Blog Post 2

Did You Know? 3.0 A John Strange Version is an update of a previous video. Many of those statistics are very shocking, and it puts America's place in the world in perspective. The first few statistics dealt with India and China and their burgeoning power in the world. The latter stats discuss how rapidly technology is changing.

The most obvious take away from this video deal with the latter statistics about rapidly changing technology. Imagining that we as educators will have to prepare students for jobs that don't exist is shocking. That is why it is important to help students become life long learners rather than fact memorizers. As the world changes, adaptability will be one of the most important aspects of finding and maintaining a job, and life long learners will be much more adaptive than fact memorizers.

Mr. Winkle Wakes
Mr. Winkle Wakes is a satirical video directed at the educational system's lack of progress in the last hundred years. Obviously it is an oversimplification, but some of the issues the video raises do ring true. Not much has changed in education over the years, but technology is not the complete solution to this problem. It is part of the solution, but there are numerous other factors.

Creating a classroom environment where students' ideas are appreciated and valued is a critical part of changing the educational system. It is extremely important to make use of what technology is available and to use this technology to foster a thirst for knowledge among students. Students need to be aware of how to use new technology for their educational benefit.

The Importance of creativity
The Importance of Creativity is a video of a speech by Sir Ken Robinson that details the ways in which traditional schooling suppresses creativity. Ken Robinson makes some excellent points in this video and raises some serious questions. He does much of this through humorous stories, but often humor is the best way to get a point across. Traditional schooling stifles creativity. This is an almost indisputable fact. College degrees are so common that something more is needed to succeed, and that can be where creativity comes in.

As a future English teacher, I feel like Sir Ken Robinson's ideas about creativity can be implemented in a multitude of ways. Obviously careful study of literature and attempts at creative writing can be linked in ways that foster creativity. There are numerous other ways in which students can be creative in an English classroom. Things like projects and videos are two ways to help get students become more creative.

A Day Made of Glass 2:Same Day is a mind blowing video. That is really the only appropriate description. It is incredible to think that some of this technology is currently available. These type of glass technologies could have a great impact on schools everywhere, but it will probably be years before the classroom shown in the video is available. That doesn't mean that incredible technology isn't available in classrooms now though. As always the most important part of implementing new technology in a classroom, is actually using it to benefit students. Too often teachers treat technology as a novelty rather than an actual tool.

I like to think of new technology through the eyes of a future English teacher. The type of technology in the video, such as the iPad type tablets could be used in an English classroom to really help books come alive. The options are limitless. Students could use tablets and the glass board to visualize books and any type of lesson. Even a simple grammar lesson could be improved by this type of technology.