Comments on: Avoiding headaches and improving classroom support

By: clearlyteaching

clearlyteaching — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 06:44:04 +0000

I agree we are "outdated" in education. The students at the middle school I'm are virtually one step ahead of most teachers. There are a few in my building who take the lead on tech training, because the district tech is a complete mess. Sound familiar to anyone?

It's disappointing to hear younger teachers are not stepping up. They really need to be the guides for using the web as not only a classroom tool, but an educational resource as a whole. Just like we are doing on this blog right now.

I will say that some students of mine are taking an initiative to learn technical skills (not just facebook and games) from instructional media on the web. Today, a student of mine brought his own laptop to class because his video editing software blew the school's software away. He digitally added a product placement billboard into a video game trailer. Amazing. No teacher guided him. It was that pure motivation we wish everyone had. Maybe they do, and we don't encourage them in the right way? I hope this type of self-driven learning will be celebrated in 21st century classrooms.

By: clearlyteaching

clearlyteaching — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:44:04 +0000

By: José Picardo

José Picardo — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:27:37 +0000

Thanks for your comment Mike. I too have found that some students are not embracing technology for educational purposes. I think the reason my be that, in their minds, technology is firmly linked to leisure (FB, video games etc.) and some don't find it obvious to make the leap to using technology for education.
Young people have no problems spending hours sat in front of a computer playing games or using social networks, but when in comes to helping with their learning they often fail to engage at a level deeper that Google or Wikipedia.
You have a point, if we teachers don't teach our students how to make the most of technology for education, who is? How then can we expect that they should know if we haven't taught them first?
We always blame them but, simply put, it is our fault.

By: Mike Gretzinger

Mike Gretzinger — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 00:19:01 +0000

I definitely agree with you….actually I have been thinking how outdated we are in education….wow if teachers don't bring new technology to students who will? What's even sadder is that younger teachers don't embrace new technology….scary

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:58:26 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by josepicardo: New in Box of Tricks: Avoiding headaches and improving classroom support http://bit.ly/d5zOtY...

By: Graham Davies

Graham Davies — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:07:12 +0000

Important points, of course, but most free applications on the Web (as José and many others have pointed out elsewhere) are not really free. A good deal of funding for Web 2.0 applications comes from advertising – which may be buried within their websites. You probably would not be aware of the existence of the advertisements as they often take the form of clickable text links. Alternatively, the site may just be gathering data about people who use it and then passing the information on to anyone who may be interested in it. Programme 3 of the BBC's Virtual Revolution series focused on this topic:

Virtual Revolution, Programme 3: The cost of free
http://www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution/makingof...

Education will be ditched first in these tight economic times. Schools have no money to spend on software and training. As a partner in a software business, I have seen several suppliers of educational materials go bankrupt in the last two years. AVP was a major supplier of audio-visual materials and software to schools, with a multi-million annual turnover. They no longer exist. And training companies are also disappearing, Mill Wharf being a recent casualty. Other companies are struggling and many more will disappear.

Graham Davies