Climbing the Ladder - Electronic Portfolios (Thing 16)

The concept of eFolio Minnesota is wonderful--a versatile tool for students and job-seekers. The idea of posting a portfolio on line is up-to-the-minute, but I am not convinced that it is any more effective than blindly sending out numerous resumes in the the hopes of attracting attention.
Good marketing is usually targeted marketing, not a random shot in cyberspace.
The appearance of the efolio site is bland and its "feel" is rather jumbled and "institutional". Some sections are more applicable to student purposes than others, and some of the links are print-heavy and cluttered. If I were either a student or a job seeker, I might find threading my way through the site layout discouraging. Having explored similiar sites when I was a job-seeker, I found having to dig through pages and pages of "helpful" hints about resumes and interviewing rather tedious and ultimately of little use. It's sad but true that personal contacts are still the way that most people get into their schools of choice and/or win employment.
The "MN Online" link is good for general information about the MNSCU system--a kind of "one-stop shop" for those seeking courses or campus information. That could be a boon to students and families researching college options. The Monster.com link appears the most appealing for younger users in style and substance. These tools are certain to evolve with time and competition.

Down the Rabbit Hole (Thing 21 - Podcasting)

Podcasting has great potential for many different applications. Its newness makes it vulnerable to the randomness that afflicts many of the current resources, and wide open to slick commercialism. As I've said before, more talk does not ensure better talk. The following are the results of my trip down the podcasting "rabbit holes" of a few sites as I try to plan my implementation of a podcast assignment for next quarter. My goal in structuring the assignment is to link the classroom with the Spanish-speaking community in the Twin Cities, and to link the podcasts to my webpage and the student-oriented Wiki that I am building.

But first, a review of the reference sources:

Let's start with the best: I have already been using the BBC podcasts all year for listening comprehension development. I also have them linked to my webpage so students can access them at any time. The people who produce those podcasts obviously not only speak well--they also know how to write well. That's why they don't just babble. The Educational Podcast Directory is a wonderful resource--content-rich, well-organized. The "Intercultural and Cross-Cultural Communication" sections are excellent for World Language teachers. I plan to spend a lot more time there. It would be exciting to be able to use Skype in MPS, as some nice models on the site illustrate.

Now, to the questionable:
Podcast.com was inaccessible; Podcast.net could not be located; Podcastalley.com featured links such as "Open Source Sex" and "Dan Carlin's Hardcore"; Yahoo Podcasts mostly highlighted popular music and did not seem particularly deep ; another was Podcast Awards, offering such winning links as "Midwest Teen Sex Show." Hmmmm...

As usual, check out all sites before recommending them to students! There are more sites "mushrooming" every day, but most look like advance "feelers" for commercial exploitation. Who knows how many of them may even be around in even six months' time.

Request for Comments or "How the Internet Got Its Rules"

I never knew how the original Internet protocols were designed and implemented, and how they shaped what we now take for granted. Today is the 40th Anniversary of the "Request for Comments." The R.F.C.s were born in 1968, long before the WWW (or email!), and were memos written (and often shared via the U.S. Postal Service and Xerox machines) among nascent computer scientists to share ideas and information about early network protocols. Although the original R.F.C.s are now obsolete, they evolved into the standard method of publishing Internet protocol standards. What they meant for the average- to below-average-skilled user like me is that they were foundational to an Internet culture valuing transparency, the free exchange of ideas and vetting by peer review. In forty short years, that's a major accomplishment. To read more, see the following by Stephen Crocker, the originator of the R.F.C.s.: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/opinion/07crocker.html?ref=opinion

Battle of the Browsers

There is a lot happening on the browser scene these days. The winner, according to some experts, is Google Chrome...(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/technology/personaltech/26basics.html). It offers high security (a plus for me) and an "input bar" that searches through your Web history. It also allows for add-ons. The latest Safari does away with the tab bar, though I personally like that. Firefox has become faster and alows more customization than others in the "Tab Mix Plus" which I have not tried, but I think it sounds interesting.
I will probably stick with Firefox for now, though I am partial to Internet Explorer too, since I like the tab bar a lot. I am a "challenged" multitasker even under the best of circumstances. The point is, check all of these options out and see what works for you. It's great to be a "sought-after" demographic!

Pod People and PS FYI "POS"

Since my AP Spanish students have been exposed to high-quality Spanish-language podcasts and videos from the BBC all year, I am looking forward to making a podcast part of next semester's assignments. We have been examining the roots of modern Spanish-speaking civilization in the Americas, and connections between the past and present. (Example: Modern manifestations of the Mayan culture in the Yucatan peninsula, Guatemala and beyond, exemplified in the work of Nobel-prize winner Rigoberta Menchu and others).

In the past, I emphasized the many research- and language-practice links already loaded on my webpage (since 2005!): http://south.mpls.k12.mn.us/31Jul20052.html) and had students present Power Point oral reports in class on a variety of culture topics. That was quite labor-intensive with the numbers of students enrolled in Spanish classes. It is no simple task to edit numerous student writing assignments in another language and provide meaningful guided feedback. It is a very different process from first-language writing development.

Now that I have learned how, I will have students do a podcast in Spanish on a topic related to the contemporary Spanish-speaking world, a world very much alive in Minnesota. Their podcasts will have a special new relevance. I am still refining the themes, but the assignments will involve an interview with someone from the community. Since the students we see nowadays need very prescriptive rubrics to complete assignments sucessfully, the MILI-suggested podcast rubrics will be useful.

PS FYI--Raise your hand if you know what "POS" stands for in texting slang: OK--"Parent Over Shoulder" (by now, that little screen would have gone blank if you had caught a student or your child texting something inappropriate). How quickly those little peas sprout wings!

BBC Mundo - Podcasting Versus "Pod" People

One of the most important resources that I have loaded on my school webpage is a link to BBC Mundo (BBC World Service in Spanish language): http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/news/. Each Monday, to start the week and to practice listening and reading comprehension, we look at a few videos and/or short text articles. These items also provide excellent models for World Language podcasts because of the quality of the writing and presentation, and the vast, ever-updated range of topics. When I survey my classes, they inevitably mention BBC Mundo and the link to the Discovery Channel in Spanish on my webapge as two of their favorite resources.
Not only are they getting language enrichment and high-level reporting, but they are also learning that our own news media generally present a limited range of views.
With the decline of conventional newspapers and the explosion of "news" blogs biased to a particular point of view, it is crucial that we offer our students examples of high-level professional journalism from around the world.
For an interesting read on "self-segregation" in U. S. society based on points of view, including on the Internet, (what I would term "pod-peopling") see The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart by Bill Bishop (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2008).

Hazardous Half Lives on Facebook

OK -I swore I would not write one more thing about Facebook, but here goes...
There are some long-term consequences that no one can adequately predict about Facebook postings. I am reminded of nuclear half lives--not that I pretend any special knowledge of nuclear physics--I leave that to our Mr. "Discovering Science". According to my old Webster's (how's that for an ironic title?) a half-life is the period required "for the disintegration of half of the atoms in a sample of some specific radioactive substance."
Well, people are discovering that their past lives are still "radioactive" too, as the author of "Growing Up On Facebook" notes (New York Times, 15 March 2009): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/magazine/15wwln-lede-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Growing%20Up%20On%20Facebook&st=cse. Someone who hadn't seen her in decades posted a picture of her at age 16. Sure glad that I have always been averse to having my picture taken, especially by strangers! Some very interesting statistics are posted in the article: the age 25-50 category topped the charts at 3 + hours for the average time spent on Facebook during January, 2009. Nostalgia? Narcissism? Both?
How about authentic self-invention? There is something tragic about the apparent need in our society for the creation of an alternative "self" and transmission of same to the rest of the world via impersonal means.
More practically, a related phenomenon is that fact that all this may eventually cost people lots and lots of money far down the road. The potential impact of the "half-life phenomenon" of published private information on job-hunters is already well-established. College kids, whatever you do, don't let anyone snap that photo of you grinning and naked in the hot tub at that fraternity kegger! It may come back to haunt you more quickly than you think.
An insurance specialist I know adds that sites like Facebook, and the disclosures therein, take on lives of their own once published. They may be exploited by insurers seeking to limit their exposure to pre-existing conditions (such as detailed addiction narratives and accounts of personal trauma). In short, his advice is: "Take it to your shrink," or "Save the drama for your mama."
Once our words are out there in the universe, they are no longer our own.