Our text, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms has provided several new insights on the role of technology in education. The text discusses how far we’ve come and how much further we’re about to go, our technology is constantly increasing, growing and advancing. Today’s students look at the internet as a way of life, they expect to be connected and have the world at their fingertips, and we as educators need to realize this and find a way to harness the power of technology to use it as an educational tool for our 21st Century learners.
As I stated in my very first post to this blog, I must admit, prior to this class I wasn’t really sure what blogging was all about. I thought of it as nothing more than on-line journaling and didn’t see much purpose in it. After reading how our text’s author Will Richardson has used blogging in his classroom and watching videos showcasing examples of other educator’s use of them in our class, I now see what a powerful educational tool it can be, and realize its’ uses are seemingly endless. I can see using them to connect my students to the world around them. It was great seeing how a teacher in Canada had used blogging to connect her 1st graders with 1st graders in New Zealand, enabling the students to learn about different cultures, environments, and experiences. It makes the world smaller and more accessible. I was really impressed with Will Richardson’s project with his students while reading the book The Secret Life of Bees. He not only set up a blog to discuss the book, he was able to contact the author, Sue Monk Kidd, and she agreed to participate in the blog. I was so excited about this! Students were able to ask questions about what they read directly to the author! She wrote about her thoughts while writing the book, discussed what her motivation was and how she created the characters. What a fabulous opportunity for his students, and an absolutely incredible learning experience, for all involved as the author stated that the student’s questions showed her a new way of looking at her own work.
Mr. Richardson points out that we as educators need to be learners as well. It is important for us to know and understand technology and he states that it wasn’t until he fully understood how technology could facilitate global connections and conversations about his own passions, how they could help him create powerful learning networks and communities, that he was able to see what needed to change in his curriculum and teaching (Richardson, 2008). He expands on this thought in his article Footprints in the Digital Age, where he states that educators need to understand the potential of social networking for themselves and encourages us to start a Facebook page and explore Twitter. I wholeheartedly agree, and look forward to learning and using more tools as this course progresses.
An article on Businessweek.com, Rethinking Computers in the Classroom, discusses President-elect Barack Obama’s proposal to outfit classrooms with more computers and internet access. The article states that in many schools computers have failed to aid student’s learning and cited problems such as reliance on paper lesson plans that don’t factor in technology and inadequate teacher training. After seeing the potential learning tool computers can be, reading that lack of knowledge on the educator’s part contributed to the failure of past programs serves as a strong motivator for me to learn as much as I can about the tools that are out there. I believe we are doing disservice to our students if we do not learn about technology.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
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