Digital Storytelling

My digital story: "When I Become a Teacher"

       Digital storytelling can be a wonderful resource to utilize in the classroom. by using digital storytelling, students have the opportunity to be more creative, individual, and excited about "writing". According to Jason Ohler, digital storytelling can "enhance students' skills in critical thinking, expository writing, and media literacy" (Ohler). It also gives students who are more introverted or quiet a chance to express themselves, and gives students who might have short attention spans an engaging and fun assignment. 

       Personally, I'd much rather spend 3 hours putting together digital media in a creative way than writing a boring paper, and I challenge you to find a middle-school student who would feel differently. This is not to say that proper writing in paper essay form is not important or necessary (because I strongly feel that it is), but that digital storytelling can be a useful tool to take what students have learned from traditional assignments to the next level. The most important thing to remember, is to focus on the story first, and the digital medium later (Ohler). 

       Often in media assignments, students (and instructors) can get caught up in the bells and whistles and be severely lacking content. It is recommended by Ohler that "teachers use story mapping and practicing written and oral storytelling before bringing in digital components....A story map is a one-page diagram showing how the essential components of a story are incorporated into the overall flow of the narrative," (Ohler). 

       By making sure a solid foundation of the core content has been built first, digital storytelling then becomes an effective tool to demonstrate what has been learned. This type of assignment helps bring learning into our media rich 21st century, and makes active participation in the classroom fun, engaging, and relevant.

       Since I will be teaching science, I feel that digital storytelling can be VERY effective since science relies so heavily on visual resources (diagrams, charts, etc).I feel that making students present their understanding with digital media can be a very effective way to ensure they are truly grasping the concept, as compared to something in the order of a multiple choice test. 

       Here is a great example of a student-created video on the cell cycle. By having to create and explain all the images themselves, this can really demonstrate how well they understand what is happening in each phase of the cell cycle. I plan to incorporate assignments such as this into my teaching!

Sources:

• Ohler, Jason. "The World of Digital Storytelling." Educational Leadership. December 2005/January 2006. n. page. Web. 30 Apr. 2013. <http://www.jasonohler.com/pdfs/digitalStorytellingArticle1-2006.pdf>.

• The Cell Cycle: http://www.teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=12195

WebQuest Reflection and Analysis

"A real WebQuest is a scaffolded learning structure that uses links to essential resources on the World Wide Web and an authentic task to motivate students’ investigation of an open-ended question, development of individual expertise, and participation in a group process that transforms newly acquired information into a more sophisticated understanding. The best WebQuests inspire students to see richer thematic relationships, to contribute to the real world of learning, and to reflect on their own metacognitive processes."- Tom March


Based on the 6 characteristics given in The Learning Power of WebQuests by Tom March, our WebQuest (Roman Government Systems) meets all the criteria for being effective. I have chosen 3 of the characteristics to explain in more detail, and display how our WebQuest effectively meets those standards.

• Use of Essential Internet Resources: Real WebQuests make good use of the Web for effective learning. Traditional assignments often do not take advantage of interactive or media-rich activities and modern perspectives  A good WebQuest should make learning the content more effective than a traditional assignment by use of these resources.

• Our WebQuest takes full advantage of digital media and web literacy. Not only does the assignment rely almost exclusively on internet-based research, it also employs online media tools to facilitate the research process and final project (Google Forms, Prezi, Flash Cards App). Even the assignment process and instructions integrate digital resources (YouTube) to explain the requirements and provide essential background information.

• Individual Expertise: A real WebQuest typically has "roles" for the students to take on. This allows individual students to become and expert in a particular area. By working from a specialized perspective, the team is more likely to reflect "how knowledge is obtained and applied in everyday situations". Individual understanding reflects how everyone can contribute something different when trying to solve problems.

• Our WebQuest assigns each individual member with a role. Each member is responsible for researching one form of government, before coming together as a group to decide which form is best. By allowing each member to be responsible for one specialized area, they become an "expert" with that topic. Therefore, when it is time for the group to come together, the individuals are held responsible for their particular assigned form of government by each other. This promotes self-responsibility as well as personal satisfaction and value that each member is a vital part of the group, and everyone's information, though different, is equally important to the overall goal.

• Transformative Group Process: When considering if a WebQuest's group process is effective, it is helpful to ask two questions: First, Could the answer be copied and pasted? Second, Does the task require students to make something new out of what they have learned? If both these questions are are met, chances are the WebQuest does promote effective group processing. By making students engage in a quest that makes them put their acquired knowledge into action, students will have a deeper understanding of the topic. 

• Our WebQuest not only asks the question "which form of government worked best for ancient Rome"  but also "which form of government would you choose for a new country (that students must create)?". By doing so, we employ a transformative WebQuest strategy of asking why a particular option will thrive best in a given situation. This forces the students to go beyond a yes-or-no question, and face a more interesting challenge. Allowing them to create their own country and make decisions for it is also empowering, and promotes group learning since they must work together to come to a decision. This takes them beyond just learning the curriculum content, and promotes effective networking and problem solving skills. Forcing them to "choose a side" also brings higher level thinking into the assignment.

WebQuest Rubric

The WebQuest I have chosen is Evaluation of Government Systems. I feel it does a good job of meeting high standards for a quality WebQuest. Click here for the completed WebQuest Rubric for this lesson.

WebQuests Worksheet

Your Role

___Efficiency Expert

___Affiliator

___Altitudinist

_X_Technophile

Your Impressions

WebQuest	Strengths	Weaknesses
Gorillas	Good external links and images were well sized.	Teacher pages were not completed. Font color choices did not make sense- (hard to follow on the process page.)
Shakespeare	Very good formatting and information organization. Had many good external links and images. The only site to have completed teacher pages (including images and lnks).	Images used are very small.
Earthquake	Easy to follow formatting. Good color choices.	no multimedia on the teacher page.(plain)
Foreign Country	Using maps was a good idea for the topic.	Teacher pages were not completed. Same images used over and over. Font color made everything seem jumbled together. Very few links. Weak formatting.
Waves & Sound	Good use of images to match content. Good use of external links.	Teacher pages were not completed. Font was small and hard to read.

As a group, we felt the two strongest WebQuests were Shakespeare and Foreign Country. We agreed a few tweaks needed to be made for a unanimous decision.  The Shakespeare one needs to have less assignments required, perhaps by assigning certain tasks to certain groups or giving students the choice of certain tasks.  The Foreign Country one needs to incorporate collaboration and better web formatting.  If these easy fixes are made, we feel they will be the best lesson opportunities because they are comprehensive and encourage collaboration, creativity, and self discovery.
We felt that Eathquakes and Gorillas were just "okay" projects.  They both met good learning criteria, but were plain, boring, and needed a lot of work to make students inspired and engaged. The websites reflected this mediocrity.
We unanimously agreed that the Waves and Sound project was the worst.  It felt very rigid, as if it were copied from an old standard textbook.  It did not inspire students or engage them in creative or technological ways, and the website reflected this.

Storybird Project

A Storybird project allows students to
create and illustrate stories using digital media.




A Storybird Project could help teachers address:
ISTE NETS-T Standard 3 for Model Digital Age Work and Learning: 
B. collaborate with students, peers, parents, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation.

Storybird is unique because it and provides an avenue of innovation that promotes student success in not only language arts, but in digital media fluency and critical thinking.

Students are given several choices of pre-made digital images to illustrate their story which makes compiling a complete book easier, while still fostering creativity.This may allow students to feel less overwhelmed at the thought of making their own book since the tools available to them are easy to use.

Also, since the project is entirely online, multiple users can contribute to the project. If students are allowed to work together they can feed off of each other's ideas, promoting peer collaboration.

If granted access, parents, members of the community, or the general public can view the stories created by the students.This digital format allows adults to be a part of the students' success and enjoy their creativity in a way that may not be available when doing traditional classroom assignments.
These aspects of Storybird  are important for several reasons. Students should increasingly be made fluent in technology and collaboration to mimic the changing face of the modern networking workplace. "Recently state and national policy leaders have begun to call for a greater emphasis on teaching students in K-12 schools about teaming and collaboration. The rationale for this new direction is two-fold, to increase and deepen learning, and to prepare students to be collaborative team members in work environments that are increasingly dependent on virtual, online collaborations," (Cisco Systems, 2009).
Also, by utilizing resources that are not confined to the classroom, students can collaborate more effectively by working on projects at home with more time to compile their project in a satisfying and successful way.
"Technology can add the flexibility of time and space as students collaborate with anyone at any time and place......In addition to convenience, there is emerging evidence that computer supported collaborative learning benefits students in the development of higher order thinking skills, student satisfaction, and increased productivity.," (Cisco Systems, 2009).

I feel that Storybird is one of many wonderful tools that can allow students greater success in the modern workplace. Now, instead of throwing students into the workplace upon graduation with no networking or technological experience, they will be equipped with the tools to be successful, because that is how they will have been learning over the course of their school years.

References:
Cisco Systems. (2009). Technology enhanced collaborative learning. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/document/d/11VN6R_yz4zPWMTWuNyrxB5oXwQsLrUcXkAnHI_sHDlA/edit

(Video)
Cavanaugh, K. (Performer) (2010, March 02). Using storybird.com. Palm Breeze Cafe. [Video podcast]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad6svo2ndD8

Scratch Project

Scratch Projects are projects that are created by students, using simplified computer programming to design and create games, activities, and presentations.

 Here is a sample introduction to a science lesson that I created with Scratch.

Scratch helps support the development of 21st century skills. According to Learning with Scratch,  it "enables students to express themselves more fully and creatively, helps them develop as logical thinkers, and helps them understand the workings of the new technologies that they encounter everywhere in their everyday lives."

Sratch projects can be an easy way to meet the ISTE_NETS-T Standard 1a: promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness. By giving the students the programming tools that allow them to be creative in digital media, they are able to express their understanding of concepts in a much more innovative way than with standard curriculum tools (tests, reports, etc). The nature of Scratch fosters creativity by default, without having to specifically assign or teach creativity. This leads to individual discovery and personal satisfaction, in a way that standard resources may not.

This lesson would tie in perfectly with the following CSO: SC.O.B.2.2 relate the structure of cellular organelles to their functions and interactions in eukaryotic cells. Here is a project I found that would be great to use in a science lesson about the basic cell. I think it's great that by hovering over the different diagram parts, you get information. This connects a visual model to the content being read, which improves understanding.

Google Apps Lesson Plan Introduction

For our Google Apps Lesson Plan, we will be using WebQuest: New 7 Wonders of Nature.

This lesson plan says it's geared for grades 4-6, but we feel that it could easily be adapted for use in Earth Science on a high school level. With that in mind, we feel this lesson meets the following CSO: SC.O.E.1.3:

Objective:

Students will conduct and/or design investigations that incorporate the skills and attitudes and/or values of scientific inquiry (e.g., established research protocol, accurate record keeping, replication of results and peer review, objectivity, openness, skepticism, fairness, or creativity and logic).

This assignment will be done with a partner: Jonathan's blog

Video Games and Learning: Personal Response

The three videos listed in the previous blog have greatly helped me to appreciate all the potential that gaming has for student's cognitive development.

•  In the first video, the presenter claims that the areas of the brain that are responsible for focusing and attention span, are actually more active an efficient in action gamers than others. I believe that the best way for kids to be successful learners is to be not only engaged in educational activities at school, but also at home. If kids have a healthy amount of game play time at home, this may help stimulate their brain in ways that will help them be successful in school.
• In the second video, the presenter claims that The 5 things found to increase Fluid Intelligence (problem solving) are to seek novelty, challenge yourself, think creatively, do things the hard way, and network. These are all present in many popular action games today. It is no surprise that learning how to effectively problem solve is one of the primary goals of education today. Again, if engaging in gaming can help develop one's brain to problem solve more effectively in real ways, it can lead to greater success in school.
• In the third video, the presenter claims that since kids know when playing games that there is a way for them to be successful at it (beat a level, achieve certain points or rewards, etc) they look forward to the challenge and don’t easily become discouraged, but thrive on the challenge of it. If this type of mindset could be achieved in the classroom, it could have profound results. Often students become discouraged at failure or the feeling that they will never be good at a particular area of study, or even school in general. If we can get students to believe that success is possible and can actually be fun and rewarding, I believe we will see much more highly motivated students who want to learn because they believe they can.

Concordia University has an interesting publication online on the effectiveness of video games as curriculum. 

• The Quest To Learn School (which was also mentioned in some of the videos above) is showing great success when using gaming as the backbone of the curriculum. The school’s curriculum is based on evidence that shows people learn much more effectively when they can immediately put knowledge to use in a social context as opposed to merely being told facts.

Video Games and Learning

In this video, researcher Daphne Bavelier asserts that in reasonably doses playing action video games actually have quite powerful and positive effects on many different aspects of our behavior.

1. Action gamers that spend 5-15 hours per week playing, have better eyesight than those who do not. They statistically see in greater detail and resolve different levels of gray easier.
2. Action gamers can track 6-7 objects at a time effectively, while most people can only track 3-4 effectively. This is especially helpful in tasks like driving.
3. The areas of the brain that are responsible for focusing and attention span, are actually more active an efficient in action gamers than others.

In this video, Gabe Zichermann asserts that perhaps instead of children having ADD, the real world is just too “slow” for their minds; that “gamification” can actually aid in students ability to learn and increase intelligence.

1. Children have to have incredible multitasking skills to have success in video games. This type of activity has profound impacts on your brain. There was a study conducted that found that when people participated in a stimulating activity, the amount of gray matter in their brain increased.
2. The 5 things found to increase Fluid Intelligence (problem solving) are to seek novelty, challenge yourself, think creatively, do things the hard way, and network. These are all present in many popular action games today.
3. Video games fundamentally provide an exponential increase in learning to users. They are constantly evolving and moving forward. The dopamine released in your brain when you succeed at an activity (in gaming) leads you to return to that activity over and over, therefore creating an intrinsic motivation to continue learning.

In this video,  Katie Salen asserts that play is an important aspect of human development, and also that gaming provides many opportunities to cultivate characteristics that are desirable in the 21st century including teamwork, multitasking, problem solving, exploration etc.

1. Games work in  the same way that good teachers work. There is a clear connection. Game developers are constantly asking “what does my player need to know to do well at this task” in the same way a teacher asks about their students. This sets up scaffolding which is providing learning support to students and then slowly retracting support so that students become self-reliant. 
2. A game should not be seen as the sole tool for education, but rather teachers should recognize how a game can be used to aid in a student’s overall curriculum experience. If they approach games in this way they can be quite useful and not distracting to students or daunting to work with for themselves. 
3. When kids work with digital media they take on the role of a designer. What that means is they are thinking about who their audience is. That can be a very useful mind process to be considering in the 21st century. 
4. Also, since kids know when playing games that there is a way for them to be successful at it (beat a level, achieve certain points or rewards, etc) they look forward to the challenge and don’t easily become discouraged, but thrive on the challenge of it. If this type of mindset could be achaieved in the classroom, it could have profound results.

Multiple Intelligences

This image represents my intelligence types. I have musical intelligence, as well as logical/mathematical intelligence.

• What is your position on learning styles?
• I feel that learning styles are important because, as a teacher our job is to help students reach their full learning potential. If the information we are presenting is only being presented in one way, we may be inadvertently catering to particular learning styles and not reaching all students effectively. 
• However, it is important to remember that not all content can be presented in every style, and therefore the teacher must first and foremost consider what the best options are to convey the meaning of the content.  
• I tend to take an approach to learning styles as presented in the Grasha-Riechmann Learning Styles Model: I believe it is not as important to spend a vast amount of time trying to figure out each individual's learning style and cater every detail of every lesson to each individual's learning preferences, but rather incorporate varied techniques of presenting information so that there is equal opportunity for all styles to be accommodated (Montgomery, 1998). 
• Furthermore, by presenting in different ways and using different kinds of activities for the students, we not only reach their particular style but also may increase their capabilities to learn from other styles as well (Montgomery, 1998). 
• How might you use the concept of learning styles in your future classroom?
• I plan on using learning styles in the classroom in general ways. Instead of doing every lesson catered to learning styles, I will first decide what the best method is based on what is to be understood from the content. I will then use different methods to present information, and different types of activities to reach students in a variety of ways. 
• For example, this lesson  in corporates a variety of activities to encourage understanding.
• What is your MI? What kinds of learning activities support your MI?
• My MI styles are Musical Intelligence and Logical/Mathematical Intelligence. 
• Activities that support these kinds of MI are:
• Musical
• Create a poem with an emphasis on certain sounds for pronunciation. 
• Clap out or walk out the sounds of syllables. 
• Read together (choral reading) to work on fluency and intonation.
• Read a story with great emotion — sad, then happy, then angry. Talk about what changes — is it only tone? 
• Work with words that sound like what they mean (onomatopoeia). For example: sizzle, cuckoo, smash. 
• Read lyrics to music. 
• Use music as background while reviewing and for helping to remember new material. 
• Use rhymes to remember spelling rules, i.e., "I before E except after C.
• Logical/Mathematical
• Arrange cartoons and other pictures in a logical sequence.
• Sort, categorize, and characterize word lists.
• While reading a story, stop before you've finished and predict what will happen next.
• Explore the origins of words.
• Play games that require critical thinking. For example, pick the one word that doesn't fit: chair, table, paper clip, sofa. Explain why it doesn't fit.
• Work with scrambled sentences. Talk about what happens when the order is changed.
• After finishing a story, mind map some of the main ideas and details.
• Write the directions for completing a simple job like starting a car or tying a shoe.
• Make outlines of what you are going to write or of the material you've already read. 
• Look for patterns in words. What's the relationship between heal, health, and healthier?
• Look at advertisements critically. What are they using to get you to buy their product?

References:

            Montgomery, S. (1998). Student learning styles and their implications for teaching. Informally published manuscript, Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, University of Michigan, Retrieved from http://www.crlt.umich.edu/sites/default/files/resource_files/CRLT_no10.pdf

Learning Styles

Learning Styles Don't Exist

• You don't learn in 3 ways, you store information in 3 ways. For instance, you store images visually, voices auditorally, and how to ride a bicycle kinesthetically. 
• Most of what teachers try to convey is meaning based, not visual or audible based.
• The prediction that people who recall things visually will always learn better visually, is not true. 
• You cannot assume that a person will always learn better visually if they understood one concept after being shown a visual example. In reality, they may have just needed one more example for the concept to click, or the visual analogy was simply a good one. This doesn't mean that this student needs a visual example for every concept to learn better.

Multiple Types of Intelligence

• Human beings have different kinds of intellectual strengths. These strengths are important when learning and creating.
• Education is unfair to students because it only caters to one kind of learner if the information is always presented in the same manner.
• By creating a learning environment which presents information in different ways that creates personal experiences for the students, it allows the child to represent their understanding in a way that is comfortable to them. The child learns then from personal experience which relies on their intelligence style, rather than a cookie cutter list of definitions and concepts that the student may be disconnected from.

According to The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, learning-style theory has its roots in the psychoanalytic community; multiple intelligences theory is the fruit of cognitive science and reflects an effort to rethink the theory of measurable intelligence embodied in intelligence testing. 

Both, in fact, combine insights from biology, anthropology, psychology, medical case studies, and an examination of art and culture. But learning styles emphasize the different ways people think and feel as they solve problems, create products, and interact. The theory of multiple intelligences is an effort to understand how cultures and disciplines shape human potential. Though both theories claim that dominant ideologies of intelligence inhibit our understanding of human differences, learning styles are concerned with differences in the process of learning, whereas multiple intelligences center on the content and products of learning.

Teacher of The Year Magazine Cover

Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought. 

--Albert Szent-Gyorgi

Media Literacy Lesson Plan

PBS Teachers has wonderful resources for science lesson plans. This particular lesson plan, A Climate Conundrum, relies on media literacy.

This lesson plan potentially meets several of the ISTE-NETS Standards, but the one I feel it best addresses is Standard 1B: Engage students in exploring real-world issues and solving authentic problems using digital tools and resources.

In the lesson plan, students must first use several multi-media resources to develop an understanding of a real-life problem in ecology. They then must collaborate to determine possible solutions to the problem, and  present their ideas using digital resources.

Photo Analysis: Obama

Caption: President Obama meets with National Incident Commander US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen for a briefing on the BP oil spill at Coast Guard Station Gulfport in Gulfport, Mississippi, on Monday. 

This image portrays characteristics that make me have more confidence in Obama's leadership abilities, than another image that is just a close up during the same meeting. Here are a few reasons why:

• Caption Analysis
• The caption alone implies that the President is getting the most up to date information by being briefed on the response updates by an expert. The caption is reinforced by the following visual characteristics as well:

• Non-Verbal Gestures/Facial Expression/Body Language
• His open hands imply understanding, and make him more open to the audience
• We can tell the picture is spontaneous and not posed, as he is in mid-conversation
• His face has an expression of trying to figure something out... concern for the crisis perhaps
• People
• Not only is the President here, but also National Incident Commander, US Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen. This implies a sense of teamwork, and a network of expert support.
• Clothing
• The Admiral is in what appears to be a daily uniform, and Obama is in casual dress, with his sleeves rolled up. I feel this paints a picture of professionalism on the Admiral's part, and a sense of "rolling up your sleeves", or getting in the midst of the problem, and coming to the people's level.
• Background
• In the background we see an American flag, implying patriotism. We also see images of response workers working, as well as maps images of the response to the oil spill, which displays that efforts are being made to respond, and that there is a plan of action being carried out. This subtly leads the viewer to have a more trust in the ability of Obama and the other leaders to address the spill in a competent way.

Think Aloud- Teaching Standards

Here is a ThinkAloud I created, that demonstrates the reliability and validity of a website that discourages use of Taser Guns in Schools, using comprehensive critical thinking. 

Taser Gun ThinkAloud from apatton2

I feel that having students create and use a Think Aloud, it meets the ISTE-NETS standard 2a. 

2A: Design or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity.

• A Think Aloud is clearly a digital tool, and it leaves room open for the student to demonstrate learning and understanding in a creative way, just as this standard requires. 
• A think aloud relies on the students' comprehension of the data provided, and their ability to clearly communicate this information in an organized way.
• Essentially, this tool still makes the student demonstrate understanding in similar ways that an essay or test would, but adds another layer of learning by having them present it in digital media.
• Since a ThinkAloud leaves room open for student creativity, it can lead to the student taking more pride in the work and possibly enjoy making these reading connections, more than a traditional assignment would.
• I feel that since technology plays such an important role in our everyday lives, digital tools such as a Think aloud should be encouraged, especially since it does indeed meet teaching standards. 
• I plan to use this tool, as well as others to promote creative learning experiences in the classroom.

Information Literacy

Detecting Bias in the pro-arming teachers website.

What facts has the author omitted?
Problems that may incur with arming teachers.

What additional information is necessary?
Needs counter arguments.

What words can create positive or negative impressions?
Saying things like "largely ignored by the media" and "an obvious way to solve the problem" makes large assumptions by using slightly stronger language than just presenting facts.

What impression would I have if different words had been used?
Would be left open to make your own assumption rather than being led in one direction with strong language.

Should Teacher Be Armed? The Debate...

This is a website I found that supports school staff being armed.

http://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=1949

This is a worksheet on the website linked above, that helps determine the accuracy or reliability of the website.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3x8NrqRAQxiOGt4M09MOENwcDA/edit?usp=sharing

Wikipedia Reliability

The Doppler Effect Wiki Article Review Sheet

I also researched 3 of the contributing editors who made changes or flagged issues with the article. I have listed some of the personal information provided about each member.

• Alan Peakall
• Born: August 22 1964 near Newbury, Berkshire
• Citizen and resident of: United Kingdom
• Educated: various, including Cambridge University
• Occupation: Software Engineer
• this contributor seems to have much experience in engineering, esp the doppler effect, as it applies to technology. 


• User:Binksternet
• First edit: July 28, 2007
• Unique pages edited: over 24,000
• Total edits: over 90,000
• Top 260 at WP:List of Wikipedians by number of edits (and I don't use a bot)
• this contributor has high rankings as a senior editor for wikipedia. clearly with the number of edits made, we can see this person is adamant about making reliable postings and has much experience "cleaning up" wikipedia.

• Mattias Blennow
• Hometown: Stockholm, Sweden
• Residence: Stockholm, Sweden
• Occupation: Assistant professor, Royal Institute of Technology
• Research interests: Mainly neutrino physics and dark matter physics. A feed with my papers on the arXiv can be found here.
• this contributor is clearly as expert in the subject area, being a professor of physics at the Royal Institute of Technology, and who is doing research into dark matter and neutrino physics.

The fact that these professional individuals are the ones who are catching errors in the article and correcting them make me have more confidence in the article. That being said, it make me wonder at how horrible the original version must have been for these people to have to make or suggest so many revisions. I am glad that there are professionals who are willing to take the time and effort to do this, so that information in Wikipedia can evolve into a truly reliable resource.

Wikipedia Quiz

Digital Media Comic

Wordle

Changing Language... Is Digital Language Harmful to Proper English?

In the article "Are Digital Media Changing Language", author Naomi S. Baron discusses the possibility that digital media is not the death of English, and is not having as significant an impact as one might think.
Take the following quote from the article for example:

• For example, in a study I did of college students' instant messaging conversation, out of 11,718 words, only 31 were "online lingo" abbreviations, and only 90 were acronyms (of which 76 were LOL). In a study of college students' text messaging, my colleague Rich Ling and I found a few more lexical shortenings; yet the grand total of clear abbreviations was only 47 out of 1,473 words, which is hardly overwhelming.

These numbers shocked me. While there is a host of digital acronyms and lingo terms available for use, in instant messaging and even texting, few were used.

I am not sure if these numbers are an accurate portrayal however, of overall digital language use.

Why? Because this survey was of college students.

Considering that I graduated high school in 2006 and did not own a computer or cell phone until college, polling me as a college student would in turn produce texts and instant messages with  low usage of digital language norms.

However, if you were to poll my 12 yr old niece who has owned a smart phone since the age of 8, you would find such usage of digital language to be much more prevalent.

The younger generations are growing up with this language as a part of everyday life whereas older persons have not.

For many of us, digital communication still has that 'new car smell'.

Let's consider the following quote:

• "Whatever the benefits of digital media, it is destroying the ability of young people to construct the basic unit of the English language... the sentence."

I agree to a point with this quote, that digital media lingo is threatening to the formal reading and writing processes of the English language.

 In this video, an English teacher shows just how much 'trouble' texting lingo has caused his students to have.
However, the girl at the end who texts constantly, is a published author and points out that the key to success in the 21st century is being fluent in both (formal language and digital).

While digital media does have many benefits and does encourage creativity and intellect, I think having a good understanding of how formal language interacts is still necessary to overall cognitive learning.

To me, learning how to balance both is the true test of linguistic ability.

The Future of Work Video Response

In the video The Future Of Work,  I found myself having a strong reaction to many of the proposed ideas and facts presented. Here are 3 of the things that really stuck me:

1. 10 years ago, social networking did not exist. 10 years before that, the web did not exist.

• It is interesting to me that social networking is such a huge part of most people's daily life and yet it has only been around for a short period of time. Employers are using this as a means of checking out potential employees, businesses are using it as a main source of advertising, and individuals are being tracked to see what their interests are and provide information better suited to them. It is hard to believe that with the amount of time, money, and resources poured into Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc, that they are relatively new.

2. CrowdSourcing- to split a task into smaller pieces and unleash it to millions of people around the world.

• I was shocked to learn that the secondary purpose of Captcha is to identify words a computer cannot when digitally converting published texts. I knew that the primary purpose was to verify a human was using whatever web service the Captcha phrase might be attached to, but I had no idea there was more to it than that. 

3. In 2006 28 million Americans worked in a virtual team at least one day per month.

• It is hard to believe that 28 million people participated in some kind of virtual team associated with the workplace, and on a monthly basis. That was 7 years ago...by now the number has surely skyrocketed. In the future it is easy to see how the "workplace" is likely not to be a "place" at all. While there will always be certain vocations that require a physical presence, it is staggering to think of how many do or will not in coming years.

I feel that my K-12 experiences have not done a lot to prepare me for the future of work in this new digital age. Then again, I did graduate high school 7 years ago. My college experiences however, have helped keep me more up to date on ways to use digital media and communication effectively in the workplace. 

In the field of education, technology is going to continue to play a crucial role in the way students learn and communicate. And I feel learning and adapting to these technologies in the classroom (or perhaps virtual classrooms, even) should take precedence, in order to reflect the changing face of the job market and better prepare students to be able to enter the workforce as competent individuals.

Poll Everywhere Computer Response

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Poll Everywhere

Who I Am

• Hello! My name is Alicen Patton. I am 24 years old, originally from Alum Creek, WV. 
• I am an Education Major at Fairmont State University, specializing in General Science and Physics Education. 
• I am also a Certified Nuclear Medicine Technologist, and my experience in that field has led me to want to share my passion for science with others. 
• When I was a student in high school, I hated all of my science classes. 
• It was only after getting to college that I began to develop an appreciation that led to a love of science, especially physics, which I like to call 'the science of how stuff works'. 
• I wish to be able to ignite that type of interest in students at an earlier age through many hands-on activities, as well as other methods of learning (visual, auditory, etc) so that information is constantly being presented in new ways to stimulate students' minds. 
• I intend to get students involved as much as possible so that we can make science in the classroom as interesting as science is outside the classroom!

Minute Physics: An excellent You Tube Site filled with short snippets of physics topics in a fun, easy to understand format. There are also links available at the bottom of this site.

My Favorite Educational Video

"As we say having somebody do it for themselves is worth being told about it a thousand times. So what you want to do is arrange science education so that students have hands on experiences." -Bill Nye