Teachers and Technology

Michael Wesch : A Vision of Students Today Video
My Response to this Video:

This video captures how life as a college student can sometimes feel. I work a part-time job on top of taking 15 hours of classes, and am a part of AOII sorority on campus. Though the sorority is extra, it makes my time here at South seem more enjoyable. My classes this semester call for a lot of outside work, like reading about 250 pages per week, or weekly work like this blog(not that I'm complaining). At times, I do feel overwhelmed. After being in college for four years, I've become really good at time management, multitasking(I'm doing laundry as I write up this blog), and invested in a good coffee pot!

If I could change or add anything into the video, I would most likely add more about how students are coping with this stress. Behaviors like smoking, binge drinking, and casual sex seem to be negative ways college students deal with their stress.
Also a lot of the phrases were hard to read and at times I had to pause the video in order to understand what was being said. What I took away most from this video is that most students today are in the same situation I am. Student loans, the cost of living, and our future jobs are what we worry about most. The fact that I have had the privilege of attending college, have a laptop of my own, and have a vehicle to get me all the places I need to go really makes me think about how fortunate I am.




It's Not About the Technology

"...if a student has not learned, not matter how much effort has been exerted, no teaching has been done."-Kelly Hines
Read it here!
One of the most important points in this blog is the teachers should be teaching with learning in mind. This learning should be coming from both the student and the teacher.So many times as a student I have sat through entire classes not retaining anything. As a future teacher, I think it is extremely important to focus on students learning. If students aren't learning with one approach, then it is the teacher's job to change his or her approach. Also the teacher shouldn't just be teaching, the teacher should be learning along with their students. In order to be an effective teacher, one must always be wanting to learn new creative ways to reach their students.

To me it is crucial that in order to be a teacher, you must see what works and what doesn't work. Observing how students react to what is being thrown at them is important. Throughout my high school career, my teachers assumed that giving worksheets would automatically make us retain information. I would like to do more creative things in the high school classroom in the future because sometimes I think so many students are tuned out to learned. Looking back, in order to move forward is really what I took away from this blog. I hope to try and add something new every time I teach a lesson. I hope this subtle changes will reach more students and help them retain more information than I did.



Karl Fisch's Blog
Read it Here!

The post within Fisch's post is quite thought provoking. Should teachers really be accountable for being technologically illiterate? I think there is a distinct line between wanting to learn about technology, and just being unwilling to learn. I have heard too often the phrase, "I'm just not good with technology." Ignorance is impairing those who never try. Why not moving forward? Most students that enter classrooms seem to know a significant amount of technology, but who taught them? The topic at hand isn't about not knowing about technology, it is about individuals who are unwilling to learn because technology is outside their comfort zones.

Part of being a teacher, especially in today's world, should be about moving forward. Teachers, like Kelly Kines stated in her blog (link is in above section), should constantly be learning. Maybe the way our education system works is too comfortable for the average teacher. Is it time to shake up education? Maybe there should be more of a push to move forward and try new things in the classroom. Outside the four walls of the classroom, technology is moving forward, maybe its time for teachers to look out the open the window.



Gary's Social Media Count:
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Can you believe some of these numbers? Technology is moving forward and expanding at astounding rates! This makes me think of how much time I spend on the computer. Sometimes there are hours at a time that I am on Facebook, or YouTube, and/or other sites. Not to mention, I probably am text messaging my boyfriend at the same time(this goes back to my first section--I am quite the expert at multitasking, what can I say? It's a gift).

So what does this mean for teachers? It means that we must move forward(I've said it about 20 times already)! Technology is changing the world around us not only economically, but socially. The numbers above us prove that people are living in the technology age. The students that I went to school with will not be exposed to same things that my students will be exposed to. As teachers we must be part of this technological world too.