Tag Archives: educational technology

Brand New, Brand Me?

Posted on by
3

“Personal branding, by definition, is the process by which we market ourselves to others.” This is the essence of an article by Dan Schawbel called, “Personal Branding 101; How to Discover and Create Your Brand.” What is my brand and what do I stand for? My current job is librarian, but my brand may have more to do with writing for children. Do I even need a brand? While one may question the need for self-marketing, if one tumbles into the adventure of looking for a new job, the value of having a personal brand may suddenly become apparent. An individual may already have a personal brand of sorts, in fact, and not even know it.

This topic interests me, not because I am currently searching for a new job, but because I am launching into the world of digital publishing and realize that, as an author, I am responsible for the promotion and branding of my books. If I want to sell books and reach an expanding readership, I have to build my brand. So far, my children’s sermon website, Kidsermons.com, does have links to purchase my books, but it exists mostly to give pastors a free resource for their time with the children on Sunday morning. The digital book I am currently working on, however, has no connection to the children’s sermon site and I realize that I will have to create another online presence that can highlight a new category of illustrated children’s books. I have a lot of work to do.

One shouldn’t wait to start building a personal brand until there is a desperate need, of course; it should be a process that sculpts itself over time. As soon as a person begins posting content online, in fact, a personal brand is already being developed. In talking with others about our digital footprints, I have often said that the internet makes it hard for someone to lead an anything-but-transparent life. Even previously posted blogs, websites and photos that have been purposefully removed can be looked up again through sites like the Internet Archive. Your digital footprint is pretty much permanent. As Dan says in his article, “transparency and authenticity are the only means to survive and thrive in this new digital kingdom,” so be careful where you step.

Even if you are building on an old “brand you,” there are many things you can do to help your image, as long as everything that you post is true and truly you. If your Facebook page has good, positive content, then that is a good start to “Brand You.” (Students should be reminded of the visibility and permanence of Facebook material before they enter high school as colleges can search these sites as part of their acceptance decisions.) But beyond Facebook, it is even more important to have a personal webpage or blog. While I have and maintain both, I realize that they do need a lot more work.

When I do a search of my name, Ruth Ingulsrud, on the web, I find 86,700 results. The first result to pop up references my wonderful sister-in-law, whose maiden name was Ruth Ingulsrud, and who is now the Chancellor of Kwansei Gakuin and goes by the name of Ruth Grubel. Most of the other references were mine, but I saw one important reference that was sorely out-of-date. I realized that I need to update my online resumé. To help with this process, I can use the helpful information found on another of Dan Schawbel’s pages on building the “Ultimate Social Media Resumé.” I don’t know if I will end up with the “ultimate” but I hope it will be better than what I currently have. I can do so much more now with the ability to embed video and photos and to include links to social networks and forums, blogs and wikis. I’m realizing that a personal brand does not create a brand-new you, but it can show your strengths and gifts in a brand-new way.

A Look at Linking or Hypercard Revisited

Posted on by
2

 

“Inanimate Alice represents a paradigm shift in how we approach reading and writing instruction,” states an article posted on the National Writing Project website. I’m reading this piece that reviews and promotes a book it touts as “the leading example of this transmedia phenomenon is the born-digital story.” Really? Haven’t they ever heard of hypercard? Wow; maybe I’m just too old to be reading this article. Twenty-some years ago, I remember purchasing and playing with quite a few interactive stories with my three-year old son. He loved them. He could make different things happen in the stories by clicking on various choices. There were several options on many of the pages and the story had a variety of endings.

The stories used a very neat piece of software called “Hypercard” which was pretty simple but worked quickly and worked well. Amanda’s Stories was one of the early examples. The stories were simple, creative and interactive. Manhole was a more sophisticated later example. The brothers who designed Manhole went on to create Myst, a virtual, explorable world with countless adventure permutations. These are just a few early examples of transmedia storytelling which invite (and actually require) reader participation. Hypercard was simple enough for my four year old computer-loving son to make an interactive story of his own with some help from techie-hubby.

Here is one area where computers are encouraging more brain activity instead of passive consumption. This is encouraging. In the school library where I work, many students come after school to use the computers to access games. They tend to gravitate towards the less mentally-demanding games that involve shooting some sort of missile, balls or birds or what-have-you, at a moving target. Although I have explained to them again and again that the only games they are allowed to play in the library are educational ones, they still try to justify their choice by explaining that they have to aim correctly to shoot the object. “And is your brain working hard? Are you having to think to figure things out and solve problems?” I ask. “Not really,” they usually admit, and then they find a more challenging game that involves logic or physics puzzles like Civiballs, or teaches typing skills like Super Hyper Spider Typer, or encourages them to practice math problems like IXL Math.

I have started to set up links that they can easily access through the CAJ library site that takes them directly to games which exercise their brains. The typing links are up, but I have more to do in this area. It would be fun to set up some interactive computer stories accessible through the library website as well. In the past, students have requested “Choose Your Own Adventure” type stories, but we only have a few of these in the library. In paper form, they are a bit cumbersome and awkward to read, but the digital platform is perfect for this sort of thing. I expect to see more of these books with embedded, applicable links becoming available in the future, and would hope that many new offerings would become available that challenge readers to exercise many different skills and areas of learning: physics, biology, math, literature, history, etc. In order to bring the story to a satisfying conclusion, for example, the reader would have to solve problems or figure out the optimal storyline choice. Interactive stories and texts that exercise the brain and teach curriculum would be a welcome addition to our school library and textbook resources.

Update:

Here are a few resources that I was guided to after posting this article … (thank you Lorraine Hopping Eagan) :

Interactive MathStory-Game:  http://www.kosjourney.com/

Blog about Transmedia:   http://www.transmediakids.com/

Robot Heart Stories project:  http://www.indiegogo.com/Robot-Heart-Stories

Laura Fleming’s Blog:  http://edtechinsight.blogspot.com/

Collecting the Collective

Posted on by
1

by Kalexanderson

I have often wondered, as our world becomes more complex and global knowledge is added at an exponentially increasing rate, how a student will ever manage to have, even a reasonably basic overview of all that they should know by the time they complete their degree. It is even more impossible now, to know everything that there is to know. It seems that a student who has specialized in one area of knowledge early on, and has thus been able to dive deeper into its complexities, has an advantage in the job market over a student who has a shallower but wider range of knowledge. In each area of expertise, one has to learn such a vast amount of material before one can go further and become a pioneer in new and crucial findings and discoveries.

The idea of a “collective intelligence” as outlined in the MacArthur white paper, “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century” has very important ramifications for how we prepare our students for their higher education experience and their eventual participation in the work force. Understanding that shared knowledge from a base of varied expertise can accomplish so much more than trying to progress on the acquired knowledge of just one or few individuals allows us to structure learning where students can become an expert in one area of their studies. If we can let go of the insistence that all students learn exactly the same thing (and in exactly the same way), we can allow students the thrill and edification of being responsible for teaching his or her peers. This approach has been successfully enacted in history classes, for example, where each student takes on a persona of a historical character, researching their possible actions, motives and background so that they can participate in a writing or role-playing exercise that uses actual historical events to guide the classroom action. 

This “collective intelligence” is clearly valued as students search online for resources relating to school assignments, artistic searches for music or images and for purposes of pure entertainment. We learn to sort through the vast ocean of material to find the very best or exactly what we need for our purposes. We use what is already out there for our own individualized purposes. Artists and scholars have always borrowed and built on the work of their predecessors. The issue of copyright and correct attribution, however, has never been more important than it is now.

The richness of a collective intelligence has a parallel in the collective creativity of an increasingly accessible and digitized world. We all benefit from being able to access material from so many sources, both contemporary and historical. There has to be a happy medium somewhere between completely free “borrowing” of material and copyright fossilization. The Disney company, for example, although it has borrowed freely and often without attribution is constantly pushing back the copyright cutoff date to protect access by the public to creatively borrow Mickey Mouse. Ironically, Mickey’s debut film “Steamboat Willie” was a parody of an early Buster Keaton film, “Steamboat Bill, Jr.” and thus, Mickey began his ascent to stardom by building on the works of others and referencing the popular culture of his day. Interesting that the Disney company does not think this sort of thing should continue when it begins to be applied to the company’s own proprietary material.

Copyright Disney; this low-res. screen shot qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law.

Despite my indignation over Disney’s apparent hypocrisy and although I am still a bit confused about all of the rules and regulations attached to what materials we can use and for which purposes, I know that it is essential to teach students to properly attribute all media used in reports and presentations. We carefully teach MLA format and run submitted papers through various plagiarism checks, and we should be as thorough when scrutinizing borrowed images, music and video clips as well. We should not, however, discourage incorporation of such a vast store of resources for fear of an error in attribution. For the most part, students, who are not out to make money from someone else’s creativity, are not targets of the copyright police. We can guide them to sites like Creative Commons that provide images with a more relaxed attitude about sharing and make sure that they do give credit where credit is due. The better students are prepared to collaborate with the collective intelligence and the collective creativity of their world, the better they will be prepared to craft new and compelling ideas, inventions and art to grace our collective consciousness.

Storyteller Scrutiny or Self-Evaluation

Posted on by
2

Last week, with the storytime link in place on the school library site (http://tinyurl.com/4x74fyx) the 5th grade students at my school were able to watch themselves tell their collaborative folktale with their partners.

For some, it was their first time to really scrutinize their oral presentation style. They were given a task to perform while watching; to write down one positive thing and several areas where they could improve in their storytelling techniques. Some had trouble finding a positive. “Did you look at the audience? Did you speak up clearly? Did you know your story well? Did you and your partner collaborate well during the telling of the story?” I asked as I circulated among them. Finally, most found at least one positive. And all of them had a list of suggestions of ways they could improve. “Don’t play with your clothes. Too many, ‘ums’ and hesitations. Don’t look at your partner. Speak up. Add some expression. Don’t look so bored.” I didn’t have to tell them anything. They told themselves. A video was worth a thousand words.

Now for the second phase…. the students will have the chance to remake their folktale as an iMovie, adding all of the expression and movement that they may have missed at the first go. There are a lot of steps to this one. They already know their stories and most have learned to collaborate very well with a partner that they probably would not have chosen for themselves (all boy-girl assigned partners, poor kids), and they know how to improve. Now they just have to:

1. Learn how to use a video camera. (We have several new Kodak PlayTouch cameras; http://tinyurl.com/3amsvlj)

2. Make a storyboard of their folktale. (Jason Ohler has templates and instructions on his site: http://tinyurl.com/24tjrv2)

3. Shoot the folktale footage with the focus remaining on the student storytellers.

4. Download the footage and begin to work on the final product in iMovie. (Apple’s tutorials are helpful: http://www.apple.com/findouthow/movies/)

5. Post new and improved folktales alongside the original ones on the library “Storytime” website.

Of course, first, I might have to learn to use iMovie. My students will probably end up teaching me. I look forward to the process.

SubAugModRed; Getting to the “Red” Zone

Posted on by
3

The SAMR model was developed by Dr. Reuben Puentedura to help educators rethink the way they use technology to enhance and encourage student learning. Because the use of computers in education is still relatively new, tech tools are not being used to their full potential in the classroom and this is the impetus behind SAMR. This model was designed to push educators towards more creatively intentional use of today’s available technology. The acronym SAMR stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification and Redefinition.

The SAMR graph helps to show the progression of the levels of computer use in academia. At its simplest level, the computer is used as a substitution. A research report can now, for example, be typed on the computer instead of being handwritten. At this level, other computer and tech capabilities are being ignored. A student could be encouraged to embed links in the bibliography which would redirect back to the source (Augmentation), or present the report as an oral report in video form with additional data or sub-points branching off of the main report (Modification), or the report could be something entirely different. A research paper in Redefinition mode makes creative use of all the new technology and connectivity that is now available to us.

A research project enters the “Red” zone, when the purpose of the assignment (that of demonstrating new knowledge garnered by thorough researched) makes authentic use of available technology and “redefines” the assignment. An audio-visual report might be given that augments the live speaker’s informative talk with video and sound back-up and may even include a real-time Skype interview with an expert in the field with the opportunity for other students in the classroom to also interact with the expert and ask questions or even suggest future experiments or areas to investigate.

I am attempting to pull our school library into the “Red” zone, or at least the “Mod” zone now by adding features to its website that will help students in various ways. Students will be able to link directly to library-authorized educational games that they will be allowed to play in the library after school. They will be able to see and hear their favorite library assistant, Baabara the Lamb, read a story to them. They will be able to watch fellow student storytellers present a variety of folktales from all over the world and leave comments and questions for them. Watching a video of themselves will also teach them which public speaking skills they still need to work on. They will be able to select the perfect Guided Outside Reading book by reading summaries and fellow students’ comments and recommendations.

The plan starts with a need and tries to fill it using tech resources and capabilities in the most direct way possible. I hope that these new capabilities will help school families get even more out of their library interaction experience.

Schematic of new CAJ library site:

Making It Seamless

Posted on by
2

This week has been a frustrating one technologically-speaking; some successes, but a couple key failures. Examples follow:

I was in charge of chapel for the Elementary School which entailed planning the half-hour with songs, a message, a bit of fun, and hopefully some depth and substance as well. After sketching out the general plan, I went to work on my puppet show to support the central message. No big struggles with technology here… only issue was making sure that the puppeteers were all miked backstage. This was solved with two wireless stand mikes on the two sides and one wireless headset mike in the middle. Wireless is so great for puppet shows; no tripping over the wires behind the curtain.

After finding a willing guitarist and another person to help with the singing, I made use of the internet to find chords and even give examples of the song being sung and strummed. One song was too ancient to find on You Tube, so I had to teach it directly. In defense of this poor, neglected song, I did find others who recognized this song, but they were (of course) about my age. So far, so good.

I made use of Keynote to get the lyrics up on the auditorium screens to assist the sing-alongs and even figured out how to embed a pre-recorded song into one of the Keynote presentations. (That would be the song used to support the colorful, lip-synching Muppet-style monsters.) The monster song was to be the energy high point of the chapel, so I worked hard on that one to make it appealing and easy to read.

The night before, we rehearsed the puppet show and the puppet song and everything worked beautifully. The next morning, two of my puppeteers showed up one schedule, but one was sick… so we had to quickly adapt. I gave my narrator part to another teacher and ducked behind the curtain to play the part of the cynical dog. We did mike checks but did not have time to do the puppet-song Keynote check since my sound booth guy had safety duty out on the sidewalk. So, the chapel starts, and we roll into the first song; the Keynote lyrics work fine. Then comes the puppet song. Monsters are in place, ready to begin…. and …. nothing. Ad-libbing monsters pop up and ham it up for a bit…. still nothing. So out from behind the curtain I come with my vent puppet, Truthful the Lion, and we continue as best we can segueing into the puppet show, “A Love Story with No Kissing.”  That part goes fine, but I am still frustrated by the failure of the music to play upon launch of the Keynote. (Still waiting to hear back about that one.) Technology is great, except when things go wrong.

One teacher offered to record the puppet show with a digital camera. The one that she borrowed from the library, however, was not fully charged, even though it had been plugged in overnight. Turns out that the charger doesn’t work when the computer it’s plugged into goes into sleep mode. I think I have found a solution for that one now, but too late for getting that puppet skit recorded. Sigh.

With the chapel over and done, I launch into my library classes. I am in charge of the large and wiggly second grade class for a half-hour library lesson in the second grade classroom and I am ready to do a unit on non-fiction books. I would like to show them a lovely book, written and illustrated by Peter Jenkins, called “In Living Color.” It is beautifully detailed with many fascinating critters and facts on each page. I would love to be able to show each student these illustrations up close. Wouldn’t it be great if I had a document projector? There’s one in the 5th grade classroom? Run, run; unplug and borrow; back to 2nd grade… hmm. Different setup and no available cord. No way to hook it up. It will be set up later, but not for a while. So, back to showing the pictures from my lap at the front of the room. Kids are still really excited, but some can’t quite see the details.

Good technology should be seamless. But in order for this to happen, you have got to set it up ahead of time, practice, know how to troubleshoot, whittle down transition times, and make sure that your tool is a good fit for the intended use. I need more practice. I am getting more practice, but I am very tired at the moment.

It’s All in My Head

Posted on by
2

“Digital literacy is less about tools and more about thinking, and thus skills and standards based on tools and platforms have proven to be somewhat ephemeral.” Wow. It’s starting to soak in. I’m reading something called “The Horizon Report” and I have to keep stopping to absorb stuff. Although I feel like I’m already water-logged (steady rain during my hour-long soggy bike commute home) I know that to “stay afloat” in this digitally-connected and ever-evolving academic world, I need to cultivate the ability to be ever more absorbent. Now I sound like a diaper commercial. Let’s go back to that first statement.

“Digital literacy is less about tools and more about thinking.” So it’s not just a matter of absorbing all of the new applications, digital organizers, enlightened blog posts, and cool resource-laden websites…. (how can I remember all that stuff anyways?)…. it’s more about changing my way of thinking about the learning process and welcoming the digital shift.

I admit that change does not come easily to me. I watched an amazing but completely normal event in the library today. The usual early-morning batch of educational gamers had installed themselves at the computers and I mentioned to one of them my plans for expanding the school library website and adding some extras… like links to some great new educational games. “Like what?” Of course, he was curious. They are tired of playing the same old teacher-approved games and typing practice. So I gave him one example of a reasoning, physics-based game like Civiballs, and he took off. No instructions, no questions, no prompts needed. He just figured it out as he went along. After about five minutes, at least eight kids were playing the game and other related games. I watched them for a while and slowly figured out some of the rules and they charged ahead to level 10 and beyond. No fear. I watched them fail at some levels again and again, but they did not show any frustration; they just persevered until they understood the rules. New is not scary. New is an adventure. That is the mind shift that I need to absorb.

I suppose I have changed and become more able to embrace new technology, but I often only see my failures and frustrations and no longer notice what I can do. I think that for many of us, we don’t realize we have changed until we stop to compare what it was like before. We may have been soaking in a new and challenging environment and learning to adapt, but we cannot see how far we have come.

I was thinking about this as I was biking home in the rain today. Back in California, I had been immersed in a car culture. We drove everywhere. For a while, we drove our kids to school. We drove to the grocery store. We drove to church. I am ashamed to admit that I even drove to the health club which was only a few miles away… and I looked for a parking spot close to the door. How ironic is that? Sacramento has one of the highest incidences of asthma because of its poor air quality. Driving to a health club (in a perpetually sunny environment) really was ridiculous on so many levels, but I didn’t notice it at the time. Now, here in Tokyo, I bike 22 km a day in all kinds of weather. On my way home today, I passed several automotive traffic jams and realized that biking, even in a downpour (or especially in a downpour) was faster than driving. It was cleaner, healthier, gave me my needed exercise and allowed me almost two hours of downtime per day. And lots of other people were doing the same. I was surrounded by a different environment and had changed without knowing it had happened.

Of course, it is easier not to change. Change can be painful and uncomfortable. I have to accept the fact that I will get wet and cold and tired while biking, just as I have to accept the fact that learning about new technology and then having the courage to try to use it effectively, failing and then trying again, is all par for the course. To finally feel that you are in your element, you first have to be immersed in the elements. A change in thinking will allow a change of heart.

Edutopia Topiary

Posted on by
1

Okay, so there’s a fast-growing bush called technology integration growing smack-dab in the middle of my classroom. Can’t ignore it; really should make use of it; but it’s just so huge and out-of-control that no one knows what to do with it. Time to tackle the pruning. Cut away what is not useful right now (don’t worry; it will grow back) and leave the leaves that benefit the most students at this time. I need to create a topiary that fits with my environment, so how do I shape this thing?

While reading the article, “Shaping Tech for the Classroom,” found on Edutopia’s website  http://www.edutopia.org/adopt-and-adapt , I found myself waging a running battle in my head. Yes, of course, the students want constant access to email… “ The number-one technology request of today’s students is to have email and instant messaging always available and part of school.” But would providing this to the students actually enhance their learning? I have witnessed what happens when students have access to email and IM at our school. They chat, gossip, gripe, game; they do anything but schoolwork. Yes, it would be great if they would start IMing about the assignment or start Skyping sonnets while looking up references to Elizabethan English as they speak, but it’s not happening yet. Their favorite use of the digital tools is communicating with friends and working on their own self-images.
Technology is not always the answer. We need to discern when it is the answer. Automatic grading of tests could certainly save teachers plenty of time, but only if the assessment is originally constructed in such a way as to allow the automatic grading. Creative and authentic assessments, however, are often more organic and individualized and require a pair of human eyes to give a fair evaluation. Snip, snip. When and where?

It was inspiring to read about the educational possibilities that our current connectivity could bring to the students. As the article states, “If we really offered our children some great future-oriented content (such as, for example, that they could learn about nanotechnology, bioethics, genetic medicine, and neuroscience in neat interactive ways from real experts), and they could develop their skills in programming, knowledge filtering, using their connectivity, and maximizing their hardware, and that they could do so with cutting-edge, powerful, miniaturized, customizable, and one-to-one technology, I bet they would complete the “standard” curriculum in half the time it now takes, with high test scores all around.” Yes, that would be great. I noticed that the only time my own child had time to pursue this kind of self-motivated schooling was when we home-schooled him for half a year. During that time he researched the solar system and molecules. He ended up writing and illustrating three books about a water molecule named “Feenix” who helped explain, through his various adventures, the water cycles, the states of water and the atomic structure of a single water molecule. And that was when he was in First Grade.

 

 

We can and should do more for our students because when they are inspired, they can and will do more for themselves and their own personal bliss-inspired quest for learning.

Letting the Flower Create the Root

Posted on by
3

Bloom’s Taxonomy. The name starts out making me think of colors, blossoms and growth (Bloom’s) and ends by threatening me with an insinuation of taxes and monotony (Taxonomy). Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy seems even more threatening ‘cuz it’s got that Digital thing in there: http://tinyurl.com/438yalc  But as I read this article and absorbed the diagrams, I thought about how I learn and my attitudes as I approach new information, especially when that information involves technology. First, I should explain that I am picturing Bloom’s Taxonomy as a flower, with the creative layer (evaluation) at the top and the remembering layer (knowledge) at the bottom. Creativity is reaching toward the sun, glorious with its shimmering petals and supporting sepals, and remembering is in the dirt, down there with the compost and the worms. Both parts are important, of course, along with the stuff in between, but I know what motivates me. I don’t grow a flower to admire its intricate root structure (although I am sure that does have its own beauty). I grow a flower to eventually see the blossom.

I suspect that my students may be the same. If they are motivated by the opportunity to create something that interests them and impresses their peers, then they will have the patience to work their way up through the layers of Bloom’s Taxonomy so that they have the resources to get to the colorful finish. And just as the root systems of plants tend to spread out and support each other, these networked students can help each other grow as they share knowledge and both challenge and affirm each other’s ideas. Connectivity has its merits.

I think about the task that waits for me, with a deadline looming in December. Finishing my first digital illustrated children’s book is a very motivating goal for me… but just thinking about all the steps I need to take to get there, makes me weak in the knees. I’m afraid that my roots and stems will not grow fast enough to support that bud. I do have my own helpful connections, digital and personal. I suspect that my tech-savvy hubby will be helping quite a bit as he has in the past. I want to be able to build my digital independence, but there is so much to learn at once. I will try to remember to take it one step at a time, and to not be afraid of the dirt and the worms. Bring it on.

Hanging, Messing and Geeking; a Family History

Posted on by
2

While reading the John D. and Katherine T. MacArthur-funded “white paper” (http://tinyurl.com/3nag5ag) about the new media practices of online “Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking Out,” I realized that I had witnessed the evolution of this culture and many examples of all three modes of virtual behavior in my now-14-yr. old daughter. Thanks to her, I was familiar with the behaviors discussed in the papers and could fill in many examples as I read along.

I remember my youngest’s first foray into the online communities with her fascination with a penguin-populated chat room (http://www.clubpenguin.com/). All three children were heavily invested in Neopets (http://www.neopets.com/) at one point and I remember the family drama when our oldest managed to get all the family accounts frozen after he defied the game rules by creating multiple accounts in order to rack up loads of game points. He still takes heat for that escapade.

While I understand the educational possibilities of trying to tap into this youth-culture fascination with being constantly connected with one’s peers and being able to “geek out” in an area of one’s own predilection, there are far too many areas of scholastics which may need to be taught irregardless of a teen’s willingness to geek out in that area. I have watched my daughter do a deep dive into creative writing while creating complex story lines with online co-creators and I have recently witnessed her sudden ability to disassemble and repair a 20-inch iMac by simply looking up the instructions online. Even when she was only nine years old, I watched her successfully dissect a bullfrog using diagrams that she looked up online. She identified all of the internal organs and even discerned the cause of death of her specimen which she had found near the Tama River in Tokyo.

With the ubiquitous availability of information, where there is a desire to learn, there is also the means to go as deep as one might desire. And from intense study, original creation is often a result. Online tutorials in digital drawing and use of the digital tablet, along with online artistic communities, such as Deviant Art (http://www.deviantart.com/) and websites where participants can collect and modify digital pets, our youngest is learning to hone her abilities with both digital and traditional pen and paper. She has even succeeded in drawing me into this world as I began to collaborate on a children’s book with an artist in Sweden whom we discovered through the online community.

The challenge remains in finding a way to actively engage digitally-savvy youth to embrace those scholastic disciplines and subjects that do not grab them by their mental lapels and shake them awake. If they are motivated, they will learn far more than we can teach them. But if they are not motivated to learn something, then they will invariably find a way to geek out once again only in the areas that hold their interest.