The article of interest this week in class was talking about how scientist feel technology is actually rewiring our brains. Here is the connection to read it Scientists ask: Is technology rewiring our brains?.

After I read this I found my opinions to be a bit mixed because I see both sides of this issue. I have observed educational games utilized with technology that help students gain better knowledge of what the game subject is focused on and also increased reading skills, but with regular classroom script reading being the student’s primary reading education. David Sousa states, (1998), “Yesterday's methods worked well for yesterday's students. But the student brain of today is quite different from the one of 15 years ago (Sousa, 1998)”. If this is true, we need to spend more research time on how to prepare for teaching our future. There are so many pluses with the use of technology. What a huge variety of reading materials, vocabulary, arts, music and so many more opportunities to explore different elements in ways in which they would maybe never be exposed to in real life. BUT, the social skills aspect is another important issue that needs to seriously be looked at as we make progress towards more online education. I have personally observed for years our home-school students entering into the school social life and having serious issues in relating to other students because of the lack of socialization while they were out of the traditional school system. In my opinion, some parents seem to neglect socializing their children and only focusing on their scholastic education. It is my opinion, texting and instant messaging is not true socialization. No one can convince me that this is the same as with face to face contact. Yet it seems everyone around me has cell phones and is constantly in contact with each other via text message. I have actually observed students in the same room texting instead of getting up and interacting with one another; there are many social skills being lost in this type of communication.

I have been in education for about 25 years and I have seen an amazing amount of change in how students interact with fellow classmates and staff. The technologies the students use has at times become an obsession for many of them. Another trend that tends to lead to my conclusions is how I have watched the amount of students that enroll in the after-school sports programs decline. It is amazing how few students are participating in teams in our school. I can’t help but wonder if these students are electing to go home and jump on the internet or other technologies instead of getting outside and being active.  I believe our emotions are critical to learning. I do believe technology is causing people to be less aware of non-verbal cues. I think people still notice the non-verbal cues to some extent, but I am seeing more and more students who seem to be disconnected at times from the other people around them. It seems many times people are so busy texting or talking on their phones that they are ignoring these cues. Maybe the technology is creating rude disconnected people and not just rewiring their brains. I try hard to always incorporate kindness and consideration to all my students. There is no way for a person to detect how another person actually feels if they are not face to face. “One major disadvantage with technology and nonverbal communication is not being able to convey tone or physical mannerisms via email or text messages.”(Pickard)” This may lead to someone not getting the correct understanding of the message that the sender is trying to convey. As technology begins to increase there will be many more mechanism that will enable us to interact with each other through other methods other than verbal communication. Technology has changed the way that we communicate in so many ways. “Communication is one of the many areas of human life affected by technological advancements.”(Pickard)”

Most of the younger children I work with seem to be great with communication; in my opinion the middle and high school students seem to be the place I notice that the skill of face-to-face communication is being lost. I have also noticed a real lack of compassion happening too. I do believe strongly that if we can find some kind of a balance with socializing face-to-face and social networking that our younger students will continue to have strong skills. In my opinion, social skills are just as important as the academic ones.

Reference

Sousa, D.A. (1998, December 16). Is the fuss about brain research justified?

Education week, 18 (16), 52, 35. Retrieved October 16, 2011 from:

http://www.edweek.org/ew/1998/16sousa.h18

Sarah Pickard, 2011 How Nonverbal Communication Has an Affect on Others,

The article of interest this week in class was talking about how scientist feel technology is actually rewiring our brains. Here is the connection to read it Scientists ask: Is technology rewiring our brains?.

After I read this I found my opinions to be a bit mixed because I see both sides of this issue. I have observed educational games utilized with technology that help students gain better knowledge of what the game subject is focused on and also increased reading skills, but with regular classroom script reading being the student’s primary reading education. David Sousa states, (1998), “Yesterday's methods worked well for yesterday's students. But the student brain of today is quite different from the one of 15 years ago (Sousa, 1998)”. If this is true, we need to spend more research time on how to prepare for teaching our future. There are so many pluses with the use of technology. What a huge variety of reading materials, vocabulary, arts, music and so many more opportunities to explore different elements in ways in which they would maybe never be exposed to in real life. BUT, the social skills aspect is another important issue that needs to seriously be looked at as we make progress towards more online education. I have personally observed for years our home-school students entering into the school social life and having serious issues in relating to other students because of the lack of socialization while they were out of the traditional school system. In my opinion, some parents seem to neglect socializing their children and only focusing on their scholastic education. It is my opinion, texting and instant messaging is not true socialization. No one can convince me that this is the same as with face to face contact. Yet it seems everyone around me has cell phones and is constantly in contact with each other via text message. I have actually observed students in the same room texting instead of getting up and interacting with one another; there are many social skills being lost in this type of communication.

I have been in education for about 25 years and I have seen an amazing amount of change in how students interact with fellow classmates and staff. The technologies the students use has at times become an obsession for many of them. Another trend that tends to lead to my conclusions is how I have watched the amount of students that enroll in the after-school sports programs decline. It is amazing how few students are participating in teams in our school. I can’t help but wonder if these students are electing to go home and jump on the internet or other technologies instead of getting outside and being active.  I believe our emotions are critical to learning. I do believe technology is causing people to be less aware of non-verbal cues. I think people still notice the non-verbal cues to some extent, but I am seeing more and more students who seem to be disconnected at times from the other people around them. It seems many times people are so busy texting or talking on their phones that they are ignoring these cues. Maybe the technology is creating rude disconnected people and not just rewiring their brains. I try hard to always incorporate kindness and consideration to all my students. There is no way for a person to detect how another person actually feels if they are not face to face. “One major disadvantage with technology and nonverbal communication is not being able to convey tone or physical mannerisms via email or text messages.”(Pickard)” This may lead to someone not getting the correct understanding of the message that the sender is trying to convey. As technology begins to increase there will be many more mechanism that will enable us to interact with each other through other methods other than verbal communication. Technology has changed the way that we communicate in so many ways. “Communication is one of the many areas of human life affected by technological advancements.”(Pickard)”

Most of the younger children I work with seem to be great with communication; in my opinion the middle and high school students seem to be the place I notice that the skill of face-to-face communication is being lost. I have also noticed a real lack of compassion happening too. I do believe strongly that if we can find some kind of a balance with socializing face-to-face and social networking that our younger students will continue to have strong skills. In my opinion, social skills are just as important as the academic ones.

Reference

Sousa, D.A. (1998, December 16). Is the fuss about brain research justified?

Education week, 18 (16), 52, 35. Retrieved October 16, 2011 from:

http://www.edweek.org/ew/1998/16sousa.h18

Sarah Pickard, 2011 How Nonverbal Communication Has an Affect on Others,

http://www.ehow.com/info_8625792_nonverbal-communication-affectothers.html#ixzz1bGXyYW13

This week in our class we read an interesting article, “Minds on Fire” that brought up some interesting issues. The main point that stuck out in my own mind was the fact that in our society today as the internet is growing our educational system as it is will not be able to meet all of the needs of students. Our society is calling for more highly educated workers as they enter the workforce. Those workers are going to need to be able to access newly acquired skills quickly for their new employers. This article suggests, “To meet this staggering demand, a major university needs to be created each week.” (Brown and Adler, 2008, P.17).  I strongly believe this large demand for higher education could essentially cause the larger universities issues if they have not looked ahead to the future and implemented new outlooks for educating the larger number of students.  Brown and Adler (2008) state, “It is unlikely that sufficient resources will be available to build enough new campuses to meet the growing global demand for higher education-at least not the sort of campuses that we have traditionally built for colleges and universities. Nor is it likely that the current methods of teaching and learning will suffice to prepare students for the lives that they will lead in the twenty-first century.” (P. 18).  This statement implies that our educational system needs to consider changes in how they have their teachers teaching and students learning. One major change that should be considered is utilizing the new technologies to expand the classroom walls outside of the traditional classroom setting.  Building more buildings to house the number of students wanting to enter into higher education is not feasible. In such a short amount of time, the world of education is being opened up to anyone who lives anywhere in the world without traveling or moving to attend a certain school. How exciting is this!  

Reference

Brown, J. S. & Adler, R. P. (2008). Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0. Retrieved on April 14, 2012 from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0811.pdf

Social network sites and Teachers

This week in class we were assigned an interesting article, "Suspended Teacher in Facebook Incident Ignites Debate: Should Online Privacy for Educators Exist?"  This article discusses some interesting aspects of some of the challenges that accompany sharing information on the internet. In this particular article, a teacher made a comment on Facebook about a student in her class that was meant for her friends but seen publicly. Parents and students alike saw her comments and were very upset. After reading the article, I realized how close to home this hit. Facebook came into my life with a bang; my two daughters insisted I get a Facebook page almost two years ago now. I had no idea what this site was all about, but I am all about keeping up with technology, so I set myself a page up. I was amazed how quickly I had “Friend Requests”! Not just a few friends, but almost 200 in the first week! I have lived in several places throughout my life and have made many friends. I had not talked with several of them for as long as 10 years. I was extremely excited! I also had some “Friend Requests” from friends that live in my same town. I live in a town with less than 1,000 residents, so some were parents of my students and colleagues. Like this teacher in the article, I thought my page was private and only able to be viewed by my friends. I placed pictures on my page and while doing this, placed a few of my bulletin boards from my classroom. Within a day of posting these pictures, my principal asked to speak to me. She informed me that she had heard I had a Facebook page and it had pictures from my classroom. She also told me that my professional life needed to be separate from my private life, and Facebook was a private activity. I was upset and tried to explain that I had no pictures with any of the children and absolutely no names. Many of my friends are educators too, but lived out of our area. I was sharing with them a part of what I do. Now, just six months after this conversation, I and several other teachers are being allowed to utilize Facebook at the school for student’s clubs. We set up a network page and communicate about meetings and activities. It has been a wonderful tool. It amazes me that in such a short period of time the administration have changed their outlook of what this site can offer as a tool.  

My PBWorks

Ok, so I have been working on a project in PBWorks for my class. This appears to be a great tool, but I have a lot more exploring and learning to do before I would utilize it with my own class. Here is the address to my first creation: http://wanativeamericans.pbworks.com/w/page/52546375/FrontPage
This project is set up for a 4^th grade class of approximately 20 students. I have made this specific wiki for Washington State History of the Native American tribes. All students would contribute information that they have learned and researched throughout the quarter and it would be used as a class resource and database. Each student would individually be responsible to write different entries about the subject the class is covering at that time, imagining life during the time period being discussed. Every student of the class would come up with a question that they had about the time period being covered. Questions would be drawn randomly weekly and students would have to reflect and respond to one. Ex: “What were some of the food sources used during this time by the Colville Indians?”
In utilizing this site myself to create this project I can see that the students will need to be trained how to edit and use a wikispace. I would also need to make sure the students are familiar with the skills of copying and pasting also. This project is a great way for the students to gain a deeper understanding of some of the Washington History about the Native Americans as they are not just reading about it, but instead they are becoming a part of the history and creating a page with their own ideas and thoughts.
I hope you enjoy my work in progress!

Creating a Blog

It is amazing just how easy it is to create your own Blog; if you can follow step by step instructions you can create your very own space. I personally enjoyed the process of tweeking the space to show my own personality and who I am as a person.

Second week in EDU651

Well, here I am working away earning my Masters in Teaching and Learning Technology at Ashford University. Part of one of the assignments in EDU651 was to create a Blog, soooo here it is. This week we are busy learning tools we can utilize in a “traditional classroom” or “computer-based class.” The tools this week we are looking at include Wikis, Blogs, BPWorks, and Twitter, which we will connect to our Blog. What creative ideas do you have to utilize these tools in either type classroom? Thanks for checking my Blog out!