Blog Post 5

Don’t Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please?

In Mr. McLeod’s post, Don’t Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please? He talks about kids having a leg up by knowing how to use technology in the classrooms. I definitely agree. I had no idea of the many ways technology can be useful in the classroom till I started Dr. Strange’s class. I do see how kids being so involved with technology can be scary too. There are many terrible things out on the Internet, but it’s our job as future educators to make sure we are only teaching kids the useful ways of the Internet and technology. Dr. Scott McLeod is from Ames, Iowa and is an associate Professor in the Educational Leadership at the University of Kentucky. He has received many national awards for his work in technology leadership.

The iSchool Initiative

In this video by Travis Allen, he is trying to encourage global learning. He wants to revolutionize America by using the iSchool Initiative. I think he did a fantastic job in his video. Mr. Allen talks about the many applications available on the itouch that would be beneficial to teaching in the classrooms. He didn’t leave out a single aspect or anything that teachers and students couldn’t access on the itouch. He talked about email, recorders, calculators, starwalk and many more. It would be very beneficial for students as well as teachers. Everything needed for class would be in the palm of your hand. The iSchool Initiative would also save tons of money. I would cut back on books, school supplies, classroom tools, ink cartridges and a lot of other tools. The iSchool Initiative is another great way for our world to go green. This iSchool Initiative is a great idea, but I would be very overwhelmed to all of a sudden rely only on an itouch for all of my classes. If schools slowly worked into this year-by-year I think I would be absolutely terrific. I think Mr. Allen is a very intelligent student and his ideas would be most beneficial for education in our country.

Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir

I was so impressed by this video. It basically shows that anything is possible. There are truly some very intelligent people in this world, I don’t think I would have thought or ever been able to create this in a million years. This is another video that shows the amazing use of technology even with people across the country.

Teaching in the 21st Century

In this video by Kevin Roberts, he thinks that teaching in the 21st century is using technology to learn. Roberts sees teaching as providing student with the skills to use the Internet for learning. The Internet is a great source for all things but students need teachers to direct them for educational learning through the Internet and technology. Technology is all around us and in our lives every day. There is no way to avoid it, as future educators we need to embrace it. I am still learning so many things that technology has to offer and I can’t wait to use it in my classroom in the futu