Mr. Winkle Wakes

What would you do if you woke up 100 years in the future? Would you expect everything to be the same? How would you feel if everything was different? It would be overwhelming that's for sure, but you would adapt. Mr. Winkle woke up 100 years later and discovered big buildings with weird noises, strange machines that kept people alive, and devices that allowed you to talk to someone half way across the world. This was all too much for Mr. Winkle. He had to leave and walked what seemed like forever before he came to a school. This school had new technology, but other than that it all seemed the same to him. It gave him comfort that nothing had changed in the schools. 

This however, gives me great heartache. I think I would be extremely depressed if I saw nothing had changed in the schools and the way we teach. We need to be constantly finding new and better ways to teach to our students. If 100 hundred years has past and they were still using the same textbooks and the same lesson plans, then that would be apauling. I would want to wake up and find out that all textbooks were electronic and every student had an ipad to use for homework. I would want to see flying cars and cures for cancer and all diseases. Change is scary to most everyone, but change is one of the most beautiful things we can experience. Our students deserve to live in a world that is constantly evolving for the greater good of this world. If we can't strive to do that, then what's the point of all this learning and technology? Mr. Winkle may have been scared and seen too much change, but in time he would have adapted, like we all do.  

How can you make your classroom better?

The video "10 Big Ideas for Better Classrooms" will leave you eager to wanting to change the future of your classroom. Every year students are growing and being introduced to so many new things and this video eleborates on what you can do as a teacher to help your students. The video gave 10 big ideas. They were project based learning, integrated studies, cooperative learning, comprehensive assessment, intellectual and emotional guide, teaching as apprenticeship, technology, resources, parents, and community partners. All of these combined make up a great way to better the learning in the classroom. To help a child learn better you need the teachers, parents, and communities help. The saying, "It takes a village to raise a child" is very accurate. They were on to something there. Students need hands on projects, teamwork, and real world experience to really understand and actually carry with them the information. Students need to know their parents care and the teachers are there for them. Rewarding students for showing up everyday and conducting positive behavior deserves a reward. 

I want my students to know I care about them. If they don't understand a question I want them to feel comfortable in asking me or another student for help. I don't want them to feel embarrassed for not knowing an answer, because we have all been there. Being a kid is tough and if I can make their learning experience easier, then I will do everything in my power to do just that. I want all of my students to remember projects we did from 2 years ago and wake up every morning excited about school. By doing hands on projects that involve real life data and experiences will give them a head start into their future. It will help them to develop skills some of us didn't learn until college or even after we've started our careers. A lot of people learn by touching things, seeing things, and building things. If students can work together on their strengths and weaknesses, then they can build each other up. This applies to the teachers as well. We as teachers can help each other with our weaknesses and congratulate us on our strengths. Sitting in on a lesson and observing each other can only help us to becoming the teacher our students need. It's all about the future of our children and the future of this world.

Is the human brain still the smartest thing on this planet?

The article "Our Brains Extended" by Marc Prensky talks about how technology has become a foundation to education and life in general. We may not think about it much, but our lives are surrounded by technology. We grow up with technology in our classroom and it has evolved immensely over the years. We all remember watching educational movies on the TV on wheels and learning how to use Word documents, and progressing to smartboards over the years. As we grow technology grows, but have our brains grown with it? Without technology we simply don't know how to function. When kids say, "I'll be lost without my cell phone" they really mean it. We are programmed differently than we were 50 or even 10 years ago. In the classroom today, technology is huge. We cannot go back to the old chalk board and eraser days. Children are growing up with all of these wonderful new technological advances and teachers need to evolve with them. There can be no more living in the dinasour ages. Our curriculum will have to change to keep up with the world and things that haven't even been thought of. Our subject matter needs to stay relevant to the students. Yes, they still need to learn about the past and how this all happened, but they also need to learn new ways of thinking and developing ideas. 

Students should be taught the same basics, such as math, reading, writing, and so forth and so on. They just need to be taught these things with technology being incorporated into it. They need to know how to use spreadsheets and calculators. Calculators think better than we can. Isn't that scary? This is why students and teachers need to learn new ways to do old things. Using technology in the classroom allows them to connect with more than just the people in their classroom and school. It allows them to reach out to the world with the internet. How cool would it be for students to do projects that actually achieve a goal and comes to life? Not just putting it on paper and thinking about it, but actually doing it. That is what makes a difference in education. Allowing the students to see how companies work, how to make blueprints come to life, and learning how to fund organizations for profit and non-profit. Prensky says the new curriculum should be three crucial areas; effective thinking, effective action, and effective relationship. Effective thinking would allow the students to include creative and critical thinking as portions of math, science, logic, persuasion, and even storytelling. Effective action would include entrepreneurship, goal setting, planning, persistance, project management, and feedback. Lastly effective relationship would let the student allow for emotional intelligence, teamwork, ethics, and much more. Our curriculum today needs to focus on these three strategies Prensky has presented us with. We're not throwing our history out the door, but allowing for new history to be written.

Vocab Tech for Toddlers Encourages 'Anytime-Anywhere Learning'

When I was a kid I watched Sesame Street all the time. I loved it because it was so entertaining and interactive. That show made me excited to learn what the new letter of the day was and all kinds of information about words associated with that letter. I learned so much from the show without even realizing it at the time. When Sesame Street came out people most certainly were not ready for this kind of learning. They were still adapting to all the new technology being invented and the thought of TV teaching children seemed absurd, but people saw what this show was doing and understood that it was in fact educational. These days children learn in a much different way than our parents did and even us. I grew up with books, cassette tapes, and TV programs. Kids these days are being introduced to their learning with technology first. Their first toy was probably an electronic game of some sorts. Two year olds know how to work iphones and tablets without their parents help. My niece knows how to work my sister in laws phone better than she does and she's two! For christmas she got a kid version of a tablet and watches all her shows. She learns spanish and how to count. I swear that kid is smarter than I am. Technology, I believe, is helping children to learn better. It's developing their vocabulary and giving them an understanding of how things relate to each other. 

It is also very imporant for parents to be involved in their child's education though. Kids need exposure to education and if the parents don't provide that then they will fall behind. They need to interact someway with technology, so they can keep up with the advancing world around them. These videos give them a connection to deeper vocabulary meanings. It broadens their minds and allows for learning to occur without them even really knowing. Kids don't want to watch educational shows unless it's fun and interactive. That's what the creators of Sesame Street have been providing for almost 50 years. However, kids do need to understand that technology is more than just entertainment. Its'a way to learn and grow. Technology will allow them to research things they may have never learned before and give them connections to not just math, but science, and the science could be related to history. These days it's very important for children to be in the know about technology and people shouldn't try to stop that. 

Why would a K-8 student want to use technology for learning?

I sat down with 7 year old Sawyer, a first grader at St. Joseph Catholic School. I asked her how she felt about technology and how it could help her learn. 

"I love using my tablet for my homework. If I don't know how to spell a word, I speak into my tablet and ask it how to spell something. My mom always tells me to look it up in a dictionary, but if I don't know what letter it starts with, then I will never find it. I can also draw on my tablet and make art. Art class is my favorite. Sometimes my teacher assigns us homework to do on the computer and it's really fun. Its not boring and there's normally music that plays with it. During class time, my teacher will use this big white borad that is touch screen. We play fun games on there and I learn stuff too."

Sawyer is just learning how to read and she loves to read along with her tablet. She said that it feels like shes not even learning sometimes because its so fun. I wasn't shocked with anything she told me about how she learns because I know the way teachers teach is much more different than when I was in school. We didn't get smartboards until I entered high school. I can only imagine how much these kids are learning with technology. It allows them to open up different methods of learning and most of the students know how to use this technology better than the teachers. 

Technology is advancing so quickly it's impossible to imagine how this will change the classroom and the way we teach. It's still important for students to learn from textbooks, but those textbooks could be avaible online now. Some schools give each student a tablet or laptop and that's their textbook. They have their world of learning at their fingertips. Teachers can utilize all this technology in so many different ways. Students can conduct a lesson to their peers with this interactive technology. It allows for students to learn in a way they know best. We have to grow with the times and changing the ways in which we teach is crucial to helping these kids learn more effectively and efficiently.