Test

Today was my first staff development day as a student teacher. It went something like this:

I woke up at 5:30am to run five miles. This probably has nothing to do with student teaching. I enjoy running, and as the Fall semester starts up, I understand that I will have less and less time for things non-MAC related. I've also been told that there must be certain things that I should refuse to give up, activities or hobbies that I must maintain as a means of preserving my sanity. I'd like to believe running is one of those things. I've also been told to try and be optimistic.

I arrived at Thurston High School on time. I had visited twice in the past to interface with my mentor teacher, so there weren't any problems getting there. I was more or less ushered into the school cafeteria, where much of the day's agenda would be held. School cafeterias carry a large significance for me. They are the school's social proving grounds. Real life experience and "High School Musical" has taught me that population is segregated by lunch table. Popular kids sat at the popular table. Jocks sat with other jocks. Just as we are tracked academically, schools have a peculiar way of sorting us socially as well.

Being a student teacher, I was neither popular nor jock. I found myself latching onto a fellow MACer and meandering over to an empty table, surrounded by veteran teachers and other school officials engaged in their own conversations, sitting at their own tables. I was essentially a freshmen. The superintendent came over to me to introduce himself and welcome me to the district. I asked him if he could smell my fear. He said yes.

After a morning of speeches and an ACT practice test (I got one wrong), we broke off into our departments in order to incorporate more literacy practice into our summative assessments. In plain terms, we took passages out of the textbook and wrote three questions that would require students to practice reading strategies with course relevant content.

I want to relate how extremely difficult it is to write test questions. Before my hands-on experience, I thought that the hardest part about designing questions was applying Bloom's Taxonomy via Anderson and Krathwohl's theoretical framework. I was surprised to realize that requiring students to use higher order thinking when answering questions was not necessarily the most difficult part. That honor belongs to thinking up the answer options for multiple choice questions.

It's like this: ideally, we already know what the students should know, since we designed the curriculum. Sit-down tests are opportunities for students to confirm they know what they should know. Yet, the test questions and answer options must be chosen carefully. If the options make the correct answer too obvious, students are not being effectively tested. If the question and options are hard to understand or misleading, students may still answer incorrectly even if they can recall and transfer the knowledge being tested.

But that brings me to another point. After learning about the inconsistencies of standardized testing, I found it unsettling to learn that teachers are almost obligated to "teach to the test." As I mentioned earlier, I spent the morning writing and rewriting questions that simulated the questions found in the ACT. This Fall and Winter, I will be student teaching for a mentor teacher who teaches advanced placement courses -- courses literally made for the sake of doing well on a standardized test.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On one hand, I understand that because so many advantages are born out of scoring high on standardized tests, it would undermine student success to NOT teach according to the test. However, as a teacher, how can we be instruments of reform if there is greater incentive for perpetuating inadequate systems of instruction and assessment?

Or maybe, this is as adequate as we can get?

I'll let you know in six months or so.

Hostage By Singularity

It is 2:18am and I'm finally starting this blog post. I swear, procrastination had nothing to do with it. I love blogging. It has been my truest and most trusted friend. When I am sad, frustrated, angry, or worried, I blog. I've learned that sometimes there are problems that you can't necessarily tell people about. Blogging (and journal writing in general), allows you to say exactly what is wrong, and through the process of naming your oppressor, you can gain insight on how to make things better.

Since this is a blog, and the name of this blog is "Record of Praxis" (whatever that means), I will name my oppressor for the sake of consistency:

BLOGGING, YOU ARE MY OPPRESSOR.

Yes, I did just say I love blogging. We are college buddies. We've had some great times together. However, the best part of our relationship is that it is completely natural. Easy, like Sunday morning. When blogging starts making demands, then the joy of it is gone. Obligation is the nemesis of recreation. Ask any game tester if they love their job. By making the maintenance of this blog a graded requirement, I feel like I am hunched over the keyboard with a gun to my head. I am not blogging for fun and therapy anymore; I am blogging for a credential.

But, wait. Suddenly, I am in a garden. It is a warm Spring day. I have long blonde hair and am wearing a frilly blue dress. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch something dash into the bushes to my right. I am young and curious, so I decide to investigate. I crawl headfirst into the rhododendrons and see what looks like a white rabbit, wearing a waistcoat and glancing anxiously at his pocketwatch (because only boy rabbits wear waistcoats, duh). His red eyes grow large as he realizes the time, and darts into a nearby hole in the ground. I approach the hole on my hands and knees, soiling my dress. I want to know where the white rabbit went. I want to see where this hole goes. I jump in:

TECHNOLOGY, YOU ARE MY OPPRESSOR.

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines oppression as "a sense of being weighed down in body or mind." Just as I am being oppressed by blogging, I am being oppressed by technology. In class, we talk about what it means to be a 21st Century learner and the necessity of incorporating technology into the classroom. We made Blogger and Twitter accounts. We submit our assignments via CTools. Laptops and video recorders are required for the MAC program. I have to register for classes via Wolverine Access. I fill out my financial aid forms online.

I can see the usefulness of technology in our daily lives. It makes things easier, and gives us ways, as educators, to improve upon our practice. But with so many forms of technology offering a multitude of functions and services, how can we decide which to use? Or do we just take them all?

Enter the singularity. You can clicky-click on the linky-link if you want to read more, but the "technological singularity" is basically the hypothesis that if technology reaches the point where it becomes more intelligent than humans, it will develop faster than human beings can understand. After this point, the future becomes impossible predict, because we cannot comprehend the capabilities of such technology. I used my computer to look up that succinct definition, because I had forgotten. YouTube teaches me how to do the dances for Korean pop songs. The explosion of technology in the past decade or so was unimaginable two decades ago, and we really have no idea what to do with all of it. The singularity is upon us.

This wouldn't be a problem if we practiced a little moderation, but we don't. We feel obligated to consume the latest gadget or widget or whatever they call it nowadays. We have twenty thingamabobs, but we don't care. It's no big deal. We want more. Our justification is that it can "make things easier," or that we are "keeping up with the times." But does maintaining all of those online accounts, worrying about identity theft, and affording all that hardware really make it easier? And if we are trying to keep up with the present, isn't your purchase going to be obsolete in six months anyway?

One of the basic rules of childhood is: "If you make a mess, clean it up." A fine mess I've made here. I argue that we are being oppressed by technology, so unless I want to get grounded, I had better come up with a solution, right?

I think that in order to make sense of the future of technology (and education, while we are at it), we need to look to the past. In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire introduces the "banking" model of education: the learner is an empty bank account, and teachers deposit information into them, leading to the perpetuation of oppressive attitudes and practices. Freire rejects this model, which is a metaphor for traditional education, and claims that it results in dehumanization: the elimination of individuality, creativity, and compassion. In regards to technology, this is all true. Technology is willingly deposited into us, and we are getting dehumanized as a result. In order to combat this, we need to be more critical about what we consume, and remain conscious of how it is practical to society.

Education? Being critical of what we consume? Practical to society? Where have I heard those terms before?

With the advent of democracy and modern industrial conditions, it is impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities; that his eye and ear and hand may be tools ready to command, that his judgment may be capable of grasping the conditions under which it has to work, and the executive forces be trained to act economically and efficiently. It is impossible to reach this sort of adjustment save as constant regard is had to the individual's own powers, tastes, and interests - say, that is, as education is continually converted into psychological terms. In sum, I believe that the individual who is to be educated is a social individual and that society is an organic union of individuals. If we eliminate the social factor from the child we are left only with an abstraction; if we eliminate the individual factor from society, we are left only with an inert and lifeless mass. Education, therefore, must begin with a psychological insight into the child's capacities, interests, and habits. It must be controlled at every point by reference to these same considerations. These powers, interests, and habits must be continually interpreted - we must know what they mean. They must be translated into terms of their social equivalents - into terms of what they are capable of in the way of social service.

- John Dewey

I feel better already.

I AM THE INTERNET

This is a screenshot at my desktop at the very moment I begin this post. This could also be a screenshot of my desktop any given day, if my computer has a power source and a relatively stable internet connection. My browser has at least 5 or 6 tabs open to various websites, which I switch between every few minutes. I constantly check my email accounts and respond to chat messages. You could have probably guessed it after reading my post about how I am suddenly in love with Twitter. I still maintain my blog on Xanga. I was on Facebook when it was in its infancy. Then, it was MySpace. Now I am on Blogger and Google+ (add me to your circles, yo)

Hello, my name is RJ. And I am a Seeker.

Emily Yoffe's article -- hold on, let me Google her real quick -- and the reading on Generation "M" spoke directly to my soul. My podcast is an oral history of my addiction. But then again, is it really an addiction? If we live in a wired world, why not be plugged in?

The arguments I have heard against over-connectedness are not unlike the arguments I have heard against video games, and they boil down to this: seekers and gamers could be using their time to do other, more productive things. I won't raise my hand against that statement. This is true. Instead of being bathed in the cold light radiating from your [insert device here], you could be [insert any other activity here].

Instead, I will offer an alternative hypothesis. Those other activities -- like running and dancing -- are hobbies. They are things that some people like to do during their free time. Some of those people might even attach those activities to their identity. One who runs might refer to themselves as a "runner." A person who likes to dance could say they were a "dancer." People associate themselves with people with like interests or shared values. It is the very reason why churches and clubs and furries exist. I believe that in order to realize our sense of self, we need to define what that means in relation to others. The internet has made the world a very big place and a very small place, at the same time. Therefore, defining yourself is both very difficult and very easy.

The methods of doing this are outlined by Klapperstuck and Kearns (pause while I Google). We use social networking sites to tell the world who we are and meet others like us. We keep in contact with our friends via text message and chat. We blog in order to make our thoughts and feelings public, hoping to somehow feel some empathy (and certainly not because we are being graded on it). Somewhere within all those servers and databases, in between the nooks and crannies of hashmarks and at-marks, is our identity.

We have become the internet.

P.S. Emily Yoffe definitely has more Facebook friends than I do. Did you know she took a vacation at a nudist colony?

He saw the symbol on the warning sign and understood

I'm beginning to think they purposely limit the number of EDUC 504 classes we have during the summer. It is a conspiracy built upon the laws of supply and demand. Scarcity causes an increase in demand, which in turn increases value. Therefore, every one of our six meetings becomes precious, each like a grandfather's silver pocket watch wrapped in an oilcloth and tucked safely into the corner of a desk drawer.

The value of Friday's class was in its dichotomy of activity. One half of the class was spent learninghow to use Aviary's Myna tool to build a PSA, preliminary practice for making the podcast due at the end of the week. Back in the day, I did that sort of thing on a regular basis, so it was exciting to see a modern application for tired, old skills.

The other half of class was a discussion on the video game readings. Or was it? The first part of the discussion dealt with deciphering an excerpt of Xu Bing's "Book from the Ground." A sample of the excerpt is shown in the picture above, except without the convenience of a written translation. We delved into the origins of literacy and language, surmising that human beings have a natural instinct for language structure. Our difficulty in understanding different languages arises from our solidified language schema -- we become comfortable within the structures of our primary tongue and run into obstacles when we encounter languages that do not fit within our established structure.

I found that the first part of discussion loosely connected to the second part, which was actually about video games. I mentioned that we become comfortable within our primary language, thus making other languages sound like shit. Learning, be it other languages or how to win at a video game, involves a certain amount of risk taking. We must necessarily depart from our comfort zones in order to make sense of the unknown. In order to form new schema, we cannot always be dependent upon the supports of the old.

Gee

During the entirety of the Gee reading, all I could really think about was this:

Gee gee gee gee gee

So I'm glad I got burned, think of all the things we learned for the people who are still alive

About a year ago, film critic Roger Ebert stated on his blog that "video games can never be art." During a conversation with video game producer Kelli Santiago, Ebert said:

"No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets." To which I could have added painters, composers, and so on, but my point is clear.

Former attorney Jack Thompson, an anti-video game activist, refers to video games as "murder simulators," and blames them for three shooting deaths in Alabama committed by a 14 year-old boy in 2005.

The video game industry gave him a cranial menu that popped up in the blink of an eye, in that police station. And that menu offered him the split-second decision to kill the officers, shoot them in the head, flee in a police car, just as the game itself trained them to do.

The societal value of video games is still up to interpretation, and Gee's article adds to the debate. The above video clip is from "Portal," a game released by Valve in 2007. As demonstrated by the clip, the beginning of the game consists of a series of tests where the player has to perform tasks in order to move on to the next level. Each test is a lesson that teaches a particular skill or game mechanic, and builds upon previous lessons. As the player progresses further in the game, the lessons stop and he/she must apply skills and use knowledge of game mechanics in order to succeed.

According to Gee, "good video games incorporate good learning principles." In order to see if Gee is correct in his statement, we must verify whether or not "Portal" was indeed good and had good learning principles.

Here is a list of awards "Portal" has won (from Wikipedia):

• At the 2008 Game Developers Choice Awards, Portal won Game of the Year, along with the Innovation Award and Best Game Design.^[107]
• IGN.com honored Portal with several awards, for Best Puzzle Game for PC^[108] and Xbox 360,^[109] Most Innovative Design for PC,^[110] and Best End Credit Song (for "Still Alive") for Xbox 360,^[111] along with overall honors for Best Puzzle Game^[112] and Most Innovative Design.^[113]
• In its Best of 2007, GameSpot honored The Orange Box with 4 awards in recognition of Portal, giving out honors for Best Puzzle Game,^[114] Best New Character(s) (for GLaDOS),^[115]Funniest Game,^[116] and Best Original Game Mechanic (for the portal gun).^[117]
• Portal was awarded Game of the Year (PC), Best Narrative (PC), and Best Innovation (PC and console) honors by 1UP.com in its 2007 editorial awards.^[118]
• GamePro honored the game for Most Memorable Villain (for GLaDOS) in its Editors' Choice 2007 Awards.^[119]
• Portal was awarded the Game of the Year award in 2007 by Joystiq,^[120] Good Game,^[121] and Shacknews.^[122]
• The Most Original Game award by X-Play.^[123]
• In Official Xbox Magazine's 2007 Game of the Year Awards, Portal won Best New Character (for GLaDOS), Best Original Song (for "Still Alive"), and Innovation of the Year.^[124]
• In GameSpy's 2007 Game of the Year awards, Portal was recognized as Best Puzzle Game,^[125] Best Character (for GLaDOS), and Best Sidekick (for the Weighted Companion Cube).^[125]
• A.V. Club called it the Best Game of 2007.^[126]
• The Web comic Penny Arcade awarded Portal Best Soundtrack, Best Writing, and Best New Game Mechanic in its satirical 2007 We're Right Awards.^[127]
• Eurogamer gave Portal first place in its Top 50 Games of 2007 rankings.^[128]
• IGN.com also placed GLaDOS, (from Portal) as the #1 Video Game Villain on its Top-100 Villains List.^[129]
• Gamesradar named it the best game of all time.^[130]

Wired considered Portal to be one of the most influential games of the first decade of the 21st century, believing it to be the prime example of quality over quantity for video games.

Good? Check.

As for good learning principles, I was originally going to launch into an in-depth discussion and analysis of "Portal" and Gee's learning principles, as well as fit it within the framework for Bloom's Taxonomy. However, while I was doing research before launching headfirst into what I am sure would have been a fantastic essay, I stumbled upon this:

A Portal to Student Learning: What Instruction Librarians can Learn from Video Game Design

I will save you the trouble of reading the entire article. The author cites "Portal" as an excellent example of how new media can be used to engage players "in the difficult process of learning new skills and making difficult conceptual leaps." (Schiller 2008) Players are scaffolded as new knowledge is introduced and supports are removed once proficiency is successfully demonstrated. Eventually, the players become completely independent from the instructional structure and left to strategize and apply knowledge on their own.

Good learning principles? Check.

Also, the article is totally about librarians, written by a librarian. Knowing my audience is an important pedagogical skill. WHAT UP KRISTIN.

P.S. Before I start getting suspicious sidelong glances during class, below is the ending theme song to "Portal," which is referenced by the title of this post:

My Favorite Superhero

Summer is well underway. The Art Fest is in full effect, basically turning the streets of downtown Ann Arbor into an open-air market. I believe it is a distinctly American habit to make ritual and celebration out of things that are never cause for ritual and celebration any place else. Here, when people sell homemade trinkets from stalls that line crowded streets we call it a "festival." In a lot of other places the world, the people there call it "a living." I feel the same way about apple picking. Listen, I am not going to go on any kind of "hayride" under the working condition of "ALL-U-CAN-PICK" unless I am guaranteed some kind of union representation.

At the same time, I think our culture tends to take for granted things that do indeed warrant celebration. Wireless internet connectivity is a miracle. We have at our disposal relatively tiny machines that literally pluck millions of bits of data out of thin air, but feel frustrated when this marvel is not running at peak efficiency. We complain about fluctuating gas prices, but forget to be thankful that we own cars. And, we turn to schools to remedy all of society's ills, but tip our teachers with apples. I suppose I could look at the silver lining and be thankful that most of us have some kind of union representation.

Summer also brings us superhero movies. We've had the X-Men: First Class, which sounds like a movie about education (it isn't). We saw Thor, who seems to be cheating at the superhero gig (he is a god). Now, it's Captain America, who is just a big guy with a shield. However, my favorite summer superhero is not any of these guys.

It is the librarian.

It just got real.

The librarian is truly great. She is the master of information, which in my opinion, totally trumps all the other superpowers combined. Like a superhero, the librarian has also evolved into someone superhuman. The X-Men inherited their abilities through genetics. Captain America was injected with a super serum. Librarians used to be those nicely dressed people who sat behind the circulation desk at the library, book scanner in one hand and due date rubber stamp in the other, head full of thoughts of the Dewey Decimal system. Then, the world changed. Technological breakthroughs have led to a flux of information. We can read books without actually physically possessing a book. We can learn about virtually any subject in a matter of seconds. We can create and publish our thoughts on anything. However, this horde of information is wild, a mass of gibberish that can overload the senses and assail the mind. Who will save us as the world falls under the dark shroud of over-information? Who will help us determine reliable sources from the flim-flam?

It is the librarian. She cast off her cat-eyed glasses, pulled the pencil from her hair bun, and emerged from behind the circulation desk. She traded the scanner and rubber stamp for a MacBook Pro and a smartphone.

I never really understood what librarians could do before I encountered Marija and Jan. When I refer to librarians as masters of information, I do not mean to imply their omniscience. Again, information is everywhere. Librarians' mastery of information lies in their mastery of the technology used to retrieve, organize, and create that information. I am consistently amazed almost every week. First, I discovered how RefWorks can produce instant bibliographies. Then, I was shown the multitude of databases within the Internet Public Library (ALL-U-CAN-PICK). I once made the mistake of saying the word "microfiche" while suggesting primary sources for the tsunami lesson plan, and was immediately disintegrated by Jan's eye lasers.

From the perspective of this teacher-candidate, my future career is pretty dire. I must simultaneously be an educator, a researcher, a reformer, a politician, a colleague, a savior, and a scapegoat. When I do a good job, there is no cause for celebration, because compared to art fests and superheroes, I am nothing special. It's a living. But as long as I have a librarian in my corner (to hold me), everything might actually turn out OK.