EDT 6020 SPRING I WEEK SIX DISCUSSION

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Victoria Annand on February 19, 2014 at 5:51pm

I completely agree with you about learning from the students when it comes to technology! They are the best at figuring out things because it is their generation. We didn't learn technology until the end of high school/start of college, they start it in elementary. Letting them showcase their knowledge will also help expand it because then they will strive to be experts in it because they will be teaching it to others. As teachers we know that collaborative work and sharing out expands their knowledge.

Permalink Reply by Christopher Terranova on February 23, 2014 at 11:35am

I teach a computer engineering course and let me tell you that this article is very true. With new technology coming out every day and the upgrades of older technology every year, we have to stay on are toes and always research and read the next technology or trend coming out. There are some students in my class that struggle with computer technology or their peripherals and mostly they are the old students from the ages 40 on up. Younger students in my class that are 18-30 love helping the older students out. 

I alway try to read online forums or magazine articles to try and stay ahead of the technology game, because there is something new every day. Reading PC magazines really helps me stay informed so I can teach not only about technology but also about the future of technology. 

I always tell my students that my class is set up to be a collaborative environment, because with technology you can't always know everything so, if I miss something during a lecture I encourage my students  to jump in and add to it because, it is most likely something that everyone in the class can learn. 

Permalink Reply by Donna Smith on February 18, 2014 at 6:50pm

I chose to read “Taking A Closer Look At What The Research Says About Preschool” by Neal McCluskey. I chose this article because as a kindergarten teacher this is something my colleagues and I discuss frequently. With the term “rigor” being used in education we have more demands and expectations to have the students at higher levels than ever before. The issue with this is not all children come into kindergarten with the same level of education or knowledge. Some have been to preschool, but some have never attended school and may not even know their ABC’s or numbers.

With that said the problem is finding a beneficial pre-school for children to attend, which not all of them are. According to the article research on Head Start and Early Head Start programs which are federally funded at about $8 billion in just 2013 alone appear to produce few lasting positive effects, and some negative ones. Even though these pre-schools are federally funded doesn’t necessarily mean they are beneficial to their students. Some programs may not have the educational resources necessary to make them beneficial in preparing children for kindergarten.

Our students are expected to leave kindergarten reading at a beginning of the year 1^st grade level, and write at least 6 sentences on a single topic. They should know how to recognize numbers to 100 count them by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s and 10’s as well as add and subtract. There is more to it than that including digging deeper and explaining their understanding of mathematics. Now the problem with all of this is many of the students who come into our classrooms have not attended pre-school nor do they have parents who spend the time to work with them at home to obtain the knowledge they need to be successful.

President Barack Obama has proposed spending $75 billion over ten years to expand preschool services to all four-year-olds. This is a great initiative, but unless it is a quality program that is monitored well it is not necessarily beneficial to the students. Pre-school programs have been proven to benefit children long term when they are quality, however; without this knowledge it is more difficult for parents to choose a quality program for their child.

Permalink Reply by Donna Smith on February 18, 2014 at 7:51pm

Forgot to add my link sorry!

http://www.teachthought.com/trends/what-the-research-says-about-pre...

Permalink Reply by Victoria Annand on February 19, 2014 at 5:49pm

I imagine that kindergarten is a real challenge for those reasons that you stated; they don't really have any prior knowledge and some students have never even been to school before. The expectations that kindergarten teachers have is a huge task considering the blank slate that they start with! 

Permalink Reply by Donna Smith on February 20, 2014 at 7:43am

Victoria,

Kindergarten does tend to start of very challenging. It is also very stressful in the beginning of the year. However, as the year progresses and students start to gain their foundational skills it starts becoming less stressful. Once they have those initial skills needed getting them to read goes a little more smoothly. Just happens that without preschool some students are not reading at the same levels by the end of the year as others. 

Permalink Reply by Daniel Bossert on February 23, 2014 at 2:25pm

Hey Donna,

I skimmed through this article before I chose mine and thought it was very interesting. My office, until around Christmas, was in my district's preschool and I was able to see a lot of good and not so good things. It seemed to me that the curriculum was very loosely created and I saw a lot of variances between classrooms. I have a lot of friends who are kindergarten teachers and I know it's tough when the students' educational backgrounds are so different and possibly non-existent. I agree with you that the money Obama is spending on preschool needs to be used in ways that create quality programs with structure that helps students transition to kindergarten.

Permalink Reply by Christopher Terranova on February 19, 2014 at 4:09pm

http://www.teachthought.com/technology/50-reasons-smartphones-belon...:

I chose to read the article located on teachthought.com: "50 reasons It's Time For Smartphones In Every Classroom." This was a very interesting article to read especially for someone in my generation when it was a big no-no to use your phone in the classroom, let alone even bringing it to school at all. With new education technology trends, like BYOD (bring your own device), it's getting harder for teachers to say no to students because the use of a smartphone in the classroom can be highly engaging, motivational, and smartphones can create room for more student collaboration..

Although the author listed 50 reasons to bring smarphones in the classroom, I feel that they are all pretty much the same thought.

So the biggest reasons I picked out were: Google\ research, peer-to-peer sharing, educational podcasts\ videos, smartphones can supplement computers, and finally note taking (saving notes to the cloud). 

I agree with some aspects of this article, but the concept of bringing a Smartphone to the class is not for every teacher or classroom... yet. In my opinion, to allow every student in the classroom use a Smartphone would have to depend on the ages of the students, the subject of the class, the area of the school, and of course the teacher.

For every reason to allow students to use a smartphone in the classroom there is another reason to not allow smartphones in the classroom. My big reasons for not allowing smartphones in the classroom are: Facebook (distraction), non-educational sites (distraction), games (distraction), texting other students in the classroom another classroom (distraction), its distracting, having 25 students on a phone at once is impossible to control, and lastly some kids do not own a smartphone so they couldn't participate in class. In my opinion this could work more for students that are in higher education rather than student in k-12. Using a technology trend like BYOD will need plenty of planning and patience.  

Permalink Reply by James Wheatley on February 19, 2014 at 5:02pm

I agree with your comment on safety. I would love for people to use their phones for educational tasks only, but we know our students. Not all of them will be on the sites we want them to be on, and most would be playing flappy bird instead of doing their classwork. These could be incredible devices to work with however. Here is an idea....What about an "Educational Mode" for your phone much like airplane mode that would disable some features. A green light could be on the phone indicator showing that you are still in that mode. Perhaps the mode could disable texting, calls, games etc. but leave education apps and the web browser open? Just a thought. 

Permalink Reply by Laura Bianco on February 20, 2014 at 7:41am

James, I love your idea of an "educational mode" for a Smartphone!! I teach in higher ed and the biggest complaint I have about my students is that they are constantly using their phone for non-educational purposes during class. It is extremely distracting for me and their classmates sitting around them. Plus, they are missing important information that I am presenting in class! It is very frustrating. We have a block on the computers in our classrooms so that students cannot access Facebook or any other social networking sites on them. This helps minimize the distractions while they are working on assignments in the computer lab. It would be great if we could do the same thing on their phones!

Permalink Reply by Caitlin Mogg on February 20, 2014 at 4:08pm

Christopher,

The article that you chose is a such heated topic in education today.  There seem to be so many great reasons to allow smart phones in the classroom, yet I have never worked in a school or district where this was allowed.  I know that my current school has a no cell phone policy.  I think it is very difficult for districts to okay the use of cell phones in class because of the enormous amount of problems that have occurred because of cell phones.  Students can be irresponsible with them, teachers can be irresponsible with them, and there are just too many "what if's" that could happen.  I think that my biggest fear (aside from students not paying attention) is texting/messaging one another during class.  This could lead to cheating on tests and quizzes.  I know that it is one thing to allow mobile device use for collaboration and projects, and it would make sense to have students put their phones away during assessments, but as you said - allowing BYOD would require tons of patience, practice, rules and trust.  Students and teachers alike would have to agree to adhere to a strict set of guidelines and be respectful and stick to them.  This is tough to do with many age groups.

Thanks for sharing this article,

Caitlin

Permalink Reply by Daniel Bossert on February 23, 2014 at 2:36pm

Hey James,

I completely agree with you about the distractions that accompany the percieved benefits of using a smartphone in the classroom. I know that for me it is difficult to sit and write a paper or do productive work without the temptation to check espn or email getting the best of me. To ask middle or high school students to only perform educational tasks while in class is somewhat unrealistic. In most BYOD programs students and parents need to sign an agreement to only use mobile devices for their educational purposes but I am interested to know how this is enforced.

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