Comments for Teachers #4

C4T #1

My C4T assignment was Steven Anderson. In his blog post he shared his experience in Qatar at the WISE conference. WISE stands for World Innovation Summit on Education. It is a conference that joins over 1500 people from 100 countries together to discuss education and changes. During this 3 day conference they will talk about access to education, technology, sustainability of educational initiatives and more.  Mr. Anderson's shared in his post some of the highlights of the first day. The first day was focused on change and innovation. It started with her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser charging everyone to be proactive and to open their minds and voices to each other. She shared that  "we can all work better and smarter if we just listen to each other". 

Mr. Anderson stated that he was disappointed by the make up of the panel. Apparently it included people who represented businesses. Although he understood that they have a stake in education , he felt that it was hard to listen to them tell the educators what was wrong with the education system, when they really didn't know anything about the system. He stated the theme was clear. We have to do things differently. We are still conducting education in the same outdated ways. Because education changes so fast, we have to think about the future as if it is the present when we think about change in education.  

During the morning debate another emphasis was placed on the voice of the student. Educators from Estonia, Palestine, Jordan, USA, Australia, and more all agreed that the student's voice, no matter the age, level, or country was important.

Mr. Anderson also commented on the fact that it was very clear that connectedness was important. We have to be connected to the educators, as well as, the learners. In order to change education it has to be done together. Neither can do it alone.  The use of social media provides a great opportunity for students and teachers to connect and learn together. He gave the perfect example how he had conversations with educators from three continents on Twitter.

He closed by stating that along with all of this comes responsibility. We can't simply get together and discuss education and what is wrong with it. We have to take action to make the necessary changes. 

My Comment

I started by explaining who I was and my assignment. I started by expressing the excitement he must have felt participating in such an awesome opportunity. I explained that I had learned so much from my Edm310 class. I shared that before taking this class I really didn't understand the importance of technology in education. Fortunately, I have a much better understanding. I commented that I agreed that we can't continue to conduct education the same old way and expect different results. It is essential that we make changes to the way we view and conduct education. I also shared that I agreed that the student's voice was important. I closed by asking Mr. Anderson how do we get the people who make the decisions about education to realize all of this. I expressed my frustration in having learned the importance of technology, but knowing our educational system is in such a sad state. I enjoyed learning about WISE and how it is impacting education.

C4T #2

Things That Have Me Thinking.

Below are 4 subjects that has Steven Anderson asking questions.

Practical PBL: The Ongoing Challenges of Assessment-
The first subject is the practicality of public based learning (PBL). While PBL is growing, the challenges that teachers face when trying to assbess student participation still causes concern. In this article Steven says "While the article presents methods for assessing participation in PBL  he questions whether there are better ways."

The Art of Explanation: In this article Common Core is an example of how videos are used to explain web 2.0 tools. Mr. Anderson's question is "How can we teach kids to communicate better while still using social media and asynchronous communication tools?"

Six Tips To Help Teachers Move From TechnoPHOBE to Move to TechnoFAB: This article by Jennifer LeGarde Six Tips to Help Teachers Move From TechnoPHOBE to TechnoFAB.

Mr. Anderson asks "What are some other ways to help technology and technology professional development more approachable and what can I do to provide better technology for my teachers?"

Google Search Literacy Lesson Plans: He states that search is one of students' greatest weaknesses. They have difficulty finding information and determining it's validity.  Google offers a starting point by teaching people how to use proper search terms that eliminates mass confusion.  In this article Mr. Anderson wants to know "Why are we still not doing a good job of teaching kids where their information comes from and why we still are not doing a great job of teaching kids good search literacy skills?"

I thanked Mr. Anderson for sharing this information. I expressed how useful it was in becoming technoFAB. I mentioned that I might suggest to Dr. Strange to use Common Core in an assignment for EDM310. I also told him how much I enjoyed the article Six Tips to Help Teachers Move From TechnoPHOBE to TechnoFAB. I told him all of the information was very useful and I looked forward to hearing what he had to say when he answered the questions that he had.