I guess after watching the videos that accompany the task, I was remembering back to my senior year of high school. All the classrooms had been outfitted with televisions and we were watching Channel 1. Channel 1 was supposed to be a news program that was geared to students, and had high school anchors and news correspondants. I remember watching a lot of the news content and thinking how cool it was that it was being presented in a format that was a bit more interesting than the nightly news. I began to see that there was a bigger world than my little hometown. I also remember how the computer labs at college had 20 minute limits on email so that everyone could use the computers.
I think that when I look at the students in my class, I am in awe of the things they will see in their lifetime. I think Web 2.0 gives them the opportunity to take many of the things that we did as kids (i.e. pen pals, script writing, filmstrips) and magnifying them to the next level. Students can now communicate with others, anywhere in the world and receive responses in virtually no time. Students can do video editing and filming to show concepts they have obtained from poetry units, or create clips to share about chapters out of books or parts of history.
Today's learners are very different then the learners we were. We as educators need to get content to them in a way that appeals to their learning styles. I think Web 2.0 will help give us the tools to effectively train them to be active thinkers, and later, compete in a global work place.
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Hi Rob, I agree that we are teaching them to become active thinkers and we are also training them to compete in a global workforce! We must allow them the opportunity to learn technology or we are not doing our job! http://www.mrsmcnally0809.blogspot.com/
ReplyDelete"I think that when I look at the students in my class, I am in awe of the things they will see in their lifetime."
ReplyDeleteLifetime? Heck, I'm in awe of the way technology has changed, specifically how the Internet can be used, since I finished my M.Ed in Educational Technology (way) back in 2003!! In the (not even) six years since I completed my degree 90% of what I learned is now out of date! Yikes! It's sad to think that by the time I finish paying off my school loans, what we can do with web-based technologies and technology in general will probably look nothing like the animal we have today.
"Today's learners are very different then the learners we were. We as educators need to get content to them in a way that appeals to their learning styles."
Absolutely! These kids definitely do not learn or interact with each other the same way we did when we were in school. There needs to be a pedagogical shift and technology will play a large role in that. At least that is my belief.
Playing off of Meggan's comment, how do we teach active thinking? I'm convinced that one of the best methods for doing so is to place the responsibility for learning into their hands and to provide them with opportunities to interact with their peers locally and globally. Interactions with others can challenge us to think beyond and differently from how we are predisposed to do. That's why one of my hopes is to help foster global collaborations among teachers in our district. Can you imagine how excited your students would be to go home to mom and dad and say they had a video conference with a classmate in Japan? One day!
Hi! Robb, You are so right, if our students don't learn to use the tools effectively the cannot compete in the world. Cyberspace has made "local" somewhat obsolete.
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