Technology - Making you a believer
Exploring the world beyond the textbook
-Teachers are no longer limited to presenting information from textbooks. The World Wide Web has opened up opportunities to share lesson plans and ideas between teachers. YouTube has offered demonstration and explanation videos on almost anything you search. Bringing education movies into the classroom is as easy as turning on the SmartBoard.
I memorable experience from my Professional Semester 1 was the day after Felix Baumgartner broke the record for the highest skydive. I remember asking the students if anyone saw it on the news, forgetting that these students are about 7 years old and who honestly watches the news at that age. I pulled up the jump on YouTube and we watched it as a class. This turned into a brilliant conversation about gravity.
Preparing the 21st Century Workforce
When students are invited to participate in interactive technology-based learning, they take ownership of their educational process. No longer do students sit passively while a teacher talks at them. In the 21st Century classroom, the students are an essential part of the lesson. Students now have the power to communicate with experts and mentors from all over the world. You can take a tour of the NASA Space Station, walk down the streets of London and conference call the Prime Minister – these kinds of things are mind-blowing, they are memorable and exciting – would you rather read about it in a textbook or connect online and be exploring things for yourselves.
Empowering Students
One of the most important benefits of technology in the classroom is that it can help to prepare students to become successful members of the 21st Century workforce. How many jobs can you think of these days that don’t require prior knowledge of technology? In some unfortunate ways, students aren’t required to memorize processes and basic facts, yet they are taught to click away and punch in numbers until the end result is what we need. Yes, I suppose we are setting up our future workforce to step away from critical thinking, however I believe that we aren’t stepping away from critical thinking, yet we are changing the process of critical thinking. Critical thinking is moving from memorizing facts like 100 x 100 into how did I get this research? Is it valid? How can I use the knowledge I have gotten from the research and use it to answer my question?
-Teachers are no longer limited to presenting information from textbooks. The World Wide Web has opened up opportunities to share lesson plans and ideas between teachers. YouTube has offered demonstration and explanation videos on almost anything you search. Bringing education movies into the classroom is as easy as turning on the SmartBoard.
I memorable experience from my Professional Semester 1 was the day after Felix Baumgartner broke the record for the highest skydive. I remember asking the students if anyone saw it on the news, forgetting that these students are about 7 years old and who honestly watches the news at that age. I pulled up the jump on YouTube and we watched it as a class. This turned into a brilliant conversation about gravity.
Preparing the 21st Century Workforce
When students are invited to participate in interactive technology-based learning, they take ownership of their educational process. No longer do students sit passively while a teacher talks at them. In the 21st Century classroom, the students are an essential part of the lesson. Students now have the power to communicate with experts and mentors from all over the world. You can take a tour of the NASA Space Station, walk down the streets of London and conference call the Prime Minister – these kinds of things are mind-blowing, they are memorable and exciting – would you rather read about it in a textbook or connect online and be exploring things for yourselves.
Empowering Students
One of the most important benefits of technology in the classroom is that it can help to prepare students to become successful members of the 21st Century workforce. How many jobs can you think of these days that don’t require prior knowledge of technology? In some unfortunate ways, students aren’t required to memorize processes and basic facts, yet they are taught to click away and punch in numbers until the end result is what we need. Yes, I suppose we are setting up our future workforce to step away from critical thinking, however I believe that we aren’t stepping away from critical thinking, yet we are changing the process of critical thinking. Critical thinking is moving from memorizing facts like 100 x 100 into how did I get this research? Is it valid? How can I use the knowledge I have gotten from the research and use it to answer my question?