Sunday, March 29, 2009
Post 2 - Week 3
A Vision of Students Today
mwesch, 10/12/2007, retrieved March 26, 2009
Professor Michael Wesch & students of the Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Class of Spring 2007 Kansas State University CC Some Rights Reserved.
Digital ethnography @Kansas State University
This video was the most searing condemnation of business as usual in education for me. I am a "50 something" with 30 years experience in education - I was brought up short with the magnitude of change in a student's world. Not only are the students doing so many more interactions through technology, but they are aware of more of the world around them. They see the discrepancies between their lives and lives of people across the globe or across their city. It has spurred me on to gain more knowledge of the technology to use with students and educators. What do you think?
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Darn it, it happened again. I thought for sure I had the address linked...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o
Once you view the video, you'll see why I'm so chagrined with my own mistakes while using technology....
I have mixed feelings on the video. There is no doubt education needs to continually adjust to technology and the ways young people live. However, as a 26 year old not far removed from undergrad, I found it a little inaccurate. Are our students the victims of some terrible situation? Spending 10 hours a day watching TV and being online was largely the result of having too much time on my hands. I got a lot out of my classes which were mainly the traditional methods of instruction shown in the video. Some students may not learn well in those situations, but I can say with confidence that many do (including many of my current students). Maybe our focus should be less about a sweeping revolution criticizing what many of our great educators have been effectively doing and more on creating a more dynamic instruction that incorporates the new with the old. Our older teachers don't need condemned, they are the best we have. We just need to continually work to improve our methods in the classroom.
ReplyDeleteJoe
..sorry if this was too much of my on my soapbox. I just feel our calls for changes don't give enough respect for what we have been doing sometimes.
Pam,
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with the video. I grew up in the age of computers and technology. My 5th graders today have cell phones, their own laptops, and their own ipods. How do you compete with that? YOu don;t, you find ways to use them to help educate. Otherwise you are fighting a losing battle and Itunes and Wii wins.
Hi Pam;
ReplyDeleteThis video is definitely thought provoking. It made me feel sad because the students looked sad or had no expressions at all on their faces. If the students were holding up signs about their goals, hopes, and dreams it didn't seem like they had much to look forward to.
I teach technology classes at Santa Fe College and my classrooms don't accommodate more that 20 students. Even if there were more computer stations in the classroom I don't think I could teach more than that number of students. It is slow going but we are definitely teaching our students technology skills that will help them when they enter the work force.