A Vision of Students Today
Wow, What a video! It really hit home for me, I am a 21 yr old college student who works full time to support myself and finance my schooling. I now how it feels to multi task, sometimes I load myself down with so much that I can barely get through the day without feeling like my brain and body is about to give out! I don't have off days I have actually forgotten what one of those feels like and I don't imagine I will until sometime in between the spring and summer semester. I thought this video was well planned out, it really grabbed my attention. i feel like it captured the stress, anxiety and alot of times hopelessness that college students deal with on a day to day basis.
If I were to add anything to this video that would make it more personal to me, it would probably have to be how broke most of us are, lol! Textbook prices and tuition keep going up and up and there doesn't seem to be a ceiling for it. The price of living alone is enough to make some want to drop out and go to work just to make ends meet, especially when a majority of your class time is spent in classes that don't have anything to with your degree.
Not All About Technology
Mrs. Hines blog on how technology could be used in a classroom to improve teaching and learning methods was fantastic. I couldnt tell you how many times I have sat in a class with a teacher who was barely able to run a power point slide show on their several thousand dollar smart board. I would often times wonder how much of my tuition money went to paying for this wonderful piece of equipment that I was getting no use out of. If a teacher is going to use technology to aid in their teaching they need to know how it works and what they can do with it.
In todays world everything is computerized, kids are so techno savy now that it blows my mind! My soon to be eight year old sister can do more things with her mothers laptop then I can wrap my head around! We as fututre educators need to pour ourselves into learning how we can use different forms of technology to help children learn. There are so many different ways to reach out and grab students attention and we just arent utalizing them. My little brother cares nothing about reading books or taking notes but if he can download it or google it he is all over it. He walks around glued to his Ipod touch, and occasionaly calls me up to tell me about some new discovery he has made, using the internet of course, for a resaerch project for school. Kids love technology, they eat it up! If they can learn how it all works, so can we and we should.
Fischbowl
I do so enjoy his play on words. :)
" If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write." I agree with this statement. We as educators need to know how technology works because our students do! It is not ok at all to be proud of ones' illiteracy in technology. Yes, it is evolving every day and alot of the things we learn today will be outdated tomorrow, but that doesnt mean we should throw our hands up and say forget about it!
One of the reasons I am going into education is because I love to learn, and continue to learn I shall. If we ignore the need to incorparte technology succesfully into our classrooms we are failing our students. We are educators and we need to do exactly that. These students are our future, they will hold jobs in the future that do not exist today. Teachers need to be able to equip their students with all the knowledge that they will need to make it in the world. That wont happen unless we first educate ourselves.
Media Count
Gary Hayes Social Media Counter blows my mind. It is crazy to think so much is going on right now, but then agian it is crazy to think that theres not. We live in the age of technology and there is no escape! Its exciting to think about where we will be in the next 30 years considering that 30 years ago computers were just begining to emerge on the scene.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Technologies and Classrooms
Did You Know?
It is hard for me to write about this particular video. It contains such a wide range of information. Some of which I'm not entirely inclined to believe. But if only a percentage of what it said is true then it is reasonable to believe the world and its technology is growing at a break neck speed. The human race is now more than ever completely reliant on technology and our addiction is only getting worse.
It is hard to imagine life without the simple convinces of Google, Myspace and text messaging. What would happen to our civilization if all of these suddenly vanished? The truth of the matter is that technology and all its wonders is here to stay. We will continue to advance our technologies, making them smarter, faster and more efficient with every passing day. There is no going back now.
Mr. Winkle
The video opens as Mr. Winkle wakes from a very long sleep. He comes to realize that the world he dozed off in has become a fast paced, computer ran jungle. He visits an office building and a hospital where he is constantly bombarded by new technologies that he has never seen before. Winkle then retreats to a school house where he feels more comfortable, because you see the school setting has not changed with the rest of the world. What little technology is there is largely ignored and collecting dust.
What the video is trying to say is that our school systems are not adequately preparing our children for this new techno crazed world that we live in. Think back to your years spent in the public school system.How much of what you spent time learning do you actually use today? The rest of the world is evolving so quickly, why is it that we allow for our education systems to remain the same? It is time that more technology courses be required as part of the high school and even elementary curriculum if we are to keep advancing in the future.
Vicki Davis
This video ties in with the previous two. Vicki Davis, a media teacher for a rural town in Georgia, is making great strides in connecting her students with the rest of the world. She knows the importance of producing computer savy high school graduates. The children who pass through her classroom will have the oppurtunity to connect with other teens from around the globe. They will come away better prepared for careers involving computer technologies.
Davis has been teaching her students to create and use a number of differnt techno tools from blogging and twitter to creating their own avitars and video games. She is giving these children the tools they will need to make it in our ever advancing society. I think what she is doing is fantastic. I think that we need more teachers like her who are willing to go that extra mile to make a difference in their students lives. What she is doing will change her students lives.
Schools kill our creativity
Ken Robinson claims that schools kill our creativity, for the most part I agree. We are told how to dress, How to act, Where to sit, When to eat, What to read and when we are expected to have it all done. Individuality is not in couraged and for the most part discouraged. Children go into kindergarden free spirits full of excitment and wonder and 13 years later are released into the world with a learned fear of failure. Afraid that they will fail the trials and tribulations of life and wont be able to obtain the same level of existance as their peers.
On the other hand as a teacher, you have the power to instill in your pupils a great pride in one's self and individuality. A teacher can encourage their students to think for themselves and to look out side the box for solutions to problems. How is the world ever to change if free thought is limited? We should incourage creativity in our young people they are the ones who will be taking the riegns after we are to jaded to care about the direction of things. Most of all the ability of people to have creative thoughts is important because without them the world would never change and how boring would that be?
It is hard for me to write about this particular video. It contains such a wide range of information. Some of which I'm not entirely inclined to believe. But if only a percentage of what it said is true then it is reasonable to believe the world and its technology is growing at a break neck speed. The human race is now more than ever completely reliant on technology and our addiction is only getting worse.
It is hard to imagine life without the simple convinces of Google, Myspace and text messaging. What would happen to our civilization if all of these suddenly vanished? The truth of the matter is that technology and all its wonders is here to stay. We will continue to advance our technologies, making them smarter, faster and more efficient with every passing day. There is no going back now.
Mr. Winkle
The video opens as Mr. Winkle wakes from a very long sleep. He comes to realize that the world he dozed off in has become a fast paced, computer ran jungle. He visits an office building and a hospital where he is constantly bombarded by new technologies that he has never seen before. Winkle then retreats to a school house where he feels more comfortable, because you see the school setting has not changed with the rest of the world. What little technology is there is largely ignored and collecting dust.
What the video is trying to say is that our school systems are not adequately preparing our children for this new techno crazed world that we live in. Think back to your years spent in the public school system.How much of what you spent time learning do you actually use today? The rest of the world is evolving so quickly, why is it that we allow for our education systems to remain the same? It is time that more technology courses be required as part of the high school and even elementary curriculum if we are to keep advancing in the future.
Vicki Davis
This video ties in with the previous two. Vicki Davis, a media teacher for a rural town in Georgia, is making great strides in connecting her students with the rest of the world. She knows the importance of producing computer savy high school graduates. The children who pass through her classroom will have the oppurtunity to connect with other teens from around the globe. They will come away better prepared for careers involving computer technologies.
Davis has been teaching her students to create and use a number of differnt techno tools from blogging and twitter to creating their own avitars and video games. She is giving these children the tools they will need to make it in our ever advancing society. I think what she is doing is fantastic. I think that we need more teachers like her who are willing to go that extra mile to make a difference in their students lives. What she is doing will change her students lives.
Schools kill our creativity
Ken Robinson claims that schools kill our creativity, for the most part I agree. We are told how to dress, How to act, Where to sit, When to eat, What to read and when we are expected to have it all done. Individuality is not in couraged and for the most part discouraged. Children go into kindergarden free spirits full of excitment and wonder and 13 years later are released into the world with a learned fear of failure. Afraid that they will fail the trials and tribulations of life and wont be able to obtain the same level of existance as their peers.
On the other hand as a teacher, you have the power to instill in your pupils a great pride in one's self and individuality. A teacher can encourage their students to think for themselves and to look out side the box for solutions to problems. How is the world ever to change if free thought is limited? We should incourage creativity in our young people they are the ones who will be taking the riegns after we are to jaded to care about the direction of things. Most of all the ability of people to have creative thoughts is important because without them the world would never change and how boring would that be?
Monday, January 11, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)