Oh the Changes we've seen

The main thing that I gathered from this article is technology has greatly influenced education. It has helped teachers as well as students. My favorite quote was, "As long as educators continue to reflect on what they do in their classrooms, we will progress." Education is ever changing and reflection is a big part of being an educator. Nothing is ever perfect because as educators we need to realize that not all children are the same and we need to change things to meet their needs. As teachers we also are growing in experience and knowledge. As we learn we figure out tricks and trades to better our teaching methods.

Mapping Students Minds

This article was fascinating and really gave me some insights to helping children learning and learning from them as well. These teachers were really creative by getting the students involved in something local and bringing it into the classroom. This project seemed to be pretty labor intensive as far as collecting data, but technology made it a little easier. I believe that when you get the kids involved in something local it makes more personal and fun. I also thought it was interesting that the teacher noticed that when doing this project with her class that she was learning how the kids were thinking and learned with them. I would really enjoy doing something like this with my future class.

I really enjoy math so I think it would be interesting to do a project like this to get the children to really apply their knowledge to the real world and make them realize that school is important to their future. Math is not the most interesting subject, but maybe by making it more active by using field trips and technology we can make learning fun in all subjects.

I thought the use of mapping really helps kids because it forces them to make connections and learn cause and effect which is a subject that is extremely hard to teach. I don’t know why, but this article really made me excited about teaching. I think it is because I want my future student to really learn and how better to do that than doing activities like this one.

Tools and Teaching Understanding

HI CLASSMATES!

I really enjoy last class and I never knew there were so many things out there for teachers to use. The thing I can’t wait to use is the groups. It is going to be really nice as a first year teacher to have some help. I also liked to Yahoo briefcase idea of having class pictures up for parents to view, but not without permission of course. I can’t wait to learn more technology that I will be able to use to help further my teaching and make children enjoy learning. I also learned a lot from the reading.

The article really made me look back at my own education and wish that teachers had more technology and wanted to teach for understanding instead of just “drill and kill”. I really enjoyed the article, but the thing that really touched me was when it said, “…general goals of teaching are for students to master content and to develop the skills, strategies, and attitudes characteristic of successful learners.” I couldn’t agree with this more. So many teachers including the teacher I am with right now in my field practicum focus so much on testing that the children really don’t really get a chance to understand the material. The children are going to end up great test takers, but not successful learners. I hope that as future teachers we will remember this article and help student understand and not just memorize to take a test. We can make a difference in the live of children as we teach.