Scott McLeod: Don’t Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please?
Who is Dr. McLeod? His blog bio indicates that Scott McLeod, J.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Educational Administration program at Iowa State University. He also is the Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE), the nation’s only academic center dedicated to the technology needs of school administrators, and was a co-creator of the wildly popular video, Did You Know? (Shift Happens). Dr. McLeod blogs regularly about technology leadership issues at dangerouslyirrelevant.org and occasionally at The Huffington Post. In his own less formal introduction he refers to himself as, “Associate Professor. CASTLE Director. Blogger. Idea generator. Solution builder. Agitator. Catalyst. “If the leaders don’t get it, it’s not going to happen.”
As a future English/Language Arts teacher, I give Dr. McLeod’s post an A+. It was a clever way to present the argument FOR tech literacy. Here's a brief summary of my comments, “I am joining the long list of bloggers assigned to you by Dr. Strange at USA in Mobile, AL. Our EDM310 class instruction has been enlightening! As students, we have been exposed to various forms of technology to enrich our learning experience! I’m already brainstorming ways to use blogs and Twitter in my classroom! Thanks for being part of our conversation and instruction!”
Travis Allen: The iSchool Initiative
Should we make the iSchool a reality? Travis Allen, creator of the idea, thinks we should. His arguments for the iSchool in brief are: 1) massive budget cuts, larger classroom size, and loss of teaching units signal a broken educational system that needs to be changed, 2) applications already available on Apple’s Itouch are classroom ready today, 3) iSchool will save school systems about $600 per student and have a positive effect on our environment and 4) enhanced communication between parents, teachers, and students. Here are my reactions to his proposal: Pros 1) innovative, exciting method of teaching and learning 2) technological skills development equipping students for the workforce 3) access to interactive virtual resources for problem solving/research (apps) Cons 1) Will this eventually affect the number of teaching units needed in school systems/eliminate units? 2) As equipment and programs age out, will the expense continue to justify the benefits? 3) Will this be a tool to aid or become the sole method of teaching, learning, collaboration? 4) Who will determine how much access is too much access and what apps are appropriate or need parental approval?
Jonathan Reed: Lost Generation
Thank you for recommending this video, Dr. Strange! In 1:44 a profound message is conveyed. At the time that I viewed this, there were 15,065,755 views. The creative reversal from a negative message to a positive one was dramatic and effective. It’s easy to see why this won second place in AARP’s U@50 challenge (a contest to create a dialogue between generations and know what young people are thinking today.)
Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir
Wow! This was a moving video! My reaction, like Jennifer Chamber’s, was one of amazement! I had to know more about the history behind the project. I visited the web site mentioned in the credits http://ericwhitacre.com/the-virtual-choir/history and found the following facts: Featuring 185 voices from over 15 countries worldwide, The Virtual Choir began as a simple experiment in social media, but it seems to have grown into something much bigger than I ever dreamed possible. Lux Aurumque has amassed over 1.2 million views. Technology...it’s a powerful thing!
Kevin Roberts: Teaching in the 21st Century
Meaningful and powerful engagement starts with me! Technology is one of the tools used to engage (to teach) in the 21st century. This would be the perfect video to show on the 1st day of class in EDM310! The presentation made me want to learn more about every aspect of educational media and how to use it in the classroom.
Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post today. I thought Dr.Mcleod post made a great point about how we should teach our students how to use things like the internet and not shy away from them.
I like the points you made about the ischool blog. I never really thought about how in technology there is always something new coming out that puts something else out of date, and how that could be a added expense. I thought overall it could be a good idea but being an Elementary Education major I had my reserves about it. Like how would I teach my students to hold a pencil to write there names, or how to set up a proper math problem. I think ischool would be better beneficial to the higher grade levels.
I also enjoyed the message of the Lost Generation. At first it made me kind of sad but then when it read it backwards I thought it was great. I like the overall set up of this message. I thought how they turned a negative into a positive was great.
I had the same reaction that you did about the Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir, amazement! I would have never thought of using technology in this way, but I am glad they did.
I agree with your sentence in the Teaching in the 21st Century statement about how "meaningful and powerful engagement starts with me." I think that we can use technology as one of the tools to keep the students engaged as well, as long as we don't solely depend on it to teach our lessons. Thank you for your post.
Hi Shaska,
ReplyDeleteThanks for you comments. You made some valid points concerning the iSchool Initiative. Your comments (along with our required EDM-310 work) caused me to do some online research about technology education in primary schools.
One article cited comments by Dr. Bruce D. Perry, an international brain-development expert. Dr. Perry said, "Research shows that most people prefer to learn visually, for example by watching videos, films and movies. Young children in particular have a strong preference for learning this way. For this reason, computers can be an effective way to teach young children.
Perry notes that too much technology, however, is a bad thing. Technology requires children to interact with a machine instead of others. Children need to interact with others to become well-developed socially, emotionally and cognitively, according to Perry.
Read more: Technology Education for Primary Schools | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/list_6549799_technology-education-primary-schools.html#ixzz1ELRolKLw
I've bookmarked this link for future reference/blogging :-)
Good luck in EDM-310 and your future classroom!
An outstanding post! Thorough, well written, clear, to the point. Thanks! And maybe you are correct. Sow the Teaching in the 21st century video on Day 1. But we would need to come back to it when the real meaning of it began to sink in!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Dr. Strange! I really appreciate your encouragement...now, I'm off to create my timetoast ;-)
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