I was assigned to follow Bill Ferriter's blog, "The Tempered Radical." Mr. Ferriter teaches sixth grade language arts in North Carolina, where he was named a Regional Teacher of the Year for 2005-2006.
In the first blog post that I commented on, Mr. Ferriter shares about an Educon conference that he attended called How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Citation, offered by Bud Hunt and Joe Bires. He tells how Bud argued that the ideas of others are important enough to honor and that citation is essential in almost every circumstance. However, Joe argued that citation is increasingly difficult in a world driven by co-creation and a barrier to innovative thought.
In the first blog post that I commented on, Mr. Ferriter shares about an Educon conference that he attended called How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Citation, offered by Bud Hunt and Joe Bires. He tells how Bud argued that the ideas of others are important enough to honor and that citation is essential in almost every circumstance. However, Joe argued that citation is increasingly difficult in a world driven by co-creation and a barrier to innovative thought.
My Response to Mr. Ferriter:
I can see both Joe and Bud's side of the spectrum. I agree with Joe in that citation is increasingly difficult due to co-creation. It becomes extremely challenging trying to cite something when that person is citing someone else and so on. I also agree that it becomes a barrier to innovative thought because you have to be particularly cautious of what you are saying for fear of plagiarism and copyright issues. However, I still agree with Bud in that the ideas of others are important enough to honor. I know you nor myself would like it if someone took our work and tried to play it off as their own.
I can see both Joe and Bud's side of the spectrum. I agree with Joe in that citation is increasingly difficult due to co-creation. It becomes extremely challenging trying to cite something when that person is citing someone else and so on. I also agree that it becomes a barrier to innovative thought because you have to be particularly cautious of what you are saying for fear of plagiarism and copyright issues. However, I still agree with Bud in that the ideas of others are important enough to honor. I know you nor myself would like it if someone took our work and tried to play it off as their own.
My issue with citation is that every teacher I have ever had to write a paper for has stressed the importance of citing references. However, not a single one of those teachers ever took the time to teach us the correct way to it. In my opinion, all students should be given a course, class, or seminar of some sort on how to correctly cite references if it is going to be a requirement.
In Mr. Ferriter's second blog, he talks about another seminar that he attended where they talked about the challenges faced by public schools and the steps they're taking in Philadelphia to address those challenges. He talks about a survey that was given to Philadelphia parents designed to highlight what the general community regarded as "must haves" in a good educational system and how once you know what a community values, you can work to protect those components of your system. At the end he asks the questions, "Isn't a bit arrogant to design a system that completely ignores the very programs that parents value the most? When the choices that our schools and systems make don't align with parent desires and interests, aren't we setting ourselves up for an #epicfail?"
My Response to Mr. Ferriter:
In response to your last question, I agree that it does seem a bit arrogant to design a system that completely ignores the very programs that parents value the most. However, I don't think that it should be solely up to the parents. Every parents' values are going to be slightly different; therefore, you aren't going to be able to please everyone. I like the idea of taking a survey to find out what it is that's important to them, but I think when it comes down to designing the system, it should be left up to the school board with them taking into consideration the surveys of the parents in the community.
In Mr. Ferriter's second blog, he talks about another seminar that he attended where they talked about the challenges faced by public schools and the steps they're taking in Philadelphia to address those challenges. He talks about a survey that was given to Philadelphia parents designed to highlight what the general community regarded as "must haves" in a good educational system and how once you know what a community values, you can work to protect those components of your system. At the end he asks the questions, "Isn't a bit arrogant to design a system that completely ignores the very programs that parents value the most? When the choices that our schools and systems make don't align with parent desires and interests, aren't we setting ourselves up for an #epicfail?"
My Response to Mr. Ferriter:
In response to your last question, I agree that it does seem a bit arrogant to design a system that completely ignores the very programs that parents value the most. However, I don't think that it should be solely up to the parents. Every parents' values are going to be slightly different; therefore, you aren't going to be able to please everyone. I like the idea of taking a survey to find out what it is that's important to them, but I think when it comes down to designing the system, it should be left up to the school board with them taking into consideration the surveys of the parents in the community.
