shelbytuttle

     Majoring in Kinesiology, I was encouraged to take EDT 400. Originally I had thought, wow this is a 400 level class I wonder what it’s all about? Come to find out it was totally different then I had expected. I thought it was going to be involving word documents or office, nothing like it is now. Throughout the first week of class I was so confused, there was so many new things thrown at me I felt very overwhelmed and wasn’t sure if I’d make it. I finally now have a better understanding of everything going on although there are some things that are still hard for me to grasp. I never was introduced to Twitter, WordPress, Diigo, or Mahara before this class. I had heard of Twitter but never used it. A big part of why I was confused was probably because of the unfamiliarity with everything. It makes me think of what we are covering now with the whole idea of Fear of Change. I can’t be afraid to think outside the box and experience new things with this class because that’s what it’s all about to be able to learn new things.

     My personal strengths in this class are probably just being familiar with technology in general and being able to give good opinions on the readings. I definetely improved with the idea of Twitter and blogging, because before I had no idea what to do. I have so much more to learn with everything so there is vast room for improvement. However, I have a lot to work on. I could get a lot better at posting more pictures and videos on my posts as well as being more creative. This will all come once I get more familiar and comfortable with the websites I hope. I could also broaden my options by using more forms of networking like Classroom 2.0 or more use of Mahara. I could also be more active in responding to people’s blogs, it’s just sometimes hard for me to understand exactly what to do or where to look and also what to say.

     My strengths in writing blogs are giving good opinions and relating it to personal experiences. There’s probably more room for grammar corrections and looking deeper into the readings, thinking more than just what’s in front of me.  There are many topics and themes that I have enjoyed throughout this class as well. I liked reading about social networking and how MySpace and Facebook have developed and how they can really help with self-expression. I probably like things like this more because it relates to me personally. I also liked talking about learning and how it’s like a tree. This interested me because it made me think how many options there really is to learning and you can never learn enough. Once you learn one thing, there is always something that comes after it which I find amazing.

     I think all the resources that are available to us are helpful is so many ways, as well as the interaction with the teacher. Also, people like George Siemens and Heidi Hayes are people who understand the meaning of education and have very good outlooks. It’s also important to interact with classmates because what they have to say is just as important and you could learn from them too.

No Limits written by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach was very interesting to me. Similar to the other article written by her, this reading mainly talks about getting kids up to date on technology. There are many kids that attend school who don’t have access to computers or any means of technology so the only way for them to acquire skills with technology is through their school. Something that really caught my attention was when the article presented the example of George Hall’s field trips. It said, “After each field trip, students create Webcasts documenting what they have seen and learned during their travels.” (Beach) With the use of this technology, it certainly isn’t going to waste, the students are learning and actually engaging in school. While some forms of technology aren’t a good idea for learning, this example in my opinion would be really useful. I think technology needs to be used a lot more in order to get kids up to date.

After reading the article Creating Learning Organizations by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach I was inspired by Lisa Synder’s comment. Lisa mentions how learning is not linear and the only way to learn is to be open to all experiences and not go by only what is “traditional”. I think a lot of teachers today, teach by what they have experienced and take the easy way out. The teachers that think outside the box and do things the way they think are the ones who are more engaged with their students.  In my opinion, traditional teachers are the boring ones and you usually dread going to class. Another key point that was made is that in the classroom there needs to be room for reflection and ways of communication. If one is in a classroom where you listen to a teacher talk the entire time without being able to get a word in, you’re not interacting with anyone. I think this can cause students to become unmotivated and not care.   The article also talks about the use of the Web, and I think that the more teachers become engaged in this with their students, the more interested they will become. Teachers have to understand that in this century, technology is one of the major uses, it’s something young adults like and the more they can incorporate that in their teachings, I think the students will want to learn.

      The fear of change is also mentioned which to me is why a big part of teaching has stayed the same over so many years. There are so many teachers that teach in very similar ways because changing what they do might either be too hard or just scare them. If teachers changed the way they taught to how they wanted too, their students would benefit but until that happens every teacher will affect their students and more students to come in a negative way.

Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age was very interesting to me, it made a lot of relevant points about learning and how it’s changed over time. Learning impacts so many things, and behaviors, it’s always changing and you can never learn too much which is what is so cool about it. After you learn one thing, there is always so much more to learn after that. Connectivism is “driven by the understanding that decisions are based on rapidly altering  foundations.” (George Siemens 2004) This definition of connectivism stood out to me and made me realize that connectivism is about how information is always be changed or altered. One of the principles in the article stood out to me, it said “Capacity to know more is more critical than what is already know.” (Siemens) I like this because to get anywhere you have to have the ability to keep learning otherwise you’ll just say in one spot. Like one of the first assignments we had, I said that a tree is like learning because there are many branches and almost each branch, branches out to some more. Learning keeps going and going, and this reading and class has taught me to look at learning in a while different way.

Listening to Bill Moyers World of Ideas was very interesting to me. When he talks about how if you could actually learn on your time and do it at your own speed it would make a greater impact on that person. He mentioned that nowadays learning is forced upon you which I totally agree with. There are so many things I don’t want to learn about but I have to in order to either get a good grade or pass the class. I wish that all of the classes I took concerned only what I wanted to do and ones that interested me. Everyone is different and everyone moves and thinks at different speeds so if all the same teaching is taught at certain speed and time, not everyone is going to understand. This relates to me in a lot of ways because in highschool I would go to math class and get behind the first day. The teacher would move fast since most the students understood things right off. He didn’t take into consideration that the other students might not be understanding therefore for me, the speed of the class was too fast and ever since then I’ve felt behind in math no matter what class I take. Everything he said about education makes complete sense and I enjoyed his talk because I could relate to a number of areas he touched upon.

         After listening to Curriculum 21 Essential Education for a Changing World I was very intrigued by what Heidi Jacobs was saying. “It’s almost like kids are time traveling when they come to school but their going backwards and when they come back out their in the 21st century.” (Jacobs 2010) This statement stood out to me because it made me realize that this actually happens in the schools. When I was in highschool it was like I went into class learning things that aren’t necessarily relevant and then when schools out its back to texting and real life things. I liked how she chose certain topics to put in the book by just picking the most important critical issues and concerns. She really seemed to have a good outlook on education and how it really does have to change.

Recently, I have just read the first few pages of The Flat World and Education by Linda-Darling Hammond (2010). I found it to be very interesting because it made me realize not only how much technology has changed, but education in jobs as well.  A quote that really stood out to me in the reading was when Hammond said, “At least 70% of U.S jobs now require specialized knowledge and skills, as compared to only 5% at the dawn of the last century, when our current system of schooling was established.” (Hammond 2).  This just shows that in the past, a lot of people who applied to jobs usually got it even though they may not be up to date on their education. I don’t think it’s fair to the people who went through so much school and learning to have such a hard time finding a job. I don’t think a lot of people realize that there are many people who shouldn’t have the job that they do, due to the fact that they haven’t received the correct education. It’s amazing how we are just now trying to change things when it has gone on for so long. We are just now making sure that were going to have the best employers, but I think it’s almost too late.

I currently watched a youtube video produced by Michael Wesch (2009) the Machine is Changing Us. I thought it was very interesting to see the speaker’s perspective on how technology has changed us and our culture. The impact on T.V made me realize how much it creates our culture. Through the 30 second commericials to the reality t.v shows, everything has an impact and will make certain people act different ways. If there wasn’t T.V I think that our culture would be different because the ideas presented on t.v, good and bad, wouldn’t be demonstrated as much or at all. In the video, I thought it was great how he referred to the word ‘whatever’ and how that meaning has changed throughout time. You hear it so much now, you don’t think about what it really means. Nowadays the word ‘whatever’ can either mean you don’t care, it can be sarcastic or it can mean you just don’t want to deal with something. Back in the 1960’s it simply mean “whatever, that’s what I meant” but right now, no one would see it as that.

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