I’m mixed. On the one hand, YouCube is a pretty interesting way to compare remixes of a thing (ie. David After Dentist) to the thing itself.
On the other hand, this strikes me as just another one of those tool that depends entirely on a teacher’s pre-existing digital storytelling skills but which also distracts her from developing those skills. (ie. Why learn how to make one video really well when you can put six average videos on a cube!)
Kate Kowak is to math blogging what Barack Obama was to stump speeches:
My hope is that what we are witnessing here [with What Can You Do With This?] is a paradigm shift. At the intersection of problem-based lessons, digital projectors, blogging, and frustration with poor-quality textbooks, is blossoming a new way of bringing mathematical understanding to our kids. We don’t need to buy anything new, or anyone’s permission…just the structure, and the willingness to be observant and curious, and the humbleness to imagine that there might be a better way. I think this is just the beginning. I think this is going to spread like a fire.
Todd Seal, the best ELA blogger you don’t subscribe to, responds to Scott McLeod’s recent provocation (paraphrased), “Can you identify 10 excellent web sites for your grade / subject area, and if not what’s wrong with you?”
Todd: What we want isnโt out there. My typical search finds me cobbling lots of different pieces together with an idea Iโve had for the last two years along with a little something I got from watching SNL this weekend attached to the core of an idea I got from a discussion with some friends last month. I rarely find resources online that fit right into what Iโm doing or that hit on what I want to address. I wish they were out there, but not even Discovery Education or any of the lesson plan warehouse sites cut it. Lots of chaff to sort through there and I worry about my return on time invested.
If I had to compile a list of sites essential to my day-to-day practice, you’d find Google Search, Google Reader, Google Images, and not a whole heckuva lot else. I spend much of my planning time lately curating media of the kind Todd lists in his awesome run-on sentence there: TV shows, photos I find, photos I take, video I capture, iPhone applications, current events, commercials, and, if I must, my assigned textbook.
I curate this media. I arrange it sensibly and structure questions and activities around it. It’s time-consuming and it’s challenging and the only way I can remotely justify the expense is by posting those lesson packs here, for others to download, deploy, and improve upon, thereby propping up an initially weak return on my investment.
As magical as these Internets are, I haven’t been able to outsource that curation to one website, or ten.
Darren Draper takes on What Can You Do With This? as a professional development exercise in TechLearning:
I think weโd do well as educators to consider this and similarly engaging forms of online learning to challenge teachers in their pursuit of up-to-the-minute professional development. Our teachers need to be challenged, and not just by the kids. By engaging in a little self-directed, peer-provided rigor, I think that instructional practices can improve.
Obviously, I agree. I’m also sure this is nowhere near the best we can do.
Watch this YouTube video, which is sweet and wistful all the way up until you realize it’s selling flavored sugar water:
The question I asked my students was, “when did you realize it was selling you Coke?” and “how many times did you see Coke throughout?”
The kids who are unfortunate sponges for product placement didn’t notice it was a Coke ad until the end. Savvier shoppers spotted the Coke billboard halfway through.
These classroom conversations are fun and useful and I’m glad we make room for them in math. I have given up posting my show and tell media here but if you’d like a feed of photos and video I show in my classes every day, I have tagged them here.