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Written by Richard Joffray
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Thursday, 27 March 2008 |
iPaper seems to be a real solution for online document compatability. Check out this test!
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WIKI IN EDUCATION: ADDRESSING CULTURAL DIVERSITY |
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Written by Richard Joffray
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Tuesday, 19 June 2007 |
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In this new digital age of communication, the Internet has become a common playing field for learning and exploration of most students today. In order to get the attention of most students, we as educators must speak the same digital language (Prensky 2001) as our students. Because information on the Internet is accessed the same from almost anywhere in the world, addressing cultural diversity while integrating this digital language and organization into our curriculum has become of utmost importance in order to assure that students understand and can filter the vast amount information available to them. One platform that is playing an integral role in bringing digital communities of the new age learners together to collaborate on a quest for knowledge is the use of a wiki. This paper will show how using a wiki in the classroom can address five dimensions of multicultural education (Banks, 2004b) and provide better ownership by students of their own knowledge. In this new digital age of communication, the Internet has become a common playing field for learning and exploration of most students today. In order to get the attention of most students, we as educators must speak the same digital language (Prensky 2001) as our students. Because information on the Internet is accessed the same from almost anywhere in the world, addressing cultural diversity while integrating this digital language and organization into our curriculum has become of utmost importance in order to assure that students understand and can filter the vast amount information available to them. One platform that is playing an integral role in bringing digital communities of the new age learners together to collaborate on a quest for knowledge is the use of a wiki. This paper will show how using a wiki in the classroom can address five dimensions of multicultural education (Banks, 2004b) and provide better ownership by students of their own knowledge. |
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Written by Richard Joffray
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Monday, 20 November 2006 |
Just as I thought that my ideas were so clear cut that I was honing down the direction for my graduate capstone project, I had to have a conversation with a stranger that may change my direction.
I sat at the bar tonight to have my usual Monday night dinner out on my own. A “Makers Manhattan” and a burger are the course for the night. I picked up my mail to find that it was all junk mail, except for the newest copy of Wired Magazine, which had a story about the growing outlet for our younger generation on “YouTube.com”. This story was interesting but not as interesting as the conversation that it aroused between myself and the gent next to me.
I started the conversation with a usual provocative statement. “We need to get our act together if we want to communicate with our children”. He took exception with this statement as a personal affront and retorted that our generation is no different than any other throughout time in respect to its relationship with it’s youngers. I spent the next hour trying to convince him that we need to change our outlook to accommodate them. I was loosing until I realized that history was my ammunition. I said to him that this might be the first time in history that the younger generation knew something that its mentors had no knowledge of. With this statement I further explained that the technology today is second nature to our children and they can teach us plenty.
On the way home I realized how this might change the type of research that I should consider for my capstone project and add a question that would include “Historical Research”
Has there ever been a time in history that the younger generation had more knowledge in a subject being taught than it’s older generation?
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Written by Richard Joffray
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Monday, 12 June 2006 |
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Fourteen Years of Interest It has been a long and grueling fourteen years of teaching. Although I have only taught one four hour class a week for the last fourteen years and have managed to stay interested in the process of teaching despite the odds that by this time I would be totally sick it. In the reflection of these years I can now see that there are a number of things that have allowed me the pleasure of teaching for such a long time.
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How To Wake A Teenager While Avoiding Conflict |
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Written by Richard Joffray
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Wednesday, 07 June 2006 |
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One Parent’s Process There are many times that I wished that I had a manual while raising
my children, however I quickly realized that every child is unique and
your experiences with them happen at totally unique times of both the
child’s development as well as one’s own.
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Unintentionally Disinviting |
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Written by Richard Joffray
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Monday, 22 May 2006 |
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I have not ever really had much if any interaction with other teachers in my 14 years of teaching but having raised two sons on my own, I have encountered many questionable invitations/disinvitations by teachers or coaches of my children. |
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What Kind of Teacher Am I |
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Written by Richard Joffray
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Sunday, 21 May 2006 |
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I am constantly reflecting on my experiences
during my time as a teacher. Perceptions of myself as well as the
perceptions from my students of me as a teacher are even more apparent
as to their importance. Positive perceptions of myself as a teacher put
together with a view of students as capable, valuable persons that can
learn and develop past what I can teach them, seem to be a key to
propagating an invitational positive learning experience1.
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XMLHttpRequest and AJAX for PHP programmers |
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Written by Richard Joffray
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Thursday, 06 April 2006 |
Introduction:
Although the concept isn't entirely new, XMLHttpRequest technology is
implemented on more sites now than ever. Compatibility is no longer an
issue (IE, Mozilla and Opera all support it), and the benefits to using
it are amazing. There are too many PHP programmers avoiding any work
with javascript beyond simple form validation, and for good reason.
It's difficult to keep several languages proficiently under your belt.
But using the XMLHttpRequest object is not as hard as everybody thinks,
and you don't need to buy and memorize another reference manual.
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Written by Richard Joffray
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Tuesday, 10 January 2006 |
NTSC stands for the National Television
Standards Committee. It is a video signal standard used by the color
television industry in the United States and Japan.
PAL stands for the Phase Alternating Line.
This is a video standard used by the color television industry and is
the common standard used in Europe. This video signal format sets the
video to playback at 25 frames per second which contain 625 lines of
pixels in each frame.
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Written by Flynn Joffray
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Friday, 21 October 2005 |
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Here are two VERY special design tools that will be so infinitly useful, your brain might explode... - What the font?! - Upload your type and it will tell you exactly what it is. Freakin' rediculous...
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So Your Mom Caught You Rasterbating ... |
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Written by Flynn Joffray
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Friday, 21 October 2005 |
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Wait... raster what?
Ever want to make your picture or design the size of a freakin' building? Well, use Rasterbator and you can create a home-printable mural of any size and color. |
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Don't worry (about fonts), be happy |
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Written by Flynn Joffray
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Thursday, 10 November 2005 |
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So the company Linotype has been notorious for charging an arm and a
leg for typefaces (at least from my knowledge), but now they have
balanced their graphic design karma by making a REALLY good, free type
manager program called FontXplorer X. This is the latest and greatest
program for typeface management and even though its in "beta" stage, it
works perfectly. |
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Widgets! Widgets! Dashboard Widgets? |
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Ian Moore Tour Widget 
Voice of Vashon Radio Widget 