Addiction

Three days ago, my best friend and her boyfriend of two and a half years ago broke up. She told me she's "learned her lesson the hard way", since she left her friends and life in Saskatoon for Regina. And as I listen to her grieve, I can't help but make connections - we've all been there at some point or another. However, the more I think about it, the more I realize that she's going through withdrawal, revealing all the symptoms of an addict. An addict experiences "adaptive changes in the brain that lead to tolerance, physical dependance, uncontrollable craving, and all too often relapsing" (http://www.medterms.com/). In my own experience, it's scary to acknowledge the fact that I've also experienced every single aspect of that definition. I remember, before ever experiencing a serious relationship, pointing the finger at others who foolishly tolerated rude and disrespectful behavior, and then, at times, becoming a hypocrit to my own criticisms. The physical dependance and uncontrollable cravings surface at lonely and insecure moments. My friend explained her withdrawal as a physical feeling. She said she actually feels a sickness in her stomache when she really misses him or experiences a memory trigger. Another friend said she mourned her relationship like she would the death of a loved one. And many of my close friends have had relapses after breaking up - not just the weaker personalities, but strong willed people.
However, I'm not inferring that everyone in a relationship is an addict. Like any substance that can be abused, moderation and balance are key. This means maintaining your own identity and having a life outside your significant other. Yet, balance is sometimes abstract to me. People always say you have to find a balance without ever really stating what that balance is or what it means. Is balance even ever really possible or is it something that we can only continue to strive for?

Research Proposal - Virtual Communities

Last week on "The Fifth Estate", they played a documentary on virtual communities, such as Second Life, where people were creating avatars, and becoming their ideal self. Many of them became so obsessed with their avatars they would spend 12-15 hours a day living a virtual life. The implications were that many people were not acting ethically on Second Life, but they believed it was ok because "it's not really them". One mother neglected her family, including her husband and two children because she became more interested in her Second Life than her real life. In addition, one man left his wife for a woman he met on Second Life because their avatars fell in love. But "it's not really them", right? I always think it's funny how we worry about our students and our children using the Internet improperly or making bad choices - that adults and parents know better. Furthermore, for my research paper, I would like to write about students and interactions in virtual communities. I know that these sort of virtual communities are being used in the classroom. During my Student Teaching, Harvard had chosen the Grade 6 class I was teaching for a study where students had to create their own avatars and learn in a virtual community for Science class. They had to create experiments, interact and collaborate with other students (in their classroom and around the world), and propose a hypothesis as to why they believed the people in the virtual community were getting sick. As a teacher, it was both interesting and boring. I got to watch students learn on the Internet, but I found that all I was doing was watching - after the third class I was so bored because the students didn't really need me. Consequently, the subject of virtual communities poses many questions, not only for our students but for everyone using them.

Using Blogs as an Educator

1. Possible ways in which blogs can be used in education:

- journal/reflection/freewrite
- promotes writing in general - anyone can be an author
- group work/discussion
- report on an event/conference
- share resources/knowledge
- debate a topic and voice your opinion
- running resume

2. Reasons teachers should integrate blogs into their classroom:

- the teacher can inform students about what is coming up in class and even post assessment tools and criteria/expectations for assignment. The students can then give the teacher feedback.
- so students can interact amongst each other, sharing and learning.
- helps students gain an understanding and enjoyment of using technology and if used in the classroom they can learn with guidance from the teacher.

3. Three ways to use blogs for teaching/professional development:

- interact with other professionals about different instructional strategies/activities to try
- can help teachers keep open lines of communication with the community, parents and students
- helps you gain a better understanding of the Internet and how to use technology in an efficient, effective and safe way.

4. Blogs are more effective than static websites in the sense that you can have ongoing, constant feedback and create interactive community relationships; however, at times the opinions shared in blogs are not always professional. A blog is more personal, whereas static websites are more representative of the whole school or division.

5. Blogging will make teachers more technologically savvy and allow them to create relationships with people who may not have had the opportunity for a formal meeting. It allows for a larger sense of community where the teacher is getting more feedback from more people rather than just the students and parents and this may result in emerging partnerships.

6. Disadvantages of using blogs in education: As a teacher, you would have to be careful about who the students are communicating with, what kind of feedback they are getting from others, and that they are not promoting prejudices or revealing personal information that is not appropriate. Similarly, blogs would have to be supervised to ensure that cyber bullying is not taking place.

Jenna Palmer, Lisa Eger & Gillian McPhail