Blog Post 4

Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please?

Dr. Mcleod is a professor at Iowa State University. He has helped to establish a program for national technology called CASTLE. The program is for secondary and college education. He helped to create this program to be sure that students were meeting technological requirements that had been made.

I really enjoyed this blog post. I have heard countless times people pass comments about situations like this. They even have commercials on TV about it. The reality is that this situation is uncontrollable and it is bound to happen. Technology is a part of our generation and it is constantly changing. Children need to have experience with the Internet, and up and coming technology because if you fall behind in this constant changing technological world it will be extremely hard to catch up. Though there are things like porn, sexting, and R-rated material that no parent would want their child to see, there are more advantages than disadvantages of things such as cell phones and Internet service.

The iSchool Initiative

I feel that the iSchool Initiative would help provide a better budget for our school while also spending the money more wisely than not. School systems spend tons of money each year making paper copies for our students. We could use the money that we save to give our teachers bonuses for all of their hard work considering teachers do not make near what they deserve. If we did this teachers would have something to look forward to and something to work harder towards.

The iSchool Initiative would be an incredible step in education as far as saving money but I also feel that there would be set backs as well. Some people may not be able to navigate an iTouch as well as school books. Some students may not learn as well by means of technology. If there were a balance between the two I believe that it would sounds like a better deal. I think that there would be trouble with the iSchool also because if students were to break their iTouch who would replace it, or would they just be without their school books, not to mention completely out of touch with the whole school system, if they didn’t have the money to replace it? You can loose one book and have it replaced but if you loose or break your iTouch you have lost everything that has anything to do with your schooling. I do think it would be a great way to help involve parents in school work. Having everything right there in one handheld iTouch would be neat.

Within the next week I will be posting a podcast about iPads in the classroom. If you find this topic interesting follow my blog so you can listen when I post it!

The Lost Generation

I think this video is really neat! This video begins talking about our generation with only negative aspects of it. As the reader finishes the writing she says “it will become true unless we reverse it” and she then continues to read it backwards. When she reads the sentences from the bottom to the top it changes the entire perspective and the meaning of it. The way he went about creating this video was incredible and I think that it really has a way of grasping your attention. I imagine writing and creating something like this could be extremely time consuming but the finished product was well worth it.

I do feel that it is somewhat stereotypical to presume that our generation will be completely immoral if things do not change; however I do feel that positive change is needed in today’s generation. Children being born today are born in to a world based around technology. They will know nothing of having to go to the library to write reports and only having a house phone. It is important that we familiarize ourselves with technology as a whole so that we can have a chance to catch up with other countries that are already ahead of us.

Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir

This video was breathtaking. I know how so many things are possible thanks to the Internet but never did I imagine anything like this. The most wonderful part of this video is that this is only the beginning of a really long journey through the technological world. These people had never met before and performed amazingly together. They choreographed this all via the Internet. I think it is so awesome that the Internet allows people to come together like this. With the Internet, people from all over the world can come together and with this accomplish many feats.


Teaching in the 21st Century

Teaching in the 21st century is a message depicting why it is important that educators use classroom time to teach empowering and meaningful information. I believe that technology is a MUST in the classroom these days and this video is an example of why. Any student with Internet access is able to find out just about any information that they desire. You can find everything on the Internet. Things like encyclopedias, printed books, and newspapers are no more. Those days will soon be over. Instead of having teachers repetitively teach easily accessible information, it is more important for educators to teach students how to access information via Internet and use technology to their benefit.