Our schools need to incorporate more technology into the classrooms. After viewing the videos Digital Youth Portrait: Sam and Schools Use of Games for Learning and Assessment and reading the article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants I have come to the following conclusions: This is the age of technology and as teachers and schools we must provide opportunities for students where they can learn and experiment; also we need to approach education in a fundamentally different way than how we learned and were taught.
As teachers we must focus on the what are the needs of our students . There are schools in the United States that focus only on technology in the classroom such as the McKinley High School in Washington DC. This school focuses on teaching students how to learn and develop new technology. They create games and develop ways to teach students how learn through virtual reality such as showing how your body fights viruses and also this teaches the students outside the box by asking how well the games work was is complicated and how the students believe the game could be improved. This is what students need to learn. We no longer as teachers should focus only on reading out of text as stated in the article today's graduate only read a total of 5.000 hours reading, but more than 10,000 hours playing video games. Computer games, email, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives. This is proven in the video about Sam ,who has incorporated technology into every aspect of her life. She has been exposed to o much technology and is easily able to learn teach and complete assignments that we as technologically challenged teachers could never imagine possible.
This is why we must approach education in a fundamentally different way. As teachers we need to look at different ways to teach using technology. A great example of this is the research that was done at University of Wisconsin. They researched the game Civilization, having students play this game, not only revealed to them the hidden world of technology, but every student that was involved in this research ended up being getting an A in social studies because they were able to apply what they learned in this game to real life and historical events.
After viewing these movies and reading this article it has really inspired me to look into al the technology that out there and available for me to incorporate into my classroom. what a great experience to learn so much n such a short period of time.
Jerilyn: Nice report on the role of technology and how teachers should prepare to meet the challenges of integrating technology into the instructional program. We do need to approach teaching in different ways from the way we learned, and technology is one the new ways, along with differentiated instruction, cooperative learning, and authentic assessment. The primary goal is to keep students engaged in the learning process, and use technology to the extent that it helps us reach our educational objectives. Good work!
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Jerilyn, you had some very valid points in your article. It is true that technology is going to become a very important part of the educational world. With the use of technology, students are able to get a better understanding of the material being taught, because they can relate better.
ReplyDeleteJeriyn, I think you are right, we do need to provide students with more ways to use technology. It is amazing to think that there are schools that solely focus on technology, and yet schools that have very little technology still exist.
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