Week 3

I just double checked and this wasn't there... so I'm reposting!

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The videos were interesting in focus. As a literature teacher, it was hard for me to make some direct connections to my content. The writing piece made sense though. Additionally, I think that students often resist technology that leads to higher order learning. I know that sounds negative, but it’s been my experience. I have to really work to get my students to be critical users of technology, not just passive consumers. It’s a challenge to set up assignments that force thinking, not just retrieval or copying of information. I agree that my students are “digital natives” and see technology as a necessary component of their daily lives. They are wired to receive information differently, to share information differently and to view what is “public” very differently than I have been. When Sam in the video lists World of Warcraft as one of her top technologies, I have to stop for a second because I have always seen WoW as simply a game and a time waster. Obviously, the digital generation views it differently. I get her mother’s comments about problem solving, etc. and also thought it was significant that she learns new technologies by simply jumping in and trying. I saw that with my own son, who could decipher games on the Wii and the DS even before he could read. I always want to read the directions and by the time I’m done, the kids have figured it out!

I do think technology is good for differentiating instruction and assessment. Scan and read machines such as a Kurweil reader allow students access to information aurally. The internet makes it relatively easy to find the same information at different reading levels and to different depths, using word processors and online test creators means that it’s less time consuming to create accommodated or modified assessments, and that students can use spellcheckers and typing as well. The comment during the video that we live in a “knowledge economy” where basic facts aren’t that important any more is true. It seems pointless – especially to students – to make them memorize dates or names of kings when they can find it online in seconds.

If I were teaching in an ideal world, I would have technology constantly available and working, so that I wasn’t an addition to my classroom, but one of the resources I had available to facilitate student learning. In fact, I would probably learn a lot from my students in such a world. Although watching the videos I wonder if there’s a place for classic literature in this new world. I have always seen, and taught, literature as a way to peer inside another world, other lives and challenges. Perhaps students no longer need to read in order to dissect common themes, they just need the right video game.