m a facebook addict. It is sad but true. I can’t stop myself I need to know the most trivial things that are going on in my friends (and sadly sometimes just people I met once or twice) lives. It is really getting out of hand. I check facebook first thing in the morning and then again at night before I go to bed. I also check it on my phone during the day. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t post too much to facebook, mostly because I don’t want people to think I am on facebook all day. Isn’t that just a little crazy? I think I am drowning in my own digital soup…

Electronic Resources

We are surrounded by electronic resources. If we really stop and think about it how many of us leave the house without our cell phone? Ever? It is almost scary how dependent we are on always being able to reach whoever it is that we need. Smart phones can do it all! We can pull out our iPhone or droid or whatever and check our email, our facebook accounts and even search the internet. The world is literally at our fingers. The other night I was driving home and I was worried because my phone was dead and I didn’t know what I would do if I got in an accident or something prevented me from getting home. I stressed about this the entire way home. Once I got there and I had a chance to think, I realized that I was being crazy. People have been going out alone without a cell phone for ever. Only in recent years have we as people become so dependent on them.

Blogging

Blogging I understand. I get why poeple would want to keep a record of what is going on in their lives during a season. To have that record to go back and look at or show to your children could be very valluable to them. I know some friends who are adopting a child from Africa and they started a blog (casselljourneytoafrica.blogspot.com). The plan is after her child's first year in America she will print off the blog and save it in a book format for her child. The first blog post was when she and her husband anounced to their family that they were going to adopt. They have kept a record of everything, paperwork, court dates, home studies and one day their son will know all the hard work that went into bringing him home and I think that is great. Other people I know keep blogs of what is going on in their lives so that their family that lives out of town can keep up and feel involved in the children's lives (beckymuller.blogspot.com). Another blog I know of keeps a record of his and his daughters journey together after his wife/her mother died 27 hours after giving birth (mattlogelin.com). It talks about his greiving process and where they are now and how they have seen so many people come together to help them.
Blogs can be used for so many diffrent things, there are endless reasons why someone would want to start a blog. This blog was started because of this class but I am considering keeping it up after class. There is a lot to say once you start typing it all out.

A hard conversation to have...

Working in a library I often see parents come in with their small children and pick out books to read to them. And that is great! But as the child grows older and wants to pick their own books the parents need to stay just as involved. It seems like kids can go either way when it comes to choosing their own materials. On the internet we are always worried about children looking at things that are too old for them or provide inappropriate information. In books the concern is that they are reading BELOW their reading levels. One example of this phenomenon is Fancy Nancy. Older girls are always checking out Fancy Nancy books and they are much much too young for them! Finding proper materials for kids takes a lot of patience and balance.

My interview with Caden

I did my digital native interview for the first assignment with Caden Muller. He is my five year old nephew who has so much more knowledge about technology than I do! Caden first understood how to use a cell phone when he was about one. Children watch by learning and he knew that to talk on the cellphone you hold it to your ear walk around the room and gesture with your arms. We always thought this was so funny but looking back on it now I realize that he was already proving that his generation was going to show ours up when it comes to technology. I remember when Caden first learned to use a wii. We were trying to teach him to play Mario Cart because we thought it would be funny. He figured out pretty quickly that it was a lot more fun to drive the car off a cliff so the character would yell "oooooo" Now he will play competitively but at the time he just wanted to crash the cars! His new favorite "toy" is the ipad. He is an absolute master with that thing. He taught me how to use mine!

I always thought of myself as decent with technology. I can figure out how to use things by playing around with them or reading a guide but I never really had to ask for help. At work I'm the youngest person on staff. By a lot. So they always come to me with technology questions and I generally know the answer or how to fix the problem at hand. Until I really took at look at the situation I would have called myself a digital native but now I realize that I am really not! I didn't grow up with computers or computer games, I didn't have a cell phone until I was in high school. I wasn't even allowed to watch more than one show a day as a child! I spent my time playing outside jumping in rivers and catching frogs. I would consider myself a digital immigrant. But I was on an earlier boat than a lot of people I guess.

Summer School

Well this blog has been inspired (assigned) as part of the course requirements for a class this summer. So here it goes. I'll talk about what is going on in class but I will also make comments on what I'm currently reading. Also, Since I work in a library and find it completely relevant to this blog you may also hear about things that are going on (what I'm learning) at work!! More about me later!