Dear Google Reader: Tell Grandma I said hello

Like a lot of folks I was disappointed to hear that as of July 1st, 2013 Google Reader will no longer be with us. I'd like to think it will forever reside in digital heaven, rewarded for all it's good (read: free and useful) works and faithful service to the masses. Although Reader will hopefully earn instant sainthood as a result of fighting the good fight, according to the official Google Reader Blog the big G cites a declining readership and a desire to avoid the very fate that befell the Roman Empire, as it looks to focus on fewer endeavors. 

I first saw the news on Ars Technica and was struck by one of the reader comments that said, and I paraphrase, "Hey no worries, I've got Twitter!" As much as I like Twitter and appreciate how it enables the cream to often rise, I'm not completely convinced that the primary way to source information relevant to me is via the Twitterati oligarchy. I would surely miss items of value, that for whatever reason, failed to percolate up into my timeline. Not every meaningful article or link or whatever will trend or be (re)tweeted my way. I would have to put a little more trust in that community than I am willing to as this point. 

And there is even some speculation that Google is going to try to shoehorn a service similar to Reader into Google+. Social media as a major news portal seems like bit of a farce. Do we want to continue allowing the news to get even more TMZ'ed as the line between entertainment and traditional news evaporates? Please Lord, no.

Putting It All Together

At my school I see the students for two rotations of about 36 consecutive class days. The rotations are never back to back so by the time they return for round 2 they have spent some time in other Unified Arts classes such as Music, Art, Health or PE. Instead of starting off with lectures on Newton's laws of motion or the concept of Trade Off's I like to get them back into the Tech Ed swing of things. So for a while now I've had them kick off the rotation by creating PowerPoint's (or more recently Google Presentations) addressing topics such as:

     - Show two things you learned in TE last time.
     - What did you like about your other UA's?
     - What are you looking forward to in TE this rotation?
     - Talk about two hobbies that you have.
 
I have been getting pretty bored with the PowerPoints and I think the kids have too. Especially after I make them take out all the LOLspeak, leet, slang, emoticons, animations and meme's. You would think I was subjecting them to the most unimaginable torture by the way, for requiring them to treat the presentations as "professional". The other funny response I get when explaining the guidelines is:

(say this really fast in a whiny voice)  "Mr. Lord, the only reason we can't use all that stuff is your just an old guy, who's a jealous hater, because you don't understand what any of that stuff means that we kids use!"

I wish I didn't know what any of it was! Please! Where is the undo button in my brain? If I hear or see YOLO  or nyan cat one more time... 93 million view by the way on YouTube for nyan cat. 93 MILLION. I am not sure what they says about us as a species but it can't be good.

So to change things up I had the students create Animoto's about the same topics.  Although I ran into a couple of issues it was a worthwhile project that engaged the students and is something I will do again in the future. Here are a couple of examples:

Just What The Doctor Ordered

I figure that most of the truly worthwhile things in life don't come without a whole heck of a lot of work. And for those things that do come easy, they're either a mirage or we fail to appreciate them. That said, and I feel like I say this about every class in our program, but this one might have been the most work.

A big part of that is that the nature of the work is such that you can keep at it for as long as you want. It's easy to hop on the old computer and while away the hours blogging, reading, tweeting, searching, replying and so forth.. The other half of the equation is that I enjoyed the work, both in class and outside, so that just reinforced the previously mentioned half. I had been looking forward to this class for some time as it ties in with my area more than any of the other classes in the program. And it came at just the right time. For the last year or two my teaching had grown stale and I felt like I was just covering the same old dated ground. This has been just the remedy I needed. Thank you to Prof Arzt and everyone in class!