Blog Post #4

Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff. Please. By Scott McLeod
http://bigthink.com/ideas/30410#comments

Well thanks to Google, I found out who Dr. Scott McLeod is. Dr. McLeod is an Associate Professor in the Educational Administration program at Iowa State University. He also is the Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE).He has received numerous national awards for his technology leadership work, including big shout outs from the cable industry, Phi Delta Kappa, and the National School Boards Association. In Spring 2011 he visited Canterbury Fellow at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Dr. McLeod blogs regularly about technology leadership issues at Dangerously Irrelevant at BigThink.com.
The blog, Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff, is an amazing little poem about technology and its downers as well as an insight on the future of technology. Dr. McLeod warns us about the bad in the internet, but makes it clear that there is some definite good. At first the poem kind of made me mad how it only stressed the negatives about technology and the internet. After I really thought about what the message of the poem was saying, I felt like a agreed with exactly what Dr. McLeod is trying to say. I feel that the message is that even though there is bad in technology, teachers and parents should not shut it out.

The iSchool Initiative
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68KgAcx_9jU

The iSchool Initiative is produced by a senior in High School named Travis. I really like the idea of having the iSchool in the classroom one day. But I feel like its a matter of time. And it could take a while for teachers, parents, and school boards to agree. When I was a senior in high school, the school decided to make every freshman have a MACbook. The freshmen did EVERYTHING on their MACS. It was cool to see the students learning everything from their computers and I wish I had the opportunity to use technology as much as they did.

The iSchool is related to this particular students interest in fixing the public education system. There are being huge budget cuts, teachers being let go, and classes becoming larger and larger. He asks the question, does technology belong in the classroom? I would have to say that technology is a must in the classroom. Travis argues that the future of iSchool could dramatically change the way public education is viewed. He makes a good point that it would lower our carbon footprints by no more use of pencils, paper, or books. The APPS that Travis described as being helpful in the classroom are: email, chemical touch,U.S. Constitution,World Wiki, USA Presidents, star walk, formulae, recorder, calculators, notes, calender, classics, and iHomework. All of these things he explained are very interesting and would be awesome to see inside the classroom. Parents would be able to access their childs account from any phone or computer. The students would also be limited as to what websites they could visit.

You Can't be my teacher By: Darren Cannell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VSymMbMYHA&feature=youtu.be

The video You can't be my teacher by Darren Cannell is a video with his son giving facts about technology and how teachers should be able to use it in the classroom. I think the video is a little obnoxious but still makes the points very clear about teachers and technology. A kid should be given a teacher that is going to be able to teach them things about technology and help them learn through technology. If they are going to be living in a tech world, they will need to be properly taught how to live daily with the use of technology.

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Chior
http://techliterateteacher.blogspot.com/2010/05/eric-whitakers-virtual-choir-lux.html

Wow. This video, Lux Arumque' by Eric Whitacres is absolutely amazing. There are no words to describe how cool this really is. I love that it is one hundred and eighty-five people who have never met and put something like this together. Through the use of what looks like Skype,these people were able to rehearse and put together an amazing video that shows just how much you can do with technology.
Just to know that almost two hundred people put together such a well collaborated song through technology makes you appreciate technology. It also makes me wonder just how far technology can and will go in the future. Watching this video makes me want to become more capable of using all of the technology resources out there.

Teaching in the 21st Century
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmskHM0V2Ig&feature=player_embedded%23!

I thought that the teaching in the 21st century video by Kevin Roberts was a good way to think about what it really means to teach. Roberts states that our role in the lives of students is obsolete because of technology. Students can find information on anything, anytime, anywhere. Blogging, tweeting, Facebook, Google, and more sources are things that students can use to obtain information at any given time. He says that teachers are no longer the source of knowledge and we are only filters. I agree when he says how we are filters because we are the ones who learn and then teach students in hope of learning something in exchange.

Roberts thinks that our teaching curriculum should be changed to be based on skills that we use everyday. A good list of things he says in the video describing the way we should be teaching our students is: create, evaluate, analyze, apply, understand, and remember. I like the statement: "We need to rethink the tools we use and the types of problems we ask students to solve". It is important that we do not underestimate our students and at the same time expect too much. The big questions here is what does it mean to teach.