Journal due 9/26

This past class, we spent the majority of the class on copyright and fair use issues. I feel that this was really good for me because I need to know what I can and cannot use in terms of videos and other forms of technology that I might be borrowing from someone else. Our country's Judaical system is very complicated so if possible, I would like to NOT get fined, sued, or thrown in prison for showing something to my students that I was legally not allowed to. For my online quiz that I took, I think I got a 60% so I might want to expand on this issue as there is still much for me to learn about this topic.

The other topic we discussed during this class had to due with spreadsheets. I especially benefited from this lesson as literally the following day, I had to work with the spreadsheet for the archives of the Independence Seaport Museum on my first day of my internship there, so this lesson paid dividends for me almost immediately. In addition, it will help me organize my grade book in my future career in education so I definitely gained something from this lesson.  

Journal Due 9/19 (Sorry for being late!)

For this class, I felt it was good to read the "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants" document, watch the two educational Youtube clips, and then come together as a class to discuss everything because it allowed me to get a clear picture of how important it is for technology to be utilized into today's classrooms. As mentioned in an earlier blog, the whole schooling experience has been changing more and more over the past few decades simply by the fact that the world overall is changing at the same time. New technologies are not only being introduced at a fast rate, but many of these technological advances are having such an affect on the way people live and function in our society that it is almost mind-blowing to think about. Besides the fact that classrooms are changing through the introduction of tools like powerpoint presenations, the internet, and smart boards, teachers need to realize that the students themselves are changing as well. With the fact that students gain so much information from around the world through the internet, they are used to obtaining information in a very short period of time. Since the students are changing, the teachers have to compensate this change by altering the teaching methods that were widely practiced in previous decades. For example, lectures are becoming more and more a thing of the past as teachers are using other methods that engage each student more than a simple lecture. I feel that is going to be important for me to learn about as a future educator but I do not feel as it will be as much of a problem to "change my teaching methods to adapt to this digital natives" as it will be for a digital immigrant teacher because 1) I have not taught before so I do not need to change anything and 2) I myself was in grade school during the rise of the digital natives.

Advice for Digital Immigrants.

To the whom it may concern,

Human society has made more technological advances in the past 100 years than in the previous 2,000 years, so keeping up with the times can be, and has been an issue for many people. The advances in computers, the internet, and other revolutionary technologies in the past few decades alone has created a wide gap between the baby-booming generation to the next generation that people refer to as "digital immigrants vs. digital natives". In this digital age, the older generation that is used to performing many tasks, such as research, depend on doing work without the usage of some of the technologies that they may have at their disposal. Meanwhile, the younger digital native generation has been born into a lifestyle that is generally promoting everyone to depend on computers and other technological devices to help them make their lives as quick, simple, and efficient as possible.

As for digital immigrants who are struggling to keep up with the times, the main point they should realize about the digital natives is that they have grown to receive information as quickly as possible. The old way of teaching, teaching one thing at a time and constant lectures, are not entirely effective in teaching this digital native generation because these students are used to having a multi-task, parallel form of learning. Instead of teaching students through the course's text books, and only by reading the text books, the students of today will generally not be as efficient learners as they could be. This generation would be much better off if the teacher introduces more ways for their students to learn the content of the class, such as creating an online blog, much like this one, to discuss/debate a certain topic that really engages the student rather than having the students read the text book, listen to the teacher's lectures, and memorize the content for a test. Another way for teachers to reach out to the digital native students is by having them use computer programs that are based on the content of the class. There are so many other examples of how educators can reach out to the digital natives, but the main point is that much of the success of teaching these students depends on the teachers themselves. Even if the teacher is not a digital native, they still need to flexible and accept the new digital way of teaching otherwise the students will not be as interested in learning as they could be.

20th vs 21st Century Classrooms

The "Characteristics of the 21st Century Classroom"document does a fairly excellent job at painting a picture of what the current 21st century way of teaching is, or what it should be by comparing it to older teaching methods that were practiced throughout the previous century. For me, the point about teachers needing to prepare their students for work in the 21st century sums the whole thing up in a very simplistic but accurate way. Back in the 20th century, teachers generally lectured their students and only taught one subject at a time. Now students are being taught multiple things at a time, such as reading a passage for an English class that is about a country that is being studied in a social studies class. Students are also able to absorb more content as the lecture-like classroom setting is less common which means that students have more time actually engaging the content presented to them instead of trying to memorize it. With the teachers being more of a coach that assists the students during school as opposed to the old lecture who simply forces the students to memorize and recall the information, now students are now being taught in a way that promotes them not only asking questions, but asking the correct questions. These changes in teaching methods has a lot to due with the fact the there has been so many breakthrough technological advances that make it easier for people to access a wider range of information. Back when my parents were in college in the mid 70's, the main way that they did their research for their classes was by going to the library and read books about whatever topic they were reseacrching. Now, people can access information on any topic from virtually anywhere that a computer is. The internet and various other computer programs makes it possible for teachers to be able to reach a much wider group of students as well as making their classrooms more efficiently run overall.