If You Open Your Eyes, You'll See the Benefits.

1. Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff, Please.

Scott McLeod is an Associate Professor of Educational Administration at Iowa State University and the Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education. This information was found on his website.

Mr. McLeod’s “Don’t Teach Your Kids This Stuff, Please” is dripping with spite and sarcasm. People who can communicate in this medium are respected by those who appreciate the irony. His point is to persuade others to keep their children away from technology, making it easier for his children to succeed. This ironically conceived attempt reminds me of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”. This form of satire draws attention to the mounting aggravation at the ineptitude of technological illiterates. However, that is enough about my admiration for the presentation style.
About the content: I've read Scott's two posts: Fear and Online Predators: Overblown Threat?. I’d like to read more of Mr. McLeod's blogs (The one's he mentioned are listed in a comment here) so I worry less about the unlimited content on the internet. Perhaps there is fear of children teaching us things, since it is a young concept: an exchange of information from the student or child to the adult.


2. The iSchool Initiative
The ischool initiative is a movement in the progress of education. Travis Allen explains the many ways technology can [and will] revolutionize the education system. The applications already available today interact with students, collaborate with parents and teachers, and limits access to apps not used as educational tools all while reducing our carbon footprint. Making pencils and paper a thing of the past, this initiative can shift education to the kind of interactive learning students have already encountered. Collaborative learning is not another term for cheating. It is the act of shared creation and discovery. This kind of learning fosters communication. In turn, communication is an indispensable tool in contributing to humanity and to future societies.
I do not think the ischool initiative is only an idealistic goal. With enough support, educators and lawmakers should see the advantages of a change like this. The benefits of the ischool are many. They counter the threats to our natural resources and the struggles of our educational system. It is necessary for our students to be skilled in all of the resources available to them. In order to teach, we must continue to learn.


3. A Lost Generation
I think this message conveys a determination we should carry. We can choose to contribute to society and to each other. We can proclaim that environmental damages and catastrophes are unacceptable. The opponent is the lack of motion. Many consider these choices a right, and not a duty. They say it’s just going to get worse, anyway. I think that the best way to change is by small, thought out (not stationary) movement. It’s the same with the ischool from the previous video. Progression is inevitable. We now have the opportunity and the responsibility to make it positive and beneficial.
The style and structure of the presentation of “The Lost Generation” reminded me of a stretched out mirror sonnet (where one writes 7 lines, and recites them forward and then in reverse). The idea is to completely rotate the meaning, feeling, or point of the poem, normally in order to point out two choices or alternatives. The juxtaposition makes the audience aware of both choices’ consequences.


4. Eric Whitaker’s Virtual Choir
I really thought it was fascinating! My reaction is that t is a bit overwhelming that communication in so many forms can take place these ways: a choir of people who’ve never met, magazines and newspapers online, instructional videos from overseas, etc, etc. But that a possibility of these forms is enhancing the human network.