Blog Post 5

I left Dr. McLeod a comment on his blog post, Don't teach your kids this stuff please!  Check out his blog post and then check out the comment I left for him below.  It's worth it.  To learn more about Dr. McLeod click here.


Dr. McLeod,
My name is Evan Bailey, and I am a student in Dr. strange is EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. You are absolutely right about computer skills being right up there with reading and writing. Your style of sarcasm within the message, was right up my alley, and really touched my sense of humor. I know many people who are afraid of what technology may bring into their homes. The fact is, humans inevitably resist change. I read that in a sociality book. Another thing is, our young people view the world differently than we did at their age. While technology may not have a satisfactory home in our school systems, a percentage of our young people use mass amounts of technology in their day to day lives. In my opinion, it will be my job as a teacher to try and keep up with contemporary technology. I have no illusions about whether or not I can keep up with technology at its current pace. I know all I can do is to try and keep up well enough to facilitate learning. How do you feel about the pace of technology, specifically communications technology in general?

The iSchool Initiative 
I highlighted this in red because I feel like this is the future.  Travis Allen has got to be the smartest guy on the planet.  In the video contained in the red link above, Travis explains his vision of the future of education.  In his vision, he says that schools can employ the use of an iPod touch in the classroom to take the place of many outdated and expensive learning tools.  He says that the iPod touch is already set up with apps that can be implemented into classrooms right now.  The beauty of this is that with customizable apps, teachers can customize their own lessons and make them available instantly online. Although, Travis makes a better case for his initiative by explaining the economic benefits of iSchool. According to Travis, schools spend at least $600 per student per year. He says the iPod touch is only around $150. In my opinion, this is one of the greatest ideas I have heard to date.

 When Travis Allen made the video I have linked above, he was 17 years old and still in high school. Now, he is in his twenties, and is on a campaign for his initiative that cuts a swath across the United States. He has a new website: iSchoolinitiative.org. There are some videos on the new website about his tour.  If you believe in productive technology in our schools, I would highly suggest taking a look at all Travis' videos.

Eric Whitacre's virtual choir is a breathtaking use of technology.  The way he has taken individuals and molded them into one voice is amazing.  This is innovation at its finest.  The one thing about this video that stuck me the most, were the ending credits.  There were people literally from everywhere in the U.S. and abroad.  This is the kind of creativity that makes me want to teach.  Check out his introductory video as well.  He talks about where his idea came from.  Truly awesome stuff!

Kevin Roberts' video, Teaching in the 21st Century, was very thoughtful indeed.  I think his big vision is that teachers are there to facilitate learning as a filter for the information coming from technology sources.  Teachers should teach the ethics involved in using internet sources as a means of learning.  Teachers are also there to teach which sources are reliable and which ones are not.  I think Kevin has a pretty solid fix on part of what it will take to be a 21st century teacher.  However, I don't feel like the internet can ever take the place of a teacher teaching general basic knowledge about the subject matter at hand.  The student has to have a basic understanding of the subject matter before he or she can dive deeper into it on the web.  It would be hard to look up a word in a dictionary if you could not read.  Reading, writing, and communicating in a meaningful way, involves much more than any internet site can offer.  Although the internet is still a very important tool in the modern classroom, it is still just a tool.  Let's not get carried away here.

One thing I have always believed is that the ability to read is the most paramount thing in the modern world.  However, before I visited the Reading Rockets website, I did not realize how extremely difficult learning to read really is for children.  The teaching of the fundamentals of reading is ultimately the responsibility of the parents.  Children must be exposed early and often to everything involved with learning to read.  One of the videos I watched on the website talked about the parental responsibility of relaying positive vibes about reading.  Even if the parents are not readers, they must find ways to make their child feel like reading is fun.  One of the experts on the website said that by simply taking your child to the library before they start attending school, can greatly increase their chances of being a fluent reader.  Furthermore, the library can be just as much of an adventure for that child as going to the park or playground.

In today's world there are so many distractions technology can create that it can inadvertently keep a child from wanting to read.  This goes back to the point I was making earlier in this post about teachers teaching basic skills before a child can be turned loose on the web.  Without reading and writing skills, the internet is  nothing more than entertainment.  There is no true and meaningful collaboration with others.

Experts and figures on the Reading Rockets website exposed the fact that not all children pick up on reading skills in the same amount of time.  Why does our system continue to push these kids through to the next grade year after year with this no child left behind nonsense? I had a sixteen year old in one of my classes at Foley High that could not read.  This is unsatisfactory.