Blog Post #8

Part One and Part Two, This Is How We Dream - Dr.Richard Miller

In Dr. Miller's talk he shares more information on the ideas that we are using in EDM 310. Three ideas that he discusses are, teaching and learning at our fingertips, share knowledge and ideas freely, and the thought of not currently having the technology to teach the future programs. These ideas revolve around something that we are actively doing in EDM 310 which is building our PLN.

Reading books, writing research papers, and collaborating with others, has never been easier than now and tomorrow it will be even easier than today. Ebooks, online journals, magazines, and newspapers are a click away. It is even possible to compose a book report on a smart phone and digitally submit it to your teacher from anywhere with a cellular signal. Teaming up with other educators and professionals across the globe is a reality that doesn't take months anymore. Within in seconds your ideas are worldwide and in a lot of cases permanently embedded into the digital frontier.

Many educators are stingy with knowledge, and feel that they did the hard work and research for their great tactics for teaching and choose not to share. Imagine if the grandfathers of the digital age would have kept it for their personal use and never shared. We would still be using paper atlases to navigate summer vacations and we would still wait days or even weeks to correspond with friends and loved ones. Thankfully they shared and now Aunt B's famous pecan pie recipe will live on forever even if little Suzie decides not to be a homemaker. Men can't live forever(Randy Pausch), but their legacies prevail in the age of digital sharing. Sharing and building PLNs can make us more efficient as educators.

I have a conversation with my wife once in a while about where technology is going. Its hard to imagine what is next, but right now an elementary student is doodling the future on his/her notebook. Ideas that we can't even imagine now, will be implemented tomorrow.

Carly Pugh

Carly's Blog Post #12 was wonderful! The post itself and the videos really made me think about and question, what type of teacher I am going to be. It is too easy to get lost in our personal lives and forget that we have an obligation to the education of many. I used the word, obligation, because that's how a lot of educators see their jobs. The whole reason that I am becoming a teacher is the teachers that were instrumental in my learning. Being inspired by those teachers that truly cared about me and the person I was becoming. I grew up in the same small town as Carly and probably had some of the same teachers. After I graduated I would see my former teachers on a fairly regular basis. I had worked my way up in a pretty solid career of retail and many of my former teachers were proud of my accomplishments, but after 12 years of retail management I realized I was not pursuing the path that had originally been laid before me. I can not wait until I graduate as a certified teacher, and I can thank those that inspired my dream of becoming the teacher that they had been to me.

Out of the videos I watched from Carly's list, the one "Disability Means Possibility" stood out the most. How many times have we looked at someone and saw the disability? Usually pity always follows the thought of disability, and probably 99% of the time the person doesn't want pity. That person just wants to be another person in our eyes, they just want to be another Radiohead fan. That is a major hang up with a lot of educators is seeing the disability rather than the person. Seeing what that person can't do versus what they can do. Everyone is unique in their own way and it should not be a barrier to prevent learning.

Future Video Project

I think a good video project for EDM310 could be entitled "Mythbusters: EDM310". This video could take some of the horror stories and myths about this class and either declare them plausible or busted. I really enjoy the show Mythbusters and before taking EDM310 I heard a lot of stories about this class and how hard it was. I am taking the class and it is a challenging sometimes, but that's what this class is all about. I think the video idea of mythbusting EDM310 would be a great for future students to watch.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn

In several of my former blog post I discussed embracing change. Change is necessary for education to continue. Institutions have to remain open and innovative with their approach to learning or it could mean a generation lost, or a different avenue of education being pursued. Being prepared somewhat for where education is going is very important as students filter through this university into the schools. Students are being tested to death to fulfill an outdated approach to learning. Its now or never, change has to happen to continue to reach the kids of today. We can not setup our children for failure, by continuing to stick with old ways of teaching.

Scavenger Hunt 2.0

Edmodo is a social website for parents, students, and teachers to collaborate for anything school related. Assignments could be posted here. I think this would be awesome to use as a daily participation grade. I could post a quick topic about history or a current event and the students would have to research and post a comment to receive credit towards their participation grade. Also this could be a good way to stay connected with parents. Social media is the heart of the internet right now and people are more connected than ever.

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