Playing around

Here are some ideas I have for images I could use in my fall course web pages. This is fun and easy, and I think these images would really grab students' attention. Should I use the same images throughout the semester or change them from assignment to assignment?

I'm thinking I could use this image for my course this fall. Do you think it would attract students' attention?

How to prevent problems before they happen, so you don't have to suffer from the hang-dog look.

Here are some ideas for that final once-over before you submit your essay!

Scoring guides are your good fortune

This is not the solution to managing your time

An old dog can learn new tricks!

All she needs is a new dog (preferably a puppy) to teach her.

We've had a breakthrough. Just as I was trying to create a shareable slideshow illustrating the idea of detente, we moved right along to cavorting, tug-of-war, and other games. Jack is the teacher, and Browser is newly energized, alert and playful. She's also learned tolerance and patience, although every now and again she snaps at the puppy as if to say, "That's just too far!" Each day they learn a new way to play.

I think we're really going to like having Jack crate-trained because it gives both of them protection from the other. Jack now knows that he can find his favorite toys in his crate, that there's often water there, and that it's a comfy place to nap.

It's nice to know that young'uns can teach us old folks a thing or two. I'll have to remember that this fall as I greet a new group of students (mostly 18 or so, a few even younger.)

I took this picture with my MotoQ (PDA/cell phone), emailed it to myself, cropped it in Picture Manager, uploaded it to the Cartooner in Fd's Flickr Toys to add the balloons (thanks, Christine, for this neat tool), saved it to my PC, and then uploaded it to this blog to share with you. Wow! I can see great ways to use this! I'm looking at my pictures in a whole new way.

Why use pictures?

jelly camera
Originally uploaded by youngdoo

Not a huge number of blog posts using photos this week, and I'm not quite sure why. Is it because the huge number of photos in Flickr is overwhelming? Or because it's difficult to find a specific picture? Or because the technique (uploading, adding to posts) is too confusing? Take this opportunity to share a comment. (Or have you all been as busy as Sue Oliver, the Rat-Lady who's been very busy midwifing.) We're interested.

Training Bras 2.0

I read several blogs about education, and one of the best is Webblogg-ed by Will Richardson. This morning he commented about an article I read in today's NY Times about doll sites or "virtual playgrounds" for kids. I was stunned by the original article, and I bet there will be a lot of comments about it in the blogosphere today.

This past spring, in my English 102 class (where the research topic was electronic surveillance), I learned about cell phones for kids. They are brightly colored with only a couple of buttons (Mom, Dad, 911) designed for the very young set but marketed as safety devices to parents. Who wouldn't want her first-grader to be able to contact Mom as she walks home from school? Cynical old me -- I look at these as training cell phones, so that as kids get older, parents can just upgrade the devices and services, adding IM between specified buddies in a couple of years, and easing off restrictions at age-appropriate levels. Catch 'em while they're young. It irritates me that these companies use fear to market them to parents.

So these doll sites caught my eye -- virtual playgrounds for children -- that introduce them to social networking and web 2.0 tools in a "safe" environment. Well, maybe. Sometimes these sites are tied into purchases (Webkinz that allow kids to access a web site for the plush toy they have already purchased -- does anyone have one of these?), and sometimes they are ostensibly free, containing no advertising and requiring no subscriptions. What a long-range investment these companies are making!

These sites may be safe from sexual predators (fear as a marketing strategy again), but I see them as consumer training sites, teaching very young children to want branded items, to expect read/write web capabilities, and to be comfortable customizing their online experiences. Imagine what they'll expect from technology in elementary and secondary schools, not to mention college. Look at all the learning 2.0 skills they are picking up along the way. In just a decade, these folks will be in our classrooms. Will we be ready for them?

Jack in the Box

We dropped some money last week on a number of toys for Jack. Squeezy things that make noise when he chews them or tosses them about. But which one do you think he likes best? Yup. A box. Isn't that always the case? Sometimes he gets in the box, but mostly he's chewing it up. I'll try to take more pictures of Jack in the box.

This is my first post from Flickr, and I think Christine's instructions are great! I've tagged all my photos with KTS07 (that's 07 as in 2007) so I can be able to find them easily. I was able to post from Flickr to this blog, so now I'm going to try to upload photos from my cell phone and from my MotoQ. So much to learn about these devices!

Now I'm off to see if anyone else has a dog who likes to play in a box. I know that a box, preferably a refrigerator box, was the absolutely best toy for our kids, so it doesn't surprise me that the puppy likes them too.

The power of play

We are learning about the power of play to build friendships. Well, we aren't learning that. Jack and Browser are. I don't have any pictures yet of them cavorting in the yard together, but we had a big breakthrough this evening, actual play (rather than just tolerance) with tails wagging and some silly toy-swiping. (Don't you admire our restraint in not calling this puppy Spot?)

So we know that play is a great way of learning, but I think we're also learning that playing together is a great way of forming those supportive friendships that allow us to make mistakes -- which is one of the things that happens when we really learn. I think it is sad that playfulness, a key part of experimentation, is missing from a lot of learning, and I've been thinking about how I can get some of it back into my writing classes. What I really want is for students to have fun, play around, and then ZAPPO . . . suddenly realize that they've learned something useful and important. Something more for me to chew on . . .

By the way, I have three or four other ideas cooking based on other posts I have read. I'm going to start them and save them without posting so I can go back and work on them over the next few days. It took me a while to understand the difference between those two buttons below the compose window. I have to remember to read the screen :-)

Do you go to the store with a list?

I've been reading through the 7 1/2 habits entries that have been posted so far, and I started taking some notes. They really are fascinating because everyone's approaching an analysis of the habits in different ways.

So far, we're sort of split down the middle (with Pam staking out that mid way point). On the one hand are the folks who need that goal in order to learn, as Jim says, "No goal = Nothing to seek." Marla thinks she's more productive when she has a goal, and Mary Jane (not surprisingly, because she's teaching this session) thinks it's critical to know where we want to end up when we set out. I wonder if these are the folks who make a list when they head out to the store. When we go to Costco, we have a list and a path, but strange things appear in our cart by the time we're done.

On the other hand, there's another group that likes to explore (who knows what we'll uncover?) Karen (in Cybersynapse, a great blog name!) says that she likes "seizing opportunities as they present themselves rather than looking for them" which I think is a wonderful way of describing life-long learning. Denise talks about plodding through (she'll be comfy here in the big muddy), and Alisa says, "I don't really care where it's going to take me. . . . If something is fun, then I try to think of ways I could actually use it for some goal. The goal comes at the end."

I think I'm most often in this last group. I like the serendipitous nature of not knowing what might happen when I put my particular spin on the tools I learn, and I'm willing to put in the time to learn without knowing whether it will lead anywhere at all.

Not surprisingly, we're also split on how comfortable we are with "play" as a kind of learning. When I think of play, I hear "pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again." I wish I had a dime for every time I've had to do that -- I'd have a big jar of coins for sure. This summer, I find myself exploring more before reading the FAQ or the docs (if there are any). I'm trying to click on all the links to see what they do, and if I get confused, I just take a break and then approach it from a different direction. I'm trying really, really hard not to approach every "thing" with the question of how I could use it in my classes.

But then, I wonder how our students would react to the 7 1/2 habits.

More fun

I realized that we really ought to have something off-the-wall and fun to do this week, so if you stumble over here, why not modify your picture a bit? Here's a face transformer. My picture is in the mode of Modigliani, but I really like the Boticelli version and the Mucha one too. Or you can make yourself a baby or a teenager. This stuff is so much fun!

Playing around = learning 2.0

It struck me, as I was watching the "7 1/2 Habits" tutorial, how wonderfully Lori Reed had captured the fun of learning in her photos. I think I forget sometimes that "playing around" is a powerful way to learn because it [again] puts purpose way far away and makes the outcome or "product" a bit shadowy and indistinct. As I play around, I expect to find new ways of doing something, or snazzier ways of doing something I was doing in a clunky fashion before. When I set out to play around, I tell myself that whatever happens may not be perfect the first time (or may never be perfect ever), and that's okay. If I care about becoming better at a particular skill, I just have to play around some more or practice a little more often.

I had to laugh at the list of names, phone numbers and email addresses in the online contract pages. I spent two hours with a friend yesterday -- on the telephone and online -- trying to learn something new. I know more than I did yesterday morning, but I still have to play around a bit more. He and I agreed that being on the telephone at the same time we were both online was a great way to learn, much more efficient than having him write instructions and then having me follow them. And you're hearing this from a print person! If you do this telephone thingy often, buy yourself a headset so you can talk hands-free.

Much to my dismay, a lot of Web 2.0 tools don't have heavy print documentation, but I'm learning (dang, there it is again) to broaden my repertoire of learning strategies. There's a lot of audio or audio/video combos, so I'm making an effort to try those out before I go hunting for the docs. Having said that, I still feel wonderfully reassured when I can find a book. It's almost like a security blanket, even if they are a bit out of date. So if you'd like a great Web 2.0 security blanket, I recommend you toddle off to Amazon.com and buy Will Richardson's Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Tools for Classrooms. Don't be put off by the secondary school emphasis; I learned a lot from his stories and examples. Richardson has an education blog too called Weblogg-ed that I follow.