Blog V
Dr.
Robert presented facts and numbers about growing technology that I’ve
intuitively noticed all around me. I work at schools with free and
reduced breakfast and lunches where I cringe to see students bending
their heads over cracked screens to text their friends in what they
think is secret. They protest, “I was only checking the time” or “I was
using the calculator”. It seems students don’t carry calculators
anymore. They carry small computers in their front pockets, on silent
instead of off despite school rules, 186 days a year. It would be easier
to take a finger away from a student compared to confiscating a cell
phone from the generation born after the invention of the ipod. Children
today are the heirs to the multimedia their parents dreamt about; they
are experts. Dr Robert has confirmed these facts; technology is
pervasive, ever-growing and educators can no longer stand by with the
excuse that they are not technology-oriented. Students are growing into
adults, growing into future educators, that will be as comfortable with
technology today as teachers were with blackboards in their heyday.
Responses to NY Times article:
It
is unreasonable to have one instructor for only 10 students. It is not
an effect use of time or money. Offering an online class for a very
small group of students should be justified alternative. But limits need
to be established; schools are not factories churning out cogs.
Replacing all teachers with computers is not effective option. Students
learn more with one-on-one attention. Small class sizes allow teachers
to give more one-on-one attention. When one teacher teaches 150 students
online, students not only are deprived of one-on-one attention, but
instant feedback only a teacher who is present can give. If the future
includes teachers teaching online, rules and protocols need to be
established in order to make the student-teacher relationship functional
and successful.
Offering
online courses to college students should not be a problem. I have
experienced this at the junior college, 4 year and graduate level. The
instructor was able to have us post responses, homework and quizzes. It
is useful for adults, who have a tendency to be professional in
comparison to K-12. But is it not justified to offering online classes,
such as credit recovery, to student who plagiarized. This is not
learning, and therefore is not justified. Daterrius Hamilton is an
example of a student who does not have motivation to learn and should
not be facilitated in cheating.
Review to Technology Resources for the Teacher:
If
I had a classroom, I would be excited to use prezi to present
powerpoint documents in a more interesting way. I could use a slide to
give students 3-4 bullet points of information and play a related short
clip of a movie. They could also use prezi to present their own
multimedia shows.
Quizlet
sounds like the perfect tool for having students build the quiz that
they think they should have. They could also create flashcards to
practice their information on each other.
I
have every intention of having students correct each other's rough
drafts and rubistar would be a good tool for listing the expectation of
an essay or a project.
I
also like glogster for its poster possibilities. Students could keep
their information in the cloud and would not have to carry, damage or
lose poster boards anymore.
I
think that students, with everyday access to computers, will be able to
use all of the 4 tools above to engage in evaluate themselves and
create interesting presentations to their peers. These are tools with
potential.
P.S.
I would also like to point out that I have found openoffice, dropbox,
google docs and drive (same thing essential) very useful in my present
experience as a student and I recommend these tools to anyone.
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