The video Mr. Dancealot shows excellent reasoning to why it is important to have interactive learning not just lecture. During the conclusion of this video, everyone meets in the ball room and Mr. Dancealot turns a video camera on, tells them to start dancing, and he leaves. Obviously all the students' cannot even imagine how to begin because they weren't shown basic skills in the classroom. For this video, I agree wholeheartedly on the conclusion this author chose. He explains what I mentioned at the beginning, that you cant just have teacher show their students' a power point, you need to interact with and explain to them why and how to make your students' understand.
Teaching in the 21st Century
In the Video Teaching in the 21st Century by Kevin Roberts I now see why it's so different teaching now then a few years ago. Roberts is seeing how technology is becoming a part of our everyday lives. Most everyone is just using technology to stay entertained, instead we should be embracing all the qualities that technology has. Roberts believes that to teach in the 21st century students must be more engaged rather than entertained. I agree with Roberts, teaching is absolutely changing. It is true that "students can find information on anything, anytime, and anywhere." With this being said, little by little we lose a student's attention day by day in a classroom. If we do not embrace technology in educational and useful ways, then how are we going to be good educators? One part of being a good educator is by teaching students whats used in today's society and how they learn from it.
The Networked Student
Wendy Drexler's video The Networked Student explains what is evolving now and what will be in the near future. He explains that you have many connections, not just in your classroom but worldwide. Even though the network connections help us connect to more people, we loose sight and connection to the people around us. There needs to be a limit to social connection, so we don not loose our connections to the people that are right next to us. We were asked this question, "Why does the networked student even need a teacher?" Well, we need a teacher to guide us, be a model, and be there for us to ask he/she questions. Teachers are here to help us learn and to be mentors, without their guidance we would be nowhere.
Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts
In the video Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts by Vicki Davis, she gives extraordinary reasons to why using technology nowadays to learn is the best way. When Vicki says, "I believe every student can learn, every child can learn, but where children have trouble is when you only have paper and only pencil, then only certain types of students are going to succeed," I could not agree more. Children these days are more involved with technology then ever before, and it's up to teachers to teach in the way that society works. Of course we shouldn't go overboard to where we use technology in every subject. For example in science or chemistry I still believe we need hands-on demonstration labs to learn some aspects of how both science and chemistry work that you can't learn from a computer.
Flipping the Classroom
After watching the video Flipping the Classroom I thought to myself "This may or may not be innovating." I don't see how this would work very well on young students' compared to, lets say, high school or college students. Young students' have the attention span of Daffy Duck, especially when their at home and want to have fun and relax from seven hours of school. On the other hand, flipping the classroom would work very well on the high school level or above. It would give them a chance to learn more difficult material and spend more time in the class to go over it. For me, as a future teacher, I don't believe it would be very useful because I am teaching at an elementary level, and do not believe that my students' would take much out of it or even really pay attention to it.
Students can not learn simply by watching, and Dr. Dancealot's dance class provides a perfect example of this. As teachers, we need to interact with the students in order for the information to process. Technology is taking over every aspect of life, so we must teach students to use these resources in order to succeed. Like The Networked Student explains, we must guide our students in the correct direction and provide them with a desire to learn. I agree with you that some items need a teacher to assist in learning, and the system of "harnessing the student's smarts" would only be effective in certain subjects. This is also true in "flipping the classroom" because many times, students need a teacher to keep the student focussed. Teachers can not rely on the parents to ensure the students listen and comprehend to lecture. I agree that this system is not useful in the elementary classroom.
ReplyDeleteYou're off to a good start!
ReplyDelete"Of course we shouldn't go overboard to where we use technology in every subject." Why not? Technology can even be used in Physical Education. I agree with what you are saying about their needs to be hands-on experiments in a Science classroom, but technology can help enhance EVERY subject!
"...we loose sight and connection to the people around us.." Lose, not loose. There is another instance you used loose when it should have been lose. Be sure to proofread before you publish!
Be sure to include links to your videos as well as your images in each post. Also, make sure you are putting the Title and Alt tag modifier to your images. It is the same as plagiarism for pictures if you don't include a source. The instructions on how to do that is in the instruction manual. If you need further assistance with it or have any questions, we are here to help!!
One last comment to add.. Even as an elementary major, don't be skeptical about the role technology will play in your classroom. From your feedback on Flipping the Classroom, it seems you are a tad skeptical. Don't be! It's amazing to see how advanced the elementary classroom and what those children are capable of doing with our help!
This was a good post, keep it up!
I agree with most everything that you have stated in your blog. I believe that students can learn from the power points but without putting them into practice in the classroom the visual aids of power point presentations are useless. If Professor Dancealot had let his students participate, not just sit an take notes, the class would not have been confused at the end of the video.
ReplyDeleteAs for being teaching and being a networked student I too believe that these are going to be used more and more each day. I don't believe that we should just throw to the waste side that which has been working up until now, but I believe that we need to integrate the technology of today into keeping our students involved and learning.
It looks as if you are starting to get the hang of this blogging stuff but like Melissa says in the comment above mine keep an eye out for misspelled words and grammar mistakes. Be sure to proofread before you publish as it will save you alot of heartache in this class. Best of luck to you this semester.