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I am 24 years old and a student at the University of South Alabama. I am majoring in English and Secondary Education. I am currently expecting my first child, due August 10, 2010. I started this blog for my EDM 310 class and I hope you all enjoy reading my posts!

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Technology

A Vision of Students Today

This video shows how students are expected to learn by sitting in a classroom with over one hundred other students while they listen to a professor talking across the room. Most of these students will be severely in debt by the time they graduate. Many of them are preparing to work in a position that hasn't even been invented yet. How many of the reading assignments students are given are actually beneficial to the job they are training to have? Is their education worth the amount of money they are spending?

I can relate extremely well to this video. I am a sophomore in college and I am already over $20,000 in debt. I am taking a full course load this semester while working part time. I am a multi-tasker like many of the students in the video. I work, go to school, study, do homework and spend time with family and friends on a daily basis. Being a student is only one aspect of my life. The only thing I would add to this video would be a view of the professors. Of course there are plenty of great professors out there, but I would like to showcase the ones that simply lecture and expect us to repeat everything we've heard on a test. Education would be more rewarding if it seemed like half of my professors actually cared how much I learned from their class.


It's Not About the Technology

Kelly Hines makes perfect sense with her post "It's Not about the Technology". In this century we are trying to include technology with learning. The technology is not what is going to help children learn. It is a tool that can be used, but it is ultimately up to the teacher to make it successful. As Mrs. Hines said the teachers have to be learners as well. What can we as students possibly learn from a teacher that doesn't want to learn the way she is teaching us? She also touched on a point that I think all teachers should be concerned with. She stated that learning and teaching are not the same thing. How true?! This is true for anyone that has tried to teach something to someone else. I tried teaching my nephew how to play the piano and he just wasn't getting it. I was teaching him the same way that I learned. That was the wrong approach. Teachers need to find the ways children learn and teach them accordingly. We can't teach all children in the same way, it will not work.

Another great point in her post was the statement that technology is useless without good teaching. We can come up with a million new ways to teach children, but without teachers that are willing to change and teach in new ways, education will not change. I am excited to know that her post has been and will be read by many current and future teachers. I hope that they take as much from it as I have.

Is it Okay to be a Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

I recently read Karl Fisch's post on technologically illiterate teachers. There are some excellent points in this blog post. Some people don't think that it's a big deal to "not really get computers". However, if you are a teacher, or a parent or someone in a position to help children learn, you need to be able to adapt to the way education is changing.

I agree with what Mr. Fisch wrote about technologically illiterate teachers needing to be willing to learn more. How are we as students supposed to learn things in new ways if our teachers aren't willing to change their teaching habits. Every person is different and learns in a different way. Today's society is dripping with technology. Children today are capable of using very advanced pieces of equipment. We as future educators need to be able to keep up with them. If they use these technologies everyday, why not teach them vital things with the same technology?

Social Media Count

I was asked to click on a link and watch the social media count change with every second. It is astonishing that in a little over a minute there were over 1700 new blog posts. What does this mean for my professional career as a teacher? It shows me that even now technology is extremely prevalent. By the time I become a teacher I suspect those numbers to go up even further.

As long as we as teachers can adapt with the growing technology of this world I think that we will be better equipped to teach our students. I will continue to learn as much as I can on how to effectively use technology to teach others. Hopefully my future students will be able to learn along with me!

4 comments:

  1. Lauren,

    I can relate with the debt that has piled up since I have been in school. I disagree somewhat, though, with the notion that something is useless if it doesn't help us in our field. There is a reason accounting majors have to take English. There is a reason English majors have to take science courses. Colleges, since their inception, have set out to create well-rounded individuals who can speak with at least some education on a number of different topics.

    Unfortunately, we as students today subscribe to the school of thought that includes getting our diploma and getting out so we can make money. I submit that there is more to be gained from college than a better paying job. We read literary classics because they are part of our culture. Will they do much for an aspiring geologist? Well, no, but they do help form that intrepid young scientist into a more learned individual who has what a professor of mine once called "Cultural Capital."

    Your post is very insightful and interesting, but I would be careful about dismissing the importance of assignments simply because they do not apply to your field of study.

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  2. Lauren,

    I, too, can relate to being in debt from college classes. Also, we have to be multitaskers to survive. I work full time and play softball every weekend during the summer. I know that could be dropped but then where would I release stress and have any fun. You have to have other things in your life besides school and work, we all just have to learn time management and self control. After I begun my block classes and concentrated on special education classes, I felt the professors knew who I was and sometimes knew too much! But it was better than the classes where you didn't even have to show up. Great blogs and thoughts.

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  3. Lauren,

    I definitely agree with many of your points. I think we all are piling up the debt as we go through college. I also liked how you pointed out Hines idea of learning being different than teaching. It is such an obvious point, but like you I didn't think about it till I read her post. As for the Fisch article, he definitely makes some very valid arguments. His view is slightly extreme, but it does reflect the shift that education will slowly begin to take as these technological tools evolve. Thanks for posting, really interesting thoughts.

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  4. Good job Lauren. You bring up some very interesting points. Keep up the good work.

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