Blog Assignment 3

It’s Not About the Technology

This post is about the need to focus more on changing the national education system than the need for technology to prepare students for the future. Mrs. Kelly Hines states that teachers in our education system need to take the initiative and need to be passionate about learning about new developments in technology and be aware of what is going on with their students. She also says that, no matter how long of a career a teacher has or how effective their teaching has been in the past, if students are not learning than the teacher is not teaching. I definitely agree with this statement because there are too many teachers who believe that if the student is failing a subject than that student is not trying hard enough. Educators have the responsibility of finding new, different ways of introducing subjects until their students do understand.
The introduction of technology definitely provides a better environment for preparing students for the future but as Mrs. Hines says, if the teacher is not motivated to use the tools that she is given, then the technology is wasted. Mrs. Hines chooses to focus rather on teaching students learning and innovative skill such as: creativity, innovation, critical thinking, problem- solving, communication and collaboration because these skills will follow the students throughout their lives and can and should be applied in many different areas of life. Overall, I really enjoyed this post because I agree that not enough focus is placed on developing important life skills in students to prepare them for the future.



Is It Okay to Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

Karl Fisch shares, through this post, his opinion on why it should not be acceptable for educators along with anyone else in any education system to be technologically illiterate. He states that educators without basic level understanding of technology should be embarrassed by this fact. I loved the question he posed for his viewers, “How long does it take for someone to wake up to the fact that technology is a part of life, not an add-on?” Before the twenty-first century it would have been acceptable to be technologically illiterate but Mr. Fisch believes that by 2020, it will be very unlikely that a person will be able to lead a successful life without technological literacy.
Educators really must believe that we do live in exponential times and even knowing the latest advancements in technology is not enough. We have the responsibility to prepare our students for the future and it is evident right now that technology plays a major part in the ways that we learn and communicate in the present and will be a major factor in the ways that we learn, communicate and teach in the future.



Social Media Count

Gary Hayes displays a shocking count for the time spent globally, doing various activities online. The activities range from viewing YouTube videos to emails sent globally. The numbers are amazing and the post displays the change in the count by seconds so the viewer can watch the numbers rise as long as they wish. This post truly shows that we are living in exponential times and should be the evidence that technologically illiterate teachers need to see the importance of learning and keeping up with technological developments.
I have always been interested in computers and I thought that I was technologically literate until I joined Dr. Strange’s EDM310 class. This post along with a few others that I have read in the past two weeks have shown me that I know very little about technology and that I really have to learn fast to catch up to what is available to me now because it is constantly advancing. This post also helped me realize that computers seem to be the major way that people communicate. This observation kind of scares me though because this seems to be leading us to a less formal and less personal way of connecting to others. I know that I am guilty of texting my family because it is quicker than calling.

A Vision of Students Today

Michael Wesch’s video shows how a group of students at Kansas State University( and I'm sure there are many, many more around world)feel about the current day classroom. There were many interesting statements made in the video that indicate that change is wanted. Students spend more time reading Facebook profiles than textbooks; those textbooks costing hundreds of dollars are hardly ever used. Students are using technology in just about every aspect of their lives but hardly use it for the classroom. Many feel like the way that they are being taught is not preparing them for the the many societal problems they will face after they graduate, therefore, many do not even bother showing up to class or surf the web instead of working on school work during class.