"It's Not about the Technology"

A Vision of Students Today by Michael Wesch describes about 75% of my college experience. I always spend lots of money on books I barely(if at all) use, half of my classmates don't come to class, and I'm just not motivated to concentrate during class or participate in class because I know all my teacher is concerned with is that I pass the tests. Now there are exceptions to this, EDM310 for example as well as a few other classes I have taken. The exceptions are generally the classes I take the most from and the classes that I most enjoy. When a teacher finds a way to challenge students in other things than just spitting back facts and figures thats been crammed down our throats it's actually quite enjoyable. I think all teachers should watch this video and it should be a wake up call on what they can do so that these students in the video are not their students.





"It's Not about the Technology" is an article by Kelly W. Hines. In this article Ms. Hines talks about that it's not the technology that is the essential part that is missing in schools. In fact it's the teacher's lack of use of technology or actually knowing how to use and implement the technology available to them in the classrooms.

I definitely agree with her one hundred percent. We can complain all we want that funding isn't there for technology, we need it, blah, blah, blah. Let's be honest, almost every school is equipped with computers and the internet and there are countless tools available to us for free online. In fact, we are learning to use many of them in this class.

So why aren't we (I'm including myself as a future teacher) using technology that is easily available to us? Simple, we aren't taking the time to become learners ourself so that we can relate to our students and be able to teach them in an environment where sometimes they are more knowledgeable than we are. It is easier to teach our specific material just as we were taught and not try to adapt to the new technological age that we are living in. I understand this because I am planning on teaching math, when has math changed? Not really at all for many years. So why should I change a teaching method that has been used for hundreds of years? Easy, because people have changed over hundreds of years and I as a teacher have a responsibility to bring something new to the class room to make an old subject seem fresh and exciting for students to learn.

Mr. Karl Fisch posted an enlightening article called "Is It Okay to Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?" In this blog post he poses that very simple question and then goes on to explain his thoughts on that. He compares teachers being technologically illiterate in the 21st century to teachers in the 20th century who couldn't read. An extreme analogy? I don't think so and here is why.

If you take time to think about it it's really not that extreme at all. I will borrow Mr. Fisch's examples. In the beginning of the 20th century people who could not read could still be successful but that changed dramatically in passing years. Towards the end of the 20th century (late 1990's) however it was almost impossible to hold a good job or enter into career without knowing how to read. So knowing how important reading was could you have imagined having a teacher who couldn't read??

Now think about this, in the beginning of the 21st century (early 2000's) you could still get by with little to no technology knowledge or use (If you don't count cell phones, tv's, or camera's as technology). Now however, I can barely think of anything that in some form doesn't use technology. To give you a personal example, My dad last year lost his job due to the company downsizing because of the economy. My dad had been with this company many, many years and it had been quite sometime since he had to go on a job hunt. It only took a few weeks for him to call me very frustrated. His frustrations were that he was not very proficient on a computer and virtually every job he wanted to apply for did their entire hiring process online or through the computer somehow, not to mention just to find job listings you really have to go online. Online profiles, virtual resumes, computer qualifications, and many more things were all things he wasn't familiar with. It was not like he remembered where you go in with a simple paper application, paper resume, and you have a face-to-face interview where you had the chance to win over your future employer with your personality and drive. This just isn't the case anymore.

So if my dad encountered this many problems in simply trying to find a new job I can only imagine what young students who are not taught to be technologically literate will face in the future. As teachers can we really expect our students to do something that we are not doing or learning? Do as I say, not as I do? I just don't think it works nor is it morally right. We have a responsibility as teachers to teach students how to be successful in the world they are growing up in.

WOW is all I have to say about Gary Hayes Social Media Count. It was a counter that showed how many things were going on on social network and such in the few short seconds that you were on that site. The numbers were astounding!! It only affirmed my thought that EVERYONE should be technologically literate.

Comments4Teachers

During the past few weeks I have been visiting the blog of Kim Cofino. I have been reading and commenting on her latest blogs. During these visits to her blog I feel I have really gained an appreciation of collaborating with other teachers and learning from her personal experiences posted on her blog.

Here are the comments I posted on her entries. If you would like to read the articles please check out her blog.










>HI,
I really enjoyed reading this blog. My name is Christina Motes and I am not currently a teacher but am a student at the University of South Alabama as a secondary education/math major. I am currently taking EDM310 and as part of my assignment I am going to be following your blog for the next few weeks and then posting a summary post on my own blog. I will also be linking my post to the blog for my EDM310 class.

Since I am not a teacher yet I have not attended conferences or workshops like the ones you were talking about. However as a student I feel like I can relate on a certain level. You mentioned that working together with people and building relationships with people helps you to learn as well as makes it more enjoyable and that you are more likely to remember. I fully agree. As a student whenever a teacher conducts a class in a way to where he/she gets the students involved with the course content as well as the other classmates and we actually get hands on experience versus just being told it is much more beneficial, enjoyable, and I feel I walk away with much more.

It sounds like you have really grasped the meaning of a productive workshop for teachers and are striving to improve with each workshop you conduct. Good luck with everything and I am looking forward to reading more on your blog!


Wow this was really interesting. I had never thought of having an entire k-12 school online. Since I am a student that was homeschooled my entire life before college I can recognize the advantages of this. I am sure my mom would have appreciated the extra help when it came to teaching some higher level high school course to me right after she was teaching second grade material to my younger brother.

I understand as well the trying to solve the integrity problem but I’m sure this is something that could be taken care of with enough dedication.

~Christina



I definitely agree with you that sometimes teachers get so caught up with teaching their prepared materia,l and also some who are trying to learn new techniques to use in the classroom and with technology, that they lose sight of what the desired end result is. Ultimately teachers should be wanting to help students become the type of diverse people that you saw in the event you attended. If we only produce students who just have a basic knowledge of general education but who don’t take that knowledge and accomplish anything, have we really succeeded as teachers? Please note that by “accomplish” I don’t mean that the students have to be famous for something they did or are doing but I mean that they take what they learn and use it in some form or another.
~Christina Motes~
My EDM310 Class Blog

In the video "Did you know 3.0" (available on www.youtube.com) Mr Karl Fisch points out many interesting facts about the world and the fast way it is evolving. I was not only unaware of many of the facts but was in fact quite shocked to learn of them.

However it was not only the little facts that were enlightening. This video really made me stop and think of just how important technology is to the world we live in, and how that importance and need increases with every passing day. During the first class for EDM310 Dr. Strange asked the entire class whether we thought that teachers should be technologically literate? I didn't really spend a lot of time pondering this question at first, I just knew that I thought yes they should, but I didn't think about why. Watching this video made me realize why. How can we as teachers (or future teachers in my case) be teaching children without first familiarizing ourselves with the tools available that obviously the children are already very aware of? I think teachers have to work harder to stay up to pace with their students in the technology world and still be able to teach them something new as well. How can students have respect for and want to learn from a teacher who doesn't even know the basics of internet, email, online teaching tools, etc? This brings me to the next video I watched.


"Mr Winkle Wakes" by Mathew Needleman is a short cartoon about an old man who wakes from a 100 year sleep to find the world very different from the world he knew upon going into that long slumber. He is immediately overwhelmed by skyscrapers, computers, printers, and basically technology in general. However he enters a school and immediately feels very comfortable in familiar surroundings because nothing has seemed to change. All the desks are in a straight line, children are sitting and listening to a teacher lecture, and taking notes traditionally just as he remembers.

My question is this, should schools still be this traditional? Please don't misunderstand me, I am not criticizing teaching in it's most tradition sense. However I am saying this, if there are more tools available to create a more involved, interactive, and hands on learning shouldn't we be using them? I just think that sometimes we are scared to try new things when teaching people, but one of the first things I learned about people is that everyone has a different learning style. Some people learn from simple hearing while others need to actually see something and experience it to learn about it. Today's technology makes tools easily available to us that should help us reach a larger amount of students.



"If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original." This was my favorite quote from Sir Ken Robinson from his talk on "The Importance of Creativity". Throughout out his speech he talks about how traditional teaching focuses on of course mathematics, science, history, and grammar. Progressively as we get older we are taught that the arts and creativity are not important because ultimately we think that most of us cannot get a job knowing and doing things like dancing, drama, etc.

I agree with Sir Robinson but my thought is this, what if we were taught things like math and science just like now but we were taught equally in the arts? Students were allowed to be as creative as they like but still mastered all the skills of math and science and had a vast knowledge of history? Imagine the next generations level of intelligence and the things they could accomplish. I was listening to a discussion last night and someone said that ingenuity was someone's ability to think outside the box when faced with a problem and being able to solve it without knowing the "proper" way to begin the problem. I agree very much with this statement and I think the way to empower people to do this is to encourage creativity as well as traditional knowledge.



After watching Vicki Davis in the video on www.edutopia.org called "Harnessing Your Students' Digital Smarts" I have an immediate respect for her and will be frequenting her blog. In this video she shows the importance of technology to students, the opportunities it creates, and also the importance of helping them really learn how to do things for themselves rather than being taught a list of instructions.

I was homeschool student my entire life from K - 12. I remember getting so frustrated with my mom because every time I asked what a word meant her response was simple, "go look it up". I always complained that it would be much easier and time efficient if she just would tell me the meaning since obviously she already knew it. She never would just tell me though, she said I would be more likely to remember after I looked it up than if she just told me. She was right. There are not many words that I looked up that I do not still know the meaning and all it's uses.

I said all that to get to the point that Vicki Davis reminds me of my mom in that area. She makes gives the students the tools they need but make them find things and learn for themselves. This is probably one of best teaching practices that I can think of just because I know from experience that it works and I feel much more prepared for the world because of it.
For anyone who would like to check out Vicki Davis here is a link to her blog.
Vicki Davis

Wordle

This is a picture made by www.wordle.com from random words that came to mind while thinking about teaching.

Welcome to a work in progress

Hello everyone and welcome to my brand new blog. I have not previously been a blogger but I am looking forward to this new and exciting experience and the chance to learn many new things.