Category Archives: Technology

Dada Analysis and Trial & Heir

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Hadn’t been able to make it out to Machine Project in a while and thoroughly enjoyed tonight’s lecture about failure by Monochrom’s Johannes Grenzfurthner.

Looking at how failure is a crucial component in negotiating success in the digital world and, along the way, highlighting the failure of the movie industry, the failure of Dubai, the failure of Austria’s lack of history, the failure of the Coke/Pepsi battle, the failure of competition, etc., Grenzfurthner suggested that the one way toward a more transformative society is through play within the failure of technology (we can’t wait for a free market to sort all this crap out for us). Though his message was a playful one, I think the repurcussions behind the hacking ethos and the suggestion to celebrate failure – of, for example, the computer owner that imagines that his cup holder isn’t the right size, not realizing that he’s failing to use his CD-ROM drive correctly – are resounding and important . Look at the Monochrom “Brave New Pong” project as an example; the game’s players no longer fail since you control the ball and the computer ensures that it will never actually fall off the table, wastefully. Does this matter for education? You bet – think about the transformation that would occur within our students if they moved beyond the binary right/wrong & pass/fail mentality; what would it look like to explore and play within the twilight limitlessness of traditional failure?

Machine Project continues a steady smattering of awesome events. Despite the hefty price tag, consider joining me in a few weeks at their upcoming benefit.

“It only jelps me which is very important. !!!”: On Blogging

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If you have a spare moment, please check out the blog a group of intersession students is currently contributing to. All posts (aside from the sporadic teacher post from Mr. Carlson or myself) are written and (possibly) edited by the students. Yes, there will be occasional typos, grammatical, and spelling errors  – isn’t that part of the blogging experience?

In any case, the goal here is for these students to practice documenting and reflecting on the world from their own perspectives. Taking ownership over the news, literally creating the importance for the outsider to the Manual Arts world is a heavy burden. And the students are taking it in stride.

Teaching an intersession elective course at Manual requires overcoming significant challenges, three of which I want to address here:

Significant Intersession Elective Course Challenge (SIECC) 1: Getting the Class Funded

Although students are regularly offered classes when they go “off-track” on our year round schedule, the classes are primarily to make up failed classes. This year, in particular due to budget restrictions, LAUSD did not fund any intersession classes other than the bare minimum of graduate requirement make up classes. Though an intersession class isn’t expensive (a teacher is compensated for 60 hours of work per intersession course) – getting Manual Arts to offer this “Broadcast Journalism” course required the approval of our School Site Council. As a result, Mr. Carlson is able to teach the students for two hours a day over six weeks (I’m helping out a few days each week, but kudos go to Carlson for steering the class).

SIECC 2: Getting the Class Filled

Because students at our school aren’t regularly offered extracurricular off-track opportunities (especially B-Track, since summer internships and programs are offered while these students are just beginning their school year), retention and getting committed students is a challenge. The commitment comes with having an engaging class (again something that deserves a tip of the digital hat to Carlson). The students are mainly coming from my 11th and 12th grade English classes. Because most of these students are enrolled in my class and have likely had Mr. Carlson in the past, we have a strong group of students with a good rapport – the class is filled and rolling.

SIECC 3: Getting Space

Because of our large student population, getting funding for a class isn’t the end of our headache. We needed a room we could routinely use to teach the class. In the past, I’ve taught intersession courses off campus at heavily discounted fees, subsidized by our school’s network partners. This year, we found that a room was available because most teachers would rather travel than use it. In a small upstairs nook in our bookroom, the students are properly ventilated (thanks to the two fans Mr. Carlson bought and the one larger room fan I “borrowed” from the math lab), the students are able to get online (thanks to the numerous laptops we bring in as well as the three desktop computers working at glacial paces), and the students are able to use the space in a timely manner (discounting the lengthy walk to the back of the campus due to construction detours for a long overdue senior quad redesign project).

Before becoming our bookroom three years ago, the room was used as an industrial (“Manual”) arts or auto shop classroom (I get mixed reports). Photos below detail the classroom setting.

A view from our room, looking down on the rows of books.

A view from our room, looking down on the rows of books.

Looking up to our classroom from the back of the book room.

Looking up to our classroom from the back of the book room.

Oh, all those unopened boxes? Those are just leftover books from when our administration brought in Talent Development without School Site Council approval. No biggie.

Oh, all those unopened boxes? Those are just leftover books from when our administration brought in Talent Development without School Site Council approval. No biggie.

Of course, I’m not mentioning other, structural challenges such as difficulties with students accessing the campus while off-track or the constant technology headaches (thanks to Daye for amazing WordPress expertise!), but those will trickle through the more regular posts to come.

As our students continue to gain confidence in their reporting skills, you are encouraged to question and comment on their posts. In the coming weeks students will be podcasting reports on lockdown procedures for schools as well as distributing DVD news reports for local South Central events. Stay tuned!

p.s. Does anybody know what this is? It’s bolted into the book room since the book room wasn’t always a book room. But what is it??

From Digital Naiveté Toward Digital Nativity

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I facilitated a PD last week on technology use in the classroom. The hour-ish session was a whirlwind run through of research behind technology use, various forms of technology, critical media literacy, and a plea for further exploration of site-based cell phone and social networking use. Along the way, I presented how I use Flip cameras, why I hate PowerPoint (even as people followed along with my Google presentation!), how to literally plug in an LCD projector, defined wikis and blogs, how to show YouTube videos even though the site is blocked, and explained that – sadly – I cannot fix the school’s myriad nonfunctional printers.

Though it was entirely too fast, my goals were to highlight the expertise already present in my attendees’ classrooms and to present as many different ideas that they could use as possible. Several tips seemed to resonate most strongly with the group; the use of PowerPoint as a rudimentary film making tool, for instance, was thrilling for some teachers (and I’m thankful to Jeff Share for being able to adapt this example from him). My hope was that the group would identify areas they would like to more intensely focus on in the future. Feedback was quite positive afterward, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to find a site-based collaborator to further highlight the technology wizardry springing up in our classrooms.

In Lieu of an Update

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It being finals week for me (and it also being finals week for my students in a couple of weeks), I’m a bit behind on the blogging thing. Things should start back up next week. In the meantime, the Google Waves announcement is going to help change collaboration within my classroom. I’m truly stoked about the implications this will have in an educational context (assuming LAUSD will actually let me get through to create Waves … Gmail and Google Docs are currently blocked …).

If you’re like me you probably don’t think you have an hour plus to spend watching a YouTube video about some over-hyped Google thing. Then again, I’d recommend finding the time: http://wave.google.com/.