Session 5- McNish

After completing the readings for this week I was struck with several reactions. It has become clear to me that as educators we have to hop on board the technology wave in order to fully be advocates for our students.

Klopfer writes, “Undoubtedly, without these recent technologies (i.e. digital games, Web 2.0, etc.) in the classroom, strong lessons can still be achieved, but there’s a sharp disconnect between the way students are taught in school and the way the outside world approaches socialization, meaning-making, and accomplishment.” (2009) Our students will be growing up in an age where technology will be a part of both their social and working life and if we want to prepare them to be responsible citizens we cannot deny teaching them valuable skills. It is also clear that because technology plays a role in their social life we might better be able to guide their learning if we incorporate their interests into our teaching.

As usual these articles get me really curious/energized for what my classroom has the possibility to look and sound like, but also overwhelmed by the amount of catching up that I have to do. After reading the Klopfer article I felt more empowered because of the descriptions of various games, simulations and websites, and how they were implemented in classrooms. I was able to explore some of them and see their value for myself. I think that with teacher scaffolding our students will be able to play a part in their own education and I think that is really exciting!

With this said, I think that we have to get our schools on board. I think that having staff development days solely based around using new technologies (media) in the classroom would be very beneficial. Even a short tutorial on how to use a smart board would be great! I was reading some of the responses to Mr. Richardson’s blog and one woman wrote about saying she tried to create a blog in math class so that her students to communicate with each other on how they were solving problems, but that in school her blog was blocked and she was unable to use it in classroom. I think that teachers and their schools need to get on the same progressive page and that it needs to happen sooner rather than later.