Sunday, September 25, 2011

Blog Post # 5

" Don’t teach your kids this stuff. Please? "

Scott McLeod is an associate professor of educational leadership at the University of Kentucky. He is also the founding director of the UCEA center for the advanced study of technology leadership in education (CASTLE). Castle is the nation’s only academic center that is dedicated to the technology needs of school administrators. Scott is also the co-creator of the video's Did You Know? that we have already viewed in EDM 310. He is a very successful educator of technology for other teachers and has won many awards for his work.
Scott McLeod wrote a blog entitled "Don’t teach your kids this stuff. Please?." This blog is written to satirically point out the absurdity of the negative view points of people concerning the internet and it's "dangers." Being raised in a family with deep religious views, I have heard many of the same things he was saying in the blog. My cousins, for instance, are not allowed to wear short sleeves, shorts, or have a television in their house. They feel that the sin of the people that are on the t.v. will come through into their house. It is so sad to think people are that naive to how the world works.
Scott Mcleod knows that there are bad things such as cyberbullying and porn on the internet, but he is making the point that we as teachers need to teach children how to use the internet right. We need to be the example of what to do on the internet and teach them the dangers of it. If we block them out completely from the internet then children will not know the great and educational aspects of it. I plan to take what I learned from this and make sure I will teach my students will learn everything about the internet.

A mom, dad, and son sitting at the table having a conversation about blogging.



The iSchool Initiative

"The Ischool Initiative" is a presentation by a high school senior Travis Allen. Travis is proposing a solution to some of the problems we are having with the traditional school setting such as, classroom sizes getting larger, teachers getting let go, and massive budget cuts. The solution he is proposing is using Apples popular itouch as a platform for educating students instead of the traditional classroom. Using the itouch would be easy to use for students and help save money on books, ink, and paper. Travis points out applications that are already available to itouch users and he shows how each application can be used for an education. He insists this ischool will be the solution to the problems we are facing in the classroom and wants to spread the word that this can be done with the help of others. It is awesome to think that this 17 year old high school student has this much concern for the future of our education system. Although I feel like the plan is very realistic for the near future, I do think that this young man will have a great impact on where the school systems are headed.

In "Travis Allen's ZeitgeistYoungMinds Entry," we find Travis Allen three years later at Kennesaw State University where he still companying for the ischool initiative. We find that he has become very successful with the ischool initiative and is recognized world wide. He and his team of 25 other students travel the country and visit schools getting them to embrace global learning. He has become such a success story of a young teen really wanting something to change and getting out there and doing it. I hope to teach young minds one day to be brave enough to go out and change the world for the good. Travis is a real inspiration to anyone who wants to get something done but does not think they can. I look forward to hearing more about the ischool initiative in the future.

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir - 'Lux Aurumque'

After watching "Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir - 'Lux Aurumque'" I was speechless. This is a virtual choir where 185 people from around the world who never met sang Lux Aurumgue. This video really demonstrates how we can do anything with technology. I have been singing all of my life for various different groups and bands and I have never been a part of something so unique as that choir is. I hope to see more virtual choirs in the future because it is so moving to see so many different people coming together in harmony.

Teaching In the 21st Century

Watching the video "Teaching In the 21st Century" I really start to feel the responsibility of what I will be doing every day as a teacher to children in the 21st century. It is such a wonderful responsibility that I will not take lightly and it is important to remember that you can be that one teacher that may change a child's life forever. Knowing that children can search the web for any and all information in this day in age on websites such as google, bing, and wikipedia may make a teacher feel like they are useless. What can we teach them that they cannot just go home and google? In the video it says that teachers in the 21st century should be the filter for these students. I believe that this is very true. It is now our responsibility as teachers to show the students what is beneficial and safe for them to look at, and what can be harmful to their minds and computers such as viruses. We have such a great responsibility to teach these young minds and it is our job to teach them what will be useful for them in the future. Technology and the internet is not going anywhere so we need to teach students how to use it correctly now while they are young so they can change it for the better in the future.

3 comments:

  1. Jessica,

    I am glad you picked up on the satire of Scott McLeod's blog post! Back when I was a student in EDM 310 and was doing this assignment, Scott McLeod's blog post and Travis Allen's iSchool Initiative concerned me, in a way, because the thought of no more physical writing is a little scary to me. Do you think there will come a point in time in which we no longer use pens and pencils at all? How do you feel about this?
    Good post!

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  2. Jessica, I have also known people who were strict about internet and TV. While there are bad and good things about the internet, I think it is beneficial to education. I think it is important to teach EVERYTHING about the internet like you said in your post! Thanks for the post! Katelyn

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  3. What will happen to your cousins when they are on their own in the world? How will they make a living? How will they cope with the world?

    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. I can tell that you were attempting to avoid plagiarizing. The two tools that are perfect for the job are 1) quotation marks around words quoted and 2) identification of the material quoted.

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