C4T#4

A “Radical New Teaching Model” That is Missing the Point This blog is by Brian Bennett. In this blog post, Mr. Bennett talks about his opinion on an article that Wired Business put out earlier this month. He talks about how the article downplays the role of the teacher. He says that "While on the surface, this looks appealing for a lot of reasons. Students can explore on their own without the dictator at the front of the room. They can work collaboratively, problem solving and self-democratizing. This is all great, but having a teacher is still important (and that’s not because I’m a teacher at heart). All of this can be done, but the role of the teacher is to provide context for the content. Anyone can get online and look up facts about the moon, DNA, or the French Revolution. What is missing is a facilitator providing context to the flow of information we get from the Internet." He talks about how it is the teachers job to be the content resource, but to also provide provoking questions for the students while they are using technology.

My Response to Mr. Bennett I explained to Mr. Bennett that I am currently a student in EDM310 in which we are learning to incorporate technology into our future classrooms. I explained to him that I have learned a lot of useful tools from this class but I do agree that students still need the guidance and support from their teachers while using all of the new technology.

Listening Past the TED Talk This blog post by Brian Bennett talks about a recent TEDxBeaconStreet talk he had watched. He talked about how at first he liked the talk and he agreed with what Richard was saying especially in his opening statement when he said "There’s a more serious digital divide that we face in this country. That is the divide between those who know how to use technology to reimagine learning and those who simply use technology to digitize traditional learning practices." As the talk went on, Brian began to disagree more and more because he said, there are so many things in this story that put Richard, in my mind, solidly in the camp of “digitizing traditional teaching practices.” Brian said "I think I’ve come to the conclusion that most of the widely-publicized talks on education are either 1) given by people with lots of money, or 2) given by people who want to make lots of money. There have been very few compelling TED talks lately that have really communicated some of the major change that can come to education when we really think hard about what technology can help us do."

My Response to Mr. Bennett I once again explained to Mr. Bennett about our EDM310 class and how we are learning to incorporate technology into our future classrooms. I explained that I think technology is important especially in the day and age, but I do agree with his points as well. I think it is so important to be an involved and engaging teacher. I agreed with him about being the first thing my students see when they walk into my classroom with a smile on my face greeting them to begin the day together. I also thanked him for being so engaged and involved with his students.