Emails to David 2: Teaching and the Digital Literacy of This Teacher

David is our new and quite excellent Director of Educational Technology. Igor is the king of all hardware and software. I am the old teacher who recognizes that digital literacy may be harder for me . . . . This is the second of three letters.

Dear David:

I have found that one of my more difficult dilemmas in planning curriculum is how to choose from everything I might choose from. How do I create a reader in Econ from the enormous amount of reading I've done? How do I narrow it down? Even with good criteria, I'm left with too much and I have to cull and cull again. Same thing happens in any history class, less so in English, but there, too. And, of course, my reading generates not just reading assignment ideas, but project ideas and different ideas for Greg-centric or Student-centric lesson plans.

And this is just a matter of trying to choose among things I've read with a smattering of movies, videoes, podcasts thrown in.

How much more difficult will it be then, i.e., how much more time consuming will planning be if I add the capabilities and resources made available by digital tools? The prospect is a bit overwhelming! And that's just the prospect!

Now, it will seem less overwhelming to those for whom digital tools do not present other media, alternative media, i.e., people for whom digital tools exist seamlessly with . . . books and periodicals. It will seem less overwhelming to those for whom the technical proficiency already exists or at least the intuition exists which is necessary to develop the proficiency soon. So for someone like me, I really do have to make adjustments while the plane is flying.

Fortunately, the plane is not going down. No emergency here. But the plane IS going, as I see it, smoothly. I am certainly willing to risk some turbulence. And it may very be that kids in the near future will regard my classroom as a plane that can't get off the ground due to some old fashioned pedagogy if I don't learn to use the tech. Nonetheless, I do fear that I won't develop the intuition and that proficiency will always be beyond my grasp as new iterations of the digital tools keep racing to market. And I'm concerned about being even more overwhelmed by choices.

Emails to David: Digital Literacy and This Old Teacher 1

David is our new and quite excellent Director of Educational Technology. Igor is the king of all hardware and software. I am the old teacher who recognizes that digital literacy may be harder for me . . . .


Dear David:

It may be that I've had an inordinate amount of tech difficulties -- perhaps for 6 years now, but certainly for these past couple of weeks -- because I actually try to use a lot of the technology, but I don't think I'm the least bit intuitive about how to navigate/negotiate/trouble-shoot it. And I'm never going to be intuitive about it. I'm always amazed at the solutions shared with me.

I DO try to follow directions, fix it myself, etc., sometimes, but often I have no idea what the problem is and no intuition about how to fix it. I think I am patient with the glitches -- ask Igor. And I'm generally told that the problem, "is not you, Greg, it's something weird with your" whatever it might be. (Ex.: No one seems to know how to permanently rid myself of the "Save this document" message from new Word docs. Having succeeded in the past, I followed the directions in Tech Cafe. Didn't work. Student tech crew member Lindsay worked on it last this summer. No avail. Michaela tried two weeks ago. No luck. ) I also remember or make note of how to fix many things. I also prioritize: what do I need fixed NOW and what can wait (Ex.: I've not asked Igor for help on the "Save this Document" conundrum. Not yet anyway. And another example: suddenly Ctrl-6 does not take me to my FC calendar, but to another one. This can wait.) Yet, I suspect others are more self-reliant and seem to know what to do.

I realize that the learning curve never flattens because the tech/software/whatever just keeps coming at us and once we master one thing, we're gonna have to move on to the next. Still, I have to wonder, why are we using Google docs when FC or Word seem perfectly suited to sending me a list? Even if things go as planned, I have to open an email, click on a link, sign in to something, then click on a document. Why not just give me the info in the body of the email?



I am an old teacher and while I'm willing to learn new tricks, and even enthusiastically engage these new tricks, I might not be as adept at it. I really don't think I'm the least bit intuitive about how to navigate/negotiate/trouble-shoot it. And as I noted, I am willing to commit to tech for tech's sake just to develop the proficiency necessary for imaginative use of tech. And I know that in order to realize the benefits of some new tech (and I gather Google docs is fairly new, at least to some of us at Urban), then there will be some stumbling. And I know that in my role here as an older teacher and a recent Admin member, I have to sort of set an example in attitude and engagement with tech. I never, ever badmouth tech with other faculty members or students.

But what I need now that classes have started, insofar as it's no longer summer and no longer faculty workshop week, is stuff that does not require a too-lengthy bit of trouble-shooting. The kids are here now and I need time to teach and assess.

g

Not Enough Foam at the Mouth

No one reads my blog for political commentary (or . . . no one reads my blog), but I can't let this pass. Still, I'll be brief: Apparently, Sarah Palin doesn't seem rabid enough for some conservatives anymore. Not enough foam at the mouth. And that's why conservatives have turned to Michelle Bachmann. Here's some information from a recent profile in the New Yorker magazine:

Bible: ". . . is the absolute infallible word of God." She believes in the inerrancy of the Bible which must be taken literally as history and science. She is a follower of fundamentalists who publish on this point. Bachmann points approvingly to a fundamentalist thinker who recently wrote that there may be "occasions when Christians are mistaken on some point while non-believers get it right." However, the foundation of non-believer thought is "false" so that "even individual truths will be seen through the distorting lens of a false world-view." This is from a book that Bachmann recently recommended.

Theocracy: She speaks highly of one fundamentalist writer, Francis Schaeffer, who believes that "Christians, and Christians alone, are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns." Schaeffer argued for the violent overthrow of the the government if Roe v. Wade isn't overturned. Bachmann attended a Bible-based law school where a professor she admires called for a theocracy with Old Testament penalties for adultery and homosexuality: Death! Her mentor in law school has recently stated that the Confederacy, the last Bible-based government in his opinion, understood the Constitution better than Abraham Lincoln.

Slavery: She insists that the slave-owning, slavery protecting Founding Fathers worked incessantly to end slavery. Her law school mentor maintains that benevolence deterred Christian slave-owners from freeing their slaves. Another writer she recommends has written that "most southerners strove to treat their slaves with respect and provide them with a sufficiency of good for a comfortable, though -- by modern standards -- spare existence." This writer goes on to claim that Africans brought to America in slavery were lucky. "Africa, like any other pagan country (sic), was permeated by the cruelty and barbarism typical of unbelieving cultures." He also writes that "Slavery . . . was not an adversarial relationship founded upon racial animosity. In fact, it bred . . . mutual respect." And this happy relationship of slave and slaveowner was due, according to this writer, to Christianity.

Climate: "Global warming is a hoax."

Homosexuality: Being gay is a "personal enslavement" and with gay rights "little children will be forced to learn that homosexuality is normal and natural and perhaps they should try it." She follows a writer who has written pamphlets entitled: "The Homosexual Revolution: End Time Abomination" and "Communism, Hypnotism, and the Beatles" which, I'm happy to say, you can buy on Amazon!!!

Redwood Park in Oakland, California!!!

We moved from San Francisco to the Oakland Hills 20-some years ago (and we love SF!) mostly because of this remarkable 1800+ acre canyon on the eastern edge of Oakland. It has 50 miles of trails including two on either side of the canyon in the middle and a great many going up and down the slopes. And the park is connected by trail to a long line of East Bay parks extending from Richmond in the North to Castro Valley in the South and . . . all the way, by trail, to the top of Mt. Diablo in the east.


























Okay, the scene at the bottom is the view of Eiger from the Bachalpsee in the Swiss Alps . . . but with Redwood Park in my backyard, do we really need the expense of a trip to Switzerland to go on a great hike?

Well . . . .

Senator Al Franken . . . Impressive!

Watch 2 minutes of Senator Franken annihilating the credibility of one of the "Family Values" charlatans. Yes, the Senator is impressive, but, in all honesty, this was easy work.

Alice Waters and Cheetos

I'm informed by TC, that Chez Panisse restaurant will celebrate its 40th anniversary soon. I was not invited. Here's why:

Dear T: I was not invited to the 40th Chez Panisse thang. Prob'ly cause I saw Alice Waters at a Milpitas 7-11 one night 'round Xmas buying a bag of Cheetos. At least she was about to buy 'em.

I said, "Yo, Alice! Don't tell me you jones on junk!"

"Oh, Greg, one of my most thoughtful and conscious diners, mentor to Michael Pollan, godfather to Fanny, I must say it's odd to see you here as well. How's Tina? I still can't put her pork loin with foie gras marmalade and toasts of escarole and faux shark fin out of my mind . . . but, no, I'm not 'Jonesing' as you so rustically put it. This bag of Chev -- oh let me look at the label again -- ah, yes, 'Cheetos' -- will be part of a demonstration in which we inveigh against filthy food. And you're here because . . . . ?"

"Alice, we go way back," I replied, "so don't try to turn the kitchen table on me and stop your lying ways. My dear junkie Alice, you got Cheeto dust all over your shit: your fingers, all around your mouth, a 'lil bit in your hair, and . . . oh-oh, on your palms, Alice, and you know what that means!" At which point she started to wipe her hands on a handsome sage-colored linen apron I'd given her years ago after she finally learned, with my instruction, how to kill and slaughter her own livestock. "On your palms, Alice! You should be 'shamed. Means you been stuffin' 'em in your moth, pushing them in . . . with your palms! BOTH palms to make sure nothing falls out. Oh, you're jonesin' Alice. Can't deny it. And as for me, I'm just here to get the Sunday paper for the restaurant reviews. I covered for Mark Bittman in Shanghai last week."

But she was not be be daunted. "Bullshit!" she screamed. "No one comes to Milpitas -- no one! -- except to hide their filthy consumptions. You certainly didn't come here just to get 'the paper'! And, besides, I can wash off this yummy Cheeto dust," whereupon she extended her tongue all over her hands and around her mouth, making it hard to understand her, "bu you gong nee mumfs ta take off tha fory poun uh Ding-Dongs and Bud gut!" Then after having sufficiently dog-cleaned herself, she stepped up to me and warned, "You may have made me, but I'll ruin you if this ever gets out to anyone!"

Well, Alice, it's out. And it's on. Turn me away at the 40th party if you dare.

g

Favorite Typo by a Student

I teach Russian Literature right now, Dostoevski and Chekhov, wherein we're regaled with matters theological quite a bit. Today, I've been given a paper in which Chekhov's "The Bride" speaks of the prospect of the how the "Kingdom of Heaven [might] descend on earth."

Except this glorious student, and I emphasize that s/he is glorious, wrote: "Kingdom of Heave."

Sounds like a fraternity to me. Or a heavy metal band.

I will forever cherish this typo.

Second Favorite Question Ever Asked of Me By a Student Followed by the Favorite Question

An encounter today with a student in my office:

Second favorite question ever asked of me by a student: Greg, I have a splinter. Do you have some tweezers?

Me: No. I used them on my wife's tick and forgot to put them back into my Swiss Army Knife I carry with me always.

Favorite question ever asked of me by a student: Do you know anyone at school who would have tweezers?

I then named 5 people who first came to mind.

Student: Thanks Greg.

Me: No, wait. . . . Do you really believe that I have a list of tweezer carriers committed to memory? I mean, I know I may seem godlike to you with some awesome omniscience, but . . . I'm not a god and not omniscient.

[pause]

Student: Alright. Thanks Greg!


Often, kids ask questions that seem to presume omniscience on my part, but it's not my presumed omniscience so much as it is the students' real lack of investigative zeal.

Watching the NBA Finals with Tina

First hoops game either of us had watched in maybe 5 years: Dallas at Miami, 1st game, NBA Finals. Tina's commentary:

"The neckline of that team's jerseys are, I'd say, rather feminine."

Moments later: "Whoa, the other team, too, with the feminine neckline! I'd call it a 'modified sweetheart neckline.'"

Then: "Long shots are still 'from downtown'? They still say 'downtown'? A long shot should be from the suburbs."

Dallas misses 4 straight shots: "They're terrible. They deserve to lose."

"Long Story Short"

Whenever someone interjects "anyway -- long story short" into a story, the story is already too long.

Official State Weapons! An Idea Whose Time Has Come!

I savor recent reports from Utah and Arizona whose legislative bodies have established an official state gun. For Utah, the Browning M1911 pistol because Mr. Browning grew up in Utah and was the son of pioneers. For Arizona, the Colt revolver because it's made in Connecticut and was used to help settlers kill off the ancestors of Native Americans living in Arizona. That's my guess anyway.

NPR reports that the Florida legislature would bar doctors -- especially pesky pediatricians -- from asking their patients if they own guns, guns being a possible health hazard, especially to children if the parents are careless with the care of guns. Governor Scott says that asking this question of parents constitutes a violation of their Second Amendment rights. Perhaps Florida will honor the loaded-and-unlocked-and-negligently-stored-danger-to-my-child-and-other-children-but-goddammit-that's-my-Second-Amendment-right-and-I'll-give-it-up-when-you-pry-it-from-my-child's-cold-dead-fingers official state gun.

But why just firearms? Why not the official state weapon? Some creative states might designate the pox-infested woolen blanket as the official state weapon. Others, in the South perhaps, the rope! New Jersey might honor cement. And, of course, Nevada would trump everyone with its official state armament: the hydrogen bomb!

Yoko Ono Advises the Beatles from Bed

Took me three years, I think, at a couple of pages here and there now and again, but I just finished Bob Spitz's excellent 860 page biography "The Beatles." If you know me, you know I'm a Beatles fan. My tastes have shifted more toward John Beatles than Paul Beatles (and I've a very, very limited interest in post-Beatles Beatles) and I read the bio mostly for insight into their song creation and musicianship. Of course, there's much more than that including their personalities, the business end, the impact of adulation and millions of dollars, the drugs, the drugs, the drugs, and the drug-induced psychosis, especially in LSD-addled John Lennon who added heroin after deciding to throw in his lot with Yoko Ono.

I couldn't help but make the following assessment: Lennon and McCartney seem quite objectionable as mates, friends, or bandmembers. Yes, yes, yes . . . great music, but deeply unattractive people those two. McCartney was, perhaps is, egotistical, controlling, self-serving, pretentious, disingenuous, and unctuous in the extreme. Lennon was worse: violent, volcanically angry, homophobic, probably anti-semitic, deeply inconsiderate, and drug-addled.

George and Ringo? Princes. And perhaps Lennon outgrew his demons before he died. Hard to say.

But Yoko, with whom I've always tried to sympathize, may be the most comically objectionable of them all.

Consider the following episode from Spitz's biography (which, I'd have to say, is not sympathetic to Yoko):

After marrying John, Yoko had suffered another of her several miscarriages and to heal she and John visited Scotland on holiday. This was around the time of the "Abbey Road" recordings. John had never driven a car before, and though quite stoned, he insisted that he be given an Aston-Martin to drive around the treacherous Scottish backroads. No one says "no" to a Beatle and so off he went with four people in the car including his son Julian by his first marriage and, of course, he promptly crashed the car into a deep ditch to avoid an oncoming car. After a brief hospitalization for superficial wounds, John and Yoko returned to London where John intended to head back into the studio with the Beatles. By this time, Yoko had been attending recording sessions for about a year despite the deep resentment of the other Beatles. Here's Spitz:

"With John's reappearance in the studio came Yoko, back at his side, ever conspicuous as an intruder; however, this time, there was an even more offensive twist: Yoko was pregnant again, with strict orders from her doctor to remain in bed while recovering from the car crash. In a characteristically aggravating gesture, she had Harrods [London's Bloomingdale's] deliver a double bed to the studio and instructed a [studio] technician to suspend a microphone above her head that would adequately furnish her comments to the band."

Elsewhere, Spitz reports that upon attending recording sessions with John, Yoko would presume to advise the band on musical matters. She would cut into discussions with a forceful, "Beatles should . . . " followed by her expert recommendations.

I very much enjoyed reading about John and Yoko's record, the "Wedding Album," in which one whole side of the vinyl album consists of John and Yoko screaming each other's name. Imagine!

Getting a Second Mortgage at an ATM

Went to my bank last week to withdraw funds from one of the two ATMs. I took my place off to side and a polite distance away from two women using the machines. A young man was already there waiting ahead of me on the other side of the women.

So I'm standing off to the side and I can't really see what either woman's doing. Occasionally, I see a hand reach in and back again, then in, then back. A hip or foot shifts compelling the young man and me to look up in anticipation of our turn. He and I make brief eye contact and look away like people waiting for a restroom at a popular restaurant. But the women at the ATMs continue their transactions.

After a while the line on either side of the women had increased to include several people including a mom with two small children who were running around, marring the banking decorum which exists even in this parking lot.

The women at the ATMs continued their business. We all looked furtively as the hands at the ATMs went in, out, in, out.

And then it suddenly occurred to me: Banks, like other businesses, work to cut down on labor costs -- after all, who goes to a teller anymore? -- so maybe these banks found a way to help people with more complex banking transactions . . . at ATMs!

I mean, what were these women doing at these ATMs? Getting a second mortgage? Setting up trust funds for their children? What?!!?

Does everyone now do all their banking on ATMs?

Does the Federal Reserve make money supply adjustments on an ATM?

Finally, after the women had apparently started a hedge fund at the ATMs, I stepped up to transact my humble banking -- a simple withdrawal of walking around money which made me feel like a beggar by comparison or, at best, a child bringing his piggie bank to the counter. But by the time I'd done so, I calculated that inflation, modest as it is, had eaten away 4% of the value of my earnings!

Groceries? Yes. Cappucino? No.

Spaniards Do Random

As you probably know, there are some sayings in other languages that, when translated literally, lose their intended meaning.

Here, in the USA, when we are confronted by some irrelevant piece of info in the midst of a discussion, those of us middle-aged and older might ask, "Dude, what's that got to do with the price of tea in China?" Those who are younger might insist, "Dude, that is soooo random."

In some Spanish-speaking countries, people respond to irrelevant info with, "Yo tengo una tía que toca la guitarra."

It literally translates as, "I have an aunt who plays the guitar."

But what is means is, "Dude, you want random? I got random."


(You may feel, if you've read this far, that this blog entry seems random to you. Well, it is an eclectic mix of things here, right? The eclectics of the world do seem distracted by tangents.)

Greatest Music Video Ever

I am going to post videos I've come across. Here's the first. It's from Japan. Lovely.