"Responding to Innovation and Change" page 8
I do not consider myself a "frontier developer" or even "eager" (to use some of the phrases from our textbook) when it comes to change. I like things the way I like them and that means the way I am used to doing them. After a little bit of reading in the chapter and after looking through a few Youtube videos to find one I wanted to use in my blog, I did see a lot of wonderful things coming out of the technological changes though. I liked seeing kids smile and participate in classrooms. There was not a lot of participation in my high school classrooms and I think that had a lot to do with students feeling as if they were being lectured at and not a part of their own education. The devices that I see the students using in the video below tells me that, at least with that kind of technology, students are happy about the changes happening.
Going back to the book for a minute, I do not consider myself a "mobile centric". I actually hate cellphones. I hate taking calls and making calls, but more than anything else I hate texting. I think that if someone has something to say that they can say it in person. Texting interrupts my daily life! Every time I look at one of my kids or at my partner, there is a phone in their hands and they are texting. I'm not sure if I like the idea of using cellphones in the classroom the way some teachers are doing because I think that we already use technology in an irresponsible and obsessive way. If all cellphone use was geared toward education I would feel better with it. If people had to answer a math or history question in order to power a phone call or a text message then we'd have a better civilization. Still, I cannot deny the positive things I see in the video below :
Video hosted on Youtube.com by kxan, "Teaching With Technology", October 6, 2010
"Obstacles Facing Teachers" page 12
I feel as if after reading this section of the textbook there are some obstacles in schools pertaining to money and how much technology the students have access to. I imaging it would be very frustrating to be a recent college graduate and want to share a ton of wonderful things I've learned with my students only to hit a barrier because all the technology in the school is old and outdated. I think back to when I was in school and we had a typing class. I was really excited that I would learn to type on a computer and not on the clunky typewriter that my mother and grandmother used when they were younger. I never had to do homework on a computer until I got to college though. I think that it's pretty commonplace for kids now to use computers in middle school and above. It would be very frustrating for a kid who couldn't afford a computer to go to a school that also did not have a variety of computers for him to use just because the school did not have enough funding.
The section on page 13 that talks about how some schools are underfunded makes me worried for whatever school I end up teaching in. I remember when my high school teachers had to go to the A.V. room and borrow a t.v. and a VCR to show a movie. I guess there are still schools in that situation today and that's a shame.
 |
| en.wikipedia.org via creative commons |
"Critics of Technology in Schools" page 17
I know that I began this blog by saying that I do not like change and while that is true I still think that technology has its place in schools. In our book Jane Healy says that computer games "empty their minds (students) of the attributes that make people imaginative, creative and thoughtful" (Maloy). I really disagree with her thinking here. I believe that kids do some very imaginative things on computers and she has not done enough research into the matter to make such a negative and broad judgement. Also, I think that having the ability to make a student feel as if they are playing a game while they are studying a subject that they don't necessarily like is a big bonus for teachers to have. I want to have computers in my classroom and also hope to have a Smartboard and some other things that the kids can be interactive with. I don't want to be in a classroom where we can never watch clips of movies or documentaries. I think that using technology just enhances learning. I know that I would have slept a lot less in high school if I had more interactive things to do instead of listening to the same people drone on and on about things I thought (at the time) I would never use again.
