Assignment 2 June 6, 2010

1. Did You Know? 3.0
Wow, after watching this I had to sit back and think about everything I saw. This video made me feel that even though I am trying to learn about all this new technology, it will never be good enough, because there will always be more advancements made the following year. A fact that stood out to me was that India has more children in honor programs than we have actual children in the United States. So if we are one of the wealthiest countries in the world, why is there not enough money spent on education? Something else that blew my mind is that in two or three years I will be will training students for jobs that have not been created yet. This made no sense to me until I thought about it. When my mother was in school they were learning basic things that we learn today as well. But little did her generation know that they would be training for jobs that had to do with computers. In that day and age their schools had maybe one or two computers in the entire school. But when that generation graduated from college they got jobs where computers were used for their daily jobs.
I thought this video was educational and could be used for any classroom.

2. Mr. Winkle Wakes
This video message was simple, yet powerful. The way we teach in school was the same as we did one hundred years ago. This is ridiculous because the technology has advanced so much from ten years ago, let alone one hundred years ago. We as a future group of teachers should not be afraid to use technology in the classroom. Also we ourselves should not be afraid to learn about new technology either.
This video should be seen by all teachers so maybe they would rethink their own teaching strategies. In the classroom there needs to be more than just a teacher speaking to thirty students and basically reading them their textbooks. We need to challenge them to think for themselves and incorporate new technology.

3. Sir Ken Robinson: The importance of creativity
This was the easiest twenty minute speaker I have ever watched or heard. Sir Ken Robinson delivered a powerful message while being humorous and informative. In the news you constantly hear how public schools are not receiving enough money, so therefore the first programs they cut are the arts. Robinson did say math and science are important, but so are the arts. When we take away the children's time to create, I believe we stop their potential for learning things in new and different ways.
Robinson's story about Gillian was inspiring. We as teachers need to be open to bringing arts into our classroom. One of my most memorable memories of elementary school was my third grade teacher Mrs. Bell. I loved her and class because in the month of October she would come in every morning and put in a CD. The CD would then play the "monster mash". All thirty two of her eight and nine year old students would dance around for the three minutes it took for the song to play. I was a dancer all through grade school and this was a chance for me to dance and get ready for my day of learning. I hope I am a teacher that does not forget about the arts.

4.Vicki Davis: Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts
Clearly Vicki Davis is teaching outside of the box. In the video her students look engaged in what she had to say. Also in the video the boy sitting in front of the class in the letter man jacket was helping teach along with Ms. Davis. Ms. Davis said in the video that did not always have to be up front to teach. She said that sometimes the students teach the class or they teach her.
Ms. Davis is clearly not afraid of technology. Her students were blogging with students across the world. It was a little embarrassing to think that these students are seven years younger than me and they are blog experts.








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