Thursday, January 24, 2013

Blog Post 2

1. Did You Know? 3.0 - A John Strange 2012 Version
 EDM310 Class Blog
 Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod
In Dr. Strange's version of Did You Know 3.0, he elaborates on how technology is growing more and more each day. In the video, he starts with statistics and predictions on how American educators are being passed up other non-native English speaking countries who are educating their students on American language. One slide say's that if the Chinese "learners" do learn English then there will be more people in China speaking English than in the United States. What does that say about our educators? The video also explains how India has more K-12 Honors Students than all of the K-12 students of America and that 25% of India's population with the highest IQ's outnumber the entire population of the U.S. So, with that being said, apparently American educators are doing something wrong.

Technology is taking over our world. I do believe that Twitter, and Facebook can be a distraction to students but with those distractions I believe teachers need to find a way to keep hold of their students attention. Technology will continue to be a part of our every day lives so teachers need to learn to grow with it rather than just letting it pass them by. I think its a great thing for other countries to learn our language but with that shouldn't we keep the race going and learn theirs as well? Allowing other countries to out- educate the United States does nothing but set our country back even further. If this is how our world is going to continue to grow, can you imagine where we will stand 50 years from now?

2. Mr. Winkle Wakes 
EDM310 Class Blog 
Matthew Needleman 
When watching Mr. Winkle Wakes, I couldn't help myself but to laugh. What a silly video on how to educate how much the world has changed. It does make some valid points though. Mr. Winkle wakes up after being asleep for 100 years. He is amazed at the technology in office buildings and hospitals. One thing that he recognized was a school and the computer that he had seen in the office building and hospital. This computer wasn't being used in the classroom though. Mr. Winkle was happy to see that after his 100 year slumber that one thing remained the same; school.


 After watching the video I came to the conclusion that I agree and also disagree with Mr. Winkle's observations of how the world has changed. I do agree that we have come a long way with technology in the past 100 years. With the growth of technology, our world has become a more advanced and convenient place to live. Mr. Winkle was glad to see that school and education has remained the same and I disagree with him. I think that our field of education grows everyday. Now, students have access to internet and computer that allow them to search the web for anything they are curious about. With the growth of technology, people aren't just getting educated in classrooms listening to their teacher lecture. Technology has allowed us to educate ourselves daily through the internet and other available sources.

3. The Importance of Creativity 
EDM310 Class Blog 
Sir Ken Robinson 
The Importance of Creativity video was very witty and educational. It opened my eyes to see just how important it is to allow young students to embrace their creativity rather than shutting it down and telling them its wrong. Sir Ken Robinson hit a lot of key points that I found should be crucial for educators to focus on. He says, "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you"ll never come up with anything original." Teachers around the world teach the same subjects regardless of the country. So if the world is educating people on the same subjects everyday then how can someone be comfortable expressing their creativity? Teachers need to educate students that it is normal and okay to be different. Sir Ken Robinson says, "We don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it." I found that to be very intriguing in terms of education. Children have such vivid imaginations and parents usually embrace it, but when we enroll them in school that creativity and imagination gets turned into a disorder or learning disability.

 When watching The Importance of Creativity I couldn't agree more with Sir Ken Robinson. When I teach my future English classroom I want my students to be able to write creatively without fear of a bad grade. When it comes to creativity I don't believe there is a right or wrong answer. Its about producing original ideas that have meaning and value. So if creativity focus on valuable diversity then why is it being discontinued so often by our educators? Sir Ken Robinson says that intelligence is diverse, dynamic, and distinct. All three of those definitions are somehow based off of creativity and originality. I believe that if educators continue to deny creativity within education then we have no choice but to fail at our goals and dreams.

 Mr. Winkle Wakes movie focuses on pointing out how much the world has changed within the past 100 years. 100 years ago they didn't have computers, printers, internet, hospital machines that help save your life, or x-ray pictures. Schools had no use of technology. Now that we have advanced into a technological education system, schools have more room to develop and grow. Students have more resources available and can further their education with the help of technology. When thinking about how far the world and education has advanced within 100 years it makes me wonder what our world will be like the year of 2113. What resources will teachers be using to educate their students? What will technology look like and how will it work? We have absolutely no idea how far we will come but I like to believe that change is a good thing. As long as we are keeping up with technology and allowing it to make us better, I believe the education system will continue to grow and make light of the resources available for us.

creativity
4. Pinterest: Using Available Resources 
EDM310 Class Blog 
Kaitlyn Burgess and Bethany Griffith 
I've been on Pinterest for about a year now. As soon as I got the hang of the website I immediately fell in love. There are so many categories to choose from and creative things to search for. Pinterest can be useful to teachers and students in many different ways. I've found that Pinterest is a very organized way of remembering things that seem meaningful or useful to you. I want to express creativity in my personal classroom and showing my students how to use Pinterest may help them to open up and find their own creativity. I think sharing your ideas on Pinterest with other teachers can be helpful as well too. When it comes to education I think that creativity is the key to success; thankfully technology has introduced us to Pinterest and we can now use that resource to help educate in a more original and fresh way!

2 comments:

  1. This is Blog Post #2 (not #3). Please correct.

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  2. "What does that say about our educators? " A better question is "What does it say about the size of our population compared to that of China?" You misunderstood the comparative data on China, India and the United States. India has four times the population of the United States and China has five times the population of America, This means that the size of the population leads to the large numbers of "honor students" or English speakers when India or China are compared to the United States. You could also say that the 20 % of the population in China with the largest ears (or 25% of the population with the largest ears in India) outnumbers all of the people with ears of any size in the United States.

    Thoughtful. Interesting.

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