Blog Post #10

ADVENTURES IN PENCIL INTEGRATION 

This cartoon by John T. Spencer.  His cartoon posted in his blog titled, Adventures in Pencil Integration, is a metaphor for the Mac vs PC conflict. Mr. Spencer uses the paper mate to represent PC and Ticonderoga to represent Mac.  PCs are reasonably priced but have more problems and can do less,  however Macs are are a little more expensive, and can do much more without the risk of all the viruses.  It is funny because Macs are personal computers. Thanks Andrew.  :)

WHY WERE YOUR KIDS PLAYING GAMES

Mr. Spencer also shares a post titled, Why Were Your Kids Playing Games.   Mr. Spencer's has a VERY facetious and sarcarstic writing style.  I enjoyed reading his posts.  I especially enjoyed, Remember Pencil Quests.  I can relate to this because I remember being tricked into thinking something was fun when I was a kid.  But then again, because it was fun for me at the time, why regret it?

Scott McLeod

Dr. Scott McLeod shared a great post titled Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please? on his blog dangerously ! irrelevant.  This post is a letter to whom it may concern warning them not to teach their kids about technology, collaborating, blogging, social networking, etc... He highlights all of the dangers of cyber-bullying, online predators, and porn.  The punchline is that he is teaching all of his kids this stuff and, "can't wait to see who has the leg up in a decade or two; can you?"  I very much enjoyed Dr. McLeod's sarcastic delivery in his message.  I completely agree that many people can be too protective over children having access to the internet and may become frustrated.  Instead of being hesitant of kids knowing how to correctly utilize technological tools, people should be supportive and try to help inform  the kids of potential dangers so that they can take precautions.  Humans are curious creatures and sometimes people must learn through experience.  I know this road to learning about technology has been rocky at times, however, it really is not as intimidating and scary as I thought.  So get excited about all of these tools and access to basically unlimited information, change your attitude, and start letting it help rather than hurt you.


Scott McLeod Ph.D is an academic expert on K-12 school technology leadership issues and here are only a few of his achievements.

--Director of Innovation in Iowa for Prairie Lakes Area Education Agency 8
--Founding Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE) 
--Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Kentucky
--Co-creator of Did You Know (Shift Happens) 
--Blog: Dangerously Irrelevant and Education Recorded.

This video in one of Dr. McLeod's archive posts is definitely worth the time and opened my eyes to new learning techniques.  What 64 schools can tell us about teaching 21st century skills 

"Asking questions rather than giving answers and finding problems rather that solving problems."