tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83294002402089670252024-03-13T00:44:29.137+00:00 LOSING MY FAITH... Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-14429767046104236942015-11-21T13:17:00.001+00:002015-11-21T13:19:20.432+00:00Cheating againSo I'm experimenting with one French class in having a more rigid written evaluation structure with fewer aids available. Our LMS has a plug-in that locks the computer, allowing access to no other programs until the test is submitted. <br />
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One problem is that there is no place for individual feedback. I need to manually copy the pupil's submitted text, past it into a text file and then send it to them somehow. Lots of fiddling - I want systems that do the work for me. <br />
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The main problem, however is - as usual - technology. Even with weeks of warming up, making sure everyone had installed the plug-in program, etc. etc., it still took 20 minutes to get everyone logged on to the test. Once everyone was finally underway, I don't think there was a single moment at which everyone was writing the test at once with no glitches. After about 45 minutes, some kind of attack on one of our service providers meant that the entire class lost contact with the test and had to re-start. The program is so full of bugs and the support for the system is so weak that I simply can't rely on technology to solve my problems here.<br />
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After the test, one of the pupils wrote to me to complain about cheating. I collected cell phones at the beginning of class but apparently some people took extra phones. <br />
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So what to do? Increased invigilation turns the whole thing into a game. I find this extremely demoralizing - it's not what I'm here for. Is it utopic to think about how we can work towards pupils seeing cheating as meaningless?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-59348779668168226562015-06-04T09:36:00.003+01:002015-11-21T13:19:41.344+00:00SwearingGot rather engaged the other day and upset a pupil who stormed out, slightly to my surprise. "You can't speak to a human being like that!"<br />
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I recounted this to a colleague who said "Ah, you swore, didn't you?"<br />
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Correct.<br />
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Interesting.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-46758079384201151742015-05-29T18:23:00.000+01:002015-11-21T13:20:32.224+00:00Cheater!<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">The last
thing I want to think about, cheating. My job is to help people learn. Period.
Cheating is not relevant to how I see my job at all. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Now, I work
like most other teachers (I imagine). I give tests, all different kinds. Part
of my job is to give concrete, usable feedback and it’s easier if we have a
clear, limited task to comment on. Homework is shakier – I quickly end up
giving comments on someone else’s French. Not useful.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">I also need
to give grades. They should be fair. Norway has no SATs or anything of the
sort. Institutions of higher learning have to make up their own entrance
requirements or simply use high school grades, so most do the latter.
Understandably. This means that my grades have to be fair, so that’s another
good reason to give tests. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Norwegian
students are randomly selected for a small number of exams only, so that means
that it is the grades that I give them that are important, so I shouldn’t
really be surprised that many of them want to cheat. The sudden flood of
cheating this year did surprise me, though. I can’t imagine that they have
suddenly become worse at cheating, so presumably they are cheating more. There
have been some pieces in the media lately about cheating at school, and some of
my colleagues are talking about it, so we could be dealing with a sea change
here. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Teenagers
have traditionally had a dim view of the usefulness of school and in a system
such as the one here, it’s the grades they are after more than the learning.
This clashes with the way I see things: For me, the goal of French class is to
improve your French. If that is the case, then submitting something that you
didn’t write on a test is meaningless. If the goal is to get good grades, it
can be a reasonable, even rational, choice. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">So I need
to admit to myself that I am part of a machine that is bigger than me and that
has goals and functions that I do not approve of (sorting pupils, in this
case). I can quit or change my practice. For the short term at least, I will
have to choose the latter. I can clearly no longer ignore rampant cheating. It
is grossly unfair to those who do not cheat. By not being concerned with
cheating, I am effectively punishing those who do nothing wrong. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">In
practical terms, this means changing evaluation strategies. A wider variety of
oral evaluation is one step. Tighter control of written evaluation is another -
an unavoidable one. Since use of translation programs and communication are
typical cheats, many of my colleagues argue for simple use of pen and paper,
but my trouble is that I have great trouble reading my pupils’ handwriting. Seriously. There
is always at least one paper that is completely illegible. And even for the
papers that are legible, what do I do with them? Mark them and then give them
back? Then they lose them and I am at a disadvantage when they come to me later
and ask for coaching. I need some kind of portfolio of student output and paper
makes this a challenge. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjozoncY1Ddvxm3H-GutBsYR8Pcd8XBoNTbI7vDWKJzwWEKHDyqJ4QadDZOaKuq2OaEuRIh2kMTFiDThBymgJEzK8BTuD9e1WAudU_9c-jT8F4nz5TQWMh3oc250WP-ukWTjjecpG5PEbXv/s1600/teacher-vb.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjozoncY1Ddvxm3H-GutBsYR8Pcd8XBoNTbI7vDWKJzwWEKHDyqJ4QadDZOaKuq2OaEuRIh2kMTFiDThBymgJEzK8BTuD9e1WAudU_9c-jT8F4nz5TQWMh3oc250WP-ukWTjjecpG5PEbXv/s1600/teacher-vb.gif" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">Our LMS has
an add-on program that locks the computer, providing only a blank screen and no
access to other programs until the pupil submits. I think I’ll have to use this
and then paste the response into another program to comment on it. It
doesn’t allow for the use of digital aids, but we’ll just have to work with
those another time…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-63926531029897897772015-05-07T10:41:00.000+01:002015-11-21T13:22:31.002+00:00"When I hear the words 'Formative Assessment', I reach for my gun...."<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">As a schoolteacher,
I have a couple of main functions: helping people learn and evaluating what
they have learned. These are not necessarily complementary functions. The grade
you get at the end of the year may not increase your learning in any way. How
could it? In fact, it may decrease your motivation for future learning.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">The way
this is being dealt with is increasingly to distinguish between ‘assessment <em>of</em>
learning’ and 'assessment <em>for</em> learning’, with the latter being given pride of
place. The rage now is to have a tight focus on the teacher’s assessments of
pupils’ work with the goal of improvement. Children are to be given clear
criteria, to be engaged in the assessment of their own work, and to be given
feedback that clearly points the way forward.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">I sat
recently through a two-day seminar at work with a hired gun expert to help us
work on ‘assessment for learning’. It used to be that Dylan Wiliam with his ‘formative
assessment’ was the hero of the school authorities in Norway, now it’s John
Hattie with ‘feedback’. Pretty much along the same lines. So now we’re all to
become experts in helping pupils understand the criteria for good work and in
giving feedback that is useful for improving.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgOs-KfMQwldKItrUrK65ynFXIeLr7dJiJU1s3lTCVp2sz89yic7xdTbkrxpn-zEKZLdtbWcFLmvNOOZG7W-MELxQ6LFb_cRTLvhlpvtsVPt5mYHt5-NgRB2jnjx097zMNIKTy0pOUsSSy/s1600/2009-05-20_1117.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="124" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgOs-KfMQwldKItrUrK65ynFXIeLr7dJiJU1s3lTCVp2sz89yic7xdTbkrxpn-zEKZLdtbWcFLmvNOOZG7W-MELxQ6LFb_cRTLvhlpvtsVPt5mYHt5-NgRB2jnjx097zMNIKTy0pOUsSSy/s320/2009-05-20_1117.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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The teacher clearly pointing to the path forward</div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Sounds good, doesn’t it? We have lots of solid
research that supports the idea that working with these things will increase
pupils’ scores. Sorry, sorry – I mean of course pupils’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">learning</i>. How could I as a teacher not support such measures?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">The
Norwegian professor of education </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/cappelendammakademisk/posts/672607412828815"><span style="color: #0563c1; font-family: "calibri";">Solveig
Østrem</span></a><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> talks about how teaching rests on a paradox (most recently talked
about this on the radio program ‘<a href="http://radio.nrk.no/serie/sannhetsministeriet/KMTE80002615/25-04-2015">Ministry of Truth’</a> [in Norwegian]). Teaching is
a wish for change in someone else. That “someone else” is, however, a person, a
subject of their own. A subject with certain rights and an innate value as a
human being. By wishing and working for change in other people, we risk having
an instrumental approach to others, treating them as objects for pedagogical
work instead of as active subjects of their own.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">This the
bad feeling I had in my stomach for two days while I was supposed to be happy
that we were thinking about how we could help the students learn more: our
enthusiasm for <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘assessment for learning’
risks letting assessment permeate everything we do, resulting in a highly
instrumental approach to other human beings. We risk creating a school day that
is inhumane and inhuman when our point of departure is always assessment, always improvement. Our
pupils are people first, active subjects of their own, not objects for our
pedagogical measures.</span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"></span></span> </div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p><span style="font-family: "calibri";"> </span></o:p></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-70061408217443418162014-03-16T11:56:00.000+00:002015-11-21T13:23:08.605+00:00Would you stay drunk for 3 weeks right before your final exams?<div style="border: currentColor;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4kocqfjUnrt2B-jqeEgZbxv_50VHUpqazFhR-hmuUGahWiEpBzgulm9FIh8qDTtMsEnOy7e-ueqtF9AyjEAiG3kFoOt9bjr6KPG1zJ1zyUr8bIBaArs6kX243KA2EYHWlIonwzyxrGOVr/s1600/2482450149_40ca8eedae_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" hca="true" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4kocqfjUnrt2B-jqeEgZbxv_50VHUpqazFhR-hmuUGahWiEpBzgulm9FIh8qDTtMsEnOy7e-ueqtF9AyjEAiG3kFoOt9bjr6KPG1zJ1zyUr8bIBaArs6kX243KA2EYHWlIonwzyxrGOVr/s200/2482450149_40ca8eedae_z.jpg" width="200" /></a>It might seem like an odd question, but it isn't a random one. In Norway, it's the tradition. Or, it is in Oslo west and in the wealthy suburb Bærum. The 17th of May is Constitution Day in Norway and the beginning of the exam period. As the date approaches, school life dissolves into a peculiar Vann Gennet-style rite of passage called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ">'russ'.</a> </div>
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A uniform (red overalls) is worn for the whole period and for many pupils, it's a period of partying. Many of them have prepared for ages for this, investing vast amounts of time and money in buses that take them to various parties and compete for 'best-bus' prizes. Norwegian students are unwilling to save for their education, but many work part-time jobs (sometimes for years!) to save up for the 'russ' party period.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXP9FOFO7GxA5RFbh52k7cq4g-5ZiSM7rOVwSjzpuOmm32P9Qg0RMG12xGGsQij4R1A3Ko5N8pjPuhOBpHCkFbObl5_nYNpwhcP1nhbTt3pZkVpxHf7y3nWWBb7aCcvveXn9aFaYHdCv7f/s1600/136811715_d98623302d_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" hca="true" height="152" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXP9FOFO7GxA5RFbh52k7cq4g-5ZiSM7rOVwSjzpuOmm32P9Qg0RMG12xGGsQij4R1A3Ko5N8pjPuhOBpHCkFbObl5_nYNpwhcP1nhbTt3pZkVpxHf7y3nWWBb7aCcvveXn9aFaYHdCv7f/s200/136811715_d98623302d_z.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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It's cold in Norway at this time of year, so it isn't unusual for the entire final year at a school to get sick at this time. Schoolwork often suffers from constant partying and drinking even if pupils manage to stay healthy. Not surprising, then, that adults often complain about the insanity of the whole affair. What is surprising, however, is the lack of any real will to do anything about it. One of the few solid attempts to address the problem lately has been a suggestion to move the <em>exams</em> to a different date. Really. I don't make this stuff up. I don't have to.<br />
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Much of the drive for this celebration is a small number of firms that do really well selling various stuff connected to 'russ' to the kids: overalls, hats, sweaters, lighters, openers, underwear... there's a whole catalogue. Since the target market is already collected for them, it's easy for them to get their material to their customers. It's odd, really, because otherwise, Norway is extremely restrictive about allowing school to be used as a marketing forum. When it comes to russ, the doors open pretty wide. This is a picture of a group of pupils at a non-random school in the fall trying on the uniforms they will order as part of a package of russ material for the spring. This picture was taken during school hours. <br />
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(missing picture)<br />
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Photo credits: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/ronnyandre/">ronny-andre</a>, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/damiel/">Geir Halvorsen</a>, random teacherUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-19570067001178018542013-10-14T13:09:00.001+01:002015-11-21T13:24:20.678+00:00Pedagogy as the art of withholding information<br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">I had a colleague
who enjoyed great respect from his fellow teachers. He would often be the one
who dared come up with a critical and often conservative view in meetings. He
once complained about the practice of having the entire year visible on the
school’s learning platform. “Pedagogy,” he said “Is sometime the art of
withholding things.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">I must
admit I didn’t understand him until much later. On a weekend climbing course, a
participant asked about fall factor, a crucial theoretical concept in rock
climbing. I felt obliged to give a full answer, and a full answer takes some
time. Many of the other participants heard us talking and came over to hear,
necessitating starting anew several times. An outspoken assistant objected to
my explanation and then I really had my hands full with damage control.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "calibri";">The right
thing to do would have been to say: “That’s a really good question. Fall factor
is an important topic, so we’ll talk about it in detail tomorrow.” Tomorrow when it fits in with the progression of the course, tomorrow when I can create a situation that suits the topic, tomorrow when I've managed to awaken their curiosity and previous knowledge in advance. It’s not
about taking things when it suits me, but about taking things when it suits the
students. And the best person to judge the student’s needs is usually …the
teacher. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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The pedagogy of fall factor will be discussed in a different post. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-43595535721624287732012-11-27T06:22:00.001+00:002012-11-27T06:22:32.623+00:00<a href="http://blaugh.com/2006/10/13/the-whole-internet-truth" rel="bookmark"><img class="comic" title="The Whole Internet Truth" alt="The Whole Internet Truth" src="http://blaugh.com/cartoons/061013_internet_citing1.gif" width="450" height="252"/></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-13706176240748093922012-03-03T14:26:00.000+00:002012-03-03T14:26:05.414+00:00The Hook-up GenerationMercifully, I don't think much about my own teenage years. A bit odd, perhaps, since I work with teenagers every day, so you might think I get reminded of my teenage self all the time. There are several reasons that this doesn't happen, but important among them is the fact that my pupils don't seem to be having an adolescence much like the one I had.<br />
<br />
I could list many examples (my Norwegian pupils <em>look</em> nothing like my friends and I did in 1980s Ontario, for instance), but one obvious one is romance. For us, pairing up was a major obsession. You wanted to have someone to kiss in your breaks and hold hands with in the corridors. This kind of visible behaviour exists in the school where I teach, of course, but there is relatively little of it. Surprizingly little, really. Not that my pupils don't hook up, of course. Many of them seem to have hopping social lives that certainly include getting close to the opposite sex, but much of this happens in the context of parties and other social groupings and doesn't necessarily include pairing off over time. <br />
<br />
Now, I can't say I spent much time thinking about this until last week when a<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/patricia-vanderbilt/the-hookup-generation_b_1304953.html"> piece in Patricia Vanderbilt's blog</a> caught my eye. She's a senior at Whitman college in the US, but the situation she describes seems to be one many of my pupils could relate to. Vanderbilt's fellow students hook up, but they don't form romantic partnerships much, certainly not over time. She mentions the role of alcohol (in this kind of situation, there isn't much sex without alcohol) and talks about how the tendency is to have casual sex, or not to have sex. There just isn't much in between.<br />
<br />
So maybe we're looking at some kind of broad cultural change here. Where does it come from? Vanderbilt says: "We're ... image-conscious and self-absorbed. It's hard not to be; we showcase our amazing lives via Facebook and judge our peers by the way that they present themselves online." She argues that among other things this constant self-awareness and self-staging makes people almost too self-concious to talk and that it is anxiety that drives many of her peers to half-drunken casual sex or celibacy. <br />
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Could Facebook be helping to change the nature of romance?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-18743456743752886252012-02-10T10:04:00.000+00:002015-10-01T12:53:51.171+01:00Digital natives my #¤%!<strong><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">(Update and explanation: This post was originally published as part of my </span><a href="http://simon-losingmyfaith.blogspot.com/2009/11/sick-of-gurus.html"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">'Sick of Gurus' series</span></a><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">. Several people read it (I have good information that this included people who read it of their own free will and were not under the influence of mind-altering substances at the time) but no-one commented. Partly because this is a topic I have taken up with a couple of my sociology classes, I </span><a href="http://simon-losingmyfaith.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-09-25T19:28:00%2B01:00&max-results=7"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">re-posted this as a class exercise in English</span></a><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">, getting the pupils to comment as we discussed the art of internet comments. I was so impressed by <a href="http://simon-losingmyfaith.blogspot.no/2011/04/re-post-digital-natives-my.html#comments">my pupils' contributions</a> that I have now done it again here, simply re-cycling the post.</span></strong><br />
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<strong><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">In the time since the original post, however, </span><a href="http://simon-losingmyfaith.blogspot.com/2011/10/plugged-in-generation.html"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">I have wondered if things are changing.</span></a><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"> Is there a culture change afoot amongst teenagers? Interestingly enough, after I had published a more positive post, </span><a href="http://annmic.wordpress.com/"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">Ann Michaelsen</span></a><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">, who works at my school and is far more gung-ho about teaching with Web 2 than I am, </span><a href="http://plpnetwork.com/2011/10/14/what-do-students-want/"><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;">published a post</span></a><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace; font-size: x-small;"> surprizingly in line with my original, more sceptical one.)</span></strong><br />
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<strong>Overestimation of how plugged-in our pupils are.</strong><br />
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If we repeat “our pupils are digital natives” often enough, will it become true? This is part 2 of the series <a href="http://simon-losingmyfaith.blogspot.com/2009/11/sick-of-gurus.html">“Sick of gurus”</a><br />
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I feel left out of much of the discussion on the web (and at conferences). The party line just doesn’t match my experience in the classroom.<br />
Example:<br />
<blockquote>
<a href="http://sharepoint.niles-hs.k12.il.us/technology/aal/Wiki%20Pages/Home.aspx">Our students are citizens of the 21st century. They read, communicate, collaborate, socialize, work, explore, and learn with personal technologies. They are the Millennials, who share ideas and dreams on social networking sites, follow streams of information from web page to web page, and use technology, reading, writing, and critical thinking skills in almost every aspect of their lives.</a></blockquote>
This is an extreme example, but the web is full of this ‘digital native’ stuff. I’m sorry, it just isn’t so. It seems to me like a classic case of the Bellman’s fallacy (from Carrolls’ <a href="http://ingeb.org/songs/justthep.html">The Hunting of the Snark’</a>) : “What I tell you three times is true”. Cut off from the classroom, the gurus just keep repeating this kind of thing to each other until they believe it. I’m sorry, but while my pupils are literate, media-interested, highly privileged, at-least-4-computers-at-home, online 24/7 types, the large majority of them do not use social networking to learn anything or collaborate and they certainly aren’t out there using ‘critical thinking skills.’<br />
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They don’t use cloud computing, they don’t use social bookmarking, few of them blog,<em> </em>very few of them have ever uploaded anything to YouTube. They read Wikipedia, but don’t know what a wiki <em>is</em> and have never contributed to a wiki, looked at a history page or subscribed to changes. None of them know what a podcast is. They may know what RSS is, but almost none of them use it on their own. They don’t tweet. They don’t even use stuff like Digg. They just don’t use modern technology for what <em>we</em> would like them to and even <a href="http://simon-losingmyfaith.blogspot.com/2009/09/technology-anyone.html">resist adults trying to get them to approach digital and social/digital media in the ways we think are productive.</a> <br />
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My pupils are plugged into ‘Web 2.0’ (asked if they have FaceBook accounts, they look at you strangely - it’s a bit like asking if they have noses) but they use it for social connection, not for collaboration. Their approach is fundamentally passive. Their use of things like wikis and YouTube are good examples – these things are deeply embedded in their everyday lives, but in they don’t use or approach these things the way I do (or - aha! - the way <em>I</em> would like <em>them </em>to). <br />
<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/SxZZQGx9FtI/AAAAAAAAAHw/K2SS61VrdPM/s1600-h/Nohatlogonowordsbgwhite200px3.jpg"><img alt="Nohat-logo-nowords-bgwhite-200px" border="0" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/SxZZQp5CVBI/AAAAAAAAAH0/PZzs-ZE_r8s/Nohatlogonowordsbgwhite200px_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" height="160" style="border-width: 0px; display: inline;" title="Nohat-logo-nowords-bgwhite-200px" width="160" /></a> <br />
For me, wikis are one of the watersheds in human history: the emergence of massively collaborative systems for organizing information. You <em>read</em> the Encyclopedia Brittanica, you <em>participate</em> in Wikipedia. My pupils read them and use them in the same way. <br />
<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/SxZZQ41GdTI/AAAAAAAAAH4/dp1l5KJx8ew/s1600-h/edit_this_page%5B2%5D.png"><img alt="edit_this_page" border="0" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/SxZZRTUeTTI/AAAAAAAAAH8/pz-Kqqv32FU/edit_this_page_thumb.png?imgmax=800" height="80" style="border: 0px currentColor; display: inline;" title="edit_this_page" width="182" /></a> <br />
I am starting to love services like YouTube and its imitators and spin-offs. The ease of embedding content all over the place is another real watershed.<br />
<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/SxZZSGcmWfI/AAAAAAAAAIA/wnuptCz_1Bs/s1600-h/embed_code%5B1%5D.png"><img alt="embed_code" border="0" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/SxZZSnlWt-I/AAAAAAAAAIE/5RhTWPKjfHg/embed_code_thumb%5B1%5D.png?imgmax=800" height="52" style="border: 0px currentColor; display: inline;" title="embed_code" width="270" /></a>My pupils, however, do not share my mania for mashing it up. They just like the access to pictures and music that the modern web affords.<br />
<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/SxZZTA3UZqI/AAAAAAAAAII/puA2HqB_6I4/s1600-h/RSS3.png"><img alt="RSS" border="0" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/SxZZTriUkpI/AAAAAAAAAIM/7F0QKeLQ2ew/RSS_thumb1.png?imgmax=800" height="56" style="border-width: 0px; display: inline;" title="RSS" width="88" /></a> <br />
It’s also interesting that, while many of them know what RSS is, they don’t use it. For me, this is again a fundamental change in the way the internet fits into my life: what I am interested in comes to me. This isn’t an interesting approach, it seems, to a generation that has grown up zapping their way around. <br />
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We don’t like it, but the most popular Norwegian social networking site for teens ( I teach in Norway) is <a href="http://www.deiligst.no/">this.</a> (Don’t click if you’re squeamish or easily depressed – it’s the Norwegian version of 'Hot or Not') I know that the ages of contributors on the first page are high, but don’t be fooled. What teenagers are doing here is indeed uploading and sharing content, but this isn’t what I think of as collaboration or useful learning. They are posing – and competing for attention and approval. They also seem to be participating in their own objectification. <br />
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My point is: if we want a generation that “shares and collaborates” on the web and that “uses critical thinking” in its interaction with media, we’re going to have to work hard to produce it. The idea that technology produces these things by itself in some magical way is so hopelessly out of touch with reality I’m amazed I’ve managed to write so much about it here…Unknownnoreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-25103478576225761892012-01-31T10:02:00.000+00:002012-01-31T10:02:00.627+00:00Catchy title: becauseHow pathetic we all are at blogging. I'm trying to refrain from adding anything - just <a href="http://edinsanity.com/2012/01/16/every-blog-post-ever-communication-fail/">click the link</a>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-59756248500991339422012-01-01T10:23:00.001+00:002012-01-01T10:25:20.430+00:00Twitter = .....er?It took me a while to notice this, but the folks at <a href="http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/10-charts-about-sex/">OK Cupid</a> have laid it all out.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7Ra7w2Sz2dE/TwAzlmTnz5I/AAAAAAAAALk/0I3BMMRGi3k/s1600/Twitter2.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" rea="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7Ra7w2Sz2dE/TwAzlmTnz5I/AAAAAAAAALk/0I3BMMRGi3k/s320/Twitter2.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aPVd3Fdbe4k/TwAzqAdSSwI/AAAAAAAAALs/RKnUbDLrLRs/s1600/Twitter.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aPVd3Fdbe4k/TwAzqAdSSwI/AAAAAAAAALs/RKnUbDLrLRs/s1600/Twitter.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" rea="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aPVd3Fdbe4k/TwAzqAdSSwI/AAAAAAAAALs/RKnUbDLrLRs/s320/Twitter.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-58311707724013879632011-10-12T11:43:00.001+01:002011-10-13T20:02:30.850+01:00"There are no Apple people"<a href="http://lhote.blogspot.com/2011/10/resentment-machine.html">Freddie deBoer's piece on the role of the Internet</a> in culture deserves a read. Really, even if the middle (partially US-specific) bit could use a little tightening.<br />
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Got this via <a href="http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=11825">Dan Meyer</a> who sees this as a complement to the way Will Richardson sees the 'net, but I wonder if this isn't instead some kind of critique of Will's thinking.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-5709160145172055332011-10-12T10:05:00.003+01:002011-10-20T09:38:17.746+01:00The plugged-in generation?I've noted in previous posts how <a href="http://simon-losingmyfaith.blogspot.com/2011/04/re-post-digital-natives-my.html">my pupils seem much less plugged-in</a> than the<a href="http://simon-losingmyfaith.blogspot.com/2009/11/sick-of-gurus.html"> gurus</a> wish they were. Things may be changing.<br />
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A couple of years ago, I asked a class how many of them had seen something on YouTube within the last 24 hours. <br />
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Thirty hands.<br />
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How many have <em>ever</em> uploaded anything to YouTube?<br />
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One hand. <br />
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The rest just looked at me. <em>Up</em>load? Wasn't I saying that wrong? I didn't even bother to ask my planned question about YouTube channels. Queries about other media like Wikis got the same reponse - they look, they don't participate. My conclusion was that teenagers may be on the internet, but they are passive there, not active. I've even made this a topic for analysis in sociology class a couple of times.<br />
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This year, however, I asked a year 11 class similar questions and got radically different answers. Half the class actually had their own YouTube channel. Other questions about, say, Wikis showed a similar trend. (Well, except blogging which seems to be getting <em>less</em> popular. And teenagers still don't tweet much.)<br />
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So - maybe things <em>are</em> changing. I suspect so.<br />
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<strong>Update: Interestingly enough, after I wrote this, Ann Michaelsen published a <a href="http://plpnetwork.com/2011/10/14/what-do-students-want/">piece that is quite in line </a>with <a href="http://simon-losingmyfaith.blogspot.com/2011/04/re-post-digital-natives-my.html">my original post</a>, particularly in its conclusion. </strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-53558546455705804482011-09-28T11:35:00.003+01:002011-09-28T11:37:21.826+01:00Dan MeyerI keep trying to stop wasting my time reading a math teacher blog.<br />
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Then he posts something like <a href="http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=11563">this shot at</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM95HHI4gLk#t=08m43s">Sal Kahn</a> and I know I'm still hooked.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-91218564890657486012011-09-25T19:28:00.002+01:002011-09-25T19:28:31.379+01:00Cory Doctorow on Writing in the Age of Distraction<a href="http://www.locusmag.com/Features/2009/01/cory-doctorow-writing-in-age-of.html">Fantastic article. </a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-21406747510513954342011-04-07T11:00:00.000+01:002015-10-01T12:41:26.160+01:00Re-post: Digital Natives, my @#¤%!<strong>Repost, also <a href="http://simon-losingmyfaith.blogspot.com/2012/02/digital-natives-my.html">available further up</a>.</strong>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-27163072677479119222011-03-28T10:34:00.000+01:002011-03-28T10:34:15.384+01:00Stop linking to 'Top 100 Blog' posts<a href="http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=9672&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dydan1+%28dy%2Fdan+posts+%2B+lessons%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher">From dy/dan</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-62719690153036653202011-01-07T11:01:00.000+00:002015-11-21T13:33:35.464+00:00Facebook = the air we breathe? / Etherpad<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
Teaching a colleague's English class as a substitute, so I'm using Etherpad as a collaborative writing tool (details later in this post). When they go to read and comment on each other's work, they need to send the URL for the pad where their work is stored. To do this, they simply send the URL via Facebook. One pupil is not logged on to Facebook, so the others tell him to do so and then they wait for him. They also ask <em>why</em> he isn't logged on, since this seems strange to them. He points out that he is at school, in class and actually working, but this doesn't cut it with his fellow 17 year-olds. The conclusion seems to be that he's a bit odd or that he's trying hard to project a certain image.</div>
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Now, my school has an LMS with a perfectly adequate message system and they are likely all logged on here, but it doesn't even occur to them to use such a tool for a practical purpose. Waiting for their classmate to log on to Facebook rather than just send him a message via the LMS is particularly telling. Facebook is the air we breathe; anything to do with school is by definition not relevant for actually <em>doing</em> something. </div>
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For anyone interested, here is how I was working with Etherpad:</div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Since I was a substitute, I didn't have access to the class pages in our LMS, so I needed some easy, free-access web resource. Etherpad seems to have closed, but lots of people are hosting pads that are freely accessible. I like to use </span><a href="http://piratepad.net/front-page/"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">PiratePad</span></a><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">, mostly 'cause I adore the frog with the eyepatch on the opening page. Maybe it gives me some cred, using a site with the word 'pirate' in it, but I don't know. (Skinny, balding, forty-something white guys probably shouldn't even try to be cool.)</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVOIrW3PM4ZevcPESI45HijexIL3xYV_pjIMcx_CXeeZpYPORtFhn58LPhpMsdC9UlpEq2HuSdLVZ7NHQmwXBoWkO__8h2eHEZcPA4lxM1mUN7uk6-s4TnltFZIw8E4eP8lX1ebF3JrJ-/s1600/Etherpad.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><img border="0" height="156" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGVOIrW3PM4ZevcPESI45HijexIL3xYV_pjIMcx_CXeeZpYPORtFhn58LPhpMsdC9UlpEq2HuSdLVZ7NHQmwXBoWkO__8h2eHEZcPA4lxM1mUN7uk6-s4TnltFZIw8E4eP8lX1ebF3JrJ-/s320/Etherpad.png" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Pupils pair up and write text, preferably tightly defined. (On this day, we had been examining globally available English-language cable channels and had spent some time on Al-Jazeera English. The pupils were to write a letter to the editor addressing some of Al-Jazeera's more controversial practices.) Once a text has been written, the pair send their text to another pair and read the text of a third pair. They can make corrections, suggestions and comments in the text and in the separate chat that goes with each text. A certain amount of F2F also occurs - as a teacher I find this fine to encourage, but having to write comments down also makes them more serious and structured and improves the oral discussion. Having the authors nearby helps keep the written comments polite. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I then get them to send their text to a new pair for a new evaluation, so that each pair evaluates two other texts and gets two evaluations on the text that they produced. One can just stop there, or revise the texts based on the feedback. They can then be submitted to the teacher or used in some other way. I'm using a longer-term version of this in French class for texts that will eventually be used on a web-site. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">If you're a teacher and haven't used Etherpad, I do recommend you try it. Easy to use and quite powerful.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-23219473151986104182010-11-17T10:16:00.007+00:002010-11-17T10:41:25.093+00:00Prisoner’s dilemmaBack to <a href="http://simon-losingmyfaith.blogspot.com/2010/02/playing-games.html">playing games</a>… I have previously played a tournament of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma">prisoner’s dilemma</a> with some of my pupils. <br />
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The basic idea is that of two prisoners who cannot communicate before deciding on their strategy. Do they rat on each other? If only one chooses this strategy, he wins and is set free. If both rat on each other, however, they are both lying and both lose. The rational thing to do is to keep quiet, but this depends on co-operation without the possibility of communication beforehand. <br />
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I introduced last year’s class to a set of rules for a simple re-iterated version of the game in one class and then the next time we met, they launched into a full tournament.<br />
<ul><li>Each pair plays three games and then switches </li>
<li>I use the following score matrix (about the simplest version of the game) </li>
</ul><table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" style="width: 400px;"><tbody>
<tr><td valign="top" width="137"></td><td valign="top" width="129"><span style="color: #004000;">Player 2 attacks</span></td><td valign="top" width="133"><span style="color: maroon;">Player 2 stays passive</span></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top" width="137"><strong>Player 1 attacks</strong></td><td valign="top" width="129"><span style="color: #004000;"><strong>Player 1: 0 points <br />
Player 2: 0 points</strong></span></td><td valign="top" width="133"><strong><span style="color: maroon;">Player 1: 2 points <br />
Player 2: 0 points </span></strong></td></tr>
<tr><td valign="top" width="137"><em>Player 1 stays passive</em></td><td valign="top" width="129"><span style="color: #004000;"><em>Player 1: 0 points <br />
Player 2: 2 points</em></span></td><td valign="top" width="133"><span style="color: maroon;"><em>Player 1: 1 point <br />
Player 2: 1 point</em></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
After a warm-up round, I had each player decide on a strategy in advance. The strategy could be as simple as ‘always attack’ or as complicated as they could think of, including principles for modifying tactics as the game progressed.<br />
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The idea was to play a round and then get them to revise their rules before playing a second round, hoping that they would eventually hit on the fact that they have to trust each other to get anywhere. I blinked here, however. Discussion in the break made me think that they were a long way from understanding this and I broke off the game. Afterwards, I felt that this was a mistake. I should have just let them play several rounds until they finally got the point. Sometimes, as a teacher you have to accept the fact that learning takes time. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGv8-NZTOPqaU17LGTr9rp5P9D98TByvIrKvVghUN_Pfti5AjYuPbf9axGKkEWE3WmwPb1vKWlQEK8-IvodUtDMoffollX0OmJzBFDd_4K0H_3mkuWCXSNAF0ogcR6KzlTyzAM9Qc_pLJr/s1600/human+being+will+betray+you.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGv8-NZTOPqaU17LGTr9rp5P9D98TByvIrKvVghUN_Pfti5AjYuPbf9axGKkEWE3WmwPb1vKWlQEK8-IvodUtDMoffollX0OmJzBFDd_4K0H_3mkuWCXSNAF0ogcR6KzlTyzAM9Qc_pLJr/s320/human+being+will+betray+you.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
This year, I just taught them the game and then launched into it. Again, after the first round, they could adjust their strategy and then we played another round. They hadn’t hit on altruism as a strategy, but they were certainly learning. It seemed as if they weren’t going to hit on it immediately, and they began to complain and get bored, so once again I broke off the game. Still, they had experienced enough of the game that I could riff off this experience. A ‘teachable moment’. <br />
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What does this teach? Well, I think this is one of the places where game theory is really useful for analyzing ‘real life’. Think about teaching the Cold War, when the whole world was in effect involved in a giant high-stakes round of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. To a degree, this can give insight into all social life, since all social life depends on counting on other people to mostly do what they are supposed to. We can almost always be exploited, but the cost of always guarding against exploitation by others is too high. We have to mostly count on most people doing what they are supposed to do most of the time, even though they could be rewarded by misusing our trust and a game like this can be a way to simplify and emphasize this for young people.<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo credits: </span><a href="http://www.behance.net/PeterBruce"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Peter Bruce</span></a><span style="font-size: xx-small;">, </span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/beginasyouare/"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Mike_tn's</span></a></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-33853153659538727782010-10-26T17:27:00.001+01:002010-10-26T17:28:15.431+01:00Save the Oxford comma!The utter importance of preserving the final serial comma.<br />
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From Bruce Baugh via <b><a href="http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012652.html#012652"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Patrick Nielson Hayden</span></a></b> via <a href="http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/10/patrick-nielsen-hayden-the-return-of-the-final-serial-commas-vital-necessity.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;"><strong>Brad DeLong</strong></span></a><strong> </strong>via<strong> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_2029149876">Je</a></strong><strong><a href="http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/2010/10/why-it-is-vitally-necessary-to-prevent.html">ff Weintraub</a></strong><strong> </strong>via<strong> </strong><a href="http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=8338#comments"><strong>Dan Meyer</strong></a> . <br />
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"Among those interviewed were his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall. "<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Verily, the mind boogles. No wonder this one made the rounds. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilKd16Rc3I64Gb1DCccfLqZI1g7o0M2rOjPyQd-ohcCZ1AjDBWQSTNJ9LAyAbEfPA6qj8mdeuWUNNMdG0mRZvD3F9jAHCQncxHAlsl9OBWVeIZFC1MTX0EOfIFzWFwXqJ6tH4iZ68c8HZ5/s1600/Merle+Haggard.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" nx="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilKd16Rc3I64Gb1DCccfLqZI1g7o0M2rOjPyQd-ohcCZ1AjDBWQSTNJ9LAyAbEfPA6qj8mdeuWUNNMdG0mRZvD3F9jAHCQncxHAlsl9OBWVeIZFC1MTX0EOfIFzWFwXqJ6tH4iZ68c8HZ5/s400/Merle+Haggard.jpg" width="347" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: left;">The best has to be <a href="http://vlorbik.blogspot.com/">vlorbik'</a>s contribution on Dan Meyer's page:</div><br />
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"I'd like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-79867550255268723242010-09-10T13:23:00.001+01:002010-09-10T13:23:16.275+01:00Fear - How to teach when fear takes over completely?<p> </p> <p>I’ve been chewing on this topic all summer, but never really get far. Time to post some disjointed thoughts, maybe. In the holidays, I sometimes take the odd summer job - climbing courses for the Norwegian tourist association. Nice to change my office from this:</p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TIojJL6R-OI/AAAAAAAAAKM/YwLOCAtA9K4/s1600-h/desk%5B2%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="desk" border="0" alt="desk" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TIojJi4CypI/AAAAAAAAAKQ/TtF5dfV4WN4/desk_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="164" /></a> </p> <p>To this:</p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TIojJzflw3I/AAAAAAAAAKU/ltIGxA4eyZA/s1600-h/DSC01324%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC01324" border="0" alt="DSC01324" align="left" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TIojKZyudCI/AAAAAAAAAKY/YhForlZtE3o/DSC01324_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="184" height="244" /></a> </p> <p>So: there's always someone on a climbing course who freaks out. At least on the inside. For this person, their own struggle with fear becomes the main component of the whole course. It often happens on rappel. Halfway down, the student freezes and an instructor often has to go down/up to them and talk them down, even re-rig and take them down physically. </p> <p> </p> <p>These people often take things easier afterwards, dropping out of sessions as much as possible and not covering any optional material. Still, even though they may seem to accomplish less than most, these individuals who struggle with fear may be the ones who walk away with the greatest feeling of accomplishment. That's why I do kind of like beginner courses, even though many instructors look down on them. </p> <p> </p> <p>But what about those who just give in to their fear, or who don't manage to get any further? It happened to me on a course this year: a student just gave in completely to fear each time she attempted something and the course ended without her having achieved anything, really. The question that gnaws me is of course: could I, as a teacher, have done anything differently to help this person? </p> <p> </p> <p>Fear is often an issue when taking the inexperienced outdoors. Heli-ski guides can have trouble because extremely dangerous situations on winter snow can be perceived as harmless by skiers accustomed to managed ski slopes. Rock-climbing instructors can experience the reverse, with students or clients paralyzed by fear in safe situations. This is what happened on my course. We don’t have beginners in dangerous situations, but they may find themselves in unfamiliar situations and ones that <em>look</em> dangerous. Every so often, someone cracks and doesn’t manage to overcome their fear (fear, again, of a safe situation).</p> <p> </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TIojKoVyTYI/AAAAAAAAAKc/KCSTwdG282M/s1600-h/DSC01320%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC01320" border="0" alt="DSC01320" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TIojLEoghRI/AAAAAAAAAKg/FNixkIkGjEE/DSC01320_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="184" height="244" /></a> </p> <p>What happens here? My thinking is that this may be a product of our modern, protected lifestyle. This lifestyle can result in a very limited play of emotions, and when different emotions finally occur, the flood of feelings can be so overwhelming, unfamiliar, and awful, that the individual looses the ability to decide on their own actions. Fear, to take my example here. </p> <p> </p> <p>Fear is not itself a negative thing. It keeps us alive. Our feelings connect us to our lives and help us navigate through them and fear is the most fundamental. I believe that fear is the primeval emotion – all animals must feel some kind of fear. Not all organisms seem to feel contentment or love, but everything avoids what is dangerous to it. Fear is directly connected to an organism’s survival, so it isn’t surprising that fear is a powerful emotion with somatic effects. </p> <p> </p> <p>My wife thinks that many of us are unable to distinguish between our emotions and our<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TIojLrtq5tI/AAAAAAAAAKk/cqRfM4ucMrw/s1600-h/Gunks%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Gunks" border="0" alt="Gunks" align="left" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TIojMLJy--I/AAAAAAAAAKo/QPgPIQBRTko/Gunks_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="166" height="244" /></a>selves, especially in these moments of powerful feeling. Myself, when I am afraid, I am able to look at my fear a bit from the outside and think about whether or not I am reacting to something real about my present situation or if my situation is simply provoking old emotions. An inability to  do this may result in an inability to function when powerful emotion takes over. This seems to be what happened to a couple of my students this summer. Unable to distinguish between themselves and their fear, they have no opportunity to function when they are afraid. Some really absurd situations result. This summer, one woman sat whimpering on a ledge despite being fully secure when another young woman who was full of excitement at something she had just done skipped by her unsecured on the same ledge, smiling and chattering. I frequently see small children waltz up climbing routes chattering to their parents, while on the next route a frightened adult student cowers, completely paralyzed by fear.</p> <p> </p> <p>Well – is there anything to learn from this? Does any of this have relevance for the classroom? I think so, because many pupils struggle with fear in the classroom. Many educators think of the fear that pupils fear in the classroom as something different than the fear one feels in a ‘dangerous’ situation, but I feel my experiences as a climbing instructor ch<a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TIojMQ9zP0I/AAAAAAAAAKs/X-ctMonnzKU/s1600-h/P9160011%5B3%5D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="P9160011" border="0" alt="P9160011" align="left" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TIojM3ikv9I/AAAAAAAAAKw/2c4x3NDVYAQ/P9160011_thumb%5B1%5D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a>allenges this thinking. One can’t make a distinction between rational and irrational fear. Fear is always ‘real’ to the one who feels it, and fear on a climbing route may be far less rational than the fear of one’s classmates. The key is the relationship the student has to his or her own emotions and their ability to not be taken over by fear but to let other parts of themselves decide on their course of action. </p> <p> </p> <p></p> <p>So how can we as educators help students overcome by fear? My thinking above would seem to hint that these are complex issues rooted in the student’s life experience, so the help we can offer is limited, especially in the case of weekend courses. Being supportive (eye contact!) and challenging  at the same time seems to help, and so does breaking things down into one task at a time. Present a frightened person with simply the next step they have to do, not the whole project.</p> <p> </p> <p>Since I believe that the problem may be rooted in the student’s relationship to their own emotions, the teacher / instructor can help by trying to make the student aware that they are not the same as their emotional reactions, but that these things are simply a healthy part of them. This is a long journey for some people and we have to have realistic expectations about what we can accomplish with people in the time we have available. </p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-88649539988683454142010-09-08T20:26:00.002+01:002010-09-08T20:30:27.745+01:00Death by blogging / Podcast<p>A few of my pupils looked disturbed as a mentioned the class blog. "Not another blog! I've already lost track of all the blogs I'm supposed to write." Humn. Maybe we're overdoing it a tad...</p> <p> </p> <p>I was able to inform them that, this time, this was a teacher-run class blog, not an individual blog. At the moment, it's basically a podcast. Each class, a new student is assigned to sum up the day's work and submit their summation to me as an mp3 file. </p> <p> </p> <p>I save the mp<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TIfjZOtJbUI/AAAAAAAAAJs/sGTgnOwiaqE/s1600-h/Upload%5B3%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; border-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Upload" border="0" alt="Upload" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TIfjZizVGfI/AAAAAAAAAJw/k2cKSL9RyjQ/Upload_thumb%5B1%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="115" height="72" /></a>3 on a free, open web archive. At the moment, I'm using <a href="http://www.archive.org/">the Internet Archive</a>, which is sort of awkward to use, but works well once you've finally uploaded your file. It saves your file and generates a URL for it.</p> <p> </p> <p> The blog has link fields enabled, meaning that the title of the blog post is itself a link, in this case to the audio file submitted by my student. In Blogger, it’s simple to set this – you just check a box in the ‘settings’ tab.  </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TIfjZ4v8uWI/AAAAAAAAAJ8/m5mfIGKJ7s0/s1600-h/show_link_field%5B3%5D.png"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="show_link_field" border="0" alt="show_link_field" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TIfjaR0ks2I/AAAAAAAAAKA/htzlvqxWkO8/show_link_field_thumb%5B1%5D.png?imgmax=800" width="362" height="82" /></a></p> <p> </p> <p>When I set this up, Blogger’s built-in feed was inadequate (don’t know if they’ve improved it), so I used <a href="http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/myfeeds?gsessionid=qEIEKfA4g7aqqWWQvQeG1g">Feed Burner</a> to burn a feed for the blog. Feed Burner, now owned by Google, works well for podcasting. All my pupils have to do is open the blog once, click on subscribe, and they then get the podcasts automatically sent to their service (they’re teenagers, so almost all of them use iTunes) every week. The ones who synchronize their iPod with their computer get the podcast automatically on their iPod as well. </p> <p> </p> <p>I was a bit disorganized last time I did this, but now that I’m a bit slicker, I’m excited to let this run for a few months and then get the pupil’s feedback on this.</p> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-16047717208545561832010-08-31T10:39:00.001+01:002010-08-31T10:40:59.546+01:00Close those machines!This year's leader for our student council came to our last staff meeting to introduce herself. She began by asking all the teachers to close their laptops. At the end of her short presentation, she couldn't help but comment with a smile that not all the teachers had done as she had asked.<br />
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I've pondered this before: lots of teachers (myself included) spend lots of time managing student computer use. Some of us spend a lot of time lamenting the poor spirit shown by students sitting in the classroom doing something other than what they should be doing. But - adults seem to be exactly the same. <br />
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What conclusion can we draw here?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-21985502349410205532010-08-03T17:46:00.003+01:002010-08-08T17:40:42.503+01:00GPS and ugly shoes: Tech and mental flabbiness<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TFhHyM8sU2I/AAAAAAAAAI8/RBOOr9DEggo/s1600-h/GPSfrommroach3.jpg" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img align="left" alt="GPS from mroach" border="0" height="184" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TFhHyUa7XwI/AAAAAAAAAJA/cvBkct_V4XM/GPSfrommroach_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px;" title="GPS from mroach" width="244" /></a>I’ve been on holiday recently, and once again borrowed my Father-in-law’s GPS for the car. It gets me thinking. The GPS is fun to use, and sometimes quite useful, but it can also get one into trouble since it replaces part of the thinking process without thinking itself. </div><br />
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We humans are actually quite good at orienting ourselves in space, extrapolating from incomplete information and reassessing based on observations. It’s probably healthy to stretch this capacity once in a while. The trouble with the GPS is that one quickly gets a far more passive attitude to navigation.<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TFhHy3N_f8I/AAAAAAAAAJE/LIxRzx1h_-4/s1600-h/InkyBobscompasspic2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Inky Bob's compass pic" border="0" height="161" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TFhHzbnHpXI/AAAAAAAAAJI/mSbHINMzvjg/InkyBobscompasspic_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; display: inline;" title="Inky Bob's compass pic" width="244" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I think of the parallel to the physical world. It’s natural for us humans to find ways of saving energy and making jobs easier. Cars, elevators, wood-splitting machines – thousands of inventions make our lives easier. The trouble is that our bodies are adapted to an active lifestyle and all these inventions actually make us sick. Obesity and other effects of a sedentary lifestyle such as back problems have become major health issues in the western world. There is a growing awareness that we need to be far more physically active than we are, but so far this has mostly extended to filling up our free time with compensatory exercise. We drive to work, sit at our desks and then use the exercise room on our break. A bit absurd?</div><br />
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A new trend is slowly appearing however, based on trying to adapt our everyday life to our needs. I have, for instance, become one of those people who wear those silly-looking shoes designed to simulate walking on a soft, uneven surface. <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TFhHz4SMqQI/AAAAAAAAAJM/vw8f5BL9owo/s1600-h/F_DSC01283%5B2%5D.jpg"><img alt="F_DSC01283" border="0" height="184" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TFhH0B4jAFI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/ZlzHV983x3s/F_DSC01283_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline;" title="F_DSC01283" width="244" /></a> We are poorly adapted for the hard, flat floors that I walk on all day long, so the idea is that by simulating the kind of surface we are adapted to walk on (soft, uneven), we can avoid some of the health problems of modern life. In this case, poor posture, reduced balance, short hamstrings, etc. These shoes are also harder to walk on, removing some of the ease of the modern lifestyle and re-inserting more physical work into daily routine. <br />
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Now, the GPS makes me wonder if we have started doing the same thing to our minds that we have done to our bodies: our brains, like our bodies, need exercise, and we are increasingly getting machines to do the tedious work of thinking for us. How does this affect us? I was helping a year nine student with a math problem a while back and part of the path to the solution required him to find 3 times 49. To my surprise (and dismay), he reached for his calculator. <br />
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Now, I’ve thought about this and anyone who uses a calculator to find the product of 3 and 49 is …well, <em>damaged</em> by access to calculators. For any normal person, multiplying 3 by 50 and then subtracting 3 is much, much faster than doing the work with a calculator, so dependency on calculators is actually slowing this person down. There are other issues here, however. This student didn’t even consider for a moment an alternative to his calculator, so it seems that calculator use has encouraged a passive attitude to numbers. Math is the subject that is most often a problem for schoolkids, so I wonder if we aren’t worsening the situation by teaching them dependency on pacifying tools.<br />
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I don’t mean to be a Luddite. We have become capable of so much more by ‘extending our brains’ onto external aids. Think of how much more we can do with just a pencil and a piece of paper than without. I’m a better shopper when I use a shopping list. Although I could practice mnemonics to use instead of my list, I prefer to use my brain power on other things. There is an urban myth about Albert Einstein not knowing his own telephone number. He had it written down if he needed it and could free brain space for more important things. <br />
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Whether this story is true or not, there is a point here. Tools make us capable of more, amplifying muscle or brain power and taking over mundane, repetitive tasks so that we can focus on the big stuff. To get back to the navigation example: I can navigate without a compass, but I’m much, much better if I have a compass. Isn’t the GPS just another step up? To think of my physical parallel: I live in an apartment building and wouldn’t want to get rid of my elevator. When my fridge dies, I don’t want to haul it down the stairs. The trick is to <em>not</em> take the elevator when I don’t have a fridge to carry. Walk to the store, bicycle to work, etc. These things get talked about all the time. Do we need to start talking about the mental equivalents?<br />
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<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TFhH1EA_6SI/AAAAAAAAAJU/210ea0F4T7M/s1600-h/310144913_a666c6199e%5B2%5D.jpg"><img alt="310144913_a666c6199e" border="0" height="184" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_oTU-SLimU1o/TFhH1bkuNpI/AAAAAAAAAJY/S_lWXz_pzUI/310144913_a666c6199e_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline;" title="310144913_a666c6199e" width="244" /></a><br />
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(I seem to remember reading a similar piece a while back, also taking a GPS as a point of departure. Can anyone remember seeing it?)<br />
Photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mroach/">mraoch</a>, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/inkybob/">Inky Bob</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8329400240208967025.post-77304005409398701372010-07-29T21:40:00.005+01:002010-08-01T17:02:41.588+01:00Does this blog exist?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQwLAhyphenhyphenFhmHJF1FohQo8KTb3Vf8pNeCjhzwEyihrCb9Xh1Hk8vK9rtESxXdhxD_dF8aJI-8Ve2XPYHCmLfzbRka9dEdc-DB2WeZSLFFrBsFdODVY9eBrscd9SdvIpfCvKFwdncfxuSaTDt/s1600/Simons+phone+862.JPG"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5500472285210387458" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQwLAhyphenhyphenFhmHJF1FohQo8KTb3Vf8pNeCjhzwEyihrCb9Xh1Hk8vK9rtESxXdhxD_dF8aJI-8Ve2XPYHCmLfzbRka9dEdc-DB2WeZSLFFrBsFdODVY9eBrscd9SdvIpfCvKFwdncfxuSaTDt/s320/Simons+phone+862.JPG" /></a><br />Bogus question - yes it does. I've just been too busy with other things to spend enough time on it. First with exams (more on exams soon - I've been thinking a great deal about exams lately). And I've been on vacation (this is the house we rented). If you're not the least bit envious, then you haven't studied the picture closely enough.<br /><br /><br /><br />I'll get back to classrooms and computers soon enough, but first, a little reflection on ugly shoes, mental flabbiness, GPS and ...fear.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0