Blog Post #13

Brian Crosby's video Back to the Future started off with Brian stating how the majority of his students were 2nd language at risk and that many of them did not even know what city or state they currently lived in. Crosby continued his video stating that he felt he had to find a way to better engage his students in learning and felt that technology systems such as computers, blogging, and much more could help in his teaching. He was able to assist all of his students in creating their own individual blog pages, which in turn would become a tool in helping the students learn their basic knowledge like where they are from. The activities that Brian Crosby had his students participate in were so interesting because of the simple fact they excited the students to the point they wanted to complete the assignments. The students seemed to really enjoy the hot air balloon project. This project not only taught them many aspects within their science lessons, but also created a topic for the students to blog about on their individual blog posts. I felt that Crosby's video was another great illustration of how meaningful technology can be in teaching and helping students learn. The teachers that are unsure about technology engaging and teaching students should definitely watch Brian Crosby's video to see first hand the impact it all plays on students.


A Vision of Students Today is a video by Michael Wesch that illustrated the 21st century student. Michael started off his video by pointing out the dullness of an average college classroom and the fact that the majority of students are not learning what they should be by simply sitting in a desk listening to a teacher lecture. In most classrooms, the teacher expects all students to come in from their busy, multitasking world and set back and open their ears to everything the teacher has to say. As the video stated, the average 21st century student does not have a second to spare as they spend so many hours emailing, facebooking, blogging, texting, talking on their cell phones, and still try and fit 7 hours of sleep into their schedule.

I feel that teachers of the 21st century need to step up to the 21st century student way of thinking. With that being said, teachers need to realize just how much their present day students multitasks and take that factor into effect when planning their teaching methods. The way I see it is if an individuals' brain is trained to think and spin in a million different directions 24/7, as the students in Michael's video, then why should these brains be educated in such a dull, boring fashion? I feel that students of the 21st century that do multitask so much each day have a hard time learning by lecture due to the slow pace method. Michael's video layed out the everyday lives of the average student in today's society and he could not have did a better job and been more correct in doing so. Our present day world is surrounded by technology forums; therefore, the majority of students are captured each second of the day in some form of technology. With this being the case in our society, why are educators still attempting to educate in the old fashion way of teaching with chalk boards when their are smart boards! Why do we still have these boring classroom settings with nothing but rows and rows of desks and a long platform at the front of the room for the teacher to stand and lecture upon? This video by Michael Wesch should send a message out to all teachers whether grade level teachers or college professors that they need to evaluate their students of today and accept the fact that these students are huge multitask individuals; therefore, teachers need to accept new methods of teaching and be open to change!


How Will You Teach me in the 21st century? is an outstanding video by a graduate student at Full Sail University. I felt that this was a perfect follow up film to Michael Wesch video being that Michael illustrated a vision of 21st century students' everyday lives and now this video illustrates just what a 21st century student should be taught. This graduate student illustrated exactly what we as educators should be teaching the 21st century student. The video stated that this graduate student would teach his students the following: how to communicate effectively, understand impact of media, to live in an information era, to be creative, to interact in a global economy, and last but certainly not least to collaborate.

After watching this video, I asked myself the simple question, "How will you teach me in the 21st century?" I have always thought that the majority of "stuff" that I learned or was suppose to learn throughout high school was useless information. I have never understood why we needed to be taught so much detailed history lessons or why did we have to take science and chemistry classes unless we were planning on becoming a scientist, doctor, or such. I believe in the technological savvy world we live in today we should worry about teaching our students more realist information that they will actually need for the future. With that being said, I would want my students to know how to work all of the future technological devices that they will have to use in everyday jobs such as computers, smart boards, documents within computers, and much more. I would hope to have my students be able to effectively communicate with others not only face to face communications, but also communicating via email thoroughly. By the time my students leave my classroom, I hope they will have experienced a new way of learning whether that be by creating their own blog page or just by simply learning how to navigate the web effectively. Reflecting on this video, I would love to create my own movie showing how, why, and what I would teach my future students of the 21st century.

The basic technology tool kit by Dorothy was very unique! . This video we were instructed to read over was very interesting in that it list exactly what teachers of the 21st century need to know. I think Dorothy's list of things teachers should know how to do in order to become a teacher is very fair and understandable. With the help of the class, EDM 310, I believe I have mastered each criteria Dorothy has listed to become a teacher! I hope that one day I can be in a position to create a list like Dorothy's to show future teachers! I really enjoyed looking her list over!


The next video I watched for this blog post was titled Exemplar of Students Work with Video by Miles Webb. In this video I believe Mr. Webb was simply trying to show the world an example of using the technology of videoing through showing individual students' work at school. He wanted to advocate videoing in a successful way throughout schools and catch special moments on film. When he struck out to begin this assignment, Webb simply chose two students that had a responsibility at the school and videoed them acting out their daily duties; however, I do not believe that Mr. Webb expected to get such great responses out of the video. It was a real inspirational video to me as I learned that one of the students were blind and just to think of how he carried out his duties in such a heroic way. I am glad we were assigned this video.