My Personal Learning Space!

 Click here to view this AMAZING video: Second Life

I honestly can only say ‘WOW’. This video describes the online program ‘Second Life’ which is a virtual world in which people can literally work and live. So this brings up the question, could this be encorporated into the Primary Classroom? What do you think? I honestly have no clue. I think that technology has already shown us that its potental is limitless. Therefore I would not be suprised if a virtual world such as this would even end up being the new classroom! Sad to think however, that me being a future teacher could possibly be made redundant before I even get there!

There’s a dark little joke exchanged by educators with a dissident streak: Rip Van Winkle awakens in the 21st century after a hundred-year snooze and is, of course, utterly bewildered by what he sees. Men and women dash about, talking to small metal devices pinned to their ears. Young people sit at home on sofas, moving miniature athletes around on electronic screens. Older folk defy death and disability with metronomes in their chests and with hips made of metal and plastic. Airports, hospitals, shopping malls–every place Rip goes just baffles him. But when he finally walks into a schoolroom, the old man knows exactly where he is. “This is a school,” he declares. “We used to have these back in 1906. Only now the blackboards are green.”

This excerpt was taken from an article published in Time Magazine entitled ‘How to bring our schools out of the 20th Century’ by Claudia Wallis & Sonja Steptoe. I found this to be quite humerous when I first read it, and then sadly true when I pondered on it for a while. Its so sad because this is so true. Everywhere and everything has been touched by technology… well almost everything. The classroom seems to be behind the times, particularly in outter-western Sydney Public Schools. The “blackboard” is still being used, and other than the rare access to computers from time-to-time, not many other forms of technology can be found. So how can we change? this you ask… THINK OUTSIDE OF THE BOX! Try to encorporate blogs, wikispaces, podcasting, vodcasting and the like into your lessons. This digital generation are speaking a foreign language and we need to be able to communicate to them.

In the commentary on Constructivism Vs. Instructionism by Papert, it is stated that: ‘teaching is important, but learning is much more important’. Papert goes on to define constructionism as: ‘giving children good things to do so that they can learn by doing much better than they could before’. It is believed in this commentary and I agree with it, that technology is very rich in providing students with things to do. By giving students the opportunity to do and learn, the knowledge gained will be better retained and usable as it becomes a part of the way they do things. Papert also states: ‘that this is what we’re trying to do, find ways in which the technology enables children to use knowledge, not just store it in their heads so that twelve years later it’s going to be good for them. Nobody can learn well like that; it’s a terrible way of learning’. Therefore by giving students they opportunity to construct their own learning enables students to use this knowledge daily rather than saving it for a rainy day.

Download Video: Posted by khokanson at TeacherTube.com.

What an inspiring video. It’s hard to see the importance of e-learning in the classroom from time to time as learning is still relevant without technology. However I found this video to outline a truth in which I haven’t really thought about. Todays students will seeing a very different world to what I saw only ten or so years ago. Their future will see many more things than what I will see. Therefore as teachers we need to prepare students for this future which changes so often and so quickly, that we do not even know what we are preparing them for. Hence, we need to equip students with all that we can so that they are prepared for each and every opportunity, each and every job, each and evey problem and each and every outcome. Sean quotes the video by stating: “As teachers we will be preparing students for a technological world which is rapidly changing. We are preparing students for jobs which do not exist, using technologies which have not yet been developed.”

This online commentary found on YouTube, entitled ‘Telling a New Story’ gives illustrations of how social software such as blogs can be used with even the youngest students in primary classrooms. I found this short clip to be very inspiring!

This commentary outlines various ways in which technology can be practical within the classroom, As many things that can be done on a computer can also be done with pencil and paper. Some of these examples include the publishing of work. When students are ready to publish a piece of work, they will do so over a blog. Their audience is wider and they have people around the world commenting and giving feedback on their work.

I found this concept alone quite interesting as I tend to question the use of technology in the primary classroom at times. The school itself also uses blogs as a way of informing parents about what their students are learning along with the various events that may be occurring within the classroom. And this particular class is a year one class! I find this all very fascinating, and this commentary has inspired me to use technology within the classroom when I was fairly sceptical before at the beginning of this class.