Teaching for the Future: Episode 45: How Are We Using Technology?

News:

Cory Doctorow Teaches USC Course from Boing Boing: Cory is one of the editors of the popular blog Boing Boing and will be teaching a class called "Pwned: Is everyone on this campus a copyright criminal?". Cory will be teaching about the role of computers in society and how our internet freedoms are being threatened. I'm a big fan of Cory's and I wish I had a chance to take a class like that here on the East Coast. I just hope that USC will be podcasting this course.

New tool helps Internet users bypass censors from Public Radio.org: Psiphon is a new program created by CitizenLab at the University of Toronto. Psiphon is designed to circumvent firewalls and allow people who live in censored nations to access the whole web. As I listened to this episode of Future Tense I wondered how hard it would be to set this program up to allow students and teachers to use this to go around federally mandated firewalls in schools?

Teacher Tech Use on the Rise...So?fromWeblogg-Ed: Will Richardson responds to a blog post by David Warlick.

Promo:

If you enjoy Shakespeare than definitely check out the ShakespeareCast!

Commentary:

"What difference, really, does the infusion of technology into the classroom have if the teachers who use it don’t have a context for learning with it? My guess is that most of what’s happening in schools right now is what Alan November calls “automating,” taking the stuff we used to do on paper and digitizing it in some way without any real change in the pedagogy or in the understanding of what the learning potentials are. I mean, take PowerPoint as an example. If you use PowerPoint, technically you’re using technology. But most of the uses of PowerPoint that I’ve seen in schools have nothing to do with learning. Nothing. In fact I still have a hard time believing how much of what is presented at the technology conferences I go to has nothing to do with helping those in the room become more effective, lifelong learners. It’s all about doing." -Will Richardson

Thanks to Chris Penn from the Financial Aid Podcast for the great intro and thanks to Dan Flannery for the great music. Make sure you make Dan your MySpace friend.

If you have a podcast I'd love to hear about it, so feel free to email at teachingforthefuture@gmail.com or send me an audio message through Odeo

Tags:Dave LaMorte, teaching for the future, technology, education, podcast, teaching