Friday, September 23, 2011

Blog Post #5

Don't teach your kids this stuff. Please? Scott McLeod.
babyoncellphone
Dr.McLeod is a Associate Professor of Education at the University of Kentucky. He is also the founding director of CASTEL an organization dedicated to the technological needs of school administration. He is widely recognized as one of the nations academic leading experts on K-12 school technology leadership issues.
I found this post very interesting. At first it was a little hard to follow just by the way it was written. But after reading it a few times I think that was done so we would read every word and really think about it. If that was the purpose it worked for me. I have been guilty of saying some of these very things before I started this class. I am thankful that my eyes have been open to a world full of endless opportunities for myself, my own children, and my future students. As I posted to Mr. McLeod I feel fear is what keeps us many times from things. Our lack of knowledge and understanding causes things to be taboo to us and those around us. With the issue of porn and sexual predators on the internet I know that is a real concern. I feel that our kids are targets everywhere. There are some really sick people but they are everywhere not just the internet. I think that is why you should be heavily involved with monitoring your child on or off the computer. Parental controls are great ways to make this a safe zone for our children. We are all students in this life class. I don't want to be the slacker!! I want my kids to see me embracing change, even if that means facing fears or failing at times. They need to see us vulnerable to situations it helps them to know it is okay to fall as long as we get back up.
iSchool Initiative Travis Allen
ischoollogo
He started with a interesting question"Does technology belong in our classroom?" That seems to be the question of the hour. His presentation about the ischool was very enlightening to me. I have never really considered the positive benefits for our environment. I also found it unbelievable all the things that can already be accessed on the ischool. One of the most interesting to me was having the text book and library book available at all times. Of course all the perks for parents interest me. I think it would be wonderful to be able to monitor my children anytime and keep up with school events and due dates for classes all at my fingertips. I think if this was to ever be teachers as well as students would have to step up their game so to speak. Imagine being able to record every word that comes out of a teachers mouth in the classroom. I am sure some of the tones and dialect would change in the classroom. I also think students would be held to a higher standard with no tolerance for missing assignments and no more excuses. Even if you are absent you have so much opportunity with this to get your assignment and even actually hear your teacher give the missed lecture. I liked what he said about our kids thriving in the 21st century. We will have to rethink, retool, and rebuild our educational institutions to better prepare our youth for the digital world. Zeltgeist Young Minds
Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir Jennifer Chambers Post
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WOW!! That was truly amazing. I have showed everyone who will watch this video. The ensemble of 185 people from 12 different countries was unreal. I did not know what to expect when I first started watching this but the more I watched the more engrossed I became in the beautiful harmonies of all the voices. It made me think just how fortunate we are to live in this age of technology. We must embrace it and put all these advantages we have to good use. For the betterment of our world and the people in it. Thank you Jennifer Chambers for sharing.



Teaching in the 21st Century Kevin Roberts
I think Mr. Roberts sees teachers as more of an assistant to students than a teacher. Students should not be viewed as blank slates with nothing to offer anymore. In the more teacher centered approach to teaching students were the empty buckets and the teachers were the only pitcher in which they could be filled by. Roberts sees the more student centered approach to teaching were students have their own unique traits and knowledge to contribute, and we should help them along in this journey. He has more of a progressivsm and constructivism points of view. He is to the 21st century what John Dewey was to the 19th century. I know many think these ideas toward education are all new because of technology but John Dewey had many of the same ideas and expressed them in his writings My Pedagogic Creed in 1897. Using a quote from this he says"I believe that the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself."(Dewey's Pedagogic Creed) This was 1897 and we are still fighting this fight now. Of course the stimulation of their day was much different than ours but the concept remains the same. Dewey also points out what he thinks the position of the teacher is he says "The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child,but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and to assist him in properly responding to these influences."(Dewey's Pedagogic Creed)I wonder how Dewey would feel today looking at our educational system? It really has not changed much for some. Many schools and teachers still have the more traditional teacher centered approach to teaching. I hope Roberts is right and education does change to more of a student centered social institution with teachers cheering students on guiding them in the best possible way for their future endeavors.

2 comments:

  1. Hello Cassie!

    You weren't the only student to find Dr. McLeod's post to be a little difficult to digest, but I'm happy to see that you came away with some good points. Sometimes we have to engage in some "close reading" in order to get the most out of a text, and I assume that's what you had to do. It's actually a good thing, because it means you're trying to get the most out of this experience.

    I love your response to the virtual choir, and I'm so glad it made me want to re-watch it because I discovered that the link didn't work. And then I decided to check your other links and they didn't work either! How odd. Anyway, I think that your problem is that you didn't include "www" in the URL right after http://. If that is left out, the click-thru link won't work right. If you have any more questions about the links, just come into the lab and one of us can help you. I'm going to be in the lab this weekend (1-6 p.m. today and Sunday), but the lab will be closed for Fall Break on Mon and Tues.
    You also forgot to include the title tags for your last two pictures. Your first one is okay, so don't worry about it.

    This was a good post despite all of that. Have a great Fall Break!

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  2. Thanks Bailey I think I fixed all the problems. :)

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