the bell south strike...

During my first weeks as an undergrad at PSU (I transferred there in 1999 - school #4) Bell Atlantic was on strike. If you were moving into a new apartment you couldn't get your phone service hooked up. There were no two ways around it. If you had a cell phone, you were golden. If you were like myself and Nick and his roommates and didn't own a cell phone, it changed your way of communicating. If I wanted to have dinner with Nick I would have to stop by his apartment (a mile from mine) and wait to see what he was doing. Basically, we all had to "call on each other" like people did before phones. It was the most eye opening thing, really. I mean, as far as communication goes. It was kind of fun, inconvenient, but fun. I would stop by and if Nick wasn't in, I'd get talking to his roommates. It was much more personal. I kind of wish phone companies would go on strike more often.

BCPSS resurfaces...

Again in class this week I was reminded of my traumatic experience as a teacher in the Baltimore City Public School System. We were discussing bias, and how you find it EVERYWHERE. We were sharing our stories. Well, here's one of mine.

I was doing a unit on Colonial America leading up to the American Revolution. I played a tape of the reading that they were about to do and then the students had to look through the text (in groups of three, remember there weren't enough textbooks for each child) and answer questions in their workbooks. One of the questions was: (paraphrased) Imagine yourself as a child in 1776. What would your life have been like? I'll mention that my school had an African American population of 100%. So my students answered like any kid would have that read the text. They would have been students in a one room school house living in a farming community, etc. But, of course, that was incorrect. I remember the text glossing over the fact that African Americans were enslaved but there was no indepth coverage of that. That may have had a sentence devoted to it. The text was obviously written with bias. It was a blantant lie about life in that time. Do I think that fourth graders need to know the absolute uncensored truth about that time period? (do we even REALLY know it?) Not to the extreme but I think it is important to be honest about our history, or as we all know we are destined to repeat it. It was insane. I did not know how to broach that subject. I didn't know what the POLICY was, and I'm sure there was a policy, there was on everything. They spent more time on POLICIES in our summer training than URBAN PSYCHOLOGY which, let me tell you, is WAY more important when you teach in an poverty stricken urban neighborhood than your "learning stations."

I think I got off topic. My point is, how can we stop the bias to our text books? How could I have gone through 13 years of school and hardly been told a thing about women's liberation with the obvious exception of women fighting for the right to vote? And why was that TOO glossed over? Aaahh!!!

survivor

So, I'm a big nerd. I'll explain why: Last week on Survivor, both teams had to vote someone out. The first team (Koror) voted out their member and then got to sit by and watch the other team (Ulong) have the first part of tribal council. Then Jeff (we're on a first name basis after 9 seasons) threw in the kicker. Koror, the team that was sitting by watching, got to give the immunity to someone on Ulong. It was really interesting.

How does THIS relate to this class? Well, my husband, Nick made the comment that it made for interesting TV, but was it really fair to the people playing the game. That gave me a segway to talk about our class and how "THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE." The people playing Survivor aren't just playing a game where they are on a stranded island, they are playing a TV game show. This fact is the most important. The CBS execs don't care about the feelings of the contestants, they care about the money that they make from the sponsors of the show. The more interesting the game is, the more people watch and the more they can charge the sponsors.

I just love when I can relate these theories not only to things that happen in everyday life, but also to situations which make it easier to explain to people exactly what it is I am learning in school. :)

RINGTONES

I was reading an article about ringtones the other day. Guess what? You guessed it: it got me thinking about this class. Basically, the gist of the article is that the ringtone business has grown into a million dollar or more market in the past few years. Why? People want the right ringtones to represent themselves and the people who are calling them. People are personalizing new technology more and more. As well, there are more and more technologies being developed to help you do so yourself. You can take a song you like, find it online and connect your phone to the computer and create a "master-tone" for yourself.

I, personally, don't own a cell phone. My "land-line" has 2 rings... loud and louder. I like the personalizing of technology, though. My computer is highly personalized with pictures and sounds and programs.

I suppose this really doesn't directly deal with Computers and the Study of English directly, but I will justify this entry by saying that as we personalize our technology we are becoming more accepting of its place in our culture. Therefore, as educators, we also need to become more accepting and learn what the new technologies are and how to use them and integrate them into the classroom. For example, maybe you could do a project with your students on why certain characters might choose what ringtone and why. Obviously, this is not about the ringtone but about the student understanding the character's traits. The more that we can relate the work to the students the more apt they will be to want to learn.

Autopen

Here's a new technology that I hadn't heard of: the Autopen. I was just reading an article about it this week and immediately thought of this class. Donald Rumsfeld was using it to sign official condolence letters and Margaret Atwood is using something like it to remain home while autographing books in bookstores far from where she is. Her line of thinking is "The mind is the device that is thinking out the signature. The hand is the extension of the mind and the pen is the extention of the hand - so the pen is at two removes from the author's mind already. This thing is just another remove."

Woah, I couldn't believe this. "They" say that this won't take the authenticity out of the signature but I find this bizarre on many levels. The first one being that the excitement of waiting in line to get your book (or as I like baseball card!) signed and actually meeting that person face to face while they sign whatever it is you want, is an incredible feeling. Secondly, who's to say that the person is really writing it? You can just program this Autopen to write whatever it is you want so who's to say you have to be actually sitting there (supposively they are putting a TV in front of the desk or whatever that the Autopen is on so that the author can see and be seen...I doubt that will happen). Thirdly, if it becomes that much easier to get an autograph the value of that signature will decrease.

In the same article it tells about the LeapFrong company which is designing a pen much like the one mentioned above except that it's called FLY and will be markedted to young teenagers. "If you write a word in English on special FLY paper, the pen can announce its definition in an electronic voice or translate the word into Spanish. If you use the pen to draw a calculator and then touch the numbers and functions, you can add and multiply. If you draw a pinao keyboard, you can tap the keys and play Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy'" (Jerry Perez, LeapFrog President). Oh my GOODNESS! Are you kidding? What kind of effect is this going to have on academics, if this thing really is as intricate as I think it might be?

If you get the chance to pick up the March 7th issue of the New Yorker you'll see just what I'm talking about! There is a whole slue of other contraptions they describe that are in production. These are all things that have the potential to change writing as we know it. Another product is called "Dear Me Diary" and the diary TALKS BACK TO YOU! I can't imagine that! Girls write in their diaries because they seem like the one non-judgemental place they can express their feelings! I guess that's out the door! ha!

Blog of Blogs and other things.

Every week I get the UTNE e-newsletter. It's very informational. They often have information on different things going on on the web. This past week they had a link to alternet.org/peek which they call a blog of blogs. It's a site that allows you to check out other blogs on the internet. I found it very interesting to look at the blogs of people who use it as a channel for getting their messages/opinions "out there."

Another interesting site that UTNE lead me to was Michael Paulus' skeleton cartoons. I was wondering if this could be considered a "remediation" of cartoons as he takes the traditional cartoon and draws the skeleton that would be underneath. It's really interesting. thought I would share.