Unit 1: Introductions & Role of Technology

For this unit, we had to watch three videos and talk about what we learned from them. When watching the video "What is the Value of a Teacher", I learned quite a few things. When he starts talking about how to use google properly, I did not know anything about what he was saying. In addition, I agree that teachers need to change the assignments to meet the standards of today and the use of the internet compared to the same assignments that teachers have given before the internet started. I also thought the use of the prism website was a cool idea to show classmates that the majority of them think the same thing and it is not too scary to talk during the class. Finally, I thought the idea of connecting globally was a pretty cool idea. The teacher in Moose Jaw having the children in Vietnam teach her children how to build a video camera is a great idea. I think that the more teachers can implement technology in their classroom, the more they can differentiate instruction along with become a facilitator in the children's learning and just help guide the students on their educational journey. 

The next video I watched is "21st Century Learning, A Deep Dive into the Future of Education". I found it ironic that I used to be a math teacher and the first example he used was the math teacher and Khan Academy. I would agree that I have multiple teachers in my school that do not want their kids to get ahead of the other kids so they are all learning the same thingn as the same time. I think this is a crazy idea. When I was in high school, my Accounting teacher let me go ahead of the rest of the class and I got through the entire book while the rest of the class did not. I was thankful for this teacher and I am going to encourage my teachers to do the same. It is ironic as we are working with some distance learners right now and I have already had a converstaion with him to use Khan Academy with his distance learners. Another thing that I learned from the video is the value of having the students teach their peers. This is something I used once in awhile when I taught, but probably not enough. Overall, technology needs to be used correctly in the classroom for students to achieve their potential. 

The last video I watched is Dr. Willard Daggett giving a presentation to a high school in Ohio. I will not lie, I thought this video did not necessarily provide a lot of valuable information to educators except that we are failing our kids. I did not think this video would be one that I would want to show the educators in my school district. There were a couple of thinks that I did think were useful such as the idea of looping elementary teachers so kids develop relationships with teachers and the idea of having the kids in high school pick their teacher they are advised by for the four years there. I will say that doing that would lead to many difficult conversations because there would be some teachers who have a lot of students pick them and some teachers that have very few. I did also like the culture trumps strategy. It is important for the students to be in a thriving culture in the school district. Lastly, the ending where he talked about getting the students to understand real-world problems and that schools have to teach to multiple disciplines at once if kids are too succeed made a lot of sense to me. It is important that students can solve real-world problems or we are not preparing them for life after education. Overall, I think this was a good introductory unit that put me in the proper frame of mind for the class. Technology needs to be used in the classrooms and used properly so we are preparing our students for the real world.