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Japanese Flashcards and Other Fabulously Free Finds!
http://www.flashcardexchange.com/tag/Ja
WOWEE! I was goofing around with my school's blackboard system, just messing with stuff, you know...I like to mess. And I found a few really cool, nerd-type sites. The one above, of course, for Ms. Rabbit...who is taking some time off of her japanese studies, but might like some very nice flashcards, just to keep her on her game? Other things they have...well what don't they. There are flashcards for everything! I found them through a service called Scholar, which I didn't even know existed. I must play with this bizness.
Now, I've taught that completly online course for Western, and I've incorporated a lot of web components into my course, but I think I'm going to amp it up a bit more this fall, for my benefit as well as the students' benefits. I don't know if the rest of you are facing this, and I'm sure I've complained about this ad nauseum, but my students are some of the most computer UN-savvy people I've ever met. They have the skill level of retirees who email their grandchildren and have to call a clever nephew to ask how to attach a picture. I'm disappointed e-generation! The truth is, I would love them to know more about computers and databases and internet gadgets and whatnots than I do ...and they should know more! They should, my freshmen were born in (WAIT FOR IT) 1991!!! So, by the time they entered Kindergarten it was 1996, the internet was in full-effect at that point, email was a regular and common thing. So, as far as I can tell there is little excuse for the lack of knowledge they have about computers and resources. And yet...and yet...and yet...wow.
When I was in middle school I took a course called "keyboarding" which taught me not only how to type on the computer, but how to use a word processing program and how to do some basic DOS navigating and programming. This was in 1986-87. And yet, when I entered high school (even at CAHS...let's just ignore the fact that in 1992 at Canal Winchester there were exactly 3 computers in the whole school--one in the office and two carefully locked away by the librarian) there were no computers or computer courses. I took typing at CAHS on an electric typewriter...a room full of electric typewriters clacking away, and us with our little pencil shaped erasers and onion skin and white out and transfer paper! Why the fuck didn't anyone get their ass together enough to realize that no one was ever going to use an electric typewriter again? This was a college prep sort of school, and the only computers were locked away in the "computer room" and bogarted by the same group of 10 pale and pasty rejects playing D and D during their free periods. But, I had taken time to learn the stuff on my own. I still am. It's the middle of summer and I'm all..."I wonder what updates they've made on our blackboard system?" And "I hope I can incorporate some multimedia resources and links!"
But my students? Who apparently, despite the fact that colleges run on computers and businesses run on computers and even the fucking DMV runs on computers...do not know how to set up an email account!! They do not know how to attach their paper when I ask them to. They do not know how to do anything other than download music, copy and paste the abridged, "free peek" essays from paper mills into their research papers," and play around on social networking sites. That's it. The smarter ones consider wikipedia a valid resource for information and might...MIGHT know that google earth is kinda nifty because there are nude beaches. They don't know that there is real research and real information out there. They don't know that a clever person can find anything...ANYTHING! (Yesterday I helped Roy, who is fairly computer savvy, find a very trickily hidden resource and post it to his blackboard pages.) Problem with your car? Look it up, watch a video on how to replace/repair/whatever (yes, I have). Can't read Japanese? Locate all the fangirls who fanslate for you because they want to share their passion with others (they just want someone to talk to about what they've read...I'm totally there for them). Do you need a copy of an obscure 18th century compendium of oddities? It's there, beautiful and lovely in all of its grotesqueries...spilling out to whomever would like to see it. Wanna draw pretty pictures at two am? I sure do. Wanna rant to your friends far away when you should be doing dishes? I AM! Need a recipe for bananna bread later? Need to know how to prune an azalea? Need to find a grant for your weird project? WE'VE GOT THAT! But the students...the kids who should be able to find it and access it...can't. What the fuck do they do all day if they aren't playing on the internet?
And if they're not playing on the internet, then why do they have such cool hand-held internet access?
WOWEE! I was goofing around with my school's blackboard system, just messing with stuff, you know...I like to mess. And I found a few really cool, nerd-type sites. The one above, of course, for Ms. Rabbit...who is taking some time off of her japanese studies, but might like some very nice flashcards, just to keep her on her game? Other things they have...well what don't they. There are flashcards for everything! I found them through a service called Scholar, which I didn't even know existed. I must play with this bizness.
Now, I've taught that completly online course for Western, and I've incorporated a lot of web components into my course, but I think I'm going to amp it up a bit more this fall, for my benefit as well as the students' benefits. I don't know if the rest of you are facing this, and I'm sure I've complained about this ad nauseum, but my students are some of the most computer UN-savvy people I've ever met. They have the skill level of retirees who email their grandchildren and have to call a clever nephew to ask how to attach a picture. I'm disappointed e-generation! The truth is, I would love them to know more about computers and databases and internet gadgets and whatnots than I do ...and they should know more! They should, my freshmen were born in (WAIT FOR IT) 1991!!! So, by the time they entered Kindergarten it was 1996, the internet was in full-effect at that point, email was a regular and common thing. So, as far as I can tell there is little excuse for the lack of knowledge they have about computers and resources. And yet...and yet...and yet...wow.
When I was in middle school I took a course called "keyboarding" which taught me not only how to type on the computer, but how to use a word processing program and how to do some basic DOS navigating and programming. This was in 1986-87. And yet, when I entered high school (even at CAHS...let's just ignore the fact that in 1992 at Canal Winchester there were exactly 3 computers in the whole school--one in the office and two carefully locked away by the librarian) there were no computers or computer courses. I took typing at CAHS on an electric typewriter...a room full of electric typewriters clacking away, and us with our little pencil shaped erasers and onion skin and white out and transfer paper! Why the fuck didn't anyone get their ass together enough to realize that no one was ever going to use an electric typewriter again? This was a college prep sort of school, and the only computers were locked away in the "computer room" and bogarted by the same group of 10 pale and pasty rejects playing D and D during their free periods. But, I had taken time to learn the stuff on my own. I still am. It's the middle of summer and I'm all..."I wonder what updates they've made on our blackboard system?" And "I hope I can incorporate some multimedia resources and links!"
But my students? Who apparently, despite the fact that colleges run on computers and businesses run on computers and even the fucking DMV runs on computers...do not know how to set up an email account!! They do not know how to attach their paper when I ask them to. They do not know how to do anything other than download music, copy and paste the abridged, "free peek" essays from paper mills into their research papers," and play around on social networking sites. That's it. The smarter ones consider wikipedia a valid resource for information and might...MIGHT know that google earth is kinda nifty because there are nude beaches. They don't know that there is real research and real information out there. They don't know that a clever person can find anything...ANYTHING! (Yesterday I helped Roy, who is fairly computer savvy, find a very trickily hidden resource and post it to his blackboard pages.) Problem with your car? Look it up, watch a video on how to replace/repair/whatever (yes, I have). Can't read Japanese? Locate all the fangirls who fanslate for you because they want to share their passion with others (they just want someone to talk to about what they've read...I'm totally there for them). Do you need a copy of an obscure 18th century compendium of oddities? It's there, beautiful and lovely in all of its grotesqueries...spilling out to whomever would like to see it. Wanna draw pretty pictures at two am? I sure do. Wanna rant to your friends far away when you should be doing dishes? I AM! Need a recipe for bananna bread later? Need to know how to prune an azalea? Need to find a grant for your weird project? WE'VE GOT THAT! But the students...the kids who should be able to find it and access it...can't. What the fuck do they do all day if they aren't playing on the internet?
And if they're not playing on the internet, then why do they have such cool hand-held internet access?
cranky
sorcerer...snoogins!