The World is Open - Reflection
Since I consider myself to be current with the latest technology in the classroom I wasn’t expecting any major revelations, but I would say that the reference to the Time magazine article hit home quite a bit “… Rip Van Winkle could suddenly find himself in the twenty-first century after sleeping for a hundred years and would be taken aback by massive changes found everywhere in society except in schools. Schools, he would quickly recognize. As Wallis and Steptoe point out: ‘‘American schools aren’t exactly frozen in time, but considering the pace of change in other areas of life, our public schools tend to feel like throwbacks. Kids spend much of the day as their great-grandparents once did: sitting in rows, listening to teachers lecture, scribbling notes by hand, reading from textbooks that are out of date by the time they are printed”(page 43).

I do understand why many teachers are reluctant to change their teaching ways. Intercity schools are feeling the pressure to increase district and state wide testing scores and many of the teachers probably fear straying away the grade level expectations and the established lessons that cover the core curriculum. It’s understandable how one could easily fall into the teaching to the test trap. Venturing outside the box with project based learning across the curriculum requires cooperation with peers, flexibility with the core curriculum, and administrative and parental support. It is much safer to stick with the standard book and lecture mode. No teacher wants to be the reason a school fails state or district assessment goals.

The later part of the chapter also had a quote which hit a nerve: “Learners of all ages are increasingly engaged in formal as well as informal learning, which is highly mobile and often ubiquitous. In such a world, each of ‘‘you’’ will need to continue learning in order to stay employed”. (page 50) One has to keep up with what the students communicate with and what activities they are involved with in order to make their lessons seem relevant. I’m a big cnet.com fan and will often read/watch the reviews on the website. I’m also a college coach that takes many long road trips with players that have all the latest tech devices. The idea that If you don’t keep learning you’ll lose your job seems a bit harsh, but in order to be an effective educator one should aware of, if not embrace the latest trends.

First Assignments

With EdTech Weekly, there is some much flying at you at once. The podcast is the only way really check out the sites and catch back up with the conversations.

First class tonight

Using my son's laptop to Skype class tonight. I'm a middle school sped case manager in Manchester. This is my first blog which is being created for a Grad class at SNHU.