My Inner Curmudgeon Says ..

I had to stop myself earlier today when I was commenting on Brandi's blog (Well Isn't That Peculiar) regarding a visit to her nephew's elementary classroom (where she observed seeing technology in action.) My "inner curmudgeon" started talking and it was going in this general direction:
"When I was that age, we didn't have cell phone, PDA's, wireless anything, laptop computers, or any other gizmos. We had books, pencils, paper, and we raised our hand when we wanted to say something, and we waited until we were called upon."

What my inner curmudgeon doesn't get is that what is going on in that classroom is way different from my elementary classroom - and I don't mean the technology. We never saw kids who had Assbergers or who had ADHD. The word inclusion was probably applied in a different situation. If you were a visual learner, tough. Here's the material - get busy. If you were lucky (and this is where I reveal my very nerdy past) you got to advance the film strip by turning the knob when the cassette tape beeped. I have no idea if the classroom that BDay talks about is the exception or the rule - but it sounds like a pretty good place to be.

I should probably say my inner curmudgeon is significantly older than I am. We sometimes believe the same things, but generally he's a kooky old guy who shakes his fist a lot while railing at the system.

The school I attended didn't really have computers until I was in the tenth grade. (Mr Iris did have a Heathkit computer that he put in a plywood box and attached to a console TV in the electronics room, but I don't really count that one because it worked about half of the time - and even when it was working, we just played a Pong-like game.) When we got  to use them, we played hard - sometimes pre-programmed games, sometimes we were writing code - basic. The first successful program my friend and I wrote was a resistor color code calculator. (If you want to know what I'm referring to, click here.) You would enter the color codes on the resistor, and the program would give you the resistance value in ohms. I can't tell you how many hours we spent on it or how many misfires we had - but when we got it to work, we were amazed. Ah, the heady days of early personal computing.

I have a greater appreciation for programmers and app developers. I couldn't hope to tell you what the first step is to creating an iPhone app, but then again, a month ago, I couldn't tell you what I needed to do to create a blog - or why I would want to create a blog. Now I feel guilty if I don't feed my blog every three days or so. (Don't hold your breath for a Blam App anytime soon - but just don't rule it out completely.)

That said, this is my 20th year in education as a full time teacher, and my 23rd involved in educational theater. I was told, not too long ago, that I am considered "old school." That hurt. I don't use a chalk board - I have a dry erase board AND a Smart Board. That doesn't sound old school to me. I would be if I said something like "When I was your age, I didn't have dry erase markers and fancy electronic gizmos - we used chalk and slate and pencil and paper and that worked just fine." Except that we did have calculators, which we were told would diminish our mathematical capabilities, and computers that would demotivate us, and portable music players that would deafen us and rot our brains.

"When I was your age, a computer's OS was on a disk that you had to insert into the computer before you started it up; our calculators only displayed numbers; our music was stored on analog tape cassettes that could only hold 90 minutes of music." I think the student of 2010 would regard this statement just as old school as the student in 1980 would have regarding the pencil and paper remark. Certainly they laugh at the notions of the Apple IIe, the TI-30 and the Walkman.

In 2035, I suspect the curmudgeon would be saying "when I was your age, we used these things called iPods that held only two weeks worth of continuous music; we used our fingers to text and our personal learning networks weren't beamed directly into our brains. And in Bartlett Hall, the internet and TV needed cables to access." (OK, couldn't resist tossing that last one in.) I might be off with "Vulcan mind meld" PLN thing, but I'd be willing to bet I'll be close with the rest.

The one thing I won't do - honestly, it's because I can't do it - is try to think what would remove the "old school" label. I am who I am - but It won't keep me from trying to keep up with the technology.

Photo: http://www.rockcheetah.com/blog/images/statler-waldorf.jpg

So, I Have My Geek On - Where's The Party?

I have never been so immersed in technology as I have been during the past two months. Yet, there is a nagging thought that tells me I am late for the party. Indeed, I may not even know where the party is. One thing I do know - for me, this is Geekdom - and I don't even have a fraction of the toys that go along with that state of being.

Where do the Geeks live? One place that I suspect they frequent is Second Life, the virtual world of avatars, Linden dollars, and ... freaky things, for lack of a better description. Some of us are recording Jing videos or creating Podcasts. Lots of us manipulate photos or videos digitally, and have been for years. And it's mandatory for Geekship to network socially one more than one space.

Today we got to see the Great Geek Bunker of the Cedar Valley. The folks at TEAM were kind enough to offer us a tour of their facility -  an underground facility that houses servers for many clients, able to withstand an F-4 tornado. Our course instructor Dr. Z simplified the facility - as he so often does so well - as nothing more than a high-tech garage. The people at this facility have the job of maintaining the servers for many clients and the internet for this part of the country.

Yeah, that internet. I assume you're familiar with it.

I won't say that TEAM employees aren't under some pressure to keep everything going, but they HAVE to keep everything going. Medical records, communications, banking records, corporate histories, this blog - all the essential stuff to your life probably flows through or is backed up at this site. These guys aren't just Geeks. They are Super Geeks with the academic credentials to back it up. They've had their Geek on for a while now. Good to know there's someone out there who works hard to keep things going.

BTW, the image that you see comes courtesy of Mini Mizer 3.0 at ReasonablyClever.com. Wanna get your Geek on? Nothing says Geek better than a Lego avatar.

Are You Crying? There's No Crying in Educational Technology!

Last week, it happened again. A solemn, forlorn student, looking blankly and helplessly at a screen after several vain attempts at trying to get something to work they way they wanted it to work. A moment comes and I hear that so often uttered statement:

"Mr. Lammers,  I think this computer hates me."

Yes, it does. It hates you like Arnold Schwarzenegger hated Linda Hamilton in The Terminator. In fact, your computer has just initiated a countdown sequence that will destroy every computer and network on the earth. That's how much it hates you.

Which, of course, I didn't say. Instead I reminded this student that computers don't act, they are acted upon, and they are machines that are sometimes prone to mechanical failure, not fits of emotional rebellion. Sometimes what is done can't be un-done, but most of the time, the damage can be reversed. You must be patient, you should back-up your work often, and you should learn the ways of The Force. (I actually said that one. At least it got the student to laugh a little.)

Other comments will from students will include (but are not necessarily limited to) "this computer sucks," I'd rather be using my PC/Mac," and my all-time favorite "this thing it taking forever." I wish I still had that Radio Shack TRS-80 computer that really did take forever just to boot up to demonstrate how far we've come. ("You want forever, kid? I lost a good three months of my high school career just waiting for the damn blinking "OK" to appear on my computer screen.")

Why do we do this? Why do we subject ourselves to learn a technology that is flawed - albeit better than it was long ago - and then turn it loose on our students? Sure, they may know more about Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social media, but it's up to us to take that knowledge and turn it toward the "bright side" of the force. Again, why?

Because without a little direction, the technology is merely a toy. Something to divert us, to titillate us, or to just pas the time. Oh, what a waste.

Can you write a paper on a blog? Probably not according to the Chicago Manual of Style. But can you formulate a thought and get feedback? Sure. Research? Probably, given a little direction. Answers to questions? Again, yes, with a little preparation. All of that can lead to formal papers, dissertations, essays and other scholarly writing with a little planning. Just a little.

It amazes me that with just "a little" forethought, direction or patience you can find a vast audience for your work - and thus create something better than you possibly imagined.

Forgive me for drinking the Kool-Aid, but I think the amount of access at our fingertips can be tapped to just about any one's advantage. If this masters program teaches me anything, it's that the tools we have access to are pretty powerful.

Which leads me back to what I read on page 9 of Disrupting Class (Christensen, Johnson, Horn) about when a country (which I read to mean "educational system") goes from "developing" to "established." Our country is in love with the technology because it is fun, it keeps us in contact with each other and lets people know what "is on our minds." We're established, we've accomplished advanced medical practices, we've gone to the moon. We've done our homework. What we are largely missing is the amount of information we have access to that can expand our knowledge to almost limitless proportions. Certainly a number of creative thinkers can point us in the right direction. The problem is that we still have people who are at that precarious moment that I illustrated at the beginning of this post:.

"This thing hates me."

There is no crying in Instructional Technology. There might be a little angst, time invested, trial and error and - OK, I'll admit it, I've done it before - yelling at inanimate objects of technology. But we shouldn't cry. We'll get there, those of us who are behind the curve. Play, experiment, try the applications in places they were never developed for. Keep notes. This is just as academic as hacking through Keats, Chaos Theory, imaginary numbers or the Malthusian Theory. The only difference is that it's just a lot newer.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/striatic/2192192956/

Made it, Ma - Top of the World!

Well, here I am - at the top of the blog list, at least for a little while. I'm feelin' a little Cagney-ish right now.(Wow, what a view!) Anwyay, after giving myself a few days off, it's time to get back to the blogoshpere. Some doings in my classroom since my last post have given me a better insight into blogging.


After a few days of having my disgruntled juniors (because their senior classmates have graduated and do not have to come to the last week of class) create blogs and do some exploring in the blogoshpere, I have come to appreciate the managerial side of blogging. I am following the format of our Emerging Technologies class blogsite at UNI for my classes - posting instructions to the class, requiring them to read the blogs and comment as they go along. We've been formatting, downloading, linking, commenting, and troubleshooting. It's been as good for me as for them. We've been working through the problems together, and the techno-geeks in my first class have been my best resource for grinding through the troublespots.


This is where it has always been "dangerous" for me when I introduce a new technology. Inevitably, something goes wrong, I forget a step, the server doesn't have the same settings as my home connection, the network goes down, the computer freezes ... and these things are not insurmountable - just annoying and disruptive (in the bad sense.)  Right now I'm in a place where the students have about the same level of understanding about blogs that I did three weeks ago - which is about three weeks ahead of the students. Correction, three weeks ahead of most students. This is the "danger" I am referring to.


At what point does the kid who knows more than you regarding technology turn from "asset" to "antagonist?" At first, you're happy to have that student around because you can perhaps have them teach the skill, program, or whatever. If it's the right sort of student, they understand that they are helping. If you get the kid who is eager to show everyone how stupid you are, then you have what Oliver Hardy would call "a fine kettle of fish." I'm fortunate because I have leveled with my classes about this being recent information to me, and that we should view this week as a workshop to figure out the best practice or approach to blogging. This seems to be successful so far.

Several years ago I read something called High Tech Heretic:Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classroom and Other Reflections by a Computer Contrarian by Clifford Stoll. (Here is an interview with him from about ten years ago that will give you an idea of his opinons.) It's mostly a long rant as to why we shouldn't be using computers in schools without much citation. One question he raises is valid, though, and it's one we've been tackling in the ET class: How do you keep up with an ever-changing entity? Or, if you prefer Stoll's tone, how can we expect schools and teachers to keep up with technolgy that's largely obsolete the moment it hits the classroom? Time seems to be the enemy, but honestly, when have teachers ever had enough time to learn, read, write, correct, plan, or workshop? It has to be part of the equation of learning and teaching. As we evolve as teachers, so do the tools (or maybe it's vice-versa - anyone care to comment?) It's true that we have to prioritize our tasks - but I think as we gain experience, we gain insight into makeing those priorties make sense, and we manage to learn new things like technology.

Now that I think about it, trying to keep up with technology is a little bit like Cody Jarett in White Heat - staying one step ahead of the law and getting away with it is akin to staying one step ahead of your students and keeping things on track. What you want to avoid is the spectaular explosion at the end. Top of the world, Ma!

POST SCRIPT: Dangitall if the sound on the clip from White Heat in that last link doesn't work. I'll see if I can get a legitimate clip of that scene.
Image: http://www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk/features/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/whiteheat.jpg

Not Your Father's Ballgame

(Originally Posted 5/17/2010)

I have an idea for a new sport. It’s like baseball, except for the following:

· 21 players are on the field at the same time

· The field is sixty miles wide by 75 miles long

· All players have both a bat and a glove

· The bat is actually a type of rail gun capable of hurling the ball many miles

· The glove is actually a unimaginably powerful magnetic device

· All players wear an electronic eyepiece that helps them see the ball better and an earpiece that keeps them in constant contact with the coach

· Players and the coach can communicate with hand signals to coordinate the action

Sound exciting yet? Here’s where we make the game a bit more challenging:

· The coach can see and speak with his team, just not necessarily at the same time

· Not everyone’s bat fires the ball at the same speed

· Not everyone’s glove has the same magnetic power

· A player can communicate with other players when they hit the ball, but that information will not get out to everyone at the same time – in fact, some players may not get the information until they see the ball heading straight for them

The rules for this sport are pretty simple:

· Hit the ball as best you can

· Catch the ball when possible, and then hit it as best you can to someone else

· Scoring is dependent upon the accuracy of the hit

Seems like a sport like this would be impossible to play, yet there we were tonight, doing our damnedest to make it work. The critics of distance learning may point to our experience and say “get back to the classroom, all of you,” but I want to play this game more and not just get better at it but actually get good at it.