Now What?

We have had a lot of time to reflect about ideas and topics over the last 5 posts.  For this post, I would like you to think ahead and frame your last blog post around the question, "Now what?" as it relates to you, teaching and the use of technology. 

Google Docs: There are many ways that I can see myself using Google Docs in the future. Many different careers require group planning and Google Docs allows may allow this process to run much more smoothly and efficiently, while also saving time. I can see Google Docs being helpful for teachers working together on units and lesson plans.

Common Craft: I am so looking forward to using common craft in the classroom. This is one of the best concepts of communicating understanding, creatively that I have seen yet!

PowerPoint: I really enjoyed learning about how to use PowerPoint in a more interactive way. I believe that PowerPoint is a great way to present material in a linear form. However, when using hyperlinks, it allows the students to have more direction in their learning.

Because I believe that PLN’s (personal learning networks) are important I hope to get involved in something like Twitter. Because I don’t naturally enjoy journaling, for now I will not continue blogging. Nonetheless, that is the advantage of having so many different kinds of PLN’s there is something out there for everyone and their different learning styles.     

Creativity!

These are some of my thoughts after watching this video:http://youtu.be/qeJJOjb7fj4

Things should not be this way. I love creativity and imagination. If the world did not have creativity it would be a very boring place. Not only that the world would not have very many other things. It takes creativity to do so many things. For example how could people invent things if they thought that there was no ‘other’ way of doing things. Furthermore, even if they thought that there should be a better or at least different way how would they be able to come up with a new solution.

This video upsets me because I do not want to be the teacher that thinks there is only one way of doing things. If we didn’t have creativity, we would not be able to develop perspective and understanding as well as we can with it.   

Next I watched:

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

·         Robinson said, “We should treat creativity with as much importance as literacy” – i do not see this happening in schools

·         When the child says that people will know what God looks like in a minute, I see this as such a ‘child moment’ – children are so raw and true. As we get older we have to be more careful of what we say but I think that as adults we are so busy trying to be polite that we lose the beauty of what it means to be a child.

·         Robinson expands on this idea by saying that adults are afraid of making mistakes.

·         When one is afraid of making mistakes it will suppress creativity.

·         I believe a lack of creativity encourages this movement from being like a child to being a ‘sophisticated’ adult

·         I am stereotypically someone that should be good at the arts and creative. For awhile I felt jipped because I felt like I did not have some creative gift that was supposed to be my strength. Although I now see that there are many different ways to show creativity; I question whether or not I would have a more ‘creative gift’ if creativity had been more encouraged when I was in elementary and high school. I wonder if I wasn’t so often told that I was wrong, would I be more willing to try new things?  

I think we can use technology as a form of creativity but it is important to not use it as the only way to show creativity. This would be very contradictory in that the point of creativity is to be different.

TED Talk with Sugata Mitra

After watching the TED talk: Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education, where Mitra discussed the findings of his Hole in the wall 1999-2001 experiment, I found I had lots to think about and even more questions. Some of the points that stood out to me most were:

·         A teacher that can be replaced by a machine, should be

·         If students have interest, then education happens (learning for the sake of learning)

·         Photographic recall because they are discussing it

·         Other scores show that the marks go up over time because the children continue to Google the information

I thought it was interesting when Mitra introduced the Grandmother concept to his study. I was reminded of learning about differential reinforcement in another education class. According to Woolfolk, Winne, Perry (1012) “differential reinforcement means ignoring inappropriate behaviours, while being sure to reinforce appropriate behaviours as soon as they occur.”  This is what the grandmother concept was doing for these children.  

Some questions that I have been pondering since watching this video are:

·         How does, where people grow up influence their desire to learn?

·         Are teachers needed then?

·         What are teachers providing students that they cannot get from other places?

·         Perhaps Mitra included the quote: “There are places on Earth, in every country, where, for various reasons, good schools cannot be built and good teachers cannot or do not want to do...” to imply that computers are a useful substitute when teachers are not available.