Blog Post 3

Paige Ellis's Blog Assignment

I chose to offer my comments and critique suggestions to Lindsey Dunnam's Blog Post #2 in a public comment. Why? The positive in her post outweighed the negative and therefore I saw no reason to hide my praise and suggestions. Here is what I said about her post:

"I really enjoyed reading your opinions of the videos, Lindsey. I particularly like your example of your Computer technology class that was not as well done as Ms. Davis's. I might suggest that you combine some of your shorter sentences into compound or complex sentences to make your writing flow a bit better."

I feel that if one maintains a positive attitude of constructive criticism when critiquing writing, it helps prevent feelings being hurt. As I said previously, Lindsey's writing was well done, and my suggestion was simply a stylistic one, so there was no reason to be quiet about it.

If I came across a post that had serious grammatical errors, I might make my suggestions via e-mail as to not embarrass the writer.

It's Not About the Technology

In "It's Not about the Technology", Kelly Hines states that becoming a modern, up-to-date classroom is not all about having fancy, expensive technology. She makes the point that all teachers still need to be willing to learn if they wish to teach, and that they must help students learn, not simply teach thmem. The two are not the same thing.

I particularly like the outline Ms. Hines provides under the point "Be a 21st Century Teacher without the technology.", where she lists things such as "Creativity and Innovation" (flashback to Ken Robinson, anybody?) and "Information, Media, and Technology Skills", as well as "Life and Career Skills". The last one rings a bell with me, as I've always been shocked that we aren't taught things such as how to behave in an interview in school. I've always felt that a life skills class would be great for high schoolers.

Overall, I love what Ms. Hines has to say. Before we step into the future with technology, we have to step into the future with the way we teach and learn.


"Is it Okay to Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?"

In his award-winning post, Karl Fischer asks the question "Is it okay to be a technologically illiterate teacher?" In short, his answer is absolutely not. He gives a list of seven standards he has written for teachers; summarized, the list basically states that teachers should be technologically literate and that there should be accountability on the part of administrators and university teacher training courses to make sure that this is the case.

Perhaps my favorite quote from the whole list, though, is, "How long does it take for someone to wake up to the fact that technology is part of life, not an add-on?" Wow. I've never thought of it that way before, but it is absolutely the truth. We're at a point where one cannot decide whether or not to deal with technology, unless you want to lock yourself in a padded room. Fischer continues by speaking about the apparent apathy on the part of teachers about technology - teachers feeling that it's okay not to be familiar with technology. This is a scary thought.

He ends with this shocking sentence: "If a teacher today is not technologically literate - and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more - it's equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn't know how to read and write." Wow. I do feel like it's a bit of an extreme statement, but in a strange way, it's not really. School is about preparing students for life, yes? And reading and writing are quite important. But now, one cannot get a job without knowing basics of technology. So I feel that he is correct - now we just need to get our bigwigs thinking that way.

Gary Hayes' Social Media Count

Watching Gary Hayes' Social Media Count is quite an eye-opener for anyone, especially someone who doesn't believe in technology. In any given ten-second span, over 120,000 items are shared on Facebook. In thirty second, twenty-five hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. Even more astounding, within a minute, one will see nearly 100,000 tweets. What does this say? Technology is growing, and it's growing fast. As educators, we need to get on the boat and use it to our advantage.

Teaching is all about using every tool you have to teach and inspire students to learn. Unfortunately, some teachers seem to find humor (yes, humor, as mentioned by Karl Fischer) in simply ignoring what might be the greatest tool available to them. Let's think about the Facebook numbers for a moment, shall we? It's 11:15 on Friday morning, and out of my 840 friends, 41 are currently online. That's about five percent of my friends who are accessible immediately at the click of a button.

Now here's a thought - what if as a teacher, I could leave my Facebook up and running and allow students to be my friend (perhaps on a special account just for school - not my personal life) and simply leave my chat up and running. If I hear a ding, I could check it and answer any questions. How awesome would that be for the student struggling with balancing equations in Chemistry? Maybe have "Virtual Office Hours" - Mr. Evans will be online nightly from 7:30-8:30 with exceptions posted on the whiteboard in class. I would have loved it with some of my math and science courses, I'll tell you that! We should learn to harness the ever-growing technology and use it to our advantage as teachers.


"A Vision of Students Today"

In the video "A Vision of Students Today", by Michael Wesch, the issue of non-modern education in a modern society is addressed. It begins by showing how education is not very interactive, with few teachers knowing students' name and students sitting silently in class, but then shows how a two-hundred student collaborative document was edited by all of the two-hundred students, some more than once.

It then goes on to show multiple issues and bad habits students have with education, such as not completing assigned readings and not showing up for class, and showing students' time management skills (or lack thereof). Finally, students tell us what they are doing with technology during class - and I assure you, it's not class work.

What does this mean for teachers? We should use technology as a means for helping students learn; clearly, students are very comfortable (for the most part) with technology and would probably learn better if it was integrated in the classroom. In this example, technology actually impedes on student learning. Let's change that and force it to help!