Changing Education Paradigms
I think that the most important thing that Sir Kin Robinson said was that, how do we educate our children to take their place in the economics of the 21st century when we do not know what the economy will look like next week. This is so true, things are constantly changing. Even when we graducate and begin teaching, I am sure things will be different (hopefully) with education. The only thing that I disagreed with was what he said about children being with their age group. I do believe that we should keep the children with their age group. I know some children are smarter that others, but we must also look at the maturity of the children. I also agree that now a days a college degree, does not mean that you will have a job. I am so worried about graduating and not being able to find a teaching job in Mobile County! I also agree that some people are medicating children just so that they will listen and not get distracted in the classroom. I do not really know what I could do to address these issues. That is a hard question! I really enjoyed watching this video! It was well made and I loved the art work that was done. If I was to make a video like this I would want to be the narrator. I am definantely not a good artist, but I love to talk!
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An Open Letter to Educators
I agree that sitting and listening to a teacher lecture for hours, is boring!! I also agree that in these class the students are not encouraged to interact with each other. It sounds like her computer class is just like ours! Dr. Strange encourages and we are assigned to interact and collaborate with each other. Dan Borwn's video was really cool. It had some great points, that I definantely agree with! I liked his point about how the internet makes learning free. Like he said, the internet really is the greatest thing that has happend to us! Education really had done nothing really to change. If educational instutions do not do anything to change, the world will leave it behind, like Dan Brown did.
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Don't Let Them Take the Pencils Home
I thought that this post by Tom Johnson was too funny! I definantely agree that we as teachers, or future teachers, need to find projects and activiites that keep the students intrested. This way, the student will not go home and play hang man! This was a great post to read!
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Two Questions Than Can Change Your Life
The two questions were, What's my sentence? Was I better today than yesterday?
These two question are alot to think about. I agree that one should ask was I better today than yesterday, every night. This is a way to reflect on one's actions and decide if anything should change tomorrow. I think that my sentence is....... She just wants to finish college and to start making a difference in the lives of children!
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What Ive Learned This Year
I really enjoyed reading this blog. I definantely agree with what he said about "reading the crowd" I believe that when I become a teacher I will do the same thing. I think that with being a first year teacher, one can be too concerned with impressing other people. We must remember that we are there to teach the children. The lessons should be fun and revolve around the kids. Being flexible in definantely important in education. Things will not always go the way they are planed. We as educators should be prepared for this. I am kind of a control freak, I like things done a certain way, so this will be my hardest thing to overcome. Communication is always important, in no matter what you do. We must try and get along with everyone, the other teachers, the janitors, and the principal. Without communication this would be impossible. It is also important to be reasonable and not hold too high of expectations. We have to remember that we are dealing with children. We should encourage and lift them up all the time, no matter what. I love when he said,"Adults everywhere are afraid of technology..." This is so true. At first technology can be a little bit confusing, but once you understand it, its a breeze. Listening to students is also very important. We should get to know the students outside of the classroom. Its never to late to learn something new! I loved reading this blog. Although the things that were talked about were simple, they are very important things to remember, especially in the first year of teaching.
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This is How we Dream Part 1&2
I agree that we do not work with pencils and paper anymore. We use our laptops for everything now. I take mine with me everywhere! Most of my teacher want work turned in electronically. You can do research in not just the library now. We can do all of our research online now.
We share knowledge and collaborate with people all over the world. Things online are changing and updating constantly. The best thing about the internet, is that you can do research and things for free. Resources and teachers who are willing and inspired are necessary though.
Today, you have to be able to write and work with multimedia. EDM310 is teaching me this. Its amazing how many teachers there are who blog. I had no idea! I do believe that my students will be able to do this. Students just need the resources and teacher who want to help them.
SmartBoard Arguments
The two critiques i thought were insane! I do not understand how someone does not think smart boards are not useful. I do agree that smart boards are expensive, but it enables teacher to be able to save things on the whiteboard. I went and observed my sister who is a teacher at Meadowlake, and her students love it! When I went, they were working on time and she drew on the smart board a clock and drew arrows to times. Her students absolutley loved it. I know she could have done this on a chalkboard, but it is more fun drawing on the smartboard. I do believe that before teachers are given a smart board, they must have traning on how to use it. A blog that I found about smart boards was smartboardchat.blogspot.com. This blog gives teachers fun ideas on how how to use their smart boards.
Sugata Mitra's The Child-Driven Eucation definantely shows that children can teach themselves, when they are intrested in something. I believe that a self motivated learner, can teach themselves. All they need is the motivation and the intrest to learn. I do believe that children can teach themselves. As I said before, children just need to be intrested in the subject. Self learners need to have good conditions in order to learn effectively. They need a place to work and the resourses to learn. Computers and the internet play a MAJOR role in self learning. A person can go to google and type in a question, and have the question answered in seconds. The internet is very useful in learning, you just need to stay motivated, and not get distracted. Motivation is also a key in self learning. If someone is not intrested in learning, it will not happen. It can be hard to stay motivated, but motivation is a necessity. In order to motivate someone to learn, I belive the person doing the motivating needs to be helpful and intrested. If the person sees how much you enjoy learning, or a subject, they also will want to try and learn it as well. A way that I like to keep myself motivated is, going to schools and seeing children learn. It is going to be so rewarding to actually be in a classroom with my students and teaching them. So when i get discouraged, I just think about the children I will one day be helping. I believe that if someone is not motivated, they will not learn. If someone does not want to do something, they will not do it. I think people teach themselves things everyday. We teach ourselves how to interact with certain people and how to deal with situations everday. Teacher are needed to learn. It is true that a child can just get on the internet and learn anything they want, but a teacher is there to guide them. I really enjoyed the video, it was amazing to see how quickly the children learned how to use the computers.
The second teacher I was assigned to was teachernz. The first video I commented on was, Internet for peace. This video was about how the internet should win the Nobel Peace Prize. I commented and said how I agree. The internet connects so many people. People from America can talk to people in China with just one click, it is amazing! The second video was called Evolution 1.0 Web 2.0 to Web 3.0. This video talks about how interactive the internet is. The internet changes gradually. It can remember what websites we like, what music we like, and what kind of products we like. The internet is used in everyday things, like the washing machien. The internet is very intellengent. It meets our needs and wishes everyday. It was kind of like out own personal assisstant. I commented on the video and said how I never knew the internet was involved in the washing machien. I also said how I have never thought about it, but it is kind of creepy how much we rely on the internet.
Randy Pausch's Last Lecture: Achieving Your Chilhood Dreams
WOW THIS VIDEO WAS AMAZING! At the beginning of the video Randy Pausch tell us of his cancer. Even though he said not to pity him, I did. How could you not? He was content with what was going on, and he was living his life to the fullest.
Mr. Pausch tells his his childhood dreams. Eventually all of them come true. He described the brick walls we face in life, as ways to show ourselves how badly we want something. I could not agree more, it is about pushing yourself to the fullest and pushing through the walls. Brick walls are also ways of keeping people who dont actually want something out. We have to strive for what we want and work hard for it.
One way of learning he describes was, inderect learning. Inderect learning, or "head fake", is making people think they are doing one thing, while actually teaching them another thing. An example that he used was putting children into sports, such as swimming or football. They think they are only learning football, but they are learning a lot of things. Children learn how to play together, team work, and perseverance through sports.
He introduced a class called, Building Virtual Worlds. It was amazing to see what his students could do. He used a project based curriculum. He said that you could tell how a group of students are working together, by their body language. Mr. Pausch also advised us, not to loose our childhood wonder. Our childhood wonder is such an important thing to keep in mind. With out his wonder, he would have not accomplished everything he had. He also tells us never to give up, HAVE FUN, tell the trutch, and cherish feedback. He said that feedback is a very important thing. The people who give us feedback want us to succeed, or they would have let us keep doing the wrong thing.
This video was so inspiring! I am so glad that Dr. Strange assigned this to us! I am not going to lie, when he brought out the cake to his wife and everyone sang happy birthday, I got a little emotional. Mr. Pausch seems like such an amazing man. At the end of the video he tells us his two "head fakes" about his speech. The first one was that people need to lead their life the right way, and dream will find you. The second one was that this speech was not for the audience, it was for his three children. I also got a little emotional when he told that. He gave this speech, so that his kids could go back after he is gone, and get advice from him. I LOVED IT!!
The Networked Student
I really liked the way that this video was set up. The humming at the beginning was funny. I also liked how the paper was used to tell the story. The drawings were also very good.
This video was so cool, I really enjoyed it! The way that his class and teacher was used, is kind of how EDM310 is set up. Dr. Strange is teaching us the same skills his teacher was using. He is teaching us how to be connected to the world! I agree that college, maybe even some high school classes should be run like this. However, I think that elementary and middle school children should be in a classroom with a teacher they see everyday.
I believe that EDM310 is preparing me to be a teacher of the networked student. I have learned so many new things through EDM310, that so many children already know how to use. We as teachers need to be prepared, the world and technology is changing everyday, and we need to know how to use it.
7th Grader PLN
I agree that a student must be responsible with technology. A student with so much freedom with technology needs to learn responsibility. There are so many distractions on the internet, it is kind of hard to keep on task. I like how she gets to decide how, and when she does her assignments. This student was very organized and prepared.
The Machine is Changing Us
This video was very intresting. He brought up so many things. I for one dont understand the obsession with American Idol, like him. The television is a daily part of the lives of people. I really liked his brief history of whatever. Whatever has so many definitions. I also agree that one must create our own identity and recognition. The videos he used were very funny.
The student that I was assigned to was zackerym.student. The first thing that I commented on was his learning manifesto. In his manifesto, he talked about becoming a better student and listening to his teachers. I commented and told him how much I enjoyed his manifesto. I also told him how important it was to listen to his teachers, to bring all of his materials to class, and to turn in his assignments on time. I commented on his about me too. Zackery is 13 years old. He likes baseball and playing video games. He also talked about his family and how important they were to him. I commented and introduced myself. I told him that family should be the most important thing to him. I also talked about baseball.
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