Well I have heard more about that K12 internet program. I didn't hear rave reviews. At a conference I recently went to the speaker was talking about K12 and he said that it was horrible because it didn't take into account the individual student so ESL students or struggling learners could easily be left behind. I also think that there is a huge equality factor in online programs because not all students have parents that have the time or the education to extensively help their child with school. Many students have a really hard time learning on the internet with no human contact.


On a totally unrelated subject:

My daughter's friend got a rash so I was googling to see if I could guess whether it was a strawberry allergy or chicken pox so that I could keep an eye on my daughter if it looked like something contagious. I have googled illnesses many times, and I usually find several articles and a few pictures of whatever it is that I am exploring. This time a video came up where a pediatrician talked about strawberry allergies. What was interesting relating to this class is that I had never really thought about the literacy required to google a child's illness until the video came up. When I got to thinking about it, a person has to be pretty literate to get any help from those sites, digitally and otherwise. A person needs to be digitally literate in order to navigate the computer to find what they are looking for in the first place and they must also be able to read and understand high level words in order to make meaning of what the site says about the illness. Videos, especially if they are found on a very easy to navigate site like YouTube could create some equality for those who aren't literate because really, in the digital age, everyone deserves to be able to check their child's symptoms on the internet (even if sometimes that just leads to paranoia!). I remember when my oldest son was young my parents bought me a book of common child illnesses. Every time he got sick I would refer to that book. He is only 11, and now I would never think of looking in a book to find a child's symptoms. Interesting how that works.

My question is, is it better that things are so available in video now, or do you think that videos being available to people encourage people not to practice literacy. I feel conflicted. In a way I always feel it is a little sad when audio/visual things replace texts, but in a way I like that audio/visual things might make directions, instructions and information available to everyone.

http://www.k12.com/

So as a recent laid off teacher (unfortunately) I have begun the great job search for next year. While searching, I found something that I thought you all might find interesting. It is called K12. It is a free, online public school which uses real teachers to deliver curricula to students. In high school teachers give online lectures, they work with students individually, and they hold office hours. Students spend about 5-6 hours a day on coursework. For elementary school it looks like it is sort of a home school situation. It says parents should expect to spend 3-5 hours a day supporting their student's education.

I think this prospect of an online school is interesting, I am curious where it is going though. In the future will all schools be online? Will all homes have access to computers and high speed internet so that students can have equal access to online schools? There are definitely ups and downs to this whole idea. A major down right away is that many parents cannot work with their elementary school child long enough to make this work. There are also issues because I don't really see how students would participate in group work. This being said, perhaps if students are in virtual classes they get each others emails and phone numbers and do projects together? This would be pretty cool potentially (I am not really sure how it works, I am going to look more into it, but I couldn't find answers to my questions right away.

I thought of an Archie comic that I read once. They were showing how in the future there would be virtual schools and the kids thought it was really neat because they could get up later and go to school in their pajamas, but then they started thinking about things like (Archie) no girls, no prom, no sports, no theater, and generally no socializing. That being said, I think there are many kids these days who just want to get through school and don't care about those things. I was one of them! Now that I am older I regret not doing more fun social stuff in high school, but at the time I could have cared less. I know that many of the students at the school at teach at (this year, ha!) feel the same way. The web site also said that it is targeted at kids who are struggling, kids who are going too fast for their regular classes, kids who are home schooled, have military parents, or who are home bound. All of these things make sense for why a kid would take an internet course. Part of the reason that I like online classes is because I have a family and don't always have time to go to UNM to take classes. With the rate of teen pregnancy, it is possible high school students sometimes have this issue too.

I am going to explore the K12 web site some more. I am finding out some pretty interesting things. With the overpopulation of schools (sometimes not enough desks for the kids) maybe online schools are something of the future. Imagine the possibilities if schools didn't have to spend so much money maintaining a building. Wow, think of the implications. No heating, air conditioning, lights, maintenance.... states could save a lot of the money that is currently spent on education. With all the savings maybe they could afford to give scholarships to the kids that needed computers or internet? Of course, once again, the downside is that not all kids are self-motivated enough to attend an internet class that they don't have to be at (though I think that this would happen mostly in high school, in which case those kids ditch real classes so I don't know if there would be much of a difference) and I don't know if this could work for elementary because not all parents can supervise so much. It is an interesting concept though. I applied for a job at one of these, so who knows, maybe I will get to find out even more about how this works. For now I am going to surf their site some more and see what I can find out!

Jobs in our technological age

Alright, so the list of the best and worst jobs for 2012 came out, and I think we can go ahead and officially say that we need to get our kids some digital skills.

Worst Jobs

1. Lumberjack
2. Dairy Farmer
3. Enlisted Military Soldier
4. Oil Rig Worker
5. Reporter (Newspaper)
6. Waiter/Waitress
7. Meter Reader
8. Dishwasher
9. Butcher
10. Broadcaster

Notice that these are almost all manual jobs (don't use the computer at all). The interesting thing is that reporter and Broadcaster is in there. I was reading an article about it and it said that in the digital age less and less of us are reading the paper or watching the news on TV. I think that is really true. I almost never watch the news. When I get to work in the morning and my MSN homepage pops up, I look to see if there is anything interesting going on. If I hear whispers of something interesting I google it and find the news story. Newspapers might be a thing of the past in the near future. So the best jobs?

Best Jobs

1. Software Engineer
2. Actuary
3. Human Resources Manager
4. Dental Hygienist
5. Financial Planner
6. Audiologist
7. Occupational Therapist
8. Online Advertising Manager
9. Computer Systems Analyst
10. Mathematician

Most of these jobs have to do with the digital age. For goodness sake, software engineer is the first one up there! I think dental hygienist is a weird one, but I guess we all need great teeth. Still, I think the trend in general is pretty obvious. So what happens to our kids with limited access to technology? I guess they can become reporters. 

A New Understanding of the Digital Divide

I just read and article about the digital divide that was very interesting. It was saying that the digital divide is ever shrinking, but that there are other things to consider. The article says that the digital divide used to just consider the access difference between race and class, but that we should also think about the KINDS of access that different people have.We should also think about people with disabilities. I learned that there are actually groups that are fighting for web sites that are important to improve their sites so that they are more accessible to people with disabilities. 

The idea of web sites not being very easy to navigate for people with disabilities made me think; disabilities can hinder a person's ability to navigate a web site, but so can experience and mental capabilities. I know that I have a very difficult time navigating through some web sites, and I have quite a bit of experience on the internet. What are those web sites like to people with less experience?

The article said that many people now access internet through their phones, and while this has closed the digital divide some, it points out that people cannot easily apply for jobs, look for jobs, or research extensively on their phones. You can't re-register your car, buy tickets to an event, or navigate Amazon easily though your phone. You can't even write on a blog like I am doing now. Even though these people have access to internet, they cannot use it for anything that would help their quality of life significantly.

This article calls for some measures to be put into place to try to help equal access to internet. It recognized Comcast's attempt at giving low income households internet access by offering very low income internet to households that are eligible for the free lunch program at school. The article said there should be mobile access stations (which are like bookmobiles, which I had never heard of, so if you haven't either, here is a site).

Either way it is important to recognize that people who do not have internet at home don't get to just mess around with it as much as those who do, and as a result people without internet at home won't be as easily able to navigate it; so while making mobile sites of log-in available for people who don't have access to technology might at least give them the access for things that they need to do, it still might not be easy for those who don't get to practice being on the internet to use it. 

Thinking about what to do

So I don't have a whole lot of time before my presentation, I need to get to work. I think I want to do something with the fact that not all students have equal access to technology, and I want to see how that will effect them in their future. With so many jobs requiring that employees are digitally literate, does the technology that we are now privy to help marginalized people? Or does it further marginalize them? What can be done to make sure that we aren't hurting those who don't have equal access to technology. I think about a student that I have who is duel enrolled at CNM right now. He was absent and I asked him if he emailed the teacher to let him know that he would be absent. No, he doesn't have internet at home. Well there goes my next question: did you email the assignment to him. No, of course not, he couldn't.

Another thing I have thought about is that one of my kid's teachers has a web site for the class. What a neat idea and a neat way for parents to stay connected. And parents who don't have internet... can't. I don't think that teachers should stray away from neat things like class web sites because not all people can access them, but I am curious about ways in which teachers can use technology without alienating some students and families.

PBS

We just had one of the best trainings that I have been lucky to have in years. A woman from PBS came in and taught us how to use the PBS educator web site : http://nm.pbslearningmedia.org. Amazing. I say taught, but really she just showed us where it is. There are some amazing digital learning resources on there, and it is all free! I have only scratched the surface of the resources available on the site, but so far I have found history video games, and there is an interactive "choose your own adventure" type video about a kid that needs to learn about Edgar Allen Poe because he didn't do his homework and now he needs to cram. There are a lot of sources, so I will blog as I find new and interesting stuff, but I wanted to get on here and share my resource because I was really impressed with all the content. The best part? It is lined up with the common core standards, so there is very little boring work for the teacher to do. You just have to decide which lesson you are interested in teaching. Kids can even email assignments to you from the page. Very cool.