Poet Ponders the Digital

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley January 2009 Issue December 8, 2008 Time for Computer Housecleaning Blurry digital photos I will not print, mediocre music I will not listen to, documents I will not read again, and software I haven’t used in a year. It is time for these wasted bits to go. When a terabyte hard drive costs $100, it is tempting to fill the trillion bytes with every digital picture I have taken and every song I might want to hear at least once. I could also store every assignment I have written as a student — and every paper I have received as a teacher. If it can be stored, why not store it? There are several reasons to not store everything, despite the temptation to do so. Organization is important to me. Keeping everything makes it hard to locate anything of value, even with the help of software. Also, old files might have been created in an application that’s discontinued or incompatible with a newer version. My annual cleaning ritual lets me remove old docum...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley December 2008 Issue November 3, 2008 The Multiple Computer Household With five computers, I used to think my wife and I were unusual. We were at one time, I’m certain, but now I am finding “normal” households with even more computers. A college professor I know had three systems for herself, one for her two children, and two for her husband. Eventually, she said with some resignation, she’ll have two teenagers and each son will want his own system. How did this happen? It was one thing to have two kids, two cars, and two televisions. Now, we have three, four, or even five computers in a house. A September 2008 report by IDC, a technology consulting firm, suggests we should count computers per individual instead of systems per household. The average “Internet savvy” household has 3.11 computers and 2.25 people, one survey found. We hate to part with computers that still work. Recycling a computer generally means giving it to a relative or frien...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley November 2008 Issue October 8, 2008 Less Internet, for the Sake of Children? You can always tell it is an election year when politicians get tough on crime and take action in the name of children. For the sake of “protecting our children” the Internet is getting slightly less useful. A seemingly minor change could have major repercussions. Long before the World Wide Web, there were newsgroup servers. The most famous network of these text-based message forums was the USENET. To this day many hardcore computer programmers, hackers, and other “uber geeks” prefer the forums known as the Usenet newsgroups to exchange ideas and debate technical concepts. In a July 21, 2008, letter to Internet Service Providers, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo accuses the ISPs of trafficking in child pornography by carrying the Usenet newsgroups. The two-page letter reflects a complete misunderstanding of the Usenet and of Internet technologies in general. Unfor...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley October 2008 Issue September 11, 2008 From the Virtual Highway to Highway 99 Spending hundreds of dollars a month on gasoline meant my wife and I were cutting dinners out, DVD purchases, and our day trips to the national forests. My beloved Jeep was affecting our lifestyle. We made the decision to buy a new, high-mileage car. Like many people, we first looked at the cars in person. I like to look after hours, when the sales staff is not around. Sure, I could look online, but it’s nice to see the car. Once I had seen the cars and looked at sticker prices, I went to the Web site of each manufacturer. The sites are all nicely designed. Most let you see previews of various colors and options. I have to admit, the Mini Cooper site was a lot of fun, but my wife had already ruled out the car as impractical for trips to Home Depot or Costco. I settled for looking at practical cars in their mix of exterior and interior colors. Having studied the option...

My first week of teaching this year was frustrating. The initial classroom was unfinished, lacking electrical outlets and the standard overhead LCD projector. This killed my original lesson plans. How I can teach a technology based course with no ability to demonstrate technology is beyond me. The second room I use was double-booked with first-year composition course. The room itself has a low-resolution projector on a pushcart. It's a lousy setup for the instructor, but the students have nice workstations. I need more time to demonstrate concepts for students, so I cannot wait to have my classrooms finished. The university should have completed all remodeling during the summer. Oh, well.

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley September 2008 Issue August 11, 2008 Checking on California via the Web As an educator, I have always used a lot of maps. If data can be mapped, they have been. We’re all familiar with weather maps, population maps, and the infamous political “red versus blue” county maps. As a birdwatcher, I consult maps to confirm where some species reside. My wife uses maps to determine what plants grow best in a region. It turns out, there are maps some of us don’t expect to find. These are maps that change more frequently than books or magazines are published. A “live” map of earthquakes is definitely something a textbook could not include. There were 1324 earthquakes in North America during the first week of August, 2008. A third of these were in or adjacent to California, half were in Alaska, and the remainder were scattered about the West. These data are from the U.S. Geological Survey, better known as the USGS, which maintains a live map of earthquakes ...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley August 2008 Issue July 7, 2008 You Can Always Go Back, If You’re Prepared Digital pictures and digital music. My life is stored in bits on my laptop hard drive and an iPod. I can’t remember the last time I had film developed and my last music purchase was a hard-to-find jazz track downloaded from Amazon. My life is definitely digital. Memories are convenient… and at risk. I was thinking about this while watching the residents of Big Sur and Santa Barbara try to gather their belonging to flee fires. Like the victims of this summer’s horrible floods in the Midwest, these families sometimes had only minutes to gather important possessions. Losing pictures of my wife, my family (including the pets), and special moments from our lives would be devastating. I realize the Valley is extremely “safe” when compared to many other locations. We don’t have hurricanes, tornado seasons, or horrible fires. It is easy to forget we should protect our digital ...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley July 2008 Issue June 7, 2008 Exercise Your Brain for Success Crosswords, Lingo, Sudoku, and “Brain Age” games are among the most popular cartridges for the Nintendo DS handheld game system. Among students using the popular social Web site Facebook, versions of Scrabble and Boggle are the most popular games. As a teacher, I am thrilled. Word games dominating a popular Web site? I definitely did not see this coming. There are places to share scores, discuss strategies, and exchange user-created puzzles. Because I specialize in learning disabilities and special education, I’m especially excited to discover that students living with dyslexia and similar “decoding” challenges seem to enjoy these games. I’m not sure what started the craze, but anything that gets students wondering what a five-letter synonym for “remove” is can’t be bad. (The answer was “purge.”) When I was growing up, my mother always had a Dell Crossword or Find-a-Word book nearb...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley June 2008 Issue May 12, 2008 Time to Require Pen and Paper Again? When I was a student at Golden West High School, a particularly well-read English instructor quoted from a text he held in contempt: the Cliffs Notes guide to Albert Camus’ classic novel The Stranger. Dr. Postelle informed us that he had read the same paragraph, sometimes paraphrased and sometimes not, in numerous papers during his career. It was his way of warning us that cheaters would be caught. Now, as an instructor at a university, I am longing for the days when the laziest of students would copy from the same tried (and seldom true) source. Unfortunately, I do catch a few students trying to offer the wisdom found on Wikipedia as their own. As the spring semester ended, I had a university senior offer an entire Wikipedia entry as his paper on a famous scientist. When I asked how he could do something so incredibly brazen, he replied that he didn’t have the time to use Google ...

My students have been using Wikibooks, a LEGO CAD application, and various DTP tools. I think their skills will translate much better to the workplace than merely learning about writing. Unfortunately, there is never enough time to really teach the skills that matter... and what matters today won't apply to the next generation of software. I am wondering if I should demonstrate other types of software writers might use. Should I make sure these tools are included in my next writing class? If so, how would I organize the course content? These are questions I might consider over the summer.

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley May 2008 Issue April 11, 2008 Health Experts versus the Internet “I read on the Internet that the real cause of….” When the research physician started her presentation with that familiar refrain, the room echoed with muffled laughter. During the two years I have been conducting research on special education methods, I have come to appreciate the difficulties that must confront many doctors, nurses, and physical therapists, and psychiatrists. It seems one of the greatest challenges facing health experts is the Internet. Before you assume I am suggesting the experts should be the guardians of all knowledge, understand that I like having information before I meet with doctors, too. I hope I use the information to ask good questions, not to diagnose myself when I’m not well. Alan Gross, author of The Rhetoric of Science, told me that doctors increasingly give in to patient demands because patients can and will find doctors willing to prescribe t...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley April 2008 Issue March 7, 2008 Computers, Disabilities… and Miracles “Doctors Amazed by Autistic Girl’s Computer Use.” ABC News featured the story of Carly, a 13-year-old girl with autism during a February newscast, with additional information appearing on the network’s Web site. Not long after Carly’s story aired, another network featured a16-year-old boy with spina bifida using a special pad to control a computer. Both young people were miraculously performing well academically thanks to technology. A series of stories soon circulated on the Internet, most featuring disabled individuals using computers with “adaptive technologies” to communicate. From autistic children to adult stroke victims, miracles were being proclaimed. Because these stories generally appear in clusters, I knew it wouldn’t be long before a parent asked me the tough question: “Should I get my child a computer with some of that special equipment?” This is a very difficul...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley March 2008 Issue February 10, 2008 Virtual Sports, Real Fitness Middle schools are using the video game Dance Dance Revolution as part of gym class. Senior citizens are forming bowling leagues that compete using Nintendo Wii Bowling. Virtual activities that once exercised nothing more than thumbs are turning into real workouts and real fitness. Reports of teens shedding pounds playing video games have appeared in several newspapers, as well as being featured on CNN. The University of Tennessee is even studying the effectiveness of using Dance Dance Revolution to help motivate severely obese adolescents. I admit that I won’t be using “DDR” until there is a “Classic Rock” edition, but some of the other virtual activities I have seen recently have me intrigued. In fact, I’m starting to think there are some benefits to the virtual world. Recently, I wandered into one of those stores that specialize in expensive toys for adults. Normally, I sit in ...

As some of us mourn (complain) the state of the Internet, I wonder how we can teach students to write and think in ways that rise above the [choose your own description | rancor ] they read on DailyKos, Free Republic, Town Hall, MoveOn... et al. Agree or disagree, the Web is home to a lot of angry tirades that would fail a basic debate course. Though I consider myself “moderate” and want more fun and less politics in my life, I understand that many of my colleagues cannot resist being political in their courses. What they don’t admit is that they might be tolerating weaker logic from those students expressing views that are aligned with the instructor. The students might be learning that weak, but passionate, arguments are acceptable if they support the dominant positions within their classroom communities. I worry that we might be little more than an echo chamber, suggesting to students that virtual shouting matches are acceptable. A post on the DailyKos did summarize my feeling...

Visalia Direct: Virtual Valley February 2008 Issue January 7, 2008 Pursuing a University Degree Online When a star high school student graduates in Tulare County, the difficult reality is that he or she most likely will leave to attend a four-year university. For an eighteen-year-old student, leaving the Central Valley, or at least Tulare County, is part of the educational experience. But, after returning to Visalia some of us find out that our undergraduate educations are not quite enough. For those in education, Fresno State, Fresno Pacific University, Chapman University, and others have offered courses in Visalia for a number of years. This makes it possible to work and still complete a teaching credential or an advanced education-related degree. I have been thankful for the options we have in the Central Valley. But, as others have learned, if you are interested in some fields you must commute to Fresno — or even further. With the drive to Fresno taking just under an hour...