Teaching for the Future

Part 2 of 2. I was one of the student panelists at Lesley University's Technology Institute. We discussed social networking and it's role in the lives of students. The beginning explanation is being done by Rebecca Petersen who is the head of the Center of Academic Technology at Lesley University.

Don't forget to Digg me on Digg.com's new Podcast section! It is a great way to get the word out about the show.

If you want to help out or participate with Teaching for the Future you can leave a comment on the homepage or link to us on your blog or podcast. If you want to get in touch, feel free to email at teachingforthefuture@gmail.com, make me your friend on MySpace, or send me an audio message through Odeo

Tags:
Dave LaMorte, teaching for the future, technology, education, podcast, teaching, media literacy, social networking, myspace, facebook

Labels: dave lamorte, education, lesley, media literacy, mobile technology, podcast, teaching

Stumble It!

Posted by Dave LaMorte at 1/31/2007 08:55:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I was one of the student panelists at Lesley University's Technology Institute. We discussed social networking and it's role in the lives of students. The beginning explanation is being done by Rebecca Petersen who is the head of the Center of Academic Technology at Lesley University. This is first part of two podcasts of this event.

Don't forget to Digg me on Digg.com's new Podcast section! It is a great way to get the word out about the show.

If you want to help out or participate with Teaching for the Future you can leave a comment on the homepage or link to us on your blog or podcast. If you want to get in touch, feel free to email at teachingforthefuture@gmail.com, make me your friend on MySpace, or send me an audio message through Odeo

Tags:
Dave LaMorte, teaching for the future, technology, education, podcast, teaching, media literacy, social networking, myspace, facebook

Labels: dave lamorte, education, lesley, media literacy, mobile technology, podcast, teaching

Stumble It!

Posted by Dave LaMorte at 1/29/2007 10:00:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I've been talking to one of my Professors at Lesley University's Creative Arts and Learning Department about extending the Lesley University education community online. We have been kicking around the idea of creating a space where teachers can share and better develop lesson plans. One idea was creating a wiki where lesson plans could be uploaded and worked on by the community. This to me seemed a little chaotic, having ten or more people editing the same document for 10 different classrooms.

I've taken the first step and I have created a Del.icio.us bookmark page and a blogger blog. This will allow anyone who want to contribute to tag lessons online or on their own sites through del.icio.us. The blog will created to allow teachers who do not want to host their own lesson plans can have them posted up by me. Basically teachers could email me their lessons and any lessons from the site they have altered and I would post them up. The blog will be searchable and act as an archive.

I'd love to get your ideas about this. What do you think I'm missing? Do you feel like this could be done in a more simple way? Do you want to help me with this and be more hands on?

You can find the new Blog here: http://lessonindex.blogspot.com/
You can find the bookmarks here: http://del.icio.us/teachingforthefuture/lesleylessonindex
Technorati Tag: Lesley Lesson Index

This is a project that I want to leave open to everyone who's interested. It will be a project that came out of the Lesley community and it is not exclusive to that community.

Upcoming:
In the next few weeks look out for an interview with Brian Connelly from Alive In Baghdad. I will also put out the panel discussion I was in at the Lesley University Technology Institute in two parts.

Don't forget to Digg me on Digg.com's new Podcast section! It is a great way to get the word out about the show.

If you want to help out or participate with Teaching for the Future you can leave a comment on the homepage or link to us on your blog or podcast. If you want to get in touch, feel free to email at teachingforthefuture@gmail.com or send me an audio message through Odeo

Tags: Dave LaMorte, teaching for the future, technology, education, teaching, media literacy, visual literacy, Lesley Lesson Index

Stumble It!

Posted by Dave LaMorte at 1/27/2007 02:11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

News:
The Daily Show - Guns in School: I found this wonderful clip on YouTube and I wanted to share it with you. We talked about messures and legislation being developed to allow teachers to carry guns in schools during Episode 48. This clip deals with some of what we were talking about and brings up a new "innovation" that uses textbooks as sheilds. David Truss left an interesting comment on Episode 48 that I do not think the Daily Show chose not to focus on.

"An angry kid that brings a weapon to school has probably had issues with police or authoritative family members already, why should teachers try to take the same 'broken' approach with these kids?"

You can find David at his elgg blog by clicking the link here.


Visual Literacy Periodic Table via the Financial Aid Podcast: Chris Penn has a nack for creating and finding neat things on the web. In Episode 452 Chris put a link to the Visual Literacy Periodic Table. This is a neat website that has a large gathering of techniques of displaying and organizing information. This is a good tool for those of you who are trying to explain concepts to the visual and mathematical learners in your classroom. This could also be a good reference for students who need to make presentations or want to better organize their ideas. I'd like to know what you think of this site, leave me a comment or email me and let me know what you think. Or better yet if you use this in a lesson or with a project, let me know how it turned out.


State of the Union Smackdown from Pluggd: Pluggd has made the state of the union available on their site. This isn't so interesting, until you see how they have allowed you to search through both the state of the union and the response. Using a simple text search bar you can search for any topic in the speeches. This is a great way to look at both sides side by side and issue by issue. This could be a real educational tool that could allow you and your students to find portions and discuss them.

Listen to Your Kids Gets Going: Julien Smith's new project, Listen to your Kids is starting to get some recognition and is having a good response. As of this episode, there have already been two "kids" who have left messages. You can listen to my interview with Julien about this project here.

Children's Songs from Afghanistan: One of my professors at Lesley University, Louise Pascale, has created an album and song book of Afghan children's music.

"After decades of political upheaval in Afghanistan, this moving collection of
16 children's folk songs is being returned to a new generation of Afghan children to be sung and passed down for generations to come. Originally collected by Peace Corp volunteer, Louise Pascale, and published by Kabul Press in 1968, the songs have all but disappeared from the culture. They have now been recorded by well-known and respected Afghan musician, Vaheed Kaacemy, and a group of Afghan children. A new, colorful version of the songbook includes lyrics in Farsi, Pushto, Uzbeki and Hazara, musical notation and a 60 minute CD. With support from the National Geographic Society, Ayenda: Afghan Children Initiative, and many generous individuals, 3,000 copies are being distributed for free to children at 100 schools across Afghanistan. Additional printings are planned to return this cultural heritage to thousands more children in Afghanistan and in Afghan communities around the world."

Upcoming:
In the next few weeks look out for an interview with Brian Connelly from Alive In Baghdad. I will also put out the panel discussion I was in at the Lesley University Technology Institute in two parts.

Don't forget to Digg me on Digg.com's new Podcast section! It is a great way to get the word out about the show.

If you want to help out or participate with Teaching for the Future you can leave a comment on the homepage or link to us on your blog or podcast. If you want to get in touch, feel free to email at teachingforthefuture@gmail.com or send me an audio message through Odeo

Tags:

Dave LaMorte, teaching for the future, technology, education, podcast, teaching, Alive in Baghdad, Julien Smith,
financial aid podcast, media literacy, visual literacy

Labels: alive in baghdad, dave lamorte, education, financial aid pocast, interview, julien smith, lesley, media literacy, mobile technology, podcast, teaching, video

Stumble It!

Posted by Dave LaMorte at 1/25/2007 10:51:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

News:
Google Opens Dialog with Book Publishers from CNET News: Google hosts their "Unbound" event to convince book publishers that they are not their enemy. Though there has been a lot of debate over Google's efforts to digitize text and create a printed text search engine, I think that ebooks make a lot of sense. During the resent episode of Boing Boing Boing editors Cory Doctorow and Mark Faurenfelder discussed ebooks as both readers and content creators. Faurenfelder talked about the use of ebooks as the publisher of Make Magazine and how easy it is to distribute the pdf versions. Doctorow believes that a lot of the success of his print books are due to the buzz created by releasing his works electronically under a Creative Commons liscence.

The Camera Phone from Slate: This is an interesting article looking at the camera phone and how it has changed the way we communicate. The article focuses on many of the negative effects of the almost ubiquitous device in spying on our neighbors, invading other's privacy, and catching others at their worst. I think their is a great deal of truth in the quote of camera phone inventor Phillpe Khan who said in a 2000 Wired interview "With this kind of device, you're going to see the best and the worst of things." There is also a link to an Mp3 of this article available on the article page.

Gaming advances as a learning tool from eSchool News: As you are already aware there are a great deal of teachers who are beginning to integrate video games into their classroom practice. The article discusses how video games can help reach the digital natives in their classrooms. In my mind this seems that teachers are just trying to meet their students halfway and trying to address the interests of their students.

National Slowdown Week from Adbusters: Did you miss National Slowdown Week? Well so did I. This is another campaign from the folks at Adbusters. I think the video is really cute, but I'm not sure if slowing down is an option for most of us. This is a nice reminder to slow down.

Seven Reasons You Should Text Your Teen from Totally Wired: I found this post particularly interesting after sitting on the Student panel for Lesley University's Technology Institute. I was one of seven students who was on the panel that served as an introduction to social networking. Of the panel there were five undergraduate students who spoke about how they used social networking sites like MySpace and the Facebook. I could tell that a lot of the faculty were surprised by the role these sites played in their lives. It was not that they were dismissive of the technology or dismissive of it's usefullness, but they had no idea how these students were invested in social networking.

Though schools and universities are starting to examine social networking, this has been a long time coming. One technology that I think many teachers and adults do not understand the role of text messaging in the lives of teens. Where many adults use email, it does not have the convenience or the immediacy of text messaging or instant messaging. This blog post tries to explain to adults why they need to pay attention to this important moblie technology.

Anastasia Goodstein writes on teens and preteens and their relationships with technolgy. While most adults are not interested in text messaging, she gives 7 good reasons parents should be texting their teens.

1. Parents get a quick answer to their questions.
2. Kids are more apt to respond to text messages when they are with their friends.
3. You, or they, don't have to worry about tone of voice.
4. Texting allows you to enter your child's world.
5. Text messaging allows parents to compose and edit a message before pressing send.
6. Texting vs. calling gives kids more space but allows parents to keep in touch as often as necessary.
7. Text messaging can also be used to strengthen parent-child bonds, and let kids know that their parents are thinking of them.

Thanks to Dan Flannery for the great music.

If you want to help out or participate with Teaching for the Future you can leave a comment on the homepage or link to us on your blog or podcast. If you want to get in touch, feel free to email at teachingforthefuture@gmail.com or send me an audio message through Odeo

Tags:
Dave LaMorte, teaching for the future, technology, education, podcast, teaching

Labels: adbusters, ebooks, education, gaming, mobile technology, podcast, slate, teaching, texting

Stumble It!

Posted by Dave LaMorte at 1/21/2007 12:03:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

CC Chapman started a new round of blog tagging. CC tagged Chris Penn and then Chris tagged me. I'm going to post this on both Teaching for the Future and DaveLaMorte.com:


How to Play:

1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question below, type the song that’s playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the nextbutton
6. Don’t lie or try to pretend you’re cool …


Opening Credits:
We Know - Talib Kweli

First Day At School:
Morning Bell - Radiohead

Falling In Love:
Surfing on a Rocket - Air

Breaking Up:
Walk Away - Ben Harper

Prom:
Trouble - Stephen Malkmus

Mental Breakdown:
Fake French - Le Tigre

Flashbacks:
Your Heart Is an Empty Room - Death Cab For Cutie

Getting Back Together:
Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou) - Sufjan Stevens

Wedding Scene:
She'll Come Back To Me - Cake

Final Battle:
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - The Band

Death Scene:
Bend to squares - Death Cab For Cutie

Funeral Song:
Sugar, Baby - Wilco

End Credits:
I Didn't Understand - Christopher O'Riley (Written by Elliot Smith)

Finale:
Due Progress - Cyne

Wow! Some of these really seem to fit the story. I've been listening to a lot of podcasts over the the last six monthes, but this made me want to rediscover my music collection. I want to pass this on and see what happens with Tom Mantzouranis, Kyle Decker, David Warlick, Bre Pettis, and Jesse Thorn.

Stumble It!

Posted by Dave LaMorte at 1/18/2007 12:23:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

Today's episode was recorded with my new iTalk. It's an attachment that allows me to record with my video iPod. I'm still experimenting with it, but so far so good.


Now that I'm using my digital still camera to do the video and the iTalk for audio I feel like I have covered all of my podcasting needs. With that in mind I'm going to be donating my old video/audio recorder to Alive In Baghdad. If you have any digital equipment you would like to donate, let Brian know because Alive In Baghdad could use some new/semi-new equipment. Even if you decide not to donate to Brian, I recommend you to donate any of your unused equipment.




News:

Teens 'turn to social websites': from BBC News.com: "The study for the Pew Internet Project involved 935 teenagers and found 55% of American youths aged 12-17 had accounts at sites such as MySpace and Facebook." Kids today are connected in a way we have never dreamed of. The study also finds kids are beginning to be smarter about how they share their personal information and how they use the web.






Social Networking Evades Schools: via think:lab: This post on the Fast Company weblog is talking about how excluding social networking in schools is leaving kids with out guidance. Maybe it is a good idea to have a policy that addresses the issue of social networking in school. This is going to be an issue for years to come and we need to start dealing with it. Just as you would talk to your kids about sex, drugs, and alcohol; you need to talk to your kids about social networking. If you don't address this with your kids someone else will.





IM/Chatting Affecting Language Wired: I was reading the Mr-Know -It-All column in the latest issue of Wired and found an interesting look at how text messaging/IM chat effects teens. Clive Thompson who writes the column argued that out fears are over blown. Where most educators and parents think chat is eroding student language skills he explains that this is probably not the case. In studies cited in the article researchers found that students made less spelling mistakes while instant messaging then in their papers.



He argues that it's due to teens not wanting to look bad in front of their friends. In my mind is all comes down to PUBLISHING. Students are not worried about being shamed for their spelling errors by their teachers so they are just less likely to proofread. Thompson's suggestion is teaching students about code switching, so they know what kind of language is appropriate and when it's appropriate. You can find this article on page 50 of the January issue of Wired.





Ads in captchas from In Over Your Head: I did not know what a captchas was before Julien mentioned them, even though I've been using them for a while. According to the Wikipedia a captcha is "an initialism for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart", trademarked by Carnegie Mellon University, is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human." Usually these are a semi-random set of numbers and letters that are used to cut down on comment spam on blogs. Recently ads and messages such as "drink coke" have been popping up in these semi-random sets. This seems indicative to the fact that people are learning to block out ads.



Because we can tune out these ads, advertisers are trying hard to slide their messages past our defenses. This worries me because I have a feeling that students who have learned to block out information may begin to tune out messages in the classroom. To your average 16-year-old information from a teacher can seem analogous to a commercial they don't want to pay attention to. More likely is that students have been blocking out their teachers since the beginning of time, but I do feel a trend.





DIY Cut and Fold Paper iPhone from Sneak Move:

This isn't news but I love a good paper project. I wanted to make my own paper iPhone, but Sneak Move beat me to it. This was just a lot of fun to make and will make for some funny flickr images.




Don't forget to Digg me on Digg.com's new Podcast section! It is a great way to get the word out about the show.





Thanks to Dan Flannery for the great music.





If you want to help out or participate with Teaching for the Future you can leave a comment on the homepage or link to us on your blog or podcast. If you want to get in touch, feel free to email at teachingforthefuture@gmail.com or send me an audio message through Odeo





Tags:

Dave LaMorte, teaching for the future, technology, education, podcast, teaching

Labels: alive in baghdad, dave lamorte, education, lesley, media literacy, podcast, teaching, video

Stumble It!

Posted by Dave LaMorte at 1/17/2007 04:25:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

News:

Listen To Your Kids is a new project from one of my favorite podcasters, Julien Smith. Julien does a hip hop podcast where he discusses topics that he is thinking about and dealing with in his own life. I began listening to his show, In Over Your Head, after I came back from PodCamp Boston.

Listen To Your Kids is a website/podcast where kids of any age can say what they are afraid to say. The project was designed to start a dialog between kids and parents that all to often never happens. Listen To Your Kids is an anonymous confessional where people with something to say can leave a message over the phone or over Skype.

From ListenToYourKids.com:

Listen To Your Kids connects kids that want to share with parents that want to listen, all through very simple, existing technologies...
...If you're a parent, you'll hear kids talking about what's going on in their lives. If you're a kid (of any age), you can call and talk about whatever's going on in your head-- questions, problems, whatever you need to discuss. It will not be censored.

Julien sat down to talk to me over Skype and we discussed his new project.



Don't forget to Digg me on Digg.com's new Podcast section! It is a great way to get the word out about the show.

Check out http://digg.com/podcasts/teaching_for_the_future_with_dave_lamorte






Thanks to Chris Penn from the Financial Aid Podcast, thanks to Brad Niessen for the great intro, and thanks to Dan Flannery for the great music. Make sure you make Dan your MySpace friend.





If you want to help out or participate with Teaching for the Future you can leave a comment on the homepage or link to us on your blog or podcast. If you want to get in touch, feel free to email at teachingforthefuture@gmail.com or send me an audio message through Odeo





Tags:

Dave LaMorte, teaching for the future, technology, education, podcast, teaching

Labels: education, interview, julien smith, media literacy, podcast, teaching

Stumble It!

Posted by Dave LaMorte at 1/14/2007 10:45:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I created this episode as a way to promote an interview I did with Julien Smith about his new site Listen To Your Kids. I like the video format, but I still have a lot of work to do. So far so good, but feel free to tell me what you think in the comments.







Don't forget to Digg me on Digg.com's new Podcast section! It is a great way to get the word out about the show.




Thanks to Above These Cares(aka Tom Mantzouranis from The Out-Route) and thanks to Dan Flannery for the great music. Make sure you make Dan your MySpace friend.







If you want to help out or participate with Teaching for the Future you can leave a comment on the homepage or link to us on your blog or podcast. If you want to get in touch, feel free to email at teachingforthefuture@gmail.com or send me an audio message through Odeo









Tags:



Dave LaMorte, teaching for the future, technology, education, podcast, teaching, julien smith

Labels: dave lamorte, interview, julien smith, media literacy, podcast, teaching, video

Stumble It!

Posted by Dave LaMorte at 1/12/2007 10:50:00 AM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I finally had a chance to go to the Boston Media Makers meeting. This was my first time going and I had a lot of fun. According to Steve Garfield who runs the group this meeting's turnout was larger than usual. The group is a great mix of podcasters, filmmakers, bloggers, educators, artists, and developers. It was great to meet everyone and find out what they were doing. For the video I used a song from my new favorite band Above These Cares who are also available on the Podsafe Music Network. This is my first time having to edit a video, but I'm really happy with how this came out.





The first part of the meeting was pretty formal. We all sat around a large table and spoke about what we are doing. After the more formal part of the meeting a few of us made a short movie. We did the film as a way of thanking Sweet Finnish for letting us use their back room for the meetings. This video was definitely a group effort. I did sound, Bre Pettis directed, Christopher Penn and Kristen Crusius acted, David Tames acted and produced, while Steve Garfield consulted.








Don't forget to Digg me on Digg.com's new Podcast section! It is a great way to get the word out about the show.

Check out http://digg.com/podcasts/teaching_for_the_future_with_dave_lamorte






Thanks to Above These Cares(aka Tom Mantzouranis from The Out-Route) and thanks to Dan Flannery for the great music. Make sure you make Dan your MySpace friend.





If you want to help out or participate with Teaching for the Future you can leave a comment on the homepage or link to us on your blog or podcast. If you want to get in touch, feel free to email at teachingforthefuture@gmail.com or send me an audio message through Odeo





Tags:

Dave LaMorte, teaching for the future, technology, education, podcast, teaching

Labels: bostonmediamakers, brepettis, dave lamorte, davidtames, education, financial aid pocast, podcast, stevegarfield, teaching, video

Stumble It!

Posted by Dave LaMorte at 1/08/2007 09:18:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post

I'm excited to have finally reached episode 50. Thank you for all of your help and your support over these few months. Also expect to see a new video post during the week around Tuesday or Wednesday. I got a chance to go to the Boston Media Makers meeting in Jamaica Plain. You should definitely check out the Meeting Report. I'd expect to hear some of my audio from that meeting over the next few weeks.






News:


Madden Birds & Bees '07 via The Out Route:
This is a weird story of a young man who received pornography instead of a copy of the new Madden 07 game for XBox. I think that this was probably a freak accident, but I think this is evidence that consoles, like computers, should be kept in main rooms where kids can be supervised.





Saddam Video Copycat from The Copycat Effect:
Loren Colman is a researcher and author of The Copycat Effect. He discusses the resent rash of "Saddam Imitators". This is the first blog post, but Coleman has recently posted about 2 more incidents. Though he does not really seem to comment on the incidents himself he describes the copycat effect at the top of the page as "The copycat effect is what happens when the media makes an event into a "hot death story" and then via behavior contagion, more deaths, suicides, murders, and more occur in a regularly predictive cycle, as per the book The Copycat Effect (Paraview Pocket - Simon and Schuster)". I first became of Loren Coleman when from his interviews on the RU Sirius Show and The Boing Boing Get Illuminated Podcast and he's a favorite reference for Gene and Bryan from Hometown Tales. He seems to be an interesting guy with a lot of interesting ideas.




Boy hangs himself 'like Saddam' from News 24:
This is the orignal story that Coleman refers too.





Education projects on the Teen Grid - A Glimpse from The Official Linden Blog:
This is not really news in a true sense, but I find SL as an interesting environment for learning. This post talks about some resent developments in the SL Education group and a link to sign up for the SL Educators mailing list.





Boy killed unplugging Game Boy from GameSpot News:
Recently a young boy was killed while on vacation with his family. After swimming in the pool the boy was still wet when he tried to unplug his Game Boy and was subsequently electrocuted. This is a tragic story of another freak accident that could have been prevented. What worries me most is that if this boy had unplugged anything else this may never have been a news report at all.






Couple Arrested After Web Posting via Fark:
A man and woman were arrested when the man's 12 year old daughter posted about them giving her drugs and alcohol on her MySpace page. They were discovered when the mother of the girl saw the information on the girls MySpace Page. This story is troubling to me on a few levels. One parents should not be allowing their twelve-year-olds to have controlled substances. Two this girl is twelve and I'm pretty sure you have to be thirteen to join MySpace. And finally that the article talks about how many parents are afraid to confront their children. Parents shouldn't be afraid to be parents.






Study Finds High Schoolers Believe We Have Too Much Free Speech... from Snark is the New Sarcasm:
This blog post talks about an interesting study that showed up in USAToday that found that most teenagers probably do not have a good grasp of the Bill of Rights. This is not really news but it seemed to fit with the theme of the show.









I watched one of the most interesting interviews on the popular machinima podcast This Spartan Life. In episode four Damian Lacidamian(Chris Burke) interviews McKenzie Wark who teaches media and cultural studies at the New School in NYC. Wark is best known for his work studying hacker and game culture.







Don't forget to Digg me on Digg.com's new Podcast section! It is a great way to get the word out about the show.

Check out http://digg.com/podcasts/teaching_for_the_future_with_dave_lamorte







Thanks to Above These Cares(aka Tom Mantzouranis from The Out-Route) and thanks to Dan Flannery for the great music. Make sure you make Dan your MySpace friend.





If you want to help out or participate with Teaching for the Future you can leave a comment on the homepage or link to us on your blog or podcast. If you want to get in touch, feel free to email at teachingforthefuture@gmail.com or send me an audio message through Odeo





Tags:

Dave LaMorte, teaching for the future, technology, education, podcast, teaching

Labels: dave lamorte, education, gaming, media literacy, podcast, teaching

Stumble It!

Posted by Dave LaMorte at 1/04/2007 10:43:00 PM | Permalink | Comments | links to this post