An interesting thought for the teachers out there.

[terriphill]

I know that many of you are teachers or have retired from teaching. I got this recently from a friend. I thought I maight share it with you....just food for thought.

A vision of K-12 Learners today.

"This project was created to inspire teachers to use technology in engaging ways to help students develop higher level thinking skills. Equally important, <span style="font-weight: bold">it serves to motivate district level leaders to provide teachers with the tools and training to do so.</span> "

 

[tony barnhill]

Great video....

 

[DrEntropy]

Re: An interesting thought for the teachers out th

It's a Web 2.0 world now. Adapt to it or sit on a fence, observing.

Technobhobia, or considering digital collaborative tools to be "simply toys" will doom a generation... as the rest of the world accelerates past 'em.

The imaginative application of traditional teaching philosophy teamed WITH Web 2.0 technologies ~should~ produce unprecedented student success. Educators, politicians and local leaders better get on th' stick, though. There's a "window" to be taken advantage of but it won't be there long.

The "Digital Divide" is real. Adapt or learn to use a SHOVEL well. :shocked:

 

[tomshobby]

Re: An interesting thought for the teachers out th

I agree Doc. But I don't think it will happen until the general population realizes the importance and demands the changes in thinking.

 

[GregW]

Re: An interesting thought for the teachers out th

Personally, I'd like to see text books done away with and move everything online. I remember carrying all those heavy books home everyday. Being online could keep the information up to date also. When I was in 6th grade, my science book talked about when we might eventually put a man on the moon. That was in 1978. The book was copyrighted in 1963.

 

[DrEntropy]

Re: An interesting thought for the teachers out th

One more iron on the fire of bureaucratic immobility... geez.

As I went thru grade school my Ol' Fella got himself onto the school board. By the time I hit 7th and 8th grade ('circa 1962) he was the President. He had to ARGUE with the lumpheads on that board over spending available funds on New Math textbooks rather than a *football field*... for GRADESCHOOLERS!! He got th' books but the "math" teacher was a guy who'd received his teaching degree on a b'ball scholarship... ~I~ got to teach the class. VERY enlightening for a young mind. :wink:

Old Man resigned in disgust after another year.

 

[waltesefalcon]

Re: An interesting thought for the teachers out th

I think that technology is good don't get me wrong there, but I feel that pursuing technology alone and ignoring good fundamentals in teaching is not so good. I work in a school district where millions have been invested in the past few years to bring our schools up to the cutting edge or at least as close to it as one can get anymore. I believe this is a decent thing for our kids, however I also know kids who in the 8th grade can't tell the difference between the basic parts of speech and can't identify any of the poeple who signed the declaration of independence. On the bright side I don't know a single 8th grader who can't put together a powerpoint slideshow. Sorry for my little rant there. Just frustrated with work, and administrations iron bound view that more technology is the way to a brighter future.

 

[DrEntropy]

Re: An interesting thought for the teachers out th

That was what I was on about in my first reply, Walt. DigiTech is NO subsitiute for well rounded education. Teachers still need to teach basics.

 

[terriphill]

Re: An interesting thought for the teachers out th

GregW,
It's interesting you should say this. I am teaching a class this year that has no textbook and no outlined curriculum. It's called, "Planet Earth". They gave me 7 computers with internet access. When they asked me to teach it, I asked what I was supposed to teach and they said...make it pertain to earth.....you are creative, have fun.
So far we have spent some time just finding basic earth statistics. The kids told me that they typed, "Earth Facts" into google and got over 40,000,000 sites. So, I asked them how long it would take them to visit every one of those sites if they could view them at the rate of 1 site per second. (Results come in tomorrow) Let's see if they can grasp the idea that there is a lot of info out there and we are going to find it!

 

[terriphill]

Re: An interesting thought for the teachers out th

Doc, its not about teaching basics...its about HOW we teach the basics and allow our students to create and respond. The days of an overhead projector full of notes to scribble, memorize and regurgitate are fading fast.

 

[GregW]

Re: An interesting thought for the teachers out th

GregW,
It's interesting you should say this. I am teaching a class this year that has no textbook and no outlined curriculum. It's called, "Planet Earth". They gave me 7 computers with internet access. When they asked me to teach it, I asked what I was supposed to teach and they said...make it pertain to earth.....you are creative, have fun.
So far we have spent some time just finding basic earth statistics. The kids told me that they typed, "Earth Facts" into google and got over 40,000,000 sites. So, I asked them how long it would take them to visit every one of those sites if they could view them at the rate of 1 site per second. (Results come in tomorrow) Let's see if they can grasp the idea that there is a lot of info out there and we are going to find it!

It's nice that they trust you to do that, but as a standard policy, I think that's negligent. I'm not saying that the text books should be throw out. They should be converted to electronic information. Also, they should not just be scanned into JPGs, but text documents that can be searched for keywords. There is no telling the accuracy of the information the kids may come across out there. Lord knows what they would find searching for "Around the World"

 

[JamesWilson]

Re: An interesting thought for the teachers out th

There is no telling the accuracy of the information the kids may come across out there. Lord knows what they would find ....

One of the great difficulties we have with our undergraduate students is an inability to discriminate between well founded arguments and solid facts and spurious information and unsubstantiated opinion.

Too many of these students think they can do a little surfing and uncover everything that's important or relevant, cut and paste and edit it all a bit and have done a good job.

What the web cannot teach (and often seems to obscure) is critical thinking and analysis. A Google search can turn up literally millions of hits without discriminating between those that are trivial, duplicates, unfounded; and just plain rubbish.

And a critical failing can be the inability amongst those millions of hits to trace any particular "fact" or assertion back to its source for documentation or to investigate its validity or reliability.

As a trivial example I looked at Wikipedia and for some reason was looking at what it said about dual over-head cam, 4 valves per cylinder engines and saw that the entry claimed this type of engine was first used in a production car in the Triumph Dolomite. That's wrong, but no one else had corrected it. The Jensen-Healey beat Triumph by a few months into production using its Lotus 907 engine. A very trivial example, but illustrative. I entered a correction, but there's absolutely no other validation or consistent review. Who's checking that I'm right?

And the web can seeming validate majority positions, or vocal opposition simply from the volume and/or strength of opinion. At some risk of veering into political territory consider any controversial subject (like evolution) and juxtapose the two positions seen on the web against those same positions in any scientific journal or textbook.

And not everything has been digitized, so anyone that relies entirely on the web cannot access vast amounts of relevant information that's available from books or other published sources. For many students reliant on the web, anything only in the print media simply doesn't exist. Or is thought too hard to bother with.

I like these tools and use them a lot, but... they have some very significant flaws as sources of information and inexperienced students often fail to understand, or even grasp those deficiencies.

Perhaps my greatest concern is that students are becoming even more addicted to "sound-bite" information. A good, solid book can take days to read and understand well; and may even require re-reading. A task that's all but impossible for web sources unless they ownload the hard copy- and then the web becomes a distribution mode- allbeit a very effective one.

A student a couple years ago asked "Which pages do I need to read for the exam?" A very instrumentalist attitude towards their education generally and towards the information in particular. He failed the exam. Badly.


And don't get me started on spell-checkers....

 

[DrEntropy]

Re: An interesting thought for the teachers out th

Doc, its not about teaching basics...its about HOW we teach the basics and allow our students to create and respond. The days of an overhead projector full of notes to scribble, memorize and regurgitate are fading fast.

I wasn't referring to "the Three R's". Rather, "basics" like how to think critically, how to learn...