Blog #8

I loved the way that the teacher went about teaching in her classroom in the first article and thought that she was very effective and passionate about what she was doing. I hope that I can be like this in my own future classroom. I really liked how she found the idea of combining reading, writing, and technology as a way to help improve student’s literacy needs instead of a challenge that couldn’t be met. She really focused on what she thought could benefit her students the most and took the time to really understand them, which I thought was wonderful! Also, by stating a goal of what she wanted to get out of her teaching, I think she made her lessons even more powerful because she knew exactly what she wanted to accomplish.

Another thing I found interesting was the quote “the technology is present in schools, but the focus of curriculum in the schools is still based on traditional forms of text” (Tarasiuk 544). I think that this sends a powerful message that something needs to be done to change this. By having the mind-set in schools that “scarcity and production of goods is valued” (Tarasiuk 544) and the mind-set that “participation and dispersal of goods and information is valued” (Tarasiuk 544) among students, we are lacking at getting an effective teaching across. I believe that we should combine these two values and incorporate that into our teaching. Not one way is effective on its own, so I believe a combination of this should be used.

I agree with the author when she talks about how “schools should expand their notions of literacy instruction and treat it as reading and writing for the purposes of communicating in many traditional and contemporary modes using multiple tools and resources” (Tarasiuk 544). I think that by teaching in this way, students are able to relate better to what they are learning and they are learning skills that will actually be useful and put into practice when they are in the real-world.

The many different activities used by the teacher that helped to enhance the student’s skills they had already and build new ones were very creative to me. I loved that she created her own type of survey to figure out where her students stood before going about anything. I think the idea of using Wikis in the classroom is great! Students would definitely show much more effort in their work and enjoyment, especially since this is something quite different than the approaches so often used in the classroom. Just by using a different tool, she even saw that they had more collaboration and discussion among each other and created things on their own that were not even required assignments! I think that this is wonderful and shows that her teaching truly was powerful and effective. Also, the fact that students were actually proud of their work says a lot.

I would love to incorporate the idea of digital book talks in my classroom. I thought that this was great and a creative approach to a lesson. The fact that students “used strategies…for real reasons, not just to prove to me that they could use those strategies” (Tarasiuk 549) was very powerful to me. It showed me that even though you’re not teaching your lesson in a traditional manner, students are gaining knowledge that they should be, even more probably than they would from a “normal” lesson.

While I love all the ideas discussed by the author and how she incorporated technology with students, one question kept coming up in the back of my mind however. How would you go about teaching in this way to make it work for those students without access to technology at home?

The author’s use of reflection to see how she changed her teaching and what her emotions and reactions, as well as the students, were was very powerful to me.  I really liked how she would send students to other groups of students if they had a question about what another group did instead of explaining it to them. She was helping them to think for themselves which I think is important. I also really enjoyed the fact that she didn’t teach about the technology being used, but rather showed examples and explained the guidelines of their assignments and had students teach each other. I think that this is a key point when incorporating technology into the classrooms. While many teachers want to incorporate this, they go about it the wrong way. They often teach about how to use the technology before actually diving into it. I think it should be the opposite way because often the students know so much more about the equipment being used than the teacher.

When the teacher described herself as feeling uncomfortable and questioning what she was doing at times, I think I would feel similar to her. The important thing though was that she stuck with it and saw the many benefits that came out of it. After reading this article, I am definitely going to try and incorporate as much technology into the classroom as I can because I think students learn a lot more this way and will actually find it useful in their future.

Overall, I think it is important that teachers accept this change that needs to be made in the classrooms and realize that even though your classroom may not sound like the traditional classroom when using this new type of teaching that does not necessarily mean that students are not learning. It often means that they gaining much more than you or they themselves even realize. I think that we need to put our anxiety to the side, and incorporate these new ways into the classroom. Ultimately, I think that there will be a numerous amount of benefits that come from this.

I read Bauerlein’s article Growing Up for Dummies. I really enjoyed this article and agreed with some of his points made. I liked how he said that “the digital revolution has empowered students in certain ways while also eroding their attention spans and analytical abilities” (McGrath 2). I think that this is absolutely true. I think that students are very powerful with all the technology and can do a lot of beneficial things, but they have little attention spans and always need to be multi-tasking with things, which is not always the best thing. Also, “there are just too many choices to make” (McGrath 2) stood out to me and I believe this 100%! It is hard enough even going to the grocery store to pick out something like cereal when there are over a hundred different choices it seems! I often think to myself this same thought, that there are too many choices sometimes! I disagree however with the quote “never have American students had it so easy, and never have they achieved less” (McGrath 2). I don’t think that it is necessarily easy for students, in fact it might be harder, with having all of these different resources and choices to go to and not knowing where to begin. I also don’t think that they are achieving less. I think that there may be more distractions and not as deep of learning at times, but I don’t think that it all comes down to this generation being the problem. Perhaps the other generations are not doing enough to help teach this generation the correct skills to be a powerful achiever in today’s society. Maybe the educators need to change as well to help this generation no longer be the so-called “dumbest generation”?

All of the articles this week really made me think about the power of technology and I found Bauerlein’s articles to be highly enjoyable and fun to read!