Sonnet GT

Being inspired by my love of 80/90s "alternative" music, I wrote this about gifted education and creating with technology. Enjoy.

Shall I compare thee to a Pixies’ song
Plug in and eliminate the mundane

A wave of motivation carries on
Often seen as strange, learning will remain

Sometimes too obscure to reach the masses
Yet often dynamic shifts will progress

And abstract thought is the one that passes
Extended creativity, success!

No, this monkey shall not go to heaven
Nor shall it stop moving and creating

Small audiences waiting to leaven
All filled with knowing, ready and waiting

Create within boundaries; loud quiet loud
So gouge away, discover, and be proud

Technology Checklist

image courtesy of http://bit.ly/KHmNaH

Below you will find a "Technology Survey" that can be used to gauge how savvy students are with technology.

Technology Survey

1. Do you use proper keyboarding position?

2. How often do you save your work to multiple locations (example: USB, M: drive, email)?

3. Are you able to use more than one concept mapping tool (example: Wordle, Inspiration, Glogster) comfortably?

4. Are you able to use more than one type of presentaion software (example: PowerPoint, Movie Maker, Prezi, Photo Story)?

5. How often do you use the dictionary tool while working in a Word document?

6. How often do you use the thesaurus tool while working in a Word document?

7. How often do you use the grammar tool while working in a Word document?

8. How comfortable are you at taking a picture image and importing and manipulating it so that you communicate your image with clarity?

9. How often are you able to define symbols and icons (example: italics, bold, colour changing) commonly found in application programs (such
as MS Word and PowerPoint)?

10. When you have choice of what technology you can use, what factors do you consider?

11. Describe unacceptable and acceptable computer etiquette when using technology.

12. Describe how technology improves your ability to communicate, be productive or achieve personal goals.

13. Describe how technology improves your ability to communicate, be productive or reach personal goals.

14. What computer programs or apps do you use at home?

15. What programs do you think the school should have to enhance your learning?


***This checklist was created by the Greystone Heights AcTal team: Aaron Hansen, Jason Kimberley, Tanya Orosz, and Michelle Pantel

Gathering Bananas

German psychologist Wolfgang Kohler's study of apes on the island of Tenerife, which is documented in The Mentality of Apes(1925) presents the "dissenting opinion to the associative view of memory. (Furthermore), instead of allowing that the mind learned simple connections between ideas or associations between stimuli and responses, Kohler argued that his apes learned relations among stimuli and could modify their behaviour by perceiving stimuli in new ways." (Driscoll, Marcy P., Psychology of Learning for Instruction. Pearson Education Inc., 2004) In other words, the supporter of the Gestalt Theory believed that knowledge does not just come from experience, it also involves the knower actively imposing organization on sensory data (Driscoll).

The typical experiment conducted by Kohler involved him placing food just out of reach of apes in a cage. The apes would then try a number of solutions to obtain the bananas (usually sticks-tools- were what helped the apes). Kohler referred to this as insight, as the apes did not always behave in a regular, continuous fashion.

The modern learner also has this insight. Instead of using sticks to obtain bananas, though, they use computers to acquire knowledge. Furthermore, they will use these same tools to share their knowledge and understanding of concepts with their teacher, peers, and anyone else that is interested. These skills come naturally to young students, as this is what they have grown up with. That being said, there seems to be a naturally progression as to what the learner knows in, let's say grade 5, to what she knows in grade 8. It is the role of the teacher to determine what skills the grade 5 students have, and then work from there.

An effective way to gauge students' grasp of technology is a simple survey, which could be created on Surveymonkey or some other online server. Furthermore, a rubric of what students should know by grade x should be given to teachers so that certain skills are taught by a certain grade (with some variation based on the knowledge of the teacher). Once basic skills are taught, students will use their insight to solve future problems, and act accordingly.


Coming up next...Stepping Stones