Sunday, June 2, 2013

Blog Post 2

The video Mr. Dancealot is a perfect example of our current education system. It takes the sit down, shut up, and listen approach to teaching. This approach does not work. The students in the video were bored out of their minds sitting there, and likewise the class attendance declined throughout the video. It bothers me that we can expect students to want to learn when they cannot and are not even encouraged to be involved in their education.

The video The Networked Student describes a modern day student that is encouraged to use technology. Instead of the standard textbook and class lectures, this modern student has both classes and personal online learning. Through his online learning connections, who are possible other students, teachers, and college professors, he is able to read and understand a given topic more in depth than your average textbook allows. With the extended amount of knowledge he is able to gain using the internet, the teachers primary job is to reinforce the information.

I love the fact that this 21st century student was in control of his learning. Through technology and this idea of connectivism he is able to create and control what he learns. By using blogs, scholarly articles, Itunes U, and other resources he is able to read and listen to some of the most educated people that specialize on his given topic. Not only is he able to read and listen to others knowledge, but he can exchange ideas with numerous individuals to further his understanding and knowledge. This is a great modern day idea that is not being used by a majority of students. It baffles me why it is not the most popular way of teaching in our schools. Every answer a student could want is right here, on the internet, but instead we are relying on sometimes outdated textbooks that may only partially cover an issue.

Another aspect of this video that I admire is that the teacher has taken a step back. She may have all the answers and knowledge to a topic, but she is encouraging students to learn for themselves using their resources. She is not dictating what they learn and simply encouraging them to learn.

REVISED

Encouraging Teacher

5 comments:

  1. Maggie
    I enjoyed reading your post, and thought it was very good. I agree with your post saying that students are still taught with outdated textbooks, and instead should be allowed to use the internet and find many different materials on one topic. I also believe that students should be allowed to think for themselves, and not just have information poured into them. If information is just given to a student they are more likely to forget it than if they found it out for themselves.

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  2. Maggie,
    Your post was spot on. This open style of teaching is being heard by more and more people every day. I honestly had never heard of it until Dr. Strange's class. Hopefully, with more blogs, videos and social media "advertisement", the old Burp-Back Education will become nonexistent. In your third paragraph, sixth line, between the second and third words it looks like you're missing the word "is". Other than that, I see nothing wrong!

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  3. It baffles me too!.

    None of us ever know it all!

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  4. Maggie,

    I thought your post was great, but I think you may have misunderstood me when I explained the instructions for this post. You didn't need to include the required portion of your group mates' posts. Just the portions that they were assigned in addition to the required section. So, the stuff that they wrote about Mr Dancelot is not necessary in your post. Other than that, I am happy to see that you included links properly and have an image with the ALT and TITLE done right. Good work!

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