blog #5

Scott McLeod J.D., PhD is the creator of the “Did You Know,” videos. He is also the Associated Professor of Education Leadership at the University of Kentucky. After I read his blog post I cannot say I agree with all of his points but I understand his points regarding safety issues. Children can potentially get into a lot of trouble on the Internet and teaching them safety precautions should limit problems. I do think children should be encouraged to use technology from an early age to further their knowledge but it should be monitored to assure safety.

Both the “The iSchool Initiative (Mobile Learningo)” and “Travis Allen’s ZeitgeistYoungMinds entry,” video’s were interesting to me. The video was about a regular teenager, Travis, that wondered why so many teachers were being fired and classroom sizes were growing. As a result of large class sizes and a harder environment to learn in he created a program called iSchool. iSchool is based on an iPod that allows students, teachers, and even family to access work easily with little confusion. Travis said he thought that if  more schools used iSchool then schools would save money rather then using paper and pen.

I use to think electronic devices in the classroom where not very beneficial due to the fact they can easily side track students with games and other programs but my view has changed since I have enrolled in edm310. I would now say that if electronic devices such as an iPad are used correctly then they could be turned into a valuable learning tool as well.

I thought Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir was pretty impressive.  He allowed over 100 people that have never met to perform together in a virtual choir. Technology has noticeably improved in my lifetime and I am almost nervous on what its capabilities of it will be in the near future.

After watching the “Teaching in the 21^st Century” video I think Kevin Roberts explains pretty well how teaching in the 21^st century should be. He thinks children should be creative and be able to express themselves while learning. Without this none of the creative thinkers that influenced history would exist. Robert’s explained that children should engage on hands on learning. I believe that students should be encouraged to expressive themselves to push themselves to their potential.