Thing 16 - Teach Digital

In the first video on Digital students at Analog schools I agree with the sentiments. My daughter is in college and I have one recently graduated from college and they are facing the same problems I faced 25 years ago in college. Lectures. Professors stand and lecture for 50 minutes to 2 hours. You, as students, take notes and fall asleep. The only respite is if you have a lab. I don't know if new technology is the only answer, I just believe that more variety in teaching and learning has to happen. In grade school and Middle school they were both hands on learners. Give my daughters a choice and dioramas, making videos, or doing demonstrations was always a hands down winner. Never the written report or oral presentation. That doesn't change as they get older. Why is it that there are so few choices in High school and College? If you learn by doing as a child, what makes teachers think that you can suddenly change and learn simply by reading or listening? Yes, I know you can't do dioramas in college, but you can build webpages, make podcasts, create charts and graphs, film videos and a lot more.

The second video, the teacher movie, just made me sad. I feel that I am lucky to be in a great district where these kinds of attitudes are few and far between (although not totally missing). I think that many districts may have these attitudes in the majority rather than the minority. I do think that many of our teachers are afraid to learn new things though. Or maybe they just have to much on their plate. I know as a tech person I encourage my peers and offer to help or teach them and very few take advantage of the offer. But I'll keep plugging away at them!

The last video on "Do schools kill creativity" was entertaining. I must admit that when it started I looked at the timer and thought "19 minutes! Urrgg!" but it was OK. I realized half way through that in a way, he was teaching in the old fashioned way, lecture. He was, however, using comedy so it wasn't all bad. Overall I agree with his sentiment that we, many times, squelch the creativity of students to make them fit into a mold. I also agree with a comment on the page that a viewer said, and that was that his meds helped him focus so he could produce his creativity. I think we need to open up more to our "creative mind of a child" regardless of our age. We need to not be afraid to try new things and explore. Isn't that what we are all doing in this class?