Blog Assignment 2



While watching the Did You Know Video, I learned some interesting facts.  Some examples of what I learned are 1 out of 8 marriages met online, there are 200 Million MySpace users, there are 31 Billion google searches monthly, the number of texts sent and received exceeds the total population of the planet, there are 540,000 words in the English language.  These are just some of the facts that I learned and found interesting.  At the end of the video, there were statistics of what happened during that particular time frame of the video:  67 babies were born in the US, 274 babies were born in China, 395 babies were born in India and 694,00 songs were illegally downloaded.

My thoughts on the video are that some of the facts are negative and make Americans look bad.  I understand that there are negative facts in the world and that Americans are not number one when it comes to certain statistics but, when a statistic about Americans was displayed, the following statistic was who was better.  On the other hand, most of the statistics I found to be interesting and informing. 

Mr. Winkles Wakes was a very interesting video.  I never really thought about how much technology changes but how teaches stays the same.  The general purpose of teaching back when Mr. Winkles was going to school was to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic.  Now, 100 years later, the philosophy is still the same but it's up to the teachers to change, or update, the way it is being done.  Mr. Winkles said that when he went to the office building and to the hospital, nothing looked familiar or safe.  When he stepped into the school, things were just as he remembered them to be.  The desks were in a row, the teacher was in front of the class teaching, and all was the way it should be. 

I didn't like how the computer was is the back of the classroom with dust on it.  I feel that teachers should make learning as fun as possible and should keep up with technology.  Children want to be entertained when they learn.  They don't want to just listen to the teacher and watch a short film to finish up.  They want to have that interaction and discussion about what they watched and their thoughts about it.  Classroom interaction, I believe, is a huge part what makes a teacher and the students successful. 

What a great video.  Sir Ken Robinson is an amazing speaker.  I really enjoyed how he told his stories and the humor that he added.  I feel that kept the attention of the audience.  Some of the things that he said that stuck with me are about the children starting school this year.  They will retire in 2065.  Nobody has a clue what the world will look like then yet we are educating them for it.  How scary and true is that?  He also mentioned that creativity and literacy are of equal importance and should be treated with the same importance.  I feel that you can't have one without the other.  If you don't display both, you won't be able to truly illustrate the whole picture.  Kids are not scared of being wrong.  If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.  WOW!!!!  These are the things that we forget as an adult.  We had that as a child and lost focus of as we got older.  Adults are frightened of being wrong.  The workplace has made sure of this.  We don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it.  Or rather, we get educated out of it.  Sad but true. 

 I think that video should be a mandatory video to watch for any profession.  Not only does it focus on the education point of creativity, it also hits on the points that adults need to find their inner child and let loose.  If we were as worried about creativity as we are being right and perfect, I don't think that the problems we have today with parents/children interaction would be as severe as it is. 

Cecelia Gault is a fascinating child.  I think that if she was a student in my classroom, she would want to help and be very involved in classroom discussion.  She would possibly was questions that I didn't know the answers to and I would let her know that I didn't know but we would find the answers together.  She would probably have a different opinion or see things in a different view.  I am sure that I and the other classmates could learn a lot from her and learn how to think outside of the box and look at the big picture. 

She is going to go far in life.  I am anxious to see where she is in 10 or 15 years from now.  Will she continue her path of interviewing of will she be introduced to a new passion.  I am sure that whatever she decides, she will be successful in her journey.

Vicki Davis is very passionate about her belief that students should be educated in technology.  She uses several different types of technology to allow her students to connect to other students in different regions of the world.  She believes that using technology and not just pencils and paper, all students are given a chance to succeed.  She is not ashamed to tell her students that she doesn't know how something works.  Once the students are able to teach her something, they feel that sense of accomplishment from teaching the teacher. 

I can't wait until I am in my own classroom where I will have the ability to show my students that technology is for more that video games and making plans for the weekend.  It is a HUGE part of how we communicate and i feel it needs to be learned.