TEP 305 A Technology Journal Blog- Final one

Tim Holt provides a good perspective of how he feels the classroom of today matches up with the classroom set up of 100 years ago. I agree and disagree with what he is saying, I do feel that in todays classroom we don't utilize the technology that we have available, but that primarily comes from funding! If every school and school district had the funds to provide the most up to date technology in the classroom, we would have evolved the teaching and learning styles of today's classroom! However, the ways teachers teach I feel is completely different than 100 years ago. The classrooms I have observed do not sit and recite times tables aloud, and the basis of learning isn't simple reading, writing and arithmetic. Today schools are trying to be progressive and use constructive teaching strategies to build connections for students to learn. I feel we are a much smarter race than we were pre-industrial revolution. There are so many different strategies that teachers can use to provide the correct conceptual knowledge for children to understand and excel intellectually. Also, even though not every student has the opportunity to have a computer in front of them at all times, they still have access to the more information than any encyclopedia can offer, its called the internet. Most kids by the age of 7 these days know how to use and search the internet. So that is a complete change than how they used to find information 100 years ago.
I think Anne would still be running screaming out the classroom if she set foot in one today! Everything has changed from blackboards to white boards, from enyclopedias to the internet, from paper and pencil to microsoft word, times have changed and will continue to change, the only downfall for education is Money, if the educational system was actually cared about by the government, (other than creating common core standards) I feel we would have the best and most efficient educational system in the world. But there are way to many selfish and money hungy people out there who don't want to lose a couple bucks to benefit our future, which is pretty Un-American to me!

Technology Journal Blog 5

I have watched a video like this before. I understand that technology is the future. Not just for teaching and school, but for everyone across the world. I think that the more we implement technology into the school system, the more I feel we will be moving schools towards just teaching how to utilize technology in their own lives, that we will forget why children are actually at school. School is to help children expand their minds intellectually, if students are able to look everything up on a computer, than there is no mental action actually taking place. It is much easier for me to pull up a calculator and find what 123x231 is, than by using pen and paper, but where does that get us, is the student actually learning that 123x231 is 28413, or that 123 groups that have 231 materials in them equal 28,413 materials. By associating students with material they should be learning, they gain intellectual know how to help them think faster through items. By giving students answers they can just look up only allows them to think which resource to use!
I believe technology is important to everyone and everything in the world, I think that we should utilize technology within the classroom, but not allow students to have everything be learned on a computer. Children must learn to utilize their brain functioning so that it builds upon one other, technology just provides students with the easy way out, in my opinion on this!

Week 5

I feel I was pretty inspired about the use of technology in my classroom when I first even started in the teaching program. Like the video from Oceanside N.Y. the teacher was preaching student self awareness of technology, because we don't know what the changes will be like in the future so teachers and students must be self assured that they are using technology effectively.
At the Booker T. Washington Magnet school the teacher offers most of his classwork to be available online, using students activity on the web to help set up a subject area lesson guide. By providing notes, assignments, blogging and discussion boards online, they get students ready for types of activities they will use in college or beyond and it helps utilize the technologies available to give inspiration for the students to want to do their work on the computer. So I think this is a very good view of how to set up a middle school or high school classroom. Now his difficulties would be those students who do not have internet access at home, other than the school or local library, I would ask him "How he makes sure students who do not have access to the internet, still have the opportunities that he has within his classroom?" I know that most students have access to the internet, but with the way the economy is, there are probably a lot of people who don't.
I also think utilizing the smart board and everything it has to offer is a huge asset to a classroom, especially for first year teachers. I think the program helps teachers gain access to items on the internet that will help give them inspiration for teaching and also provide numerous ways of interpreting material for students to actively engage them in their learning!

Technology Blog #1

I think the mindset list that Beloit college publishes is pretty crafty and intuitive. It does hit on points that the incoming freshman class have always experienced. I feel it is basically saying that kids growing up these days in this day age I mean, are almost "spoiled"! They have always had it an easier way and have always been protected. Which I think has created a bunch of kids that are weenies and whiners, and also produced a lot of kids who want to rebel and go against the grain. Either way it that is not good. Now as for the future, these kids will probably be the same if not worse for their children, I think it will just get easier and easier for kids to access the internet and have mobile devices that tell them everything they want. Hopefully I am wrong in believing this but I like the idea of the Mindset list of each incoming class because it offers older students a small window into understanding the class that is new! I also disagree with # 55 that New Kids has been known as NKOTB, because this students most likely have no idea who New Kids on the Block really is!

The youtube video, offers incite to what students have been learning and what they have access too. Obviously school systems are not the same as they were 5 or even 10 years ago. Students don't like to read anymore if they can watch the movie or have someone read to them via book on tape. So the video is asking"How do we change this mindset" or what can we do with technology to actually make it useful in the classroom. If the students can understand a certain subject on the computer, then why not implement that into your classroom. It doesnt make sense not to use the technology provided, or even find better technologies that will help you become a better teacher!