First, I came across Zotero, which is going to be demo-ed at the Computers and Writing conference this weekend– I think tomorrow, actually. And then there’s BibMe, a bibliography building tool that looks pretty easy to use. Both are completely free.
C&W 2007: A Home Game, Sort Of
Besides all of this pesky teaching that I have to do this spring, I’ve been busy getting ready for this year’s Computers and Writing Conference. C&W is by far my favorite academic conference, but I don’t always go to it; in fact, I haven’t gone for the last couple of years. Two years ago, C&W was at Stanford, which would have been really nice (and I heard it was), but since the CCCCs was in San Francisco that year, it was out of my budget to go out there twice. Last year, C&W was in Lubbock, and while I again hear it was a great conference, my gut reaction was “Why in the heck would I want to go to Lubbock?”
This year, C&W is at Wayne State University in Detroit. That’s about 42 minutes from where I live and work, more or less (I live about a mile from EMU’s campus). So in that sense, it’s basically a local conference: I’m going to be commuting, arriving when I can and returning home to my own comfy bed and house each night. I have some working knowledge of the Detroit area (see below), and it will be nice to go to a conference and not spend a ton of money. Well, outside of the gas I’ll put in my car.
On the other hand, this might end up being kind of a pain in the butt. Those 42 minutes there and back assume no traffic problems, not an easy assumption between here and Detroit. I may very well regret not arranging for some sort of hotel or dorm stay for at least part of the conference. Also, even though I do live in the greater “metro Detroit” area, I can count on two hands (well, maybe 3) the number of times I’ve been east of about Dearborn in the nine years I’ve lived here. We’ve seen some plays and other performances in Detroit, there’s a great used book store downtown called John King Books I’ve been to a couple times, I’ve been to the Detroit Institute of Art, the Detroit Science Center, once to the Eastern Market, and we’ve been to Greektown two or three times. That’s pretty much it.
Typically, my wife and son and I get our various “services” in Ann Arbor or outer Detroit suburbs. I have certainly not “hung out” in Detroit much; in fact, our journeys into Detroit have always been very mission-specific.
I am quite sure that there are many in the C&W community who have the same reaction to Detroit that I had to Lubbock. In my above mentioned and fairly limited experience with Detroit, I think its reputation is both unfair and accurate. It’s “unfair” in that Detroit is not without some of the previously mentioned charms, and the area around Wayne State University is relatively safe. It certainly isn’t one of the more dangerous neighborhoods in Detroit. On the other hand, there really are a lot of burned-out and depressing looking buildings in Detroit, a lot of scary places, a lot of poverty, a lot of dirt and grime, etc., and it doesn’t have the sort of vibrant downtown culture of Chicago or New York.
Though I say all of this with limited knowledge of downtown Detroit, knowledge I’ll expand this week.
BTW, if anyone in the C&W world reading this is interested in an Ann Arbor side-trip and wants some ideas and advice, let me know and I’ll point you in the right direction if I don’t actually accompany you.
Laptops alone don't save K-12 schools. Shocking!
There has been much talk/buzz lately about different school districts cutting laptop programs because, basically, they didn’t work. Or at least it turns out that they don’t work like pixie dust; it turns out that if you sprinkle a few laptops into K-12 classrooms, “magic” doesn’t happen.
The kick-off for all this was this New York Times article, “Seeing No Progress, Some Schools Drop Laptops.” Given that dropping laptops is likely to cause breakage, maybe this was not the right solution. Anyway, this was followed up in a variety of different places, but I think my favorite and potentially most teachable “text” on this was on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” show. The show in question and some commentary is available here on their “Blog of the Nation.” There’s some good links on this site, including to the school district that was the subject of the NYT piece, to this article by Andy Carvin on PBS Teachers learning.now called “Schools drop laptop programs– but are they dropping the ball as well?” and something he runs called The Digital Divide Network.
On the show, they interviewed Larry Cuban and Nicolas Neglopante. I heard a bit from Cuban, and while I have a lot of respect for his work, I think he was pretty wrong. I contemplated calling the show myself when I heard some caller who more or less asked my question/made my point: of course laptops in and of themselves won’t do anything if teachers don’t know how to use them and if they aren’t willing or able to use them in their teaching. Schools simply haven’t provided the necessary training or motivation for teachers to make good use of the technology. I’ve heard this again and again from my own graduate students who are secondary school teachers, and I have read it again and again in the scholarship. But despite this being the most obvious of observations about what might have gone “wrong” with these laptops, Cuban simply had no decent answer or response. He even suggested that K-12 teachers are and always have been technologically literate and innovative.
I don’t want to make any sort of blanket statement about K-12 teachers of course, and I wouldn’t want to compare K-12 teachers as a group with higher ed teachers or whatever. But I’ve had lots and lots of secondary school teachers in our MA program in the Teaching of Writing over the years in my Computers and Writing, Theory and Practice, and I can say without a doubt that these students are not usually on the “cutting edge” in terms of technology. Many of them are down-right technophobes. And why should they be techno-literate? They typically teach in schools with crappy computer access, with bad tech support, and with little flexibility for integrating the technology into their classrooms. I mean, I’m not trying to dump on K-12 teachers, but for Cuban to say (as he did, more or less) that 98% of the teachers he worked with were technically savvy is just not true.
I did agree with one thing he said though: laptop programs are an easy thing to cut because they’re expensive, they are “the source” of students doing (quasi)illegal things like downloading music, they enable things like the all-evil MySpace, and they don’t show up as a data point on standardized tests. In that sense, one could argue it’s remarkable that many laptop programs will continue.
MySpace Warning in the Local Media Yet Again
Here’s the 3,435,671th warning about putting stuff on MySpace (or Facebook) and thinking that it’s completely private, though this one has a twist: The Ann Arbor News ran a lead story in last night’s paper with the headline “Online comments roil officials.” Frankly, my first reaction was “what does ‘roil’ mean?” My wife, smarter than me, set me straight– “pissed off.” Anyway, here are the opening passages:
Editor’s note: This story contains a term that may offend some readers. The News does not print profanity unless it is important for the understanding of the story.
Saline High School Senior Bobby Schilke thought the disparaging comments he posted on Facebook.com about the school district superintendent would only be seen by other members of his network on the Web site.
Schilke, 18, was surprised when he was called to the superintendent’s office with his parents for what he described as a scolding.
Beverley Geltner, the Saline superintendent, found out about the group – called “new superintendent = bitch” – and other sites she said contained “inappropriate language.” She held meetings with families, including the one with Schilke and his parents.
Geltner said the aim of the meetings was to address the “limited understanding” that parents and young people have about the dangers of Internet postings.
“A lot of things were said about people, including me, that were hurtful, ignorant,” said Geltner, who declined to say how many students were involved in meetings. “I paused and thought, ‘What is my responsibility?’ These are our students.”
Schilke’s father Ken Schilke said his son did nothing wrong.
“There’s no shame in expressing yourself,” said Ken Schilke, who attended the meeting along with Bobby Schilke’s mother. “Unless (not criticizing administrators) is in the code of conduct, then there’s no reason to quash the freedom of expression.”
This is kind of an interesting case/example, if you ask me. On the one hand, I wouldn’t be real pleased if there was a MySpace book calling me a “bitch” or whatever. But on the other hand, I don’t think I’d call that student into my office and yell at them. And on the third hand, it seems to me that if you are the superintendent of a school district, then you are more or less a “public figure” and open yourself up for that kind of criticism.
One way or the other though, it’s clear to me that Geltner over-reacted and the Ann Arbor News took on this story since it contained the oh-so-dangerous words My Space. Well, that and the word “bitch.”
Anyway, the solution here is to have some workshops and meetings to talk about some of the “safety and privacy” issues with MySpace. Geltner said that she was bothered by some of the groups on both MySpace and Facebook that had racial and gender-biased language. Back to the paper itself:
n cases where she perceived a threat, Geltner said she was be obligated to call the police. In other instances, such as Schilke’s, she notified parents and brought the family in for a meeting.
Geltner declined to say how many threats she may have passed along to the police, but Pittsfield Township Director of Public Safety John Phillips said that those found threatening are currently under investigation.
“Kids talk to each other, they think it’s the same type of secrecy as going into a room, writing in a diary and locking it in the top drawer,” Phillips said.
Phillips will be among the speakers at the community meetings Wednesday. The seminars were planned for parents and students to shed light on online risks, Geltner said.
“Young people may unwittingly be opening themselves to consequences they hadn’t thought about,” she said.
Consequences like being hauled into the superintendent’s office, no doubt.
On the one hand, it probably isn’t a bad idea to alert/remind students about the consequences of posts on Facebook, MySpace, blogs, etc., that these things aren’t completely private. Although as an aside, I think this is something that most high school and college-aged folks already know. I mean, I’ve had these sorts of conversations with my 9 year-old son, and the idea that the internet is a very public space is common sense to him.
But clearly, clearly, the main reason why Geltner is doing this is because some kid called her a “bitch” in a public forum. They could have had these community meetings on the “dangers” of MySpace months– years– ago. The fact that it took Geltner and the other folks in Saline this long to find out about this new fangled thing called MySpace is problematic, and the idea that the motivation for these meetings is “safety” when it clearly is about taking offense at being called a bad name is even more troubling.
Will Krause, Science Olympian
I think it’s fair to say that Annette, Will, and I are just now recovering from our grand experience at the Washtenaw (county, that is) Elementary Science Olympiad on Saturday.
I didn’t get any good pictures frankly, but the Ann Arbor News did:
This is a water propelled bottle rocket contest; cute, huh? And here’s the article in yesterday’s Ann Arbor News— you have to go through the registration rig-a-ma-roll with the site if you want to see the piece, but it is probably worth it.
The article said there were 300 students competing, but I swear it felt more like 1,000. We got there (it was held over at an elementary school and middle school complex on the other side of Ann Arbor) at about 9 am or so and we were there until about 5:30, and it just seemed like one sea of parents and kids and teachers in chaos pretty much the whole time. Thus the long recovery period.
Will competed in two events– well, technically, three. He was on the science pentathlon team, which was this event where the kids had to answer a science trivia question and then complete some kind of minor athletic task– bouncing a ball, throwing something through a hoop, etc. Will’s team didn’t do so hot, in part because they were short a player.
He was a “second stringer” on the “Wright stuff” team, which is a competition where they build these ridiculously precise airplanes from balsa and tissue and then fly them with rubber band props. Will and his partner’s airplane was the “B team,” so they didn’t get to compete. But the “A team” for his grade level won, so I think of that as Will winning too. Hey, the bench warmers are still on the team, right?
And then he was also on the science jeopardy team, which was a team-oriented jeopardy contest. They lost their first round quite badly, but they rallied and actually ended up in fourth place, which was an unexpected triumph.
Actually, Estabrook did quite well in this thing overall, I’d say in the top third of schools that competed. I don’t often have “Ypsi pride,” but I have to say I was very proud that our scruffy little band of kids competed well with the ones from the “good schools” in Ann Arbor. Will’s looking forward to it for next year, and I might even volunteer to coach something. We’ll see….
Odd foods and food-like items
I have come across several pieces of such food news lately:
- The source for much of this information is the latest web zen on sweet treats.
- The “mad science” of hot rice from cold water.
- Hemp food, chocolate corn chips, and much more at cool hunting.
- Capn Crunch has a first name.
- Pepto ice cream, supposedly a hang-over cure.
Mmm… computers… waffles… computer waffles…
I’m going to assume that this is some sort of photoshop trick, but it does make me think about buying a waffle iron….
When all else fails, pray
This from yesterday’s Ann Arbor News:
An Ypsilanti City Council member is calling for residents to join in a national day of prayer Thursday, in part because the city could use some divine blessing to help it through its current financial struggles.
“I just believe it’s time for a prayer,” said Council Member Lois Richardson, D-Ward 1. “We need direction from the Lord.”
Richardson said the United States Congress in 1952 designated the first Thursday of May as a day of prayer, and it is time Ypsilanti observed the event.
“We’re struggling financially, the state economy is not doing well, and the nation is not necessarily in good shape,” Richardson said.
Um, okay…. I guess there’s nothing wrong with prayer per se, but if the city of Ypsilanti wants to really do something about the crappy economy, poor services, decaying schools, torn up streets, and other problems plaguing Ypsilanti, I don’t think the solution is to pray. They don’t call that last desperation pass in football a “Hail Mary” for nothing.
Automatic WordPress Generator (e.g., time to update around here)
I looked at my blog this morning with quite the fright, let me tell ya. I went to it with the intention of posting about an article I found on the tech divide between teachers and students in European schools (that will come later) and I just had a series of bizarre errors. It was before I had finished my first cup of coffee, so there was a little, um, nervousness on my part.
Well, long story short, I managed to update to the latest version of WordPress, and that in turn updated the database and now all is well. This all makes me realize that one of my (growing list of) summer projects around here is to update/clean things up around here. And I discovered today a new toy to help me do that: from a blog called “A Problem Must Be Solved, Resolved, or Dissolved” and written by a guy in Rotterdam comes the WordPress Theme Generator. I have no idea if it works or not, but I do know I’ll be playing around with it. If I ever get my spring term classes planned, that is….
Respite, sort of
Last night, I wrapped up grading for the two classes I was teaching last winter and thus I put an end unofficially to one of the toughest school years I have ever had. There was the faculty strike (which did actually finally get resolved a couple weeks ago), there was the murder of a student in her dorm room and subsequent cover-up of the murder by the administration at EMU. There were some internal “challenges” in the department I’d rather not discuss here, and there were my own challenges of being the Interim WPA.
And yet, Dickensesque, it was also the “best of times.” The turmoil of the strike led to the creation of EMUtalk.org, which in many ways has led me to my current (well, sorta current) research that is actually going to get me a sabbatical of sorts next year. Being the Interim WPA was a lot of fun and super-duper interesting. I’m coming off of some of the best teaching experiences I’ve had, especially the online version of English 516. And I’m getting promoted next year to “full” professor, which is nice.
One way or the other though, this break is going to be short and not much of a break. I’m getting ready to teach two classes during the 7.5 week spring term, and one of them, English 444: Writing for the World Wide Web, is going to be all online for me for the first time. That combined with the short term has me very worried, and getting ready for both this and the other class I’m teaching in the spring (English 328, which is the class I teach all the time) will make the next week not much of a break.
Still, the weather is supposed to be pretty nice and I’ve firmly committed myself to going into the office only once this next week. I might be able to sneak in my first 18 holes….
Anyway, here’s to the end, here’s to the next term around the corner.