Blog Post #8

This Is How We Dream
Richard Miller obviously put a lot of thought into these videos. He stresses that the way the world of technology is changing is incremental, not fundamental. All of the new and collaborative ways we have learned to use technology are an additional gain to our education system. The way people learn in the world is changing.

He talks about "sharing knowledge infinitely" which really made me think. There was a time when people had to buy a book, or rent a book from the library to find information they were seeking. With the way technology has changed, people have access to free information that does not just include text. You can find videos, pictures, audio, and text all in one for a collaborative learning experience. The best thing about it is that everyone can access this information at the same time for free. It does not go anywhere, you do not have to return it, and people can share their knowledge with everyone. Richard Miller makes the point that we can use this advance in technology to "push ideas into our culture." Everywhere you look there is technology being used so we can make use of this, and incorporate our ideas for people to think about.

Richard Miller says that as teachers we "must share ideas freely." What better way to do that then through technology. Students are using technology and will be more apt to understand what we are saying if we can share our ideas through technology. He makes the point that people compose work now "not by word processors, but digitally." He says that this is not fully understood, and I agree. The options for digital learning are endless, and people are constantly finding new uses for our technology. He can imagine a day when everything is done digitally, and thinks we should prepare for this. I agree, technology will only continue to grow and we must learn and grow with it as a culture.

Carly Pugh's Blog Post #12
Caryl's post was clearly well thought out. I can tell she put a lot of work into it. I think she comes very close to what Richard Miller was trying to say in his video. She truly makes her assignment a collaborative experience. She includes links in her post that go to videos, to help better explain what she is trying to say. She makes the point that you can use more than just videos to do this. I imagine she means that you can add podcasts, audio, and links to other web-sites to help further explain what you are trying to say. I think that her YouTube playlist idea was awesome. You can collaborate your personal teaching philosophy, instructions, ideas, helpful hints, and so on...with videos that you believe best reflect you and what you are trying to get across to others. This would be good for anyone to have, and you could continuously add to it while "sharing knowledge infinitely." She has created a digitally sound experience instead of just a word processed style of learning.

Learn to Change, Change to Learn
The classroom is a place where students learn, but this is not the only place that students learn. With the technology available and widely used today students can, and are, learning all of the time. Students learn a lot through their social networking: facebook, twitter, text messaging, and online in general. As teachers we should embrace this way of learning as well and not reject it. The video mentions that "every turned off device is potentially a turned off child." I really do agree with this. In schools children are directed to not use their cell phones, stay off facebook, and keep their heads in their books. Personally, my friends and I share information with each other everyday that we have learned through our social networking. Not only do we share this information, but we are excited about it. We find things that we are interested in and we can share it with mass amounts of people through the technology that we use. Why would teachers try to take away one of the most fundamental tools for student learning? You would think they would be ecstatic to know that we are pursuing different types of learning on our own.

In the video they talk about one continuously brought up point in EDM 310 that I love! We should not teach our students to memorize facts, and information. We should work with our students to help them learn how to find accurate information and be able to validate, synthesize, problem solve, collaborate, and communicate this information. I love this because I truly believe that these are the tools needed to enable students to become lifelong learners. Right now we have a "classroom system instead of a community system." Many people believe that learning should be done in the classroom. They must not realize that learning is done everywhere, and that if they supported this idea then everyone in a community could constantly, and actively learn together.

One of the last arguments I would like to talk about is NCLB. In this video they say that if there was no NCLB then this would enable students to become more creative. I agree with this because instead of learning only the information that will be on standardized tests, students could shape their learning around what they are interested in. Not only could they do this, but they could also incorporate different learning styles into their education. By doing this they would have a sense of freedom to learn more things the way they would like to learn them. They would enjoy learning a lot more and they might actually get excited about it.

The Chipper Series/EDM310 For Dummies
Both of these videos were really creative and I liked that students created them. The Chipper Series video was about doing your own work and getting it done on time. You will learn more from doing your work, and it is not beneficial if someone else does it for you. EDM310 For Dummies was really funny and so true! This class can be extremely overwhelming. It is a class filled with many assignments and a lot of useful opportunities. In the beginning of the semester I really thought "I cannot make it through this class!" Once you get used to how things work and really start exploring on your own you can really learn some interesting things, and learning becomes exciting and a lot easier. Both of these videos were really creative. I would like mine to be as well. I have not put much thought into what I want to do for my video. I would like to do a video on how to stay ahead in EDM310, but I am not sure how I would like to do this. I think it is really important to stay ahead in this class because you can so easily get behind. Once you are behind it would be almost impossible to catch up. I think this really needs to be stressed for future EDM310 students.