This video is a message about the changing needs of college students. According to the video, students are highly involved in pursuits which incorporate technology. Since there are only 24 hours in a day, their increasing involvement with technology means that they must attempt to multi-task, and also decrease their involvement with other things. (Research indicates that it is impossible to multi-task. The human brain can attend to one item at a time. But people still try to do it!) Overall, students are spending more time with immediate, short and transient media, (facebook, email, etc.) and less time with traditional, expensive, time consuming, permanent media (textbooks, writing essays, etc.) The problem is that the instructional techniques of the university are stuck in the past. Personally, I wish I had kept track of how many hundreds of dollars I have wasted on textbooks which are of no use to me. There is very little information that is available in a textbook but not available on the web (for FREE!) The problem is that most professors teach the same way they learned. The video is telling us that in order to be prepared to work and live in the world of tomorrow, college students need an education that is relevant to the world of today.
This video contains a similar message about K-12 education. Here, students are depicted languishing in outdated classrooms, where teachers fail to capitalize on the engaging activities surrounding them. Technology such as blogging gives learners an opportunity to create something and share their thoughts, ideas and experiences with the world. In the United States, it is no longer enough to sit still and passively receive information. We are expected to network, interact, create and communicate. Students need to be engaged in activities which support the demands they will face. The support I am talking (blogging, digital storytelling, etc.) about is easily available at very little cost, but it is simply not being implemented because people fear change and teachers are people.
The common message of these two videos is that education institutions need to catch up with modern culture. Certainly, all sociological institutions are slow to change, and this is a good thing- it provides stability. But, because education is not embracing the interactive trends of our technological age, students are bored and time is wasted.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Resource room activity
The fourth grade students in this video are quite a bit younger than the students I will be working with.
I like the opening activity in which the students generate words associated with the four seasons. This is usually a good "warm-up" strategy to engage prior knowledge. The teacher's incorporation of music was interesting: not something I would have thought of, and probably not something I would feel comfortable implementing, but the students seem to appreciate it and it is a good way to accomodate one of Gardiner's multiple intelligences.
The KWL is one of my favorite tools for organizing ideas. I use it often in my own lessons, and I was happy to see it used here.
It seemed that the students were doing a lot of paper and pencil coloring and plotting. I would suggest that the teacher try to recreate this using technology. She could have a digital image of the map of Missouri, which the students could divide into regions, color, and easily change/redo if necessary.
The weather portion of this lesson was either underdone or underrepresented in the video. The students should have been given access to the website and allowed to click around and explore, rather than just writing down what the teacher found. Also, I would like to know more about how they used Microsoft Excel to manipulate and represent their weather data.
My final comment is on the teacher's statement that the earth rocks back and forth as it revolves around the sun. I do not believe this to be accurate. I think the earth is tilted on its axis such that different parts of the earth are closer to the sun at different phases of the yearly revolution: this causes the seasons. There is some "wobbling" of the earth on its axis, (like a top). This motion is called "precession" it is the reason that the stars appear to be in different locations over the course of hundreds of years. But I think the teacher in this video was trying say that the "rocking" of the earth, back and forth on its axis is the cause of the seasons. Giving the students such a grand misconception of the motion of the earth is a great injustice and it really irritates me.
I like the opening activity in which the students generate words associated with the four seasons. This is usually a good "warm-up" strategy to engage prior knowledge. The teacher's incorporation of music was interesting: not something I would have thought of, and probably not something I would feel comfortable implementing, but the students seem to appreciate it and it is a good way to accomodate one of Gardiner's multiple intelligences.
The KWL is one of my favorite tools for organizing ideas. I use it often in my own lessons, and I was happy to see it used here.
It seemed that the students were doing a lot of paper and pencil coloring and plotting. I would suggest that the teacher try to recreate this using technology. She could have a digital image of the map of Missouri, which the students could divide into regions, color, and easily change/redo if necessary.
The weather portion of this lesson was either underdone or underrepresented in the video. The students should have been given access to the website and allowed to click around and explore, rather than just writing down what the teacher found. Also, I would like to know more about how they used Microsoft Excel to manipulate and represent their weather data.
My final comment is on the teacher's statement that the earth rocks back and forth as it revolves around the sun. I do not believe this to be accurate. I think the earth is tilted on its axis such that different parts of the earth are closer to the sun at different phases of the yearly revolution: this causes the seasons. There is some "wobbling" of the earth on its axis, (like a top). This motion is called "precession" it is the reason that the stars appear to be in different locations over the course of hundreds of years. But I think the teacher in this video was trying say that the "rocking" of the earth, back and forth on its axis is the cause of the seasons. Giving the students such a grand misconception of the motion of the earth is a great injustice and it really irritates me.
Application software
The business class depicted in this video is utilizing a simulation software called Capitalism Plus. The software allows students to manipulate the economic forces on a virtual product and see the results. For example, students are able to adjust the price of a given hypothetical product, shampoo for example, and the software outputs adjusted data for supply, demand, revenue, etc. In this way, the students are able to see the effects of market forces in a visual and interactive way. Capitalism Plus is a nice way for students to interact with the class content, but the greatest strength of this lesson is the teacher's integration of other technologies to increase the lesson's authenticity and make connections across contents.
As the students work in Capitalism Plus daily, they record data from their activities in Microsoft Excel. They must then create visual representations of the data using the graphing technologies embedded in Excel. The graphs are transferred to a simulated corporate web page, which each student creates and maintains using another Microsoft program. The web page must also include daily press releases and information for stockholders (also created by the students.) The daily work must incorporate three words from a vocabulary list, and students have an opportunity to practice effective writing and communication. The students are also involved in mathematics through their data collection and analysis.
I would suggest that the school take advantage of these cross curricular activities. A math teacher might team up with this business teacher to double dip some of the activities into a statistics unit, and an English teacher might capitalize on the students written products.
As the students work in Capitalism Plus daily, they record data from their activities in Microsoft Excel. They must then create visual representations of the data using the graphing technologies embedded in Excel. The graphs are transferred to a simulated corporate web page, which each student creates and maintains using another Microsoft program. The web page must also include daily press releases and information for stockholders (also created by the students.) The daily work must incorporate three words from a vocabulary list, and students have an opportunity to practice effective writing and communication. The students are also involved in mathematics through their data collection and analysis.
I would suggest that the school take advantage of these cross curricular activities. A math teacher might team up with this business teacher to double dip some of the activities into a statistics unit, and an English teacher might capitalize on the students written products.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
An authentic experience
The teacher in this video assigned 6th grade students to complete a daily news broadcast.
The video, filmed in May of 2000, depicted the students using many technologies. Students were engaged in word processing, digital photography, digital video, editing, internet research and more.
The technology aspect of this project is interesting in itself, but I would like to discuss the way technology helped to facitilate an authentic experience for these students. Since the news broadcast was watched daily by the whole school, the students were engaged in something real and important, i.e. authentic. The students were creating a product which had a direct impact on their school environment and daily lives. Without the technologies which were available, the news broadcast would seem much more contrived, i.e. less authentic.
If the students had to guess at the weather, rather than look it up on the internet, or if they had to simply sit in front of their class to give the broadcast rather than video taping it, the experience would not be anywhere near as engaging.
The most striking feature of this video is the teacher's absence in most of the scenes. The activity is not only student centered, but student directed. The students take responsibility for the necessary tasks, and skills are learned from other students. This voluntary responsibilty is surely due to the authenticity of the activity. Students do not need a teacher breathing down their necks and keeping them on task, because the task at hand is important and real.
The greatest lesson learned by the students is communication. As they learn to write scripts and interviews, and as they teach one another to accomplish the goals of the project, they are developing sophisticated skills in clear, concise communication.
(I could not identify any weaknesses in this lesson.)
The video, filmed in May of 2000, depicted the students using many technologies. Students were engaged in word processing, digital photography, digital video, editing, internet research and more.
The technology aspect of this project is interesting in itself, but I would like to discuss the way technology helped to facitilate an authentic experience for these students. Since the news broadcast was watched daily by the whole school, the students were engaged in something real and important, i.e. authentic. The students were creating a product which had a direct impact on their school environment and daily lives. Without the technologies which were available, the news broadcast would seem much more contrived, i.e. less authentic.
If the students had to guess at the weather, rather than look it up on the internet, or if they had to simply sit in front of their class to give the broadcast rather than video taping it, the experience would not be anywhere near as engaging.
The most striking feature of this video is the teacher's absence in most of the scenes. The activity is not only student centered, but student directed. The students take responsibility for the necessary tasks, and skills are learned from other students. This voluntary responsibilty is surely due to the authenticity of the activity. Students do not need a teacher breathing down their necks and keeping them on task, because the task at hand is important and real.
The greatest lesson learned by the students is communication. As they learn to write scripts and interviews, and as they teach one another to accomplish the goals of the project, they are developing sophisticated skills in clear, concise communication.
(I could not identify any weaknesses in this lesson.)
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