Bittersweet Goodbye's

I've been notifying students today that I'm officially leaving the Green and Gold. (I don't name schools/students/etc.) It's a bittersweet thing, as I've enjoyed and appreciated the staff and students so much. I hope the students here realize how good they have it, and how big of an opportunity it is to learn without distractions like drug raids, daily fights in the classroom/hallway, and gang affiliations.

To the tech club members, and tech class students: stay in tech! Regardless of who teaches it next year, there are opportunities for you if you just keep working with the technology every chance you get...in class is one of those chances. You'll be missed dearly, and would love to hear from you guys in the future.

Never stop being a student, even after you graduate high school, college, or beyond.

Mr. Suter

Digital Natives, Immigrants, and Aborigines

I read Aldon Hynes’s article (Reflections of a Digital Aborigine) that discusses several areas that could effect my high school computer tech class students.

Hyne's explains the (somewhat tired) concept of digital natives and digital immigrants, and considers himself therefore a digital aborigine given that he has been programming since the 60’s. The interesting part was the reference to a case in which some “digital native” high school girls beat a girl who was “trash talking” on MySpace, filmed it, and put it on the Internet. When teacher John Herman discussed the event in his class with his students, they said what the girls did wrong was video tape it and put it on the Internet. That’s what they did wrong? How strange that they beat the girl, and the worst part to these students was the videotaping of it. My (not research supported) feeling is that these digital natives should be re-categorized as naturalized desensitized digital squatters. Some of them assume ownership of these powerful technology with a misguided vision of what technology is, can do, and outght to be used for. I say misguided as they are products of their environments as much as their upbringing (Psychology students: see Nature vs. Nurture).

 Maybe They have been so overrun by the pace of the technology that they don’t appreciate the humanity of people that exist behind the 1’s and 0’s.

On another tangent, Hyne references the original “did you know…” video on YouTube. I followed that to the 3^rd rendition, located here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHmwZ96_Gos&feature=related

Near the end of the video, it says “By 2013, computers will have the computational ability of the human brain”.  That’s wonderful if I just need to add numbers. The power of the computer, though proportionately enormous when compared to decades past, has a long way to go to get to the human brain. Computers can’t even reliably get past the CAPTCHA images used to keep auto registrations on Gmail. An elementary kid can do that. When the computer CAN do that, the image can change to a dog overlayed with distorted numbers/letters. “Type the name of the animal and the letters you see.” Let’s see Mr. Compuer get passed THAT one.

Adobe Certified...Students?

Link to Recording

This school in Florida has Adobe Certified Experts (ACE) that teach students Adobe products (Photoshop, Flash, InDesign, After Effects, etc.) to the level that students have the opportunity to take the Adobe Certified Associate Exam.They then have college credit and are employable right out of school...

• Teachers are ACA or ACE certified
• Students can take the Adobe exams at school
• Cheaper Adobe Suite site licenses
• Student drop out rates fall while gpa's rise accrossed ALL curriculums

Listen to the recording (uses Adobe Connect Pro Meeting):
Link to Recording

Tech III/IV Assignment:

Read 2 articles on engadget.com
For each article, answer the question in 100 words or more: Who will this affect and how?

iPad articles

Google is big:
http://gizmodo.com/5517041/googles-insane-number-of-servers-visualized

99 iPad apps reviewed by the good folks at Gizmodo. This is research for our new iPad we ordered.
http://gizmodo.com/5516217/99-ipad-apps-reviewed?skyline=true&s=i

cat plays with the iPad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9NP-AeKX40&feature=player_embedded

Going International

The 8th grade students today learned what it means to connect across the world. I told them they were going to talk in a foreign language to a restaurant in any foreign country about something on their menu, all today. They doubted.
They:
- used Google Maps to find a restaurant and Phone # (gMaps because it lists restaurants in a nice organized format with websites)
- Used Google Translate to read about the menu choices. Also gTranslate to learn how to ask a simple question like "What is the cost of _____?" The translation can then be played by a computer voice out loud so the students can memorize their sentences and correct pronunciation.
- Used my extra Skype credits (I bought $10 worth for calling home from England while metal detecting last year) to dial the phone number
- Before the first students called to Frankfurt, Germany I had $9.48 in Skype. After the call I had $9.42. Now that's cheap international calling rates.
- We'll let each group (3 students) make a call during this week. This demonstrates the way technology flattens the Earth, and shrinks it, allowing almost anyone to communicate as if they are calling a neighbor.

During Comp8

The 8th graders are watching this right now. Published straight from iGoogle.