Hello,
The article for this week showed the versatile and ever-changing affect that technology has on students. Though the excerpts were from over 20 years ago, the influence of technology, especially computers, is still growing. I even remember playing "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?" and Mavis Beacon typing, where I felt so involved in a game that I didn't realize I was actually learning. Nowadays, students can interact with computers in so many ways and in so many subjects, where "teachers encourage students to make mistakes, revise, and rethink their original hypotheses, respecting their ability to learn without formal, one-way instruction (p. 3)." The computer is a teacher aide and also a tool that is essential for real-world success. However, as we evolve deeper into this information age, educators may negatively take advantage of technology by relying on it as a means to instruct without a proper curriculum intact. On page 4 it is clearly stated, "teachers still need to concentrate on asking good questions, providing challenges, and using technology only if it is appropriate and useful."
While working on the "Fournets" assignment, I was surprised by the difference in results I was acquiring in the seperate searches. I was always conscious of the advanced search but never really utilized it, for it seemed to take as long thinking about what to say "exactly" or what to "leave out" as it would if I just did a general search. I guess if I force myself to practice it, it will surely benefit me in the future.
1 comment:
Hi David,
I appreciated your comment about teachers needing to be careful about relying on computers to instruct and teach. I think teaching students the right questions to ask is vital to becoming a true thinker. I think we have to make the students aware that there is rarely, if ever, one right answer, and that answers change with time. They must look for an appropriate effective answer that meets there needs at the time.
In the past, teachers thought that knowing the answers or how to do something made them good teachers. I disagree with that. Knowing how to get the information across to someone can be very challenging. A teacher must know a lot about their students and be able to use what they know as a frame for adding new information on to. Because of our different frames of references, concepts and words can mean different things to different people. It takes a lot of patience to figure each student out, and every student is absolutely different. Gwen
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