Science and Technology

Students today have become more technologically advanced than the past generations.  Teachers need to be able to help students become more independent and responsible with the technologies that they use.  Students will always need someone to teach them something and technology is the same way.  Teachers need to be up to date with the technologies, programs, and softwares that are coming out.


While watching a classroom that was using technology, we viewed some students downloading something that they were not supposed to be doing.  The teacher was very calm when the student was changing the background on the computer.  She stayed calm, but demanded that the student stay on task and to change the background back to the original background.

Digital Learning

In today's society, technology has become an everyday part of our lives. We play video games, watch TV, listen to music, talk on the phone, or spend time on the internet more than we would spend time reading a book, sleeping, or even spending time with friends. Have college students been so overwhelmed with the tasks at hand that we distract ourselves so we stress ourselves out even more? We spend so much time using technology that we fail to keep relationships that do not use technology. We do not develop relationships with the characters in books, or with our peers as much as we used to.


In today's classrooms, students want to use the technology as a way to learn, but the teachers do not let them. They want to learn how to evaluate, apply, think, and they want to be engaged in what they learn. How can they be engaged in what they learn if what they are learning does not relate to them? They are now digital learners which is different from the pen and paper we once used to learn. Today the younger generation will be so advanced in technology that they will end up teaching others how to use something. They are the future and we need to support them with what they already know how to use.

The Machine Is Us

According to Dictionary.com, Web 2.0 is defined as "the internet viewed as a medium in which interactive experience, in the form of blogs, wikis, forums, etc, plays a more important role than simply accessing information" (dictionary.com) We never think about what we put on the web. As we share pictures, videos, and comments on our blogs, websites, even facebook or myspace we are teaching the web about us. As we move forward we keep teaching the web while we teach others. It is making real life communication easier so we can share our own information, not just information about certain topics and subject. The only question is, where do we draw the line? Can we continue growing in a technology based society where our face-to-face communication dwindles and our relationships become completely over the computer or will we always be able to communicate with ease and have the advancing technology as a helpful guide in our lives? 

Hungerford's Lesson Reflection

Today we watched a video of a lesson in a business class using computers. It involved net worth, capital revenue, etc. I believed that Hungerford had many different good qualities in his lesson. He went over the directions while the students were doing the project that way he could help them as he went along. He was able to go to the students who were having trouble and point out what they had to do, what they had to click on, etc. Another great quality was that he asked the questions and gave them time to respond. Many teachers if they ask questions they usually do not wait long enough. This easy strategy was able to get the students involved while allowing them to show what they know.  After asking the questions, he would either ask for examples or he would provide examples which would then allow for the students some real-life situations.


In a business, people need to know how to use many different types of software and programs. Hungerford used many different types of technology. He had his students use a program that helped show the business type of information (net worth, capital revenue, etc) needed and was able to create their own "business."  Also, they were able to upload their project to the web and use excel spreadsheets. Most people do not know how to do these types of tasks. 

The Poor Scholar's Soliloquy Reflection

Reading The Poor Scholar's Soliloquy By Stephen M. Corey was an interesting piece. It was about a boy who had trouble in school with all subjects, but when he is interested in something, like his uncle's trucks, he can compute mileage, explain directions when they are driving somewhere, write letters to farmers making very few mistakes, etc.  He goes on and describes different things that he cannot do in school, like find the width of a highway if a pole falls across it and has certain lengths on each side of the highway, he cannot name the presidents, he cannot write very well (the piece that we read), etc.


Throughout this piece he talks about each subject that he struggles with, but then gets off topic and describes something he is interested in.  The strange thing is that the part he describes what he is interested in, he also relates it to the subject that he is talking about.  It shows that he does understand parts of the subjects from school, but if he is not interested in it then he is simply confused.  He is not mentally slow or deficient, but simply bored.


This relates to teachers today because no matter what happens in your classroom, you will always have someone who struggles with learning the material.  The best thing that you can do for your student is to try to relate it to something that the student is interested in.

Classroom Collages

In class we watched a movie, "Smile.  You're on Central Camera," about a technology class creating collages with pictures of the students in them.  The floppy disks and the software that they were using showed how outdated this video was.  The video was good, however, due to the fact that the teachers covered many different topics about using the collages, the pictures, posting things on the internet, etc.  


The teacher had to explain what they were doing with the collages they were making and then had to discuss the ethical parts of posting the pictures on these collages.  The students were not going to harm any of the students by distorting the images.  The students were going to post these collages online so the teacher discussed safety about posting things on the internet, like not putting the first and last names of the people in the pictures and of themselves for creating the collage.  

Introduction

Hello bloggers!
My name is Samantha and I am a student at NMU.  My passion is helping others.  I am a secondary education mathematics major with minors in physical education and English.  I am starting my fifth year in college this coming fall semester.  This summer, however, I am enrolled in two education classes.  I created this blog for one of those classes, ED483 which involves technology in the classroom.