Blog Post #5

"Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff, Please?" By Dr. Scott McLeod

Dr.McLeod is an associate professor in Iowa.
I wrote a comment to Dr.McLeod : "I am a student in EDM310 at USA. I find your blog post very interesting. I agree with you on many aspects and believe it’s good for kids to explore. I also disagree with you about a few things. I believe that younger children do need to be sheltered to a degree from the activity on the internet. I, myself, have four children and would never let them on YouTube right now, because they are still in the early years of elementary school. To an older student though, the use of YouTube for educational purposes is very useful. The way you laid out the blog post, however, I believe is very impressionable!"

"The iSchool Initiative" By Travis Allen

In this video Mr. Allen expressed how his high school was making budget cuts and letting teachers go. He came up with a plan about using an iPhone to create an "iSchool". Travis showed many different resources that could easily be used for educational purposes. He believes in getting rid of paper in the classroom, eliminating textbooks, and using scientific calculators on the iSchool (rather than buying an expensive calculator).

In his presentation he showed the average cost of one students' materials to go to school. In total they amounted to approximately $600 for only one student. His argument was that a student could buy an iSchool for only about $150. The amount of savings would be incredible, not to mention, a parent would not have to go out and buy all those school supplies for their high school children. I believe it is a great idea and I really appreciate the fact that "apps" and websites would be educational only. Travis presented a very good case that I believe would be good for high school students to use.

Travis and his new team (of 25 students) have done great work with their technological ideas. It's awesome to see that they have been able to travel and help schools adopt their iSchool ideas and put them to use.

Eric Whitacre's "Virtual Choir"

In watching this virtual choir, I have to say that, I was very impressed. The collaboration of all the different people, from all different places and settings, molded together very nicely. It was amazing how all those diverse people in their own atmosphere's and parts of the world (having never met), were all put together harmoniously. At first, I thought it would be quite strange, but I thoroughly enjoyed it! This video shows how much can be done, and is being done with the use of new technology and the internet.

"Teaching in the 21st Century" By Kevin Roberts

Kevin Roberts presentation was extremely powerful. It challenges a teacher to really take a look at how and what they are teaching. He asks many questions throughout the presentation. His approach really makes you think deeply about what he is saying, and he also uses sarcasm as a way to reach out to his readers. The methods of teaching have changed tremendously in the past years.

We, as teachers, will have to modify the way we teach our students. No more are the years of telling students to look up a word in a dictionary, or an encyclopedia. The internet has made this century so "touch of a button" that students don't regularly use books as much as they do a computer. In this aspect, we need to make our students assignments more engaging, so they won't just "look it up online and print". We need to ask them in ways where they will have to work their minds to find a good answer.