As a high school teacher, I ask my students how many have cheated (defined as claiming someone else's work as your own or actively cheating on a test or quiz) during the current school year. Invariably all but one or two hands will go up. This is an epidemic within our society.
I think one of the things people on/. tend to miss is that 99% of the population has no idea what you are talking about. I encourage people who know the ins and out of the internet to do what you are saying, but for anyone after that the question is, who do you trust?
People can choose along a continuum of size. You can be really personal, and have the whiz kid down the street set up your server, but then he might be really interested to see the love notes you send to your wife, who he happens to have a crush on. You could trust some mid-size company that claims to respect your privacy, but how do you know if they really do? Maybe they are a small company flying under the radar of the privacy groups who are more than willing to steal your data for profit. The last option is to trust a large company that is often scrutinized by privacy groups and would suffer a huge loss of public support if they were ever caught mining your data.
Now, none of these are good options and all of them can be abused by the person you entrust with your communications, but for the vast majority of the population, it's either that or snail mail.
It's easy to place all the blame on large corporations, and I think a lot of the blame is warranted, but the other options seem a little scary to me also. So we either use email and hope that no one is snooping, or we give it up.
Just another example of our government ignoring the facts in favor of doing whatever they want.
Actually, after watching the YouTube video, I was impressed with the government official. She seemed to genuinely want a secure system that helped voters.
Even after one of the scientists presenting said that ballot distribution would have far fewer problems, she pressed him on it, and even asked several questions that led the panel to explain how even ballot distribution could be manipulated.
I'm a teacher and a part-time web designer. I have a custom journal site for my students. One student had an issue where they were getting a truncated error for the journal. It was an nText field. The student had only written about four pages of text. I was confused until I asked her if she cut and pasted from MS Word. She said yes, so I looked at the source. Literally twenty times the code than content. If all the blogs were written in MS Word, I'm afraid the internet would cease to function.
The new Google Docs set up actually shows you exactly where someone is and has almost the same rapid updates as Google Wave. I would guess they are using something similar in Google Docs as they did in Wave.
the technology used has nothing to do with the learning success.
In fact it can hinder it. I often go into other teachers' classrooms to try and help them with integrating technology into their instruction. Powerpoint is a seductive killer with interaction.
Often times, when a student asks a question that is out of line with the next slide, a teacher who has become reliant on technology to teach for them, rather than using it to enhance their instruction, will ignore the question or gloss over an answer -- at the very moment you KNOW you have a student's interest, the absolute worst time to blow a student off.
Technology should be used in education as it should be in the real world, to facilitate the task at hand. Using PowerPoint is rarely a quality use of technology. Have the students argue with each other in a discussion board. Let them rate each other's work. Give them the ability to interact with the larger world, where their work will be judged, applauded or ridiculed, rather than with seemingly arbitrary letter grades.
The whole technology community should be engaging with their local schools to discuss how technology is used outside of the classroom. Too many teachers are lured in by pretty tech without considering how it will benefit the students beyond the "wow" factor.
What most people don't know is that almost all churches have charters that deal with the complexities evident in the old testament. In those charters they directly or indirectly decide what they are going to accept from the old testament, so there is always interpretation and a desire to sculpt religion into something socially palatable. Do you think Christ was born on December 25?
High school students have spent over ten years of their life being judged by teachers and their peers and evaluated on their conformity to external norms. It's a factory-military processing model intended to turn out bulk standardised product regardless of the input.
I won't argue that this is sometimes the case. It is certainly within our institutional memory, but I think if you went into high performing schools, like the one where I teach, you would find the majority of the staff rejecting that model outright. There are a few teachers that still espouse that old philosophy, but they generally find themselves swimming against the current.
Where you really see that mentality is in central offices who aren't willing to take the risk to move away from standardized tests and other evaluative measures that actually encourage the kind of philosophy you are mentioning. It's such an obvious problem that a lot of university schools of education are beginning to teach our future educators to be "subversive" teachers.
My suggestion to you and anyone else who is truly concerned about what is happening in education is to either pester your local board of education, or run for a position on it. We need people who see the inherent value of education to get involved.
Here are two videos on TED that look at the concerns that are voiced by a lot of classroom teachers today. This one addresses the need for creativity in our schools, and this one is a look at the lack of wisdom in our institutions today.
I think the potential benefit isn't for those who are confidently intelligent. They see mistakes as a means of learning. The real benefit is for people who are tremendously insecure. They see mistakes and try to explain them away, or blame them on something else, negating the possible positive benefit of seeing why the mistake happened. For instance, they may have overlooked something. Instead of noticing that and learning to look for it the next time, they shy away from looking at the fault in detail.
I see this kind of thing all the time with my students. They misread something, and if I comment on it, no matter how nicely, the shut down because they don't like to be wrong because they think it makes them seem stupid. When in reality, they are trying to use inductive reasoning, which is a huge part of my goal. But...they miss the learning opportunity when they close down.
This article will make its way into my introductory lessons now. It will supplement the big sign on my door that says, "There is nothing wrong with being wrong."
If you felt any sense of joy or superiority by calling someone out for not knowing something that probably isn't as important to him as it is to others, no matter how "common" you feel the information is, you should examine your outlook on life.
Slashdot Mirror
You mean their 60 cents right? You know the lawyers got 40%.
You obviously aren't married. Two for my wife, two for me, and two on reserve for when my wife finds out I still have a set and confiscates them.
Well as soon as you believe in it, I'm going to stop believing in it.
Sorry, it was the best I could come up with today. I'm just feeling quirky.
As a high school teacher, I ask my students how many have cheated (defined as claiming someone else's work as your own or actively cheating on a test or quiz) during the current school year. Invariably all but one or two hands will go up. This is an epidemic within our society.
I think one of the things people on /. tend to miss is that 99% of the population has no idea what you are talking about. I encourage people who know the ins and out of the internet to do what you are saying, but for anyone after that the question is, who do you trust?
People can choose along a continuum of size. You can be really personal, and have the whiz kid down the street set up your server, but then he might be really interested to see the love notes you send to your wife, who he happens to have a crush on. You could trust some mid-size company that claims to respect your privacy, but how do you know if they really do? Maybe they are a small company flying under the radar of the privacy groups who are more than willing to steal your data for profit. The last option is to trust a large company that is often scrutinized by privacy groups and would suffer a huge loss of public support if they were ever caught mining your data.
Now, none of these are good options and all of them can be abused by the person you entrust with your communications, but for the vast majority of the population, it's either that or snail mail.
It's easy to place all the blame on large corporations, and I think a lot of the blame is warranted, but the other options seem a little scary to me also. So we either use email and hope that no one is snooping, or we give it up.
We tried that with Australia. Look where that got us. Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and Mel Gibson...Hey...maybe we should only send women.
The problem there is there is no clear path for it to take. It would be at the mercy of the winds, which can reach up to 100mph.
I was going to say that, but I'm a little rusty.
That's just stupid. Let's all mod this jerk down...
I haven't read the article, so quantum computing is both explained and unexplained at the moment.
Suppose we change the subject.
Actually, after watching the YouTube video, I was impressed with the government official. She seemed to genuinely want a secure system that helped voters.
Even after one of the scientists presenting said that ballot distribution would have far fewer problems, she pressed him on it, and even asked several questions that led the panel to explain how even ballot distribution could be manipulated.
Silly Troll...it's turtles all the way down.
I'm a teacher and a part-time web designer. I have a custom journal site for my students. One student had an issue where they were getting a truncated error for the journal. It was an nText field. The student had only written about four pages of text. I was confused until I asked her if she cut and pasted from MS Word. She said yes, so I looked at the source. Literally twenty times the code than content. If all the blogs were written in MS Word, I'm afraid the internet would cease to function.
You don't have to explain that to me. I'm no idiot.
Not yet at least.
Third base ain't bad.
A world in which only the idiots die...The idea has promise.
The new Google Docs set up actually shows you exactly where someone is and has almost the same rapid updates as Google Wave. I would guess they are using something similar in Google Docs as they did in Wave.
In fact it can hinder it. I often go into other teachers' classrooms to try and help them with integrating technology into their instruction. Powerpoint is a seductive killer with interaction.
Often times, when a student asks a question that is out of line with the next slide, a teacher who has become reliant on technology to teach for them, rather than using it to enhance their instruction, will ignore the question or gloss over an answer -- at the very moment you KNOW you have a student's interest, the absolute worst time to blow a student off.
Technology should be used in education as it should be in the real world, to facilitate the task at hand. Using PowerPoint is rarely a quality use of technology. Have the students argue with each other in a discussion board. Let them rate each other's work. Give them the ability to interact with the larger world, where their work will be judged, applauded or ridiculed, rather than with seemingly arbitrary letter grades.
The whole technology community should be engaging with their local schools to discuss how technology is used outside of the classroom. Too many teachers are lured in by pretty tech without considering how it will benefit the students beyond the "wow" factor.
</ SoapBox >
What most people don't know is that almost all churches have charters that deal with the complexities evident in the old testament. In those charters they directly or indirectly decide what they are going to accept from the old testament, so there is always interpretation and a desire to sculpt religion into something socially palatable. Do you think Christ was born on December 25?
Not arguing, just expanding.
I like Kelvin. He's a cool guy and all, but what does he have to do with this?
I won't argue that this is sometimes the case. It is certainly within our institutional memory, but I think if you went into high performing schools, like the one where I teach, you would find the majority of the staff rejecting that model outright. There are a few teachers that still espouse that old philosophy, but they generally find themselves swimming against the current.
Where you really see that mentality is in central offices who aren't willing to take the risk to move away from standardized tests and other evaluative measures that actually encourage the kind of philosophy you are mentioning. It's such an obvious problem that a lot of university schools of education are beginning to teach our future educators to be "subversive" teachers.
My suggestion to you and anyone else who is truly concerned about what is happening in education is to either pester your local board of education, or run for a position on it. We need people who see the inherent value of education to get involved.
Here are two videos on TED that look at the concerns that are voiced by a lot of classroom teachers today. This one addresses the need for creativity in our schools, and this one is a look at the lack of wisdom in our institutions today.
I think the potential benefit isn't for those who are confidently intelligent. They see mistakes as a means of learning. The real benefit is for people who are tremendously insecure. They see mistakes and try to explain them away, or blame them on something else, negating the possible positive benefit of seeing why the mistake happened. For instance, they may have overlooked something. Instead of noticing that and learning to look for it the next time, they shy away from looking at the fault in detail.
I see this kind of thing all the time with my students. They misread something, and if I comment on it, no matter how nicely, the shut down because they don't like to be wrong because they think it makes them seem stupid. When in reality, they are trying to use inductive reasoning, which is a huge part of my goal. But...they miss the learning opportunity when they close down.
This article will make its way into my introductory lessons now. It will supplement the big sign on my door that says, "There is nothing wrong with being wrong."
Who pissed in your cornflakes this morning?
You sure got him...
If you felt any sense of joy or superiority by calling someone out for not knowing something that probably isn't as important to him as it is to others, no matter how "common" you feel the information is, you should examine your outlook on life.