Entries Tagged 'stupid things FOTW' ↓

What do the concepts of biology, media literacy, and April Fool’s Day have in common? Potentially… quite a bit, in fact.  Actually, it seems cephalopods of all sorts have been getting my attention as of late.

Today’s lesson in Principles of Biology was essentially: pay attention.

Students were directed to a teacher-led discussion prompt and associated website on the “Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus“- a rare, endangered, and absolutely amazing animal. The only fact not disclosed in the very vague discussion prompt here is the fact that this animal is… not… an animal. It is perfectly false. It is wonderfully false. It is very over-the-top false. Anything beyond a surface skim shows the weakness in the presentation.  How well do your students “read?” How well do we discern sources of information? How “media literate” are we?  Do you teach these skills in your subject area?  Or is this perhaps the exclusive domain of the Communication Arts department?

This website has been in existence for over ten years now.  However, it is as good as new if you are arriving for the first time- and while sitting in a biology class.  It is certainly interesting to take a peek into an actual student discussion surrounding the topic. Check it out here, on our class network. There are five full pages to examine.   It really is interesting to read through and find the kids who actually were fooled by this prior to posting. It is also quite enlightening to read from those who weren’t fooled.  How did they know?  What was different?  I think you will have to agree that they were all good sports about it!  I have some open-minded and fun-loving students for certain.  In fact, Tania Sheko, a fellow blogger and teacher-librarian at Whitefriars College in Australia recently noticed a few of our online discussions and blogged about it.  They are seeing increased value in the openness of our network as the year goes on.

Halfway through today’s tongue-in-cheek lesson, I passed around a few pages from this online resource to ground the discussion: The Center for Media Literacy. Included in the site, the “Literacy for the 21st Century” guide is an excellent document, as is the “Five Key Questions That Can Change the World,” document.  I suggest saving this particular resource for future use.  The five questions are derived from the following core concepts:

1. Authorship

2. Format

3. Audience

4. Content

5. Purpose

Do you believe spending precious class time to address issues regarding media literacy in your content area is important?  If so, what do you do?  How do you do it?  How do you justify a lesson that isn’t likely to be specified within your curriculum?  What would you like to know more about?  Enjoy the discussion… we certainly did this morning.

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Holiday break, for an educator for sure, is a time to spend time with family and friends…  regroup, and just relax.  It is a time for reflecting on the previous year (if you haven’t already) and planning for the year to come.  It is also a time for indulging in fun.  Fun food, fun drink and even some just plain…  silliness.

So before I return to my three young ladies for the evening, allow me to introduce you to a very fun time-waster.  Really-  if you are a bit more motivated, this site could really even be a valuable marketing tool for your classroom or department.  As I said-  this certainly isn’t a post to turn your educational philosophy on end.  This isn’t definitely not a post that will add significantly to your pedagogical repertoire.  Forgive me, for I too, am on holiday break.  This post is to educational technology as cheesy spinach & artichoke dip is to nutrition.

If you have read this blog for even one day, you know that visual literacy is fundamental to my core.  I can’t write a paragraph without an image helping my cause.  Perhaps this is an homage to my realization that human words cannot do justice to a carefully crafted photograph. Perhaps as well, this marks one more post on this blog as of late that isn’t so grippingly “instructional” or “edtech.”  However, hopefully you have checked out my About page by now.  That  -in a very indirect way-  explains the hierarchy here.  I hope that works for most of you…

Enough blabb.  If you are unfamiliar, allow me to introduce you to the fun of BigHugeLabs as one last cheesy nugget of 2008.  Not only is this site a potentially fun time-waster, it can also be a valuable relationship-builder in the hands of the enlightened.  In fact, it can also be a “Christmas gift creation tool”  -if you have both the images and the verbal initiative to pull it off.  I say that with utmost cockiness after having delivered these two gems (framed) as Christmas gifts for my parents.  Toss in the birth of their newest granddaughter and you have the makings of a sweet little gift.  Seriously, would you not prominently display these?  Also-  have I yet mentioned how amazing my parents are?  They are.  To me, these images immortalize that fact.

I have used the BHLabs website in the past.  In the past five months, I shot the first two weddings of my life.  The fact that a good friend from graduate school and then her friend trusted me with their wedding day photography was…  frightening.  Conclusions?  I doubt I can even be a wedding photographer on the side.  Why?  1) Way too much stresss.  2)  I hate weddings.  (to clarify: marriage is treating me splendidly.  weddings are just most generally not a guy’s thing)  A million other moments are more important throughout the course of a life, and few hire a photographer for those.

Sad.

That said, I used BigHugeLabs to add a sheen of fun to the disk of images delivered to my two new brides.  Whether highlighting the beauty of a bride in splendid excess, or laughing at a groom as sex symbol, all is great fun.  Whether it is the “motivator” tool, or one of the other “you don’t eeeeven need Photoshop for this” -style images, you will almost always find something fun and fitting.  I mean, hey-  not everyone loves me…  but foreign leaders somehow seem to.  Well, foreign leaders and models.

All of these images, as well as 95% of those I post on this blog to both highlight the ideas I am selling or to celebrate the work of amateur artists (usually both), are hosted on my Flickr site.  Flickr is currently the place to store your photos online.  At one time, I housed hundreds of photos at the now-defunct Clubphoto.  One fun day a couple of years ago, management walked into the offices and told folks to pack up their **it and *it.  I, of course, had backups of all images on my hard drives.  What I didn’t have were the countless hours of captions (lengthy explanations) I had invested in each image for many years.  I once used these as educational blurbs for my students, and especially for the parent of my students  -and prospective students of a very unusual and expensive class (for public school).

Happy New Year to you all.  May you find a thousand photographable moments headed your way in 2009.  By the way-  this marks the ninth year I have been disappointed by the “F” volume of the World Book encyclopedia from my sixth grade year.  I remember that future entry which showed transportation in the year 2000 to prominently feature svelte little rocket cars zipping about to-and-fro a la George Jetson.

Oh well.  You can’t win ‘em all, right?  Right??

Here begins a new post category.  We could call it “stupid things found on the web.“  Or perhaps “computers ain’t as smart as people.“  Call it what you will- here it goes:

What do you think?  Don’t see the humor?  Keep looking- I have faith in you.  See it now?  Seriously, how great is that?  Now that couldn’t be secretly purposeful could it?  Ahhh, the perils of abbrev. 

It actually reminds me of a post I made back in June on our Marine Biology network at Ning.  It is a quick story about how Google’s AdSense ads (now removed from education networks @ Ning) can unknowingly juxtapose some really conflicting ideals.  We spend page after page of our site extolling the beauty and wonder of living coral and the ecosystems they inhabit.

So, when ads for what seem to be unethically-harvested coral began running on our page, the irony was thick.  Now those Google ads are gone.  I soon found out from Steve Hargadon that Ning was allowing educational networks (aimed at grades 7-12) to run ad-free upon request.  Of course COPPA requires that students under 13 not be allowed to use social networking sites for security and privacy issues.

And thus-  with COPPA, this post comes strangely full circle.  Wow.  I think perhaps I stumbled upon a vortex of web weirdness on this lovely winter day.

Artwork thanks: