Different cool internet tools that could be used in education

            Last week’s class was really interesting.  I would like to take time to talk about a few of the cool things that I was introduced to while in class.  The first thing that I want to say is, I have always been a person that has worked with Microsoft computers and have all of my knowledge and experience working with them.  So needless to say coming into a class that is working with Apple computers made me a bit worried.  With that said it took only an hour of this class to make me an advocate of Apple.  I found that these computers are very user friendly and easy to work with.  One thing that I was really impressed with was the program Photo Booth.  While in class we were given the opportunity to “play around” on this program and I found that it was very entertaining as well as useful.   As an educator I kept finding myself thinking “How can I use this in class?”  That was pretty easy to figure out.  In the program you can make little movies.  I was thinking that as an opening week of school you can have students make a quick movie about them.  In this movie, students could talk about themselves and basically introduce themselves to the class.  How I pictured it working is once all the students have made their movie the whole class could watch them and get to know each other a bit more.   Of course finding computers that have this program is very hard since most of the computers we have at school are not Apple which may pose a bit of a problem.  This leaves me thinking: Is there a Photo Booth type of program for Microsoft that is as easy as the Apple version is? 

Final video

The final video that I want to talk about is Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation.  I was very interested in this video being a teacher and seeing that students are often times only motivated by rewards.  I say this because on several occasion I have asked students to do something and the first response I get is “what do I get if I do it?” This tells me that our students are becoming hard wired to this “carrot and sticks” mentality that Dan Pink talked about.  My major concern is that how do we change this mentality?  How do we get students to buy into the three ideas of Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose?  Can this idea really transfer to an educational setting?  I realize that there will always be students that will buy into this idea.  These are the students that do well in school and always will.  I am thinking about the other 75% of students.  How can teachers and schools begin to make students buy into it?  The education system is built on a business model and this model has always been what Dan Pink says “Sticks and Carrots” how can schools change this attitude? 

I am a strong believer that what Dan Pink talks about is true, but this means a big overhaul in our education system, which is no doubt needed, but can it really happen.  I have a lot of questions on this topic and think that in theory it would be great but can it be done?   

The first Ken Robinson video

            While watching the first Ken Robinson video I was struck by how many obstacles in our educational system there are in order to make allow students to be creative.  The first obstacle is an obvious one- Money.  Schools do not have the funding that will allow them to nurture and build the creativity that children have.  Many schools are cutting art and music programs that are made to help students be creative.  This is a direct result of the testing procedures we have in schools that were created by No Child Left Behind.  Teachers would love to allow students to be creative and explore their education but right now that is not possible.   No Child Left behind (NCLB) has created this idea that Sir Ken talked about that students are afraid to be wrong.  I want to add to that, not only are students scared to be wrong but teachers are scared to have their students be wrong.  This has made for all creativity to be put on the “back burner”, and has created what look like factories that pump out students.   Teachers are held accountable and fear that allowing students to be creative will be a waste of time that they could be teaching math or literacy.  So until NCLB is not the law of the land anymore you will see that creativity will continue to suffer and the “saturation” that Sir Ken talked about will continue to happen and degrees will be equivalent to high school diplomas.     

entry one: the first video

            The first video that I want to talk about is Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education.   I found this to be a very fascinating and a number of things jumped out at me as I watched the video.  The first thing was the quote that was used in the video“ A teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be.”  I am not sure what to think.  I am a teacher that has been teaching for what is now 4 years and I don’t know if I should embrace this quote or not.  I feel that what teachers do is very important and that to replace them would be very bad.  Teacher and schools teach students more than just subjects in school they teach children how to become social in the world.  They teach students skills that are not easily assessed, such as compassion, justice, respect, and manners, which make our student better well rounded citizens’ not just students that are “book smart”.  We are a democratic society that needs to have people that work together to make our country survive and if students are not taught these “human qualities” something could go wrong with our country. 

             I also what to make the point that the students in the video are students that are very motivated and really want to be in school they are unlike a majority of the students in the United States.  Our students have computers and or have access to a computer so much of the fascination around them is gone.   I students in the United States look at them as a gaming system and not as an educational tool.  They just want to play.  The children in the video don’t have the option to play games they were given a task and they completed it at a very high level.  I would be interested to see if this experiment could work over here in the United States. 

First blog

This is my first time ever blogging.