Blog Post 2

The central message in "Mr. Dancealot" was that students cannot accurately learn by sitting and listening to teachers simply talk. You have to practice in order to grasp what you are being taught. When students are exposed to only notes being read, and no active practice is being paired with these notes, nothing is being accomplished. The author makes his case by showing the students starting to take their final. These students have their notes in their hands and still cannot do what they need to do correctly. They have not learned any dance moves. This proves that there is nothing for the brain to attach this information to. This case is also proven by watching how inattentive the students are during the lecture. They are all struggling to pay attention. I absolutely agree with his conclusion. Without activity, there is no retention of this knowledge. Working together, especially in a class like Dance, is imperative for knowledge. The information learned has to be applied in order to create knowledge!

In the video "Teaching in the 21st Century," Roberts states that teaching is constantly changing. Teaching now means that we must use the technology we have today and engage our students, not just entertain them. Roberts said in the video: "Teachers are not the main source of knowledge. We are the filter." That statement cannot be more true. With all of the technology at students' fingertips, if there is something that they do not understand, they can simply look it up on the internet. I know that is something I do almost every day. If I do not know the answer to a question, I will simply pull out my phone and type the question into my internet search bar. With the way that technology is growing, there is no limit on the information that my future students will be able to obtain. Because of this, I will have to use this technology in my classroom. The technology in my classroom will be beneficial in two ways: keeping students engaged in lessons, and making the students feel the need to learn while in school. I know many times in school when I would say "Well, I will just look this up later when I get home," instead of paying attention in class. Putting technology in the classroom will make students feel better about learning because they are welcome to use their electronic devices instead of being forced to keep them in their back packs. I believe this type of learning will help widen students' acceptance to new ways of learning. For example, I am not completely comfortable with the way EDM 310 is structured because of how all of my other classes have been set up. But, my future students would be comfortable with this structure because technology will be so ingrained into their classrooms and ways of learning.

"The Networked Student" video really showed how independent students can be, while staying connected to their teachers. In the video the question "Why does the networked student even need a teacher?" was asked. My answer to that is: the networked student needs their teacher because they service as a guide. The teacher helps the networked student learn how to effectively communicate within their networks. When students first begin the journey into networked classrooms, they do not know where to go or what to do. These beginning stages is when the teacher is most valuable to the student. They will help the student get their "foot in the door," and help them make the connections they need to succeed in the course.

In "Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts," she shows how to use technology in the classroom to help students succeed. One of her main focuses in the video is that collaboration is extremely successful. Throughout the video, Vicki has her students working collaboratively to not only teach themselves, but their classmates also. Vicki states in the video that "Only paper, and only pencil, then only certain types of children are going to succeed." This statement is one that made a light bulb go off inside my head when I heard it. I never quite thought about using technology as an alternative to the classic paper and pencil that students are far too used to. Not everyone learns the same way, and the technology in her classroom can really help those students who learn differently, succeed. I loved how her way of teaching helps empower students to teach themselves. That gives students a great feeling of accomplishment whenever they can say "I taught myself that!"

Throughout my watching of "Who's ahead in the Race?," I really learned a lot. I have been wondering why EDM is such a stressful class for me, and watching this video made me realize why. These elementary school students are so ahead of college students in this race because the major use of technology in classrooms is all they know. These students are not like the college students in the sense that the college students didn't have the technology in their classrooms. Our elementary school was only filled with paper, pens, pencils, and crayons. We were allowed to use computers as a reward for finishing what we were supposed to. In the growing 21st century classrooms, elementary school students are encouraged and required to use technology as a learning aid. They have no idea how thankful they will be that they were taught from the beginning how to use technology in this manner. This is going to be key to their adaptation and success in their adulthood.

I loved the concept shown in the video "Flipping the Classroom." This was something new for me! I had never heard of flipping a classroom before this video. I think that this approach could be very useful to me in my future classroom. But, I do have slightly mixed feelings about it. The bad side I see to this is: if a student watches this video and finds a subject to be "too tough" and frustrating that they give up, will they be penalized for not doing the sheet for that night? I know that sometimes students need to be physically shown how to do something before they can properly understand the subject. I often times find myself to be in that situation. But there is a huge positive side to this concept: students will be more willing to pay attention and include themselves in the lesson the next day because they know about the material already. This would definitely be a concept that I would want to try out in my future classroom.