Digital Blog Post #B - Chapter 2

This was an interesting chapter for me because it addressed many of the questions I was starting to ponder. For example, what about those teachers that don't have easy access to technology to be used in the classroom? What if technology cannot fit into the curriculum that teachers are required to teach? Chapter two helped me peace together some of my own answers and clarified others that I wasn't one hundred percent certain on. There were also many concepts that caught my attention while I was reading through. Having graduated in 2010 I was starting to see an integration into technology in the classroom but it wasn't something that was school wide or wasn't frequently used. I love that the very beginning of this chapter states that a career in teaching is a career that will always be appreciated and that "it is a career that matters to everyone.." (Transforming Learning With New Technologies)

The first concept that jumped out at me was that students tend to teach as they were taught. That statement struck me as such an oxymoron. We live our lives as educators teaching students so they can grow up to succeed. Yet going into the education field, we are now being told that it is not necessarily correct to teach, as you were once taught. What a concept to wrap your head around! What I took away from this was not just to teach students a specific concept or process, but to teach them multiple. If you teach them multiple ways of doing things, you are also teaching them to adapt to different situations. If they are taught to adapt to different situations, than as their lives go on, and things begin to advance (as technology always will) they will have the skill and mind set to grow and change with it. This is what a lot of educators today lack in their teaching methods. They were brought up in a time where everything was taught in the same monochromatic manner. For example, the desks are arranged in nice neat rows with the professor up front giving a lecture or presentation. Therefore, when they completed their own education and became an educator themselves, that was the only way they knew how to teach. Students today need to be taught to be flexible with learning new skills and strategies. If we have learned anything from the past, it is that the future is not set in stone. So why have a teaching method that is?

The second concept that stuck in my brain were the statistics used regarding student drop out rates.Our book states that "Nationwide, about 75% of entering first-year students, graduate high school four years later." (Transforming Learning With New Technologies) That means that 25% of first-year students do NOT graduate high school four years later. 25% is a huge number in my opinion. A number that should be significantly lower. According to an article written by the Huffington Post "the national drop out rate was 7% in 2011". This is still lower than is was in 1990 when the drop out rate was averaged at 12%. When asked why the students were dropping out, a large portion of them blamed being bored and not being engaged or stimulated. I know from self experience that high school was torture for kids that are kinesthetic learners. Being one myself, it is hard to sit through an hour long class while staring at a teacher giving a lecture. I walked away from those classes none the wiser on the subject at hand and I was exhausted from sitting in that classroom listening to a monotone voice drone on about a subject I couldn't care less about. The image below is a perfect example of how I, and many other kinesthetic learners feel towards understanding new concepts. As sad as it is to say, I can see why these kids are dropping out from being under stimulated. They want to do things that make them feel accomplished and proud of themselves. Listening to lectures and taking notes does not give most students those feelings.  This chapter showed a spectacular reason behind using technology in class. Technology is such a huge part of our youths everyday life. They not only use it for school, but for personal interaction. This is something that engages them. If you can take something that students are using less for academics and more for personal reasons and incorporate it into their curriculum, they are going to be more interested in the task they are performing. Students enjoy using technology. Take that enjoyment and put it towards teaching them something. Engage them in a way that they understand and appreciate. I think this is a great start to lowering that 7% drop out rate. 

The third concept that I found interesting kind of tied everything together for me. The  digital disconnect today has left students frustrated and uninterested. While teachers are accustomed to reading through a text book, students are more interested in searching the internet for the answer. Teachers are associated with meeting a study group face to face while students are happier doing so virtually. While many fight the issue of whether face to face contact is more essential than online, the fact is most students today are doing so. They feel comfortable with it and the end result is that it is the way the world is moving. I think the real issue, is that the teachers aren't as educated as the students when it comes to virtual learning. While many students take advantage of things such as social networks, teachers are still considering those things "distractions". But what if we as educators could use those "distractions" to our advantage. Students could use social media sites as means of communication for group projects with classmates. With all of the capability a smart phone has, why use is for just talking and texting? Teachers could utilize a smartphone to do so much more such as having students download learning games or e-texts. Our book uses the statistic that 94% of students use technology to work on assignments at home, even though less than half of their teachers (46%) give homework that requires the use of computers, the Internet or other technologies. (Transforming Learning With New Technologies) If more teachers utilized the information that their students were giving them, I think they would get a better feedback as far as interaction and participation. 

This chapter was a lot of fun to read through. Emotionally, I could relate to a lot of the issues it described and I think that is important in understanding the topics discussed. Being from a younger generation, I can understand the wants and needs of a technologically advanced student. 

Bibliography: 

     Lynch, Ed.D. Matthew. "Is the U.S. Dropout Rate Really a Crisis?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2015.

    Maloy, Robert, Verock-O’Loughlin,Ruth-Ellen, Edwards, Sharon A., and Woolf, Beverly Park (2013). Transforming Learning with New Technologies. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.