Blog Post #2 What Will Teaching in the 21st Century be Like?

With our world becoming more and more technologically advanced, teachers must also play their part in incorporating the technology into the classroom and teaching students the most successful way to work with it. Technology can be a good or a bad thing when it comes to students. There are many distractions that come with the new technology, but it also provides an easy gateway to endless amounts of information that could potentially help a student learn. The obstacle here is getting past the distractions (whether it be games, messaging, social media, etc.) and moving forward in learning.

In the video Mr. Dancealot, the central message is that as a teacher, you must coordinate what you want to teach and how you teach it. In this video, the professor is teaching a dance class but he teaches it as a lecture class and the students do not properly learn what is being taught. Teachers must have different teaching styles for the different topics being taught. If the goals do not line up with the class activities, the students will ultimately fail due to lack of proper teaching. The author of this video makes his case in the end by showing the class taking a dance final by only being able to look at their notes. Dancing is not a subject that you can learn solely from taking notes; you must have a lot of practice to master it. I agree with this conclusion because there are many subjects that cannot be taught in lecture classes, and there are also subjects that it is best being taught in a lecture. A teacher should base their lesson plan and class activities off of the type of material that is being taught to provide the best possible learning situation.

Kevin Roberts presents a very insightful message in his presentation Teaching in the 21st Century. He starts by saying that the teachers are no longer the main source of knowledge now that there are other sources available to students for learning; teachers are the filter. They are the ones that must teach the students how to properly gain the information needed and use the sources correctly. Teachers must teach their students about pirating, plagiarism, slander, copyright, crowd sourcing, confidentiality, and professionalism so that they can properly use the internet without doing anything illegal or morally wrong. Students do not only need to be taught facts and content, but also skills that will help them throughout life. Students learn tech skills best by creating (for example: blogging). With technology changing and our teaching tools changing, we need to rethink the tools we use and the types of problems the students are asked to solve and integrate the new technology for a better method of learning. But how do we keep the students focused with technological learning tools? That is a major obstacle in schools today with distractions from what needs to be learned. Lessons have to be relevant, challenging, and engaging. Students don't need to be entertained, they need to be engaged. A teacher's job is to provide meaningful and powerful engagement. Change starts with the teacher. Roberts provides four steps:
1. See what's out there
2. Start small
3. Collaborate
4. Take a risk
It is the teacher's job to ensure that the students come out of school with new skills and knowledge. With these technological advances, teachers must find a way to successfully incorporate these new learning tools into their lessons. I agree with what Roberts is presenting here. It is up to the teacher to ensure that they are keeping up with the latest tools for learning and applying everything they can to make a difference in the students' lives.

In Wendy Drexler's video The Networked Student, Alex Drexler (I'm guessing that is who is doing the speaking) shows the many resources a student can use to learn. He goes through all the educational media that is used and then he goes on to address the question "why does the networked student even need a teacher?" The teacher is the one who teaches the student how to use these sources and build this network to help with his project. She is there for guidance and support and to help whenever the student needs it. As a teacher of the 21st century, it is our job to provide this support to students in this new learning process.

In the video Harness Your Students’ Digital Smarts, teacher Vicki Davis discusses the media she uses in her classroom to connect her students to other students worldwide. It is important for students, especially those in rural areas, to connect with other students across the world and learn from them and with them. I agree that students should connect with others and compare and share ideas. I believe it is very useful to students to learn not just from their teacher, but from other students just like them all over the world.

Flipping the classroom is a new approach that has come to many classrooms; it is very helpful in that it allows the student to review the lesson before class time so that they may better understand it. Classroom flipping is time saving and allows more time for practicing problems. It is very effective for all students to grasp the lesson before class time. If they are confused after watching it, they can watch the lesson over again until they understand it. If they still don't understand, they can prepare questions to ask in class the next day. Flipping the classroom is a new concept for me, I never had anything like it when I went to school and I think it would be very effective for students today. I may use it when I am a teacher to set aside more class time for questions and practice.