Sunday, January 30, 2011

Blog Assignment 2

Technology & Learning

Did You Know? 3.0


My first reaction to this video was that it was just going to be some non-interesting facts. Watching the video proved me wrong. I was shocked to find out some of these facts and how many people are involved in the spread of technology around the world. One of the facts that caught me off guard was that Bermuda was the number one ranked country in Broadband Internet Penetration.


There were other facts that I was not aware of before I had watched this video. Some of the facts included the first commercial text message, how long it took different technologies to reach a market audience of 50 million people, and that there are 540,000 words in the English language. By watching, I have come to learn more things that I had not previously know before watching the video.


Mr. Winkle Wakes


When I first watched the video, I found it slightly strange. It made no sense to me at first because it mentioned Rip Van Winkle waking up from a hundred years sleep. It showed that many things have changed in the world in the past hundred years. We have better technology for medical purposes and communication purposes. To Winkle, our new technology was not anything he was interested in.


But when Winkle got to school, he saw that there is one thing that has not changed much at all in the past hundred years. The teachers still lecture the students for most of the day, and it made Winkle happy. My thoughts are that school hasn't changed much in the past hundred years, it is very unlikely that it will change too much anytime soon. Overall, this video was enlightening in that I had no idea that education was the same as it was a hundred years ago.


Sir Ken Robinson: The Importance of Creativity


My first impression of Sir Ken Robinson was that he liked to joke around a lot. He can be serious when it calls for the situation. He generally tells jokes to make it seem not as serious, and to get his point across. His opinion of creativity is that it should be as important as literacy. This is a good point seeing as creativity is very important to different fields of learning such as music and art.


Sir Robinson makes a good argument by saying that the purpose of public education is to take away the creative subjects of learning. Public education is mainly there for academics. He talks about intelligence and what his opinion of what it means. Throughout the video he tells different stories that pertain to what he is talking about and it makes his argument much more convincing. Overall, this was an enlightening and entertaining lecture with many different viewpoints which kept me watching.


Cecelia Gault (Young Student in Finland) Interviews Sir Ken Robinson


My impression of Cecilia is that she is very intellectual. She has a way with words, and she can formulate her thoughts exceptionally well. When watching the video, I was shocked at how young Cecilia actually was. In her article above the clip, she had such an intelligent way of thinking that I thought she would have been older than she actually was.


Cecilia Gault is an intelligent girl. She knows what questions to ask and how to organize her thoughts to make her seem older than she is mentally. I would challenge my students to think logically, and to think about every different possibility that could give different answers and perspectives. I would most likely have to encourage my students to make sure that the Cecilia Gault's in my classroom have as good as an education as the Cecelia in the video.


Vicki Davis: Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts


My first impression on Vicki Davis is that she is very intelligent, and positive about every child being able to succeed. She challenges her students by introducing them to many different types of technology online. She has a very positive attitude and pays attention to her class and what their strengths and weaknesses are with the work that she gives them.


Her curriculum is a variety of many different technologies. She is encouraging her students to work with wiki, write a blog, create virtual worlds, and much more. By introducing her students to theses types of technology, she is helping her students to succeed in the technological world. Overall, I thoroughly believe that educating students about technology will help them out in the future, whether it is a basic computer class or a software programming class, it will help.

1 comment:

  1. Bermuda is much smaller than the city of Mobile (21 sq. mi. vs. 118 sq. mi.). It's easy to completely wire a small area! But the United States? A major undertaking. That doesn't mean we don't need to try harder however.

    "it is very unlikely that it [school] will change too much anytime soon." Well if schools don't change they will either be replaced or they will become baby sitting institutes and/or juvenile detention centers.

    ReplyDelete