Tech Savvy is not the same as Information Savvy... which is really the ultimate goal

I don't think the case was made terribly well equating computer access in the classroom with social justice. I understand the need for technological skills and savvy for all students, but I am not convinced that rises to the level of social injustice on the part of a teacher faced with inequity of access among student homes. The information divide is a real concern in our communities, and across the world, but the individual teacher's role does not rise to the level of social justice or injustice. Yes, it is important to provide access opportunities, including open classroom times as possible before or after school, posting public library hours, information about programs like Free Geek and student discount programs. It also means providing time on assignments for those who may need to access library computers.

I think a big mistake in the articles is the emphasis on student's choices of entertainment rather than assessing their best learning. The two are not the same, but Greenhow seems to gloss that distinction:
"They wanted more technologies for learning in school and distinguished their out-of-school technology use for personal or social communication as "more entertaining" than the academically traditional technology use in school."
Well of course it was "more entertaining"... that's the nature of personal or social activities vs. academics! The technology is not the big distinction in that, is it? The real question isn't how do we make academic technology more entertaining, it is how do we make sure students are learning how to use technology as one (and not the only) tool for effective information gathering, analysis and presentation. In other words, the traditional goal of education: informed and critical thinkers.

The access students have at home to technology will not automatically translate to an adeptness with the applications useful in school or in the workplace. Teacher's should not assume that students who are skilled at texting and social media are good at finding useful information and discriminating among credible and dubious sources, for example. Thus, we can expect that access to computers will be only the first step in providing our students with competency they will require in the future. We'll have to provide them with information savvy as well as tech savvy. Because a student who has 24/7 computer access who still doesn't understand that Wikipedia isn't the best source of all information is not really much better prepared for the workplace than one who has limited computer access at the school.

Power Points... a great tool, but one to use wisely

The variety of content was great; I enjoyed the many different directions and foci. A few technical points leapt out as examples to emulate and to beware of. I personally find too many transition sound effects to be distracting. To me, they are like exclamation points, to be used sparingly so they retain their impact. The smart art graphics were something I haven’t played with before, so I was interested to see how everyone utilized them, and the variety of styles and colors available. My favorite effect I saw is using a photo for the background of a slide, but fading it out a bit so the font contrasts better. Josh Stohl did this especially well with a photograph of his grandparent’s wall of art and family treasures. Adding in a little glow around the font is another trick for making it stand out against the background.

The things to beware of are the same as always: too much text on a slide, reading the slides directly to the class and font that is hard to see against the background. Rachel’s presentation about malnutrition had powerful images, but due to the limitation of the number slides set by the assignment, the hard choice was where to put a list of facts. I agree with the choice of not trying cluttering the most powerful images of starving children, but the “Facts” slide then had font that was too small to read easily. The “Symptoms” slide was about the perfect balance of size and amount of info, I thought. My own presentation was guilty of some over wordiness too, which may mean this is just a problem with biologists making presentations? ;)

I’ve used power point a lot for class presentations. In online classes, I have my students make freestanding shows that are posted for a week at a time for class discussion. It has worked well in that venue. Power point is a tool that can really illustrate and support a presentation’s organization, or starkly reveal a presentation’s lack of organization. Just like any other tool, it has to be used correctly and for the right reason to be effective. Using it just because it is available leads to “death by power point,” a terribly affliction epidemic in society today.