Chris+Murphy

April 1st I found one of the most significant comments made in the article was "The network is the computer." The idea that the Internet is one gigantic computer with each computer and webpage being one "chip" is incredible. The complexity of the internet is similar to the human brain. And the idea that the protocols that run the Internet are its operating system implies to me that we haven’t seen anything yet. Just look at the differences between Dos, Windows 3.1, Windows 98, etc.

April 8th Literacy What is “Literacy” in the 21st century? A person who is literate has the intellectual tools to enable them to function and succeed in society. In the early 1900’s being literate meant being able to read, write legibly, do basic math by hand, etc. End of the 1900’s it meant being able to type, do math with a calculator, etc. The basic tasks didn’t change just the tools we used to perform them. Today, we still need to write to convey ideas to others. We may not need to know how to do long division by and but we still need to understand the idea of division. One difference is in the past the largest challenge was finding information. Once found, using it was the easier step. Today, finding information is extremely easy. We are overwhelmed with it. Finding reliable, unbiased information is harder. In the past, you found a few bits of information and put them together rather simply. Today you can find thousands of bits of information but putting it together is far more challenging. To be literate in the 21st century entails learning how to manipulate large amounts of information and put it together to create something valid.

April 15 [|http://voicethread.com/share/108254/

May 13 Classroom2.0 Here is a discussion I started. http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topic/show?id=649749%3ATopic%3A141555

Here is a discussion I replied to. http://www.classroom20.com/forum/topic/show?id=649749%3ATopic%3A141467&page=1&commentId=649749%3AComment%3A141489&x=1#649749Comment141489

May 27 Here are two blogs, links to two articles I found interesting, and my thoughts. David Warlick - [|http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/] "I'm Not Surprised" posted May 30th. This posting concerns a new teacher leaving the profession. She became disillusioned by being required to teach material she didn't consider important or just plain wrong because it was on the standardized test at the end of the year. My thoughts are, there are as many different ideas about what to teach as there are teachers. Every teacher deals with this issue at some point. It's important to remember that your perspective on teaching changes dramatically in the first few years. I am a totally different teacher now compared to my first few years. What I considered important has changed somewhat with experience. My philosophy in relation to standardized testing is the test is the MINIMUM of what I should teach. I teach what is on the test and in addition, I teach what my experience tells me is important and appropriate for my students. I think every teacher does this to one extent or another. Its why we need teachers.

Will Richardson - [|http://weblogg-ed.com/] "Clueless in America" posted May 30th. This posting concerns the widespread epidemic of ignorance in America. Half of students poled could not identify Adolph Hitler. My thoughts are that students are essentially the same as they have been in the past in terms of potential. Their intelligence is the same. What is different is their attitude. When I first started teaching, I would always get the "why do I need to know this" when I taught them something. However, despite this I sensed that they would on some level believe me or trust me when I said it was important. I don't get that sense with todays students. They don't trust my judgment on what is important to learn. Heck, I don't get the "why do I need to know this" question nearly as much as I used to. I don't know what seems to have caused this. Is it a distrust of me, of adults in general, or am I the one who has changed?

June 10 Final presentation http://docs.google.com/Presentation?id=dgm574wm_10d538q9cq http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgm574wm_8d6pwxkdm

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