5-26-10

We watched two videos today about technology and students today. They were very different, though.

The first video we watched featured college students holding up signs that had to do with technology. The message I got from this movie was that technology was taking over their lives. One person said they only would read 8 books in a year, but thousands of webpages and ten thousands of facebook profiles. Some students said they spend most of their class time on facebook or doing things that have nothing to do with that class. Students are learning to believe they are multitasking, but from my experiences, when I spend time on facebook in class, I am not paying attention to anything my professor is saying. From this video, the message I received is that technology is not necessarily the best way to teach things. At NMU, I have had at most five classes where I was allowed to use my computer, and for good reason. Even if I will not going on facebook, someone around me will, and that distracts me. I also learn better if I write out notes instead of typing them, because usually I am switching between my notes window, my email, facebook, and maybe another website, so how can I keep something my teacher is saying in my head while I have so much other information coming at me?

The second video featured K-12 students. Their signs said that their teachers were using older technology and had never used a blog, a wiki, or digital storytelling. The only time I have seen something that high-tech in a classroom was when we saw smart boards at Danz Elementary in Green Bay, WI. Only the teacher had a smart board, and the students still had pencils and paper. In the second grade classroom I observed in last semester, the highest technology the teacher used was Reading Rainbow VHS tapes. She read aloud to students every day, used the Weather Channel to check the day's weather in the morning, and played Reading Rainbow while students ate their snacks. There was nothing I saw that would have negatively affected any of these students. They were the most eager to learn class I have ever seen. They loved to read and write and never once asked to use a computer. I think this video was very misleading in saying that students are being held back because they do not learn the latest technology in schools. I never learned how to facebook or use the internet or put music on my iPod in school. My teachers used the internet in school, but the assumed we already knew how to use it. We learned how to use all of our technology at home by ourselves or from friends. Someone in class made the argument that students would be able to teach themselves about technology better than a teacher would, and I think that's true. They can also learn how to use it so it is better suited for them instead of exactly how the teacher would use it. I remember learning how to type in elementary school. I got points off every time I typed a "C" with my left pointer finger because it is supposed to be pressed with the middle finger. I was still able to do what I was supposed to, but I was marked down because I did it differently. If we teach using certain technologies in our schools, we have to have some sort of assessment. How will we grade a student who reaches the same webpage, but does it differently than the way we tell them to? For elementary students, I think that typing is an important skill to learn, but I would rather teach them how to read and write with a pencil and paper than turn them into digital learners right away. If we don't teach them how to do things manually, what will they do when their computer crashes? I have no problem with students learning certain technologies at home, but I don't think it always belongs in the classroom. There are things that are better self-taught.

One other thing I think was misleading in the second video was the claim that in a few years China will have more English speakers than the US. I think this is supposed to be an argument that we will have so many immigrants who don't speak English, that China will surpass us, but the truth is that China has more people than us and is teaching its students more than we are. The population of the US (according to Google) is 307, 006, 550. The population of China (also according to Google) is 1,324,655,000. Even if every person in the US speaks fluent English and 1/4 of China's population speaks English (they never specified the level of English China would be speaking), they would have more English-speakers than the US. This video just shows us that we should check facts in context before believing everything we see on youtube. The fact that many people in China is at least bilingual should not shock us into making sure everyone speaks English in the US, it should inspire us to make our country bilingual too. Maybe we should learn Spanish to aid the growing population of Spanish-speakers in the US. From my experiences abroad, I have realized how hard it is to be in a country with a language you have only learned in your home country. It helps if someone speaks your language. I can't count the times I asked someone "¿Cómo se dice en español slow?" (How do you say in Spanish "slow"?) or any other word I didn't know. Most people would know at least a little English and be able to help me. It not only helped me to feel comfortable, but helped me to learn new vocabulary words (by the way, lento is "slow" in Spanish.) With the growing technology we have available to us, we should have no problem buying Rosetta Stone or some other language learning software to help us teach our students another language.

I know I went extremely off topic, but this is something I really believe in, and since we are becoming a more "global" world, we should be able to participate in it.