Friday, September 24, 2010

21st Century Classroom?


We are living in the 21st century, but are our classrooms "living" in it with us? Many things are going on out on the internet that we should be embracing, but many schools are doing just the opposite and blocking everything from the students. Dr. Z Reflects and Angela Maiers Educational Services blogs discuss these issues, but from opposite perspectives.


Dr. Z Reflects had a posting about a school who got rid of internet filters. They are now allowing students to take responsibility in what they are doing. They also are allowing them to be open to the 21st century world around them while they are preparing themselves to enter it after graduation. This is all taking place in a Wisconsin, which is not very far from us.


On the oposite end, Angela Maiers Educational Services had a video on hers that discussed this same topic, but the video was based on a middle school principal who is completely against these 21st century tools, but in the video he is discussing Facebook. He believes that parents should ban their kids from it because of cyber bullying issues. Even though he is working to prevent the cyber bullying from occurring, he is going about it in the wrong way. The person who created this video, which is also on youtube, had some text to go along with it which really made sense. If we are going to ban our kids from Facebook because of cyber bullying, why don't we ban them from recess, and the lunch room. That is where a lot of bullying occurs. We don't do this, though and it is not realistic. Neither is banning them from Facebook. Teaching students how these tools should be used and about bullying in general are topics that should just be discussed. Schools should have motivational speakers come for assemblies and bullying should be discussed in the classroom itself. Teaching isn't all about content, but teaching students to be respectful citizens and human beings as well.


I think that some teachers don't view their students as being capable to make decisions. If we gard them and shelter them from the world around us, then we are not doing any good for them. We need to open them up to the world around them and teach them about being responsible in using the tools. These blogs really got me thinking about these issues as well as other items they dicussed. I especially like how these two had relatable topics and yet they were different. I have been viewing others, but these two seemed to have information that jumped right out at me. I am looking for to continuing my blogging experience and learning more about educational technologies!

7 comments:

  1. Emily,

    I agree that schools need to provide more rigorous and relevant activities. I found this great website, http://holicong.wikispaces.com/file/view/teaching+for+rigor+and+relevance.pdf, that explains how teachers should be teaching rigorous and relevant lessons. The goal of Dr. Bill Daggett's rigor/relevance framework is to expose students to the world outside them to prepare them for life after high school. I found this word document created by Dr. Bill Daggett describing his framework:
    http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&q=rigor+and+relevance+quadrant&aq=2&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=rigor+and+re&gs_rfai=CEw7oIEyeTOjJI4uEhQSxtLkwAAAAqgQFT9C7KcE

    I thought these resources expanded on what you were talking about in your blog. It seems like many people know what students today want; it's just a matter of changing their mindset in how they are teaching.

    Billie

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  2. EdTechStudent,

    I like how you matched these two blog postings to show opposing points of view. That is important. It is too easy to get caught up in a single point of view.

    The need for relevance is increasing. The way we have been teaching is becoming Dangerously Irrelevant. When we do authentic activities where more than just the teacher are going to be reading them, it brings about a greater importance to the activity.

    I look forward to your relating what you have been learning through reading your interesting collection of blogs

    Z

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  3. Emily,

    I also agree that school activities need to transition and become rigorous and relevant. I believe that disabling filters helps this transition occur because it opens students up to numerous resources that are very valuable. On the other end of the spectrum I can also see where Angela is coming from. These filters do prevent students from accessing sites they shouldn't. However, the question I would pose to her is if students don't learn about web safety in school, who will teach them? Is it the schools job to teach web safety?

    Jarod

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  4. Emily,
    I, too am most drawn to your ability to talk about the same topic from two different "blog points of view." As a post-secondary instructor, I very much like to keep my own facebook a private place apart from my students. I create Wikis and use the online course systems (Angel, Blackboard, elearning) to keep a professional distance from my students. However, I do use Facebook for rhetorical analysis. Much like Dr. Z reflects, students need to be able to decipher the information that they encounter online and should always think about purpose, audience, intended audience and actual audience when they post something on the internet. I hope to get them thinking while teaching them to make sound academic and safe personal decisions online.
    Thank you,
    Shelly

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  5. Emily,

    I agree with you. I think students need to be able to search on many different sites but they need to learn their own disciplines so they won't get caught up on facebook when they should be doing homework. I liked how you had the opposing views on your blog. They were both very interesting and provided great debate from both sides.

    Colleen

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  6. I am really going to go the opposite direction to what you have discussed here. Before I do that, I would like to thank you for bringing this issue up. This is hot button issue that many of us (parents and teachers)are not willing to discuss at all. But one thing that is the worst is keeping quiet about it. First school operate on level and so I did not here you mention what age of school kids this blog is concerned about. For this reason I beg to differ with you.
    Second, as much as I agree with you about cyberbullying, I think there is a real threat online molester, stalkers, predators and deviants have targeted children online. They have nothing to do but bay for little Innocent kids self esteem, future dreams and their mental, physical and psychological well being. And you know what they are computer geeks. I expected that you would have mentioned that by probably mentioning access control of certain site to kids like adult sites and others. This document explains it all, http://coe.ksu.edu/bailey/filterpaper.pdf/">Electronic Fences or Free-Range Kids
    But still controls does little to keep them safe. On the other hand, if there is control of what site kids can access then it is fine but then it goes back to the issue of levels that I mentioned above.

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  7. I think that having relvant things in the classroom is increasingly important! I agree that the principle is going about the facebook issue all the wrong way. I think teachers, school adminstrators and parents need to be careful how they approach technology. For those that are not tech savy the unknown can seem dangerous and scary.

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