What's Your News IQ?

In our class we spend a great deal of time discussing why journalism is important in a democracy. Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” In essence for a democracy to work to its greatest potential, it needs an informed public. The public has a right to know the issues of the day, but for a democracy to function properly the public not only has a right, but a duty to be as informed as possible.

Take the Quiz Provided by the Pew Research Center

Free Laptop!

Would you trade the privacy of your own home or bedroom for the use of a free laptop? We all know that one of the drawbacks of living in today's technology rich society is our loss of privacy. We knowingly trade a portion of our private life to Google, News Corporation, Microsoft and the like for a brave new world of media rich content. The trade that the Lower Merion School District made with its students had a hidden clause.  The students each received a laptop for home use, a shiny new Mac with a webcam. The problem was that the school district had an undisclosed policy of locating stolen or missing laptops by secretly activating the computer's webcam. If you brought the laptop into your bedroom, bathroom, wherever - sorry! School officials admit that the paperwork parents and students signed did not disclose this bonus feature included in every laptop they gave to students. The school district also claims that they never "spied" on students. They go on to state that they activated the cameras 42 times in the past 14 months in order to recover 28 missing laptops. "Activated" a camera in a teen's home somehow differs from spying. It turns out that this became news when the school officials called in a student and confronted the student with pictures of him in his bedroom allegedly doing drugs. He claims they were his favorite candy "Mike and Ikes". There is some very good balanced coverage of this case form the tech site arstechnia. You can also see how mainstream media covers the topic.

Blogging in Class

Today I added 25 blogs to the blogosphere, though I did have help from 25 students in my Intro to Electronic Media class. I went into class not knowing what to expect. Yes I did the usual walk through of how to create a blog on blogger.com or wordpress.com, but I did not really know what I would get. Every student emailed me a link to their blog after they created it in class. There was almost no time to review the blogs in class, so I went home and opened up my email account. Suffice it to say I was absolutely amazed. I now know more about my students after one week, than I usually know about them after a semester.

I had spent the morning surfing the web about educational theory, implementation of web 2.0 technologies and the inability of educational bureaucracies to adapt in a meaningful way to the 21^st century. I don’t want to say “who cares?”, because I care. But to all the educators out there wondering “Can I implement Web 2.0 into my classroom in a meaningful way?” the answer is a resounding - Yes! When can I do it? Now!

A special note to my students – You are astounding. If you don’t believe me just check out each other’s blogs at the link to our class wiki that I will post in class.

In the meantime here is a link to a video by created by Professor Michael Wesch in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University. According to Professor Wesch, "this short video summarizes some of the most important characteristics of students today - how they learn, what they need to learn, their goals, hopes, dreams, what their lives will be like, and what kinds of changes they will experience in their lifetime." Think about how some of the descriptions and statistics might fit you, or someone you know.