Part of our blog assignments allows us to choose some posts of ‘our choice.’ Since I am trying out this whole blogging thing, and not sure if it’s something I want to do…I thought I might as well throw some more personal stuff into the mix.
Recently, I have been reading the headline news online (abc, bbc, bangkok post, etc) and sharing the most hilarious and/or fascinating stories I encounter with anyone who seems interested. These last few weeks, however, I have been traveling and my Internet connectivity was severely limited (sad how this impacts us and we feel ‘cut off’ from the world when we can’t be connected). So I had to resort to the good old fashioned perusal of a real live hard copy newspaper.
My mother and I are sitting on the Seattle Ferry, sipping a latte and passing the paper back and forth, sharing little tid bits here and there. We happened to have grabbed a copy of the Kitsap Sun as my mother lives in Poulsbo, WA. As we’re leisurely enjoying our cup of joe, my mother suddenly begins to giggle quietly. Pretty soon she’s erupted into convulsive laughter that she’s trying to stifle, which is just resulting in an even more fantastic display of her choking on her fits of giggles. As I watch her body spasm with the force of her mirth, I begin to wonder if she is in need of medical attention. Finally she manages to choke out past the tears streaming down her cheeks “dolphins…gasp…handcuffs….gasp…intruders!” And then I lose her again for another fit of convulsions.
Eventually I managed to wrest the newspaper from her grip and determine the cause of her mirth. I find the article titled “Dolphin Patrols Pick Up Support” and quickly scan the print. I’m going to share with you some direct quotes from the article (I promise they are DIRECTLY quoted, I am not making this up…I’m not that clever really!):
“…opponents knitted sweaters, hats and mittens for the dolphins. They did so because they believed the warm-water mammals would get chilly swimming in Hood Canal.”
The article goes on the talk about the program that has been developed at the Bangor Naval Base and it’s use of marine life:
“The dolphins, accompanied by a handler in small power boats, work at night. If they find an intruder, they swim back to the boat and alert the handler, who places a strobe light on their nose. The dolphin races back and bumps the intruder’s back, knocking the light off. The light floats to the surface, marking the spot.”
Can you imagine? Out for a nice swim and suddenly a dolphin is whacking you on the back with a strobe light? Don’t worry, the program does not exclusively use dolphins. It has also recruited sea lions to assist in the protection against terrorism:
Suspicious Swimmer?
“Sea lions can carry in their mouths special cuffs attached to long ropes. If they find a suspicious swimmer, they clamp the cuff around the person’s leg. The intruder can then be reeled in for questioning.”
I’ve got to read the hard copy newspaper more often…this takes the cake! Just remember, if you do plan to swim in the Hood Canal, look as ‘un-suspicious’ as possible or you could find yourself wrangled by a sea lion. One has to wonder, what does a suspicious swimmer look like to a sea lion??
Having been exposed over the years (often against my will) to anything tech related, like Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy and George Siemens’ theory of Connectivism, I don’t know if I would say my thinking is necessarily changing…but maybe my understanding is reaching a deeper level. Often when I’m introduced to these ideas, it’s through Jeff (he likes to talk, I’m a counselor so I’m compelled to listen). This then naturally lends itself to me seeing things from his perspective, or a teacher’s perspective. It has been interesting for me to read some of the information that I’ve known about, but looking at it more from the counseling perspective.
When Siemens wrote:
”Learners as little as forty years ago would complete the required schooling and enter a career that would often last a lifetime”
I found myself reflecting on the traditional role of School Counselors. Our role has historically been one of career development, exploration, and college preparation. This is evidenced in the “Career Development” domain of the standards and benchmarks created by the American School Counselor Association. Siemens goes on to discuss how this ‘one lifetime career’ idea no longer holds true. He shares his thoughts on the half-life of knowledge and how the current rate of growth for knowledge is exponential. He concludes with the idea that
“Our ability to learn what we need for tomorrow is more important than what we know today.”
How does this impact our job as counselors? Our role is to assist in preparing students with the skills and attitudes to be successful in life. How do we help students to develop the necessary skills when things are changing so quickly we can’t possibly know what the world will be like? It’s a daunting thought for sure.
I felt the glimmer of some answers when reading the Digital Media Youth Project and this paragraph about a ‘new role for education’ caught my eye:
“What would it mean to really exploit the potential of the learning opportunities available through online resources and networks? Rather than assuming that education is primarily about preparing for jobs and careers, what would it mean to think of it as a process guiding youths’ participation in public life more generally? Finally, what would it mean to enlist help in this endeavor from engaged and diverse publics that are broader than what we traditionally think of as educational and civic institutions?”
I do believe that this is where we need to be headed…this is definitely a time for education to take on a new role in our society. We as educators and counselors must be looking at our ‘new roles’ and how we can best support our students in this digital world. Whether we like it or not (and there are certainly times when we don’t!) this is where our kids are- it’s their world, it is how they think, how they interact…how they exist. The question we need to be asking ourselves isn’t whether or not we’re equipped to help our kids navigate this world, but whether or not we’re willing to learn to navigate this digital world with them.
Truth and bias are things we have always struggled with addressing in a classroom, aren’t they? They really are not new concepts that we now have to figure out.
Prior to the advent of a Web 2.0 classroom, the truth and biases we faced were the ones of the teachers, text book publishers and students. Now we address these ideas on a more global scale. Maybe one could even argue that this then actually reduces bias in a classroom. With the click of a few buttons, we have a global perspective… Clarence writes about an example of how he helped his students to reach a deeper understanding of truth and bias. They reviewed multiple reports from around the world about the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts that are happening in Gaza. They were exposed to many truths and biases. His kids are leaving his class with a better grasp of what truth and bias really are. For me to achieve a similar understanding, I had to grow up, get a Master’s degree, and move to Saudi Arabia for a few years!
I am not saying that we shouldn’t help kids (and ourselves) to understand how to filter information, how to verify facts, and how to analyze whether what we’re reading is reliable or not. Chris Betcher did an excellent job of sharing loads of tips and techniques for navigating the Web with students. However, I found myself focusing not on the idea that ‘finally we can safely navigate the web’ but instead ‘finally we can be exposed to a lot of truths and then use those to form our own truths.’
I felt a strong kinship with Barbara’s post where she examines how our passions guide us down the path towards discovering truth. Yet she stops to wonder:
“Does this passion result in a greater effort to find the truth or an inherent bias?”
She continues with the idea of encouraging ‘investigators’ or students to find the alternative view points to their truths, challenge themselves to admit their bias and be open to the idea that ‘compelling arguments may win the day.’ What if this was the way we approached information online? What if instead of being afraid of this barrage of information, we embraced it and all of its imperfections? What if we found our passions and formed our truths…
And rapidly on the heels of post number one comes my second valiant effort at being profound…or at least something slightly less than dull!
My hope that post number two would come with somewhat more ease than the first one was quickly dashed away. I sat in the F2F meeting and watched everyone copy and paste one another’s blog into our mandatory RSS readings. So much for the hope of remaining ‘under the radar’ when it came to an audience; we’re now all following each other.
In contemplating the idea of online Personal Learning Networks, I am realizing that part of our class is to force us to create these networks for ourselves. Using one another (Andy, Vu, and Nancy for example) and a few other recommended sources (Langwitches and Practical Theory are some), we are mandated to explore this world of connected and online learning.
How authentic will these be, though? I am already finding myself gravitating towards the blogs of the people I know, I mean really know, in person (what I call “real friends” right Clarence?). So, is this what will then start us on our path towards building a PLN online? Is it kind of like dipping our baby toes in the water to test it out?
Maybe some of us will decide the water is the perfect temperature and take the leap. Others of us may slowly ease our whole foot in, then the other, and so on until we’ve comfortably acclimated to the water temperature. And maybe some of us may decide that the water is still a bit too cool, not quite right for a swim just yet. Guess we will see…
So here it goes…my first blog post. Technically that’s not exactly true, but it’s my first personal blog post. I’ve struggled for the last week to think of what to write, how to write it, and how to make it something worthwhile. These thoughts and reflections have led to many an interesting discussion at my house. Being married to an avid blogger and Web 2.0 guru (Jeff Utecht), I have been inundated over the years with the idea of the power these web tools can bring to a person. I have also been witness to how these tools can effect change in teaching and learning and the sharing of information and knowledge. Yet, when it actually came time for me to have to start my own personal blog for this class, I found myself reluctant at first, procrastinating with the best of them next, and finally forcing myself to work past the ball of anxiety in the pit of my stomach. In stepping back and taking a more analytical approach to my reluctance (it’s the counselor in me coming out), I began to understand why I was feeling the way I was. It had nothing to do with ideas, I have plenty of those! It also had nothing to do with the writing part, it’s something I’ve always enjoyed. One would then naturally come to the conclusion that I would take to blogging easily and enthusiastically. However, I have realized that the dread I was feeling in relation to my anticipated ‘blog post’ was akin to the panic I feel every time I am required to speak in front of a group of people. For me, to post my thoughts and ideas for a potential world wide audience, creates an apprehension on a scale of mammoth proportions!
This has led me then to my conclusion…blogging is not for everyone. Much like public speaking is not for everyone! Some of us prefer to keep our thoughts and ideas more private, some of us would rather share our insight with a small group of people in a more intimate environment; some of us would rather be keen observers of the world and not have to be the main contributors. What would happen if everyone did blog? Wouldn’t that create an overwhelming amount of information to sift through? And as much as we like to think we are original and creative in our thoughts, for many and most of us, someone else out there has already had the same thought, idea, or epiphany. A perfect example, my first (and agonizing) blog post, has really already been given ‘voice’ by Will Richardson who recently wrote:
So I’m wondering through all of this what role social technologies have for those who may not have the aptitudes to tap into their potential.
I guess that’s kind of what I’m wondering too!
So, in answer to the question “what do you want to get out of this course?”; I would have to reply with another question:“Is blogging for me?” This course will push me to try something new, to explore and expand my thinking, and to know for sure if I’m one of those people that prefer to remain a keen observer and let others take the stage.
There are additional things I hope to get from this course as well, but I might save those thoughts for my next blog post, just in case I should run out of material! So Kim and Jeff, perhaps you can convince me that I am a blogger yet…only time will tell.
by 
My mother and I are sitting on the Seattle Ferry, sipping a latte and passing the paper back and forth, sharing little tid bits here and there. We happened to have grabbed a copy of the Kitsap Sun as my mother lives in Poulsbo, WA. As we’re leisurely enjoying our cup of joe, my mother suddenly begins to giggle quietly. Pretty soon she’s erupted into convulsive laughter that she’s trying to stifle, which is just resulting in an even more fantastic display of her choking on her fits of giggles. As I watch her body spasm with the force of her mirth, I begin to wonder if she is in need of medical attention. Finally she manages to choke out past the tears streaming down her cheeks “dolphins…gasp…handcuffs….gasp…intruders!” And then I lose her again for another fit of convulsions.“The dolphins, accompanied by a handler in small power boats, work at night. If they find an intruder, they swim back to the boat and alert the handler, who places a strobe light on their nose. The dolphin races back and bumps the intruder’s back, knocking the light off. The light floats to the surface, marking the spot.”
Having been exposed over the years (often against my will) to anything tech related, like 
How does this impact our job as counselors? Our role is to assist in preparing students with the skills and attitudes to be successful in life. How do we help students to develop the necessary skills when things are changing so quickly we can’t possibly know what the world will be like? It’s a daunting thought for sure.
Truth and bias are things we have always struggled with addressing in a classroom, aren’t they? They really are not new concepts that we now have to figure out. 
Clarence
