Dr. Tim Tyson NECC 2007 closing keynote speech

I have to admit that I was slightly skeptical about the nature of this speech.  Generally these keynote speeches, while usually inspiring and interesting, are filled with idealistic visions and tales of impossible-to-achieve potential that have no real foundation in reality.  I was very pleased to discover that this was not the case with Dr. Tyson’s address.

The speech began with an introduction to the concept of “School 2.0″ – a program designed to focus less on the “rules and regulations” of school, and instead promote “meaning” in students’ education.  Now, this may sound like an idealistic concept on the surface, but Dr. Tyson’s support for the initiative is quite convincing.  His method for promoting meaning is in asking “When does life become meaningful?” – The answer? Right now.  By showing (not just ‘convincing’) students that they can impact and contribute to society on a global scale, Dr. Tyson has spawned an interest in his students that even he could not have imagined.  In giving students the freedom to think outside the constraints of traditional teaching, the student can begin to self-direct their own learning.  At the same time, this self-direction leads to a discovery of meaning, and the desire to perpetuate learning.  When you compound this idea of self-directed learning with the notion of having access to an ever-evolving global community of educational resources, the possibilities literally become endless. It’s actually a very simple concept that no one’s really successfully attempted.  The fact that Dr. Tyson has accomplished this discovery of meaning in middle school students makes the concept even more remarkable.

After discussing his own experiences, Dr. Tyson allows the students and their work to showcase his point.  A couple of dramatically poignant videos follow – student-lead projects that ask critical questions that most educated adults wouldn’t think to ask.  It’s a fascinating thing to watch these students really explore (for knowledge, not simply a grade), and rely less on simple answers and more on complex solutions and, occasionally, the necessity for compromise.

Seeing the progress these students had made really reaffirmed my belief in the possibility of reforming the education industry to be able to give education a “real” meaning and curiosity to students, beyond grades and standards.

Something to make your brain go “hmm…”

Research Paper Basics – Part 1

Because the title of my blog is surviving English, here is one of my secrets to writing an ‘A’ research paper.

The most important part of writing a research paper in an English class is…the title. That’s right, blasphemous, isn’t it? Now, I know you’re thinking I’m crazy, but once you know just how to create a brilliant title, you’ll see how effective it can be. As long as the content is marginal, a fantastic title can turn that C+ paper into a B-. The secret is what I call “The Form.”

The Form

“The Form” is very simple. It’s a combination of two titles separated by a colon. The first title is what I call the philosophical. This is a statement about your topic that illustrates a deeper understanding of the work or subject you are researching. It is usually vague but poignant. The second title is called the literal. This is an explanation and a reaffirmation of the philosophical.

When the two come together, you’ve got yourself a brilliant title. Novelists do this kind of thing all the time to make their titles more appealing to passers-by, it works well on professors, too!

Example 1:

Alright, you’ve decided that you want to discuss Shakespeare’s The Tempest. You’ve done some research, and you think it would be interesting to talk about how it seems that Prospero thinks that he controls Caliban and Miranda, but in reality, he has no true control. There is a lot of textual and critical evidence to support you, so the content of your paper should come together nicely. Now you need a title. You’re dealing with Prospero’s control…the illusion of control. Ok, that’s a great literal: “Prospero and the Illusion of Control on Shakespeare’s The Tempest.” Good! Now you need your philosophical. Something that illustrates a deeper understanding of the work would be comparing Prospero to someone else with an illusion of control. hmmm…Magicians produce illusions; and Prospero is often cited as a semi-magical character. How can we incorporate that? Ahh! A perfect philosophical for our title: “Smoke and Mirrors” – Now, we put the two together, separated by a colon, and ta-da!:

Smoke and Mirrors: Prospero and the Illusion of Control in Shakespeare’s The Tempest

Not so hard, is it? And tell me you don’t think it’s a great title – come on, you can’t argue with it!

Example 2

This time, we’ve decided to research Beowulf for our Brit Lit class. You notice that women seem to be underrepresented in the masculine world of the Danes, and you’d like to write a gender studies paper on the work. You are comparing Wealtheow to Grendel’s Mom. Both are female characters represented in opposite lights: one good, one bad. You’ve already got your literal: “The role of women in Beowulf” – but since Beowulf can be argued as a text representing the larger Anglo-Saxon society, you can actually lengthen it to: “The Role of Women in Early Anglo-Saxon Society” – see? You sound more intelligent already, and we haven’t even gotten to the philosophical yet! Now…two female characters, both extreme opposites. One is a “peaceweaver,” and the other is a monster. This philosophical can be created with some simple alliteration:

“Passive Peaceweavers and Malevolent Monsters: The Role of Women in Early Anglo-Saxon Society”

Again, not too shabby; and much better than just a literal title, don’t you think?

Additional Examples:

A different take on The Tempest:
“The Magician’s Assistant: Miranda’s Changing Role throughout The Tempest“

A Research Paper on Apple, Inc.
“iWorld: Steve Jobs and Technological Innovation in the Twentieth Century”

A paper on Mad Cow Disease:
“Meat Your Maker: The Deadly Consequences of Ignoring the Mad Cow Disease Pandemic”

Even though I may have given my professors grounds to take points off of my grades, I hope that I’ve helped you survive English…Good luck!

Sweet Video

This is a cool video about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave from YouTube

In Other, Unrelated News…

In this post, I’ll be experimenting with thingy-things like italic text, and bold text, as well as adding a link to my class blog: here.

Here’s another link.  It goes somewhere.

…and a picture of a spoon:

Reflections on blogging…in a blog

…how convenient is that?
Contrary to my previous post, today’s installment will not look into any government bedding conspiracy. Instead, I’ll be reflecting on a reading taken from Will Richardson’s “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.”

Fist of all, I’d like to compliment wordpress.com for including the word “blog”in the site spell check dictionary. It’s ironic that most blog-creation sites don’t include “blog” as a legitimate word…but I digress.

Richardson’s textbook provides a quick and easy overview of some of the more common web-related publishing tools of today. Geared toward “digital immigrants” (a term from fellow digital educator Marc Prensky), Richardson’s book breaks down the seemingly complicated web world into easy-to-understand layman’s terms for the aging community of elementary, middle, and secondary educators. What I found most impressive about the book (thus far) was Richardson’s ability to cut out most of the unnecessary techno jargon prevalent in similar works, and explain the nuts and bolts of using the internet as a powerful teaching tool.

At 24 years old, I feel caught between the “digital native” and the “digital immigrant” identities. True, I grew up using computers and have extensive experience with the internet; however, there are thousands of net intricacies, tools, and jargon that remain out of my grasp, even though they’ve become second nature to most preteens. I’ve used a number of blogs and social networking tools, but I never keep them up for more than a couple of months; I do a lot of my personal banking and shopping online, but I still send paper checks in many cases; I can locate and navigate any given website, but I can’t build one to save my life. This book, while not introducing me to many new tools, per se, does provide a number of new ways to use them in the classroom. I was particularly interested in Richardson’s discussion on weblogs as personal online filing cabinets, e-portfolios, and class collaborative spaces. I had never really examined weblogs outside of their basic write/read/comment functionality, so this was an interesting notion to employ in the classroom.

Similarly, I like that the book includes a number of ways of getting the support and involvement of parents in the use of the internet in the classroom. Thankfully, as we learn and grow as a society, many “digital immigrants” are being replaced by “digital natives,” meaning that the concerned parents of a generation ago are being replaced by more willing and understaning web-conscious parents. While getting support from 100% of your parents is rare, providing specific information on how you will utilize the tools of the web, how effective they can be in the classroom, and how children can be kept safe online will certainly quell many parental fears.

I personally feel that most literature that focuses on children and the internet is unnecessarily saturated with warnings and cautionary tales of misuse of the medium. In a way, I appreciate that Mr. Richardson waits until he has sufficiently praised the usefulness of the web as a tool for education before discussing these inherent risks. While I don’t mean to imply that these warnings are in any way unnecessary, I believe that it is detrimental to the image of the web as a positive tool (especially to those “digital immigrants” whose primary educational resource on the matter is the porn- and molestation-obsessed media). Through group discussion, one-on-one interaction, parental involvement, and clear restrictions and expectations, Richardson’s book takes a unique approach to keeping kids safe on the internet while still keeping as much of the net within reach as possible.

I’ve only read the opening chapters of the book, but I’ve already learned a number of useful techniques for introducing the tools of the internet to the classroom. I don’t have much experience with RSS or building Wikis, but I’m very interested in those upcoming chapters in the book – especially because Richardson has named RSS “The New Killer App for Educators,” meaning that Richardson believes it will be a necessary and groundbreaking new tool for teachers…interesting. More to come…