Blog Assignment 3

A Vision of Students Today is a video concerning the learning environment in colleges. I completely agree with the concept of needing to integrate technology into our college learning environments. Everything I saw in the video is relevant in my college situation. Yes, I buy textbooks knowing I will probably never even open them. I do bring my computer to class. And, no, it's not usually schoolwork I'm doing. So I must agree with the concepts captured in the video.
Students today are technologically advanced. Most classrooms, however, are not. This poses a slight problem. Students typically get bored in their courses today and, therefore, choose to do other things such as talk on the phone, skip class, and get online while in class. I wouldn't take away anything in the video. Everything I saw is completely true. I cannot think of anything else I would add. I think the video encompassed all necessary information.

Kelly Hines’ post It’s Not About the Technology is also inspiring. I do think she makes rather valid points in her post here. Some teachers do have access to the technology and do not utilize it correctly. While I agree with what she had to say, however, I also believe that teachers cannot learn how to utilize these things when teaching without having them. It is true that learning technology can be done without having it on hand. But is it easier when it is at hand or when you look at pages in a book that tell you what to do when you finally get it? I would think more hands-on experience would be needed to really keep up with all the new innovations.
Ms. Hines also made a very valid point when saying teachers are always learners. As a teacher, one also becomes the student. A teacher is always learning new things from his or her students. I must completely agree with this. I think Ms. Hines is right for the most part. It is possible to teach technology without having it on hand. But I think it would take a very special teacher to be able to help the students really retain the information for long periods of time without the hands-on expertise. It would take a teacher who was also willing to be the student to teach with the technology. I think it totally depends on the teacher, the way they utilize what they are given, and the way they interact with their students.

I completely agree with Mr. Karl Fisch in his post on Fishbowl titled Is It Okay to Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?. The way Mr. Fisch puts matters into perspective here is incredible indeed. I think the way he compared being technologically illiterate today to being completely illiterate in the 20th century was a good comparison. If we as teachers and aspiring teachers see it as admirable to be illiterate in any sense of the term or unknowledgeable in any matter that could possibly help our students do well in the future, should we be teachers at all? I think not.
To embrace the idea that it would be okay or even admirable to not know something and be proud of it is blasphemy in itself. To think it would ever be okay to be a teacher with these ideals is even more absurd. I applaud Mr. Fischer on his well written and inspiring words.

I think the information given in Gary Hayes' Social Media Count is rather interesting. It shows us how fast technology is being passed on and how very many people are adapting to technology every second. As teachers and aspiring teachers I think it is very important that we keep up-to-date with new innovations so that we can utilize these in our classrooms. As previously mentioned in this post, we as teachers are not here to simply teach, but to learn as well. We need to learn these new technologies with our children and students.