September 21, 2011

Blog Post #5

1. Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please?

I found Mr. McLeod's article to be very interesting. It made me really stop and think about technology in another way. Technology is being used in some many ways these days. Mr. Mcleod pointed out some good points when talking about the negative ways technology can be used. Even though there are students who use the technology to look at porn or other such things. There are many other students getting ahead in their education because of technology.

By looking around and googling, I found out some things about Mr. McLeod that most people might not know. Mr. Scott McLeod, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Kentucky. He also is the Founding Director of the nation's only academic center dedicated to the technology needs of school administrators. Mr. McLeod is widely recognized as one of the nation's leading academic experts on K-12 school technology leadership issues. He has also received many awards for his accomplishments.

2. The iSchool Initiative


Wow, talk about a money and time saver! Travis is seriously on to something with the iSchool initiative. He has put a lot of time and thought into how schools, students, and parents could easily save money. He estimated that we could each save around $600. That is a great saving! I was not aware of how much the iPhone could do.



I would like to think that sometime in the future the idea of the iSchool could possibly happen. I mean, technology is growing at a rapid rate as it is. The iSchool would definitely save a lot of money and time looking for a book or homework you misplaced. With the iSchool everything is just a few clicks away from your iPhone or iTouch. Could something as simple as downloadable Apps onto our phones really start taking the place of books, computers, calculators, calendars, paper, pencils, and more?

3. Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir

This is incredible. As I watched this video my jaw literally dropped because I can not even imagine how this is possible. The participants did not meet each other to practice, nor did they meet Eric Whitacre's. These people are from all over the world and are able to put something together like this. I can not even begin to think through the process of all of that. Eric Whitacre's obviously has a great deal of creativity and a lot of knowledge about technology.




4. Teaching In the 21st Century

Teaching in the 21st Century had very good points and questions. The part that stuck out most to me was when entertainment and engagement was being compared. Entertainment is not all there is to teaching. We should be learning about how to engage our students with what is being taught.

Engaging students with better activities, involvement, and questions will have them more motivated to learn. Engagement can also be fun, but it is not all that it has to offer. Teaching students in the 21st Century is about helping them find, solve, understand, and answer the questions. It is about having fun while learning and being motivated to learn and want to figure out answers. Teaching students in the 21st Century takes us, soon to be teachers, trying to figure out different, better, more effective teaching methods and applying them to each student in the classroom.

3 comments:

  1. McLeod: You got the sarcasm. Many students didn't and interpreted McLeod's post literally.


    In your response to the question Who is Dr. McLeod? you come dangerously close to plagiarizing. You may even have technically committed it. If you copy and paste more than 5 words without acknowledgement and without putting the copied words in quotation marks, you have technically committed plagiarism. Plagiarism is a very serious offense. You are not the only person who has done this for this assignment. I will attribute it this time to a lack of understanding about how to avoid plagiarism. It is especially important that anyone entering the teaching profession understands what plagiarism is, avoids it in their personal work, and can teach others about it. The copy and paste world in which we now live makes it very easy to do. Careers can easily be ruined through plagiarism. Watch the Class Blog for additional information and assignments.

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  2. Hello Mallory!

    I think you did a good job of responding to the posts. Your question about the iSchool is completely relevant, because it is difficult for us to imagine a school environment devoid of the usual trappings of learning: books, pencils, paper, etc.

    I have a few nit-picks:
    1) Cannot is one word. I noticed you separated can and not a few times. Just thought I should point that out.
    2) You should be providing the links embedded into text in your posts for all of the sources you reference. For example, you need to have the link to Dr. McLeod's post.

    Other than those two things, I don't have anything else to add. Good post.

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  3. Thank you Bailey for your comment and all your help in the lab. I really appreciate it!

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