Blog Post 13

Online Education: My Teacher Is an App is an article from the Wall Street Journal by Stephanie Banchero and Stephanie Simon that discusses online schooling and its effects on modern education. Banchero and Simon objectively relayed a great deal of information on the methods these new online schools are using and the effectiveness of their curriculum. One type of school they discussed was an entirely online school that is available in many states to students from kindergarten to senior year of high school. This type of schooling generally seemed to adversely affect students' performances in most subjects. Obviously this could be contributed to a multitude of factors. For example, many students simply are not self motivated, and this type of education places an enormous amount of pressure on students to motivate themselves and push themselves to learn the new material. Many times students are far less successful if there is no constant driving force, such as an actual teacher, propelling them to stay actively engaged in learning and pushing them to achieve goals. Another type of school that was discussed was a hybrid school that mixes a traditional learning environment with online coursework. This type of school seemed to be discussed in a more positive light, and it definitely seemed to be the preferred method between the two.

Honestly, some of the methods of education discussed in this article scared me. With the monetary problems that numerous school districts are facing, it is not out of the realm of possibility that in the future the number of teachers needed could be greatly diminished. This would be doing a great disservice to most of the school age children in America. The schools that were attended solely online yielded poor results for the majority of kids involved, and this reason alone should cause apprehension amongst leaders in the educational field. I do believe that online learning is an integral part of education, however, and the idea of hybrid elementary and high schools is a promising one. As long as students' educational needs are still being met through personal contact with a teacher on an everyday basis, then hybrid classes should be implemented throughout the country.

Blog Post 11

Little Kids.... Big Potential is a video created by Kathy Cassidy to highlight some of the interesting work her students are doing in her classroom. She has incorporated many aspects of learning that much older students would find advanced and difficult. By introducing students to blogging and Skyping at such a young age, Kathy Cassidy has given those children fortunate enough to be in her classroom an advantage throughout their lives.

I really was impressed with this video. Typically we think of much of this work as difficult, but these kids were able to do a great deal of the things we do in EDM 310. One of my main complaints with a number of the ideas we've discussed so far this semester is that so much time would be required to teach the technology in the methods of learning. If this technology is learned in elementary school as one of the foundations, along with math, science and reading, then a world of possibilities will be opened to students. This type of learning at a young age would cause a domino effect of learning throughout life.

The Skype interview with Kathy Cassidy shed light on how exactly she developed her method of teaching first grade children technology. It shows just how special of a teacher it takes to pursue something outside of the normal curriculum and implement it into a classroom. She explained that most of the initiative was her idea; too many times teachers can fall into a lull and teach the same methods over and over for years. It is important to not become complacent and Ms. Cassidy certainly hasn't.

After learning about all these different technological applications in the classroom, I understand that it is important to incorporate at least some technology into the curriculum. In a perfect world students would learn these types of things at a very young age, but obviously this is not a perfect world. As a future middle or high school English teacher, I realize that most if not all of my students will be unfamiliar with some of this technology;however, if the core learning requirements can be incorporated into technological methods, then it is important to use these methods to promote more learning.