Blog Post 2

Did You Know? By John Strange
This video was very interesting because it told many different facts about what is going on in our society today versus what was going on in the past. According to this video, English is becoming a universal language and the United States is the "smartest" country. According to the video, over 25% of the population of India with the highest IQ's out numbers the entire population of the United States. As a future educator I find this quite alarming. It makes me wonder what we are doing that is so wrong. Are we not pushing our children hard enough, are we pushing them too hard, or do we just expect them to teach themselves? It is estimated that 18 million Chinese speak English now and 300 million are "learners", according to the video, so that means that if the "learners" do speak Chinese fluently, there will be more Chinese who speak English than the entire population of the United States.

The video also stated that Youtube and Google are used quite extensively. More so than what we know. Every day millions of videos are uploaded and watched. We shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that we are the only ones using Youtube. Millions of searches are also made on Google every minute. In the past years this type of technology was not even here yet. Children did not have cell phones or computers. Now 93% of 8-18 year olds have computers, including minorities. Technology has become more and more advanced over the past few years and only has more room to grow. Most of the jobs that are created over the next few years will be using new technology, technology that we don't even know how to use yet. As educators we will be responsible for teaching these students how to use these technologies effectively.

Mr. Winkle Wakes by Matthew Needleman


This video was quite interesting. It starts out with a man named Mr. Winkle who slept for 100 years and awoke to find that the world had changed so much. He couldn't get over the fact that people used computers, printers, and facetime to communicate. It was strange to him. He decided since he was feeling so bad that he would go to a hospital, but once there, he realized that the hospital was just the same as everywhere else. People were kept alive by machines that breathed air into his lungs and Doctors looked at x-rays and used lasers to help make people better. Mr. Winkle was not used to this at all.

After walking down the road a bit, he finds a school and decides to step inside. Once inside he decides he likes what he sees because there are no computers, only teachers who lecture the kids and they take notes. He liked the fact that after 100 years at least schools had not changed by adding technology to the curriculum. I like how the creator of this video brought up the fact that technology has not been brought into the schools like it should be. In our society today technology is widely used by children and instead of educators embracing this, it seems like they have pushed it farther away. These children need to be taught how to use technology because of the fact that our society is going to be strictly a technology based society, we are well on our way there, if we're not there already.


Sir Ken Robinson: The Importance of Creativity


This video was great. I have felt for a long time that we are completely ignoring the creativity that children have. Instead of embracing it, we are pushing it away and trying to teach them to mask it because they should act a certain way in schools. In this video he brings about many different valid points. He compares education to religion and money, these are two very touch subjects, but when it comes to education, people get fired up as well because they believe that things should be done a certain way, but only a select few will actually take the steps to achieve their goals. I agree with what he said about the fact that society today squanders the talents of children in stead of accepting them. There are so many talented people who don't use their talents because they are taught from a young age that they will never get a job doing something such as being an artist, or a singer, or a dancer. So they just steer clear of doing those things.

He stated that educators tend to focus on the head of a child. Instead of allowing them to use their whole body, we try to allow them to only use their heads. Children are taught that if they make a mistake or mess up that it is the worst thing that can happen. What they aren't taught is that you learn by making mistakes. If you never make mistakes, then you never learn from them. He states "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you can never come up with anything original." I love this line because society makes children believe that if they mess up or make a mistake that their life is over! This isn't so. The way you learn is by making mistakes. I have often wondered myself why the arts aren't put at a higher level in schools. Children are being educated in a world where they are taught that learning can't be fun. Creativity is not good so therefore children are ashamed of being creative.


A Vision for 21st Century Learning by

The main arguments to this video are that students are being forced to sit in front of a teacher that crams their heads full of facts that they more than likely won't remember a year from now. It is because they aren't learning. Most of these students, as the video said, have access to a computer before they are in Kindergarten. If they are using a computer efficiently before that then they will be bored by the time they reach grade school and they won't learn anything. Technology is a major part of our society today. Almost every job uses technology in some way or another. We are a technology literate society. If we aren't teaching these children how to be technologically literate, then we are falling short of what being an educator is all about.


Harness Your Students Digital Smarts by Vicki Davis

I agree with everything this video stated. There are so many students that cannot learn because they aren't the type of learner that can use a piece of paper and a pen to learn things. Many students are hands on learners and it is extremely hard for them to sit and learn by hearing a lecture. When students are taught by using a computer they are given a chance to learn things on their own. These students taught the teacher many things that she didn't already know herself.

These students were located in Georgia, and the stated that it was a very rural part of Georgia. Because this teacher stepped out and decided to teach these students many different things about technology they now know how to blog as well as use different technologies. These students have been able to read blogs by other students around the world and it has opened up the door for them to have access to other countries all around the world.