Elevating the Education Reform Dialog

I have recently listened to the recording of a Webinar, created by Steve hargadon, on October 2010. It was about the voice given to the teachers in the educational system. Why can’t the teachers bring their point of view concerning the reform? Nobody really like it, people whine about it, and despite all of this drama; it remains.

 

My personal point of view on this matter is simply that everyone should stop whining about it and start to find significant solution to fix the problem. If we don’t; students will keep on dropping school, teachers will keep on whining and quitting their profession due to a lack of passion and, most importantly, due to a lack of respect.

I believe that there are bad teachers, it has never and will never have anything to do with the reform. But I also believe that if teachers’ needs and voice was more heard and taken into consideration; the educational system would be in a much better shape. Teachers are in the best position to identify students’ needs and to recognize what is missing in the programs as well as what is useless in it. It makes no sense to have people, above the ones on the field, taking majors decisions that barely affect their position.

I did not enjoy that webinar for the only reason that it was too long and too repetitive. However, I believe in the idea that there is a piece of the puzzle that is missing in the educational system, and that is the teachers’ voice.

Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts

  -   Davis believes that students need more than a sheet and paper and a pencil to fully develop their academic’s performances. She believes that in order to attract the attention of all of the students; they need to feel personally invested in the process. The goal is to connect students to the world. This is where media tools become interesting for students all around the world.  It offers, to students, great possibilities when it comes to sharing ideas, and learning more about interesting topics in order to develop their critical thinking skills.

  -   First of all, she stated that what empower students is the feeling of sharing with one and another. She thinks that students should be thinkers, and that they should be provided with stimulating materials that shall raise their level of interest high enough to provoke motivation and curiosity about related topics which would also develop their critical thinking skill. There are programs in which students learn how to teach which is very interesting since it do not only serve them as a great revision tool, but they also develop their metacognitive skill.

  -   When you got great ability with computers, it feels like there is no limit to what you can do. If students are raised to master technologies, they will, without a doubt achieve great things. They are exposed to other cultures therefore; they are exposed to a different way of seeing and considering things which contribute to respect for individual’s opinions and which also inspire them to enlarge their way of seeing things.

  -   I believe that E-tandem, for example, should be used during our TLE-1041’s course. IT would be great to share email with low level students during a whole session. Future teachers could improve their metacognitive skill while students could benefit from formals reviews in relation to their performance, and they could also benefit from exchanges of good quality.  I would, as well, use a forum of discussion with my classroom, about the same way Sabrina Priego does with her own students.

The digital generation project

Digital Technologies rise in importance within societies. Henry Jenkins believes in the importance of forming future citizens that are fluent with technology. I am part of the digital immigrant’s generation. I was introduced to internet only at the age of 16, and got my first laptop at the age of 29. My nephew received a laptop on his 8th birthday. He has been using computers by himself since the age of 5. He is a digital native, and it will be easier for him to phase with various technologies in the future. ITC must be acquire at school since it introduces learners to infinite possibilities and enable them to develop their digital skills in order to, one day, use those skills in a professional, personal, and relational context. He wants education to cope with this concept in order to raise a digital generation
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I believe that it is normal for schools to not provide an assigned computer to each student in order to fully consider technology as a fundamental tool. First, not all schools would have the budget. Instead, I think that there should be a way for students to be provided an amount of 500$, to purchase one laptop, each 5 year or so. Laptops would be an obligatory material. The rooter could be cut off to prevent kids on going online for personal purposes. Once the teacher announces that it is now time to use the internet, he/she simply turn the rooter on. I do believe that it is important for the environment, as well for the students’ future given the fact that everything is done electronically now. Adult and young people relate to each other. It is great for collaborative works and to raise students’ confidence in students given that they feel talented with digital technologies. Students and teacher can even switch role in the class, since it could happen that a teacher do not understand software and a have a student to help him/her. However, given the fact that teachers are not going to be the only expert in the place, it might be terrifying for schools. Maybe teachers are not yet ready to be corrected by a student in front of the group.

According to recent studies by the Pew Center on the Internet And American Life, “more than half of American teens online have produced media content and about a third have circulated media that they have produced beyond their immediate friends and family.” At the university level, we are often asked to not use our laptops in class to prevent disturbance. Furthermore, in my program, I have only one course that introduces me to ITC. I do not think it will be sufficient to make me enough an expert at ITC to teach my field using ITC efficiently.

The biggest opportunity is to raise a generation of kids who will prefer technologies to traditional methods. It will also raise future citizens who will care for the environment, and evolve in a digital society. One challenge is to have teachers with adequate digital skills and for that; teachers must be provided with more courses in relation to digital technologies.

It means, even if you are given infinite information about topics, you have got to be honest and to avoid plagiarism. Know that there are tools available for teachers to verify data on the internet to prevent plagiarism since it is not accepted anywhere. There will be majors’ consequences therefore; learners have to be introduced to those consequences. Nobody wants to have their ideas stolen. Do not steal other people’s ideas and if you like them; use references in order to give credits to who deserve it. Remixing is however accepted, everything starts from an idea that we have been exposed to therefore; we can get inspired by previous works in order to combine our existing knowledge about the target topic and to explore it more in depth by combining it with our own discoveries.

School that works - Wiki - To collaboarate all together

This project was born starting with a question; How to make a teaching process that is proven to be successful and digitalize it?

The project “School that works” main’s objective was to make, available to all the teachers across a same district, the different way of teaching concepts proven to be successful with students. The main concept was to help and to collaborate all together. School that works is a way for teachers to share their resources – syllabuses, homework, and interactive activities. It is a great way to introduce students to a lot of possibilities.

The students’ response to wiki is quite positive. They also feel a sense of connectedness knowing that others kids are learning the same things as they do.

I think it wiki is an amazing project. As a future teacher, I am very interested in what more experimented teachers have to offer. The distribution of information is also appealing and makes it easier to locate topics that reach learners' age ranges. They share teaching methods such as “how to create a videos” or other tip to make teaching more innovative. I hope we will have access to something similar in quebec.

Goodplay project

Goodplay project is essential nowadays given the fact that there is too often a lack of ethics within online exchanges. This project's main objective is to explore the ethical character of young people’s activities in the new digital media. They seek to understand how young people conceptualize their participation in virtual worlds and the ethical considerations that guide their conduct. Five themes are explored in relation to ethics: sense of identity, sense of privacy, ownership and authorship, credibility, and participation. The Goodplay project's main focus is to develop classroom exercises to encourage high school-aged youth to reflect on the ethical implications of their online activities.


Sense of identity: Sometime, we feel protected by the fact that we are anonymous and we tend to be brutally honest with others and tend to even use our anonymity to release personal frustrations on others. It is important to consider ethics if we want to fully enjoy the potential of virtual exchanges. It would be a very depressive digital world if the only things we would find of blogs if comments filled with viciousness.

Sense of privacy: It is important for internet users to know the importance and the consequences of privacy on the net. It is a way to protect themselves against online predators, and robbery. To decide to not be anonymous has certain inconvenient and restrictions. Never display your personal information like phone number, address, and even events you may attends in a near future.

Parents need to be active observers when it comes to their children’s activities on the internet if they are to completely trust their children’s sense of responsibility when it comes to privacy. They have got to maintain a good communicative relationship with them in order to agree on respecting their children privacy.

It is important to remember that blogging is all about sharing therefore; make sure that you share things you would like to also receive.