Blog Post # 2

Mr. Dancealot 

The video Mr. Dancealot was a great example of “Burp-Back Education”.  Professor Dancealot states in the beginning of the class that the purpose of this class will be to teach the students basic steps to numerous ballroom dances and do to it in proper position.  Not once does Professor Dancealot engage his students with a physical learning of how to properly dance.  Professor Dancealot spent a lot of time filling his students with facts and when it came time for the final he expected them to just be able to dance.  Just because Professor Dancealot had slides and pictures to show how to do the dance, it wasn’t effective.  He still needed to have the class on the dance floor letting them work on the step and helping them to correct their mistakes and obtain proper dance position and steps.

Harness Your Student's Digital Smarts
By: Dominique Jones

The video I watched was titled  Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts. Vicki Davis is a technology teacher in a rural city in Georgia. Vicki states, “ when you have only paper, and only pencil then only certain types of children are going to succeed.” I agree with Vicki because  using pencil and paper students are more likely to get  “burp back” education. Using  technology makes you ask more questions.  Using technology can be more entertaining to students than a drawing on a chalkboard. You are engaging a child to learn something interesting rather than reciting information. Making students use technology will make them become a more independent learner. Students become better thinkers because they are more interested in learning because they are so intrigued in learning.  They are pushed into learning instead so there is not “burp back” education.

 

Davis’s main focus  is finding  out her students strengths and interests of her students. She still follows  the curriculum but she customizes it  to fit each group of students. Davis wants all of her students to become comfortable with all technology. She teaches them to  become a better learner, better at collaborating, and using blogs effectively. Even though  the students lived in a rural city, they were able to connect with other kids around the world.

Looking around on the Eutopia.org website where this video was posted,  I found out many things that stood out to me. The main focus of this website is to help educators inspire, be more creative, and engage students in the 21st century. I think this is a very helpful website that any teacher can use to help them with their teaching methods. I think it will help my future teaching methods.

Teaching in the 21st Century

By: Jennifer Hamrick

For my part of the group blog, I watched Teaching in the 21st Century. In the beginning of the video, Kenny Roberts states that “If teachers can only provide: content, facts, dates, formulas, research, theories, stories and information, then our role in the lives of students is obsolete…..”  I don’t believe this to be true.  It is not a hidden fact that technology is taking over in our world and now it is beginning to in the classrooms.  I believe that Kenny Roberts and I think along the same lines that vast amounts of information can be obtained through technology but it doesn’t necessarily teach someone how to physically do something.  Roberts poses the question “with all of this information available, should our curriculum be focused on facts and content or skills?” I don’t see why it needs to be or has to be one or the other.  In order to find and learn facts and content, you need the skills to find the information.  If I were to ask my students to tell me what major event occurred on August 29, 2005 which impacted the Gulf Coast, they would need to know the facts and content of what I am asking, which would be August 29, 2005 and the Gulf Coast but they would also need the skills to know how to look that information up. So as a teacher, I would be responsible for teaching them how to find facts and content through technology.  

I do think that Roberts is correct in the positions he expressed and as a future educator, my teaching style will be greatly affected.  One position that I liked most was that education needs to be engaging not entertaining.  Sitting my class in front of a Smartboard and showing them a video of someone counting is entertaining but if I have my class count or sing along with the video then I am engaging them and they are more likely to remember.  Having a child in my class operate the Smartboard or another form of electronics is still engaging them and teaching them.

In order to proceed and succeed in the future, children are going to have to be taught technology and taught through technology.  As an educator, it will be my responsibility to teach them all the possibilities that can come with using technology and it’s sources.