I always worry about being late, it annoys me. I felt rushed today I was worried about being on time and annoyed with myself that I wasn't. I follow the rule if you are not five minutes early then you are late. I don't think that is a common occurrence with everyone but it really stresses me out. I was pleased to find that I was not in fact late. Everyone was casually mingling and chatting. I think that at that moment I was able to take a deep breath and relax. It was interesting to hear everyone different conversations around me. I could tell that this might actually work for me. From outward appearances people seemed nice and capable.
As our evening progress I found myself in familiar territory, many of the topics seemed interesting and more importantly relevant. I remember reading a book called The Saber tooth Curriculum when I started my Masters back in 2003, and it spoke to the outdated cultures of technology in schools. A constant cycle of disagreement between the natives and the immigrants (I liked that analogy, it really worked for me.) I think this is what draws me into this program, embracing a better way to teach and learn. The funny thing is as educators we expect students to learn things and move on to then next thing, but in reality our lives as professionals we can access knowledge all around us at the touch of a button. We should be teaching kids how to access and research not memorize and recite. I can't tell you the last time that I had to learn something that I could not Google.
The most important idea that I got out of this is that we as educators are stuck in a position that few find themselves now a days. We have to teach children to recall information that will be on a state test and that they will not have any connection to. This is not what they will be doing in 20 years, imagine what the future holds for our children if I can google on my phone. I hope that I can find ways using the information that I learn in this class to make my classroom a more relevant space.
I agree Julia. I think we spend far too little time on teaching students how to find relevant information on the web. My go-to example is martinlutherking.org. Have you ever used this in class? Students always fall for this. It "seems" to be a respectable site for information about MLK jr. They always fall for the .org. In reality, if you click on the web holder, it is a white supremacist group. They also need to understand how google works. They always think the first site to pop up is the best. Actually, it is only the site that uses the word in the URL. The kids have no idea how the web works, and we need to teach them.
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