Kevin Duden

Much of this does not apply to my situation working in a prison school where internet access is not allowed but it was interesting. One thing I can say for sure, is that we need to be careful when using YouTube because of those pop-up ads.  I've had to scramble to shut it down because there was an inappropriate ad playing.

While I see how this could be helpful in a regular school setting, in a prison setting, they are not allowed access to the internet. The state is developing a network of things they can allowed to access through tablets, they are having difficulties with internet reliability and whitelisting issue (how to keep the residents from accessing unauthorized websites through whitelisted websites.

The only issue I have with holistic assessment is that all students should be able to choose between it and standardized assessment. I had a professor who was popular with foreign students. In his classes, as part of the grade, a student could write a 5-page term paper or type their notes and present them. The foreign students who usually were English-limited almost always chose the notes, but at least every student was given the two options. In my situation I have allowed Spanish-only students to do their written work in Spanish, but in the future I might be more… >>>

I've always found it ironic that native-born Americans who only speak English will look down on an immigrant because they don't speak English when often they speak their mother tongue plus some English and often many other languages in cases where their country of origin was once colonized by France or Spain. I have been guilty of assuming because they are ESL, they are not intelligent or lack literacy.

One area I can work on is not using English phrases that cannot be translated literally since we often have Spanish, Swahili, and Russian speaking students. One example would be "to knock it out of the park."

I have to admit, so far, so good. I really expected this to be from a certain perspective, but I don't see anything that I disagree with. I do think we are a bit too sensitive with some stereotypes because some are based on reality. I wish we could laugh at each other like we used to without becoming offended.

While I can see where being aware of the generations and their differences in learning is important, there is a part of me that thinks they need to adapt to the instructor at some point. In the real world nobody will really care what generation they are from and they will be expected to act professionally and get the job done within the framework of the existing structure. I once worked in a position where scheduling was based on seniority. A newer employee complained openly about how unfair this was to newcomers and how it interfered with his personal goals… >>>

I think viewing technology as a tool rather than as the main source of instruction is important. I also like the thoughts on blurring of personal and work time and ow those boundaries need to be clear.

In my setting, a prison school, I think it would be difficult to cater to each generation. I think I could look for those outliers in my classes and at least be aware of the differences.

This section really applies to me since we have literally have students from 18-70 in my classes. I frequently come across older students who have no idea how to use a computer mouse.