Students Today… (a bit of a rant)

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This could make you think…..

A Vision of Students Today by Mike Welsh and class

On my school based blog that I recently deleted due to lack of interest from fellow staff members, I had posted The Machine is Using Us. I read today about Mike Welsh’s latest clip Information R/evolution on Sultana Blog:Observations on How We’ve Changed and noticed the clip above.

Granted the students are obviously university students, yet from conversations I have with secondary students (12-16yr old) replace Facebook with Myspace and you would get some similar feedback. I have noticed many of them don’t use email as much as we ‘grownups’ do either. Quite a few students use forums to discuss their gaming and other online interests. They socialise and use their mobiles similarly.

Another good clip on this theme, I had previously posted on that other blog was…

Pay Attention

Youtube is blocked at my school. We have 4 computer labs shared between 22 classes. MP3 players and mobile phones are banned. There are good reasons for this, but I often wish we could harness the positive use of these things. I wish some others got over being scared and listening to the scare campaigns about the latest scary thing that happened online, and learn and be effective for this generation.

Schools aren’t protecting students from online threats by excluding the Internet from their education. The one place they could get some leadership and guidance, is largely ignoring online experience.

Sometimes I wonder if the first biro ever brought into a school was used as a weapon and stabbed someone in the eye, would they have been banned across the country? If someone reflected on the amount of times students use paper to make planes and fly them around, thus causing a distraction, should paper be banned? And what about paper cuts? I know I am becoming cynical now, but I’m frustrated.

Reflecting on Communities

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As I was driving home from work tonight, I was reflecting on my community at work. I love the people I work with. It makes all the difference. Even those I am not close to, I appreciate. At the worst of times and the best of times it is great to belong to a community.

Reading my feeds I found on Snoskred’s “Life in the Country” a beautiful post along the same lines of what I had been thinking. Her guest blogger Tiffany from 3 Ring Circus had written this lovely post about living in a community: Out of Her Niche.

I think communities can be built in all different kinds of places. I have lived in small communities and enjoyed the ‘neighbourly’ kind of community and have experienced community in workplaces, friendship circles, families and through my children’s lives. It is a valuable thing.

I agree with Tiffany that sometimes you don’t have to be like them or even necessarily spend a lot of time together, but when you belong to one, they are there for you and it’s a marvellous thing.

Brilliance of the Moon by Lian Hearn

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‘Brilliance of the Moon’ is the final book in the Otari series. It completes the saga. It wasn’t my favourite of the series because it had that ending sadness and the events occurring in it were often quite dark and horrible.

Another book has been written by Lian Hearn called ‘Heaven’s Net is Wide’, it goes back to the beginning, therefore ending the collection at the start. I look forward to reading that, but not for a while.

They are such thick books and with the Japanese culture and names, seem to require more concentration from me than the usual books I flit through. I am glad to have completed it. I hope I can fly through a few more on my shelf as my reading stack is piling up. I had to return a pile to the library today as I heard kids talking about books they were waiting for and felt guilty they were just sitting next to my bed.

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