I enjoyed the format of Richardson’s last chapter of the book-it describes the big shifts in how we can best teach children in order to prepare them for the future. I know each of my readers have read (or are getting ready to read) the section so I won’t bother to summarize each of the “big shifts.” I will however say that I agree, with many of his ideas like learning being collaborative, writing no longer being limited to text, mastery being products, etc. All of which brings up a question in my minds and hopefully yours- if U of L subscribes to this idea enough to have made it a course then why haven’t we seen more of our courses using these types of technology? Why haven’t our methods course been filled with the latest techie ways to present materials? I am frustrated to think of all the Powerpoint’s I have made to present material on education theory, simple reflections I have handed into instructors, and lesson plans that I have placed on Livetext that have not incorporated the types of technology we should be using in our classroom. (Not to mention what a waste Livetext seems to be now that I understand there are tons of FREE ways to put portfolios online and share them.)
I believe that if we owe it to our children to teach them to be responsible, literate citizens in the world of technology U of L should not teach this course in such isolation. Classes that are to train teachers must teach them the skills that society wants passed on to our students. So here is a challenge to U of L make this course a prerequisite to many of our other classes then require us to podcast our assignments and include blogging and updating wikis in our lesson plans. In doing this we will be perfecting our training before we are sent out to train others.
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Oh, yeah! I agree. There was some talk of technology in my MAT classes but not much up to this point in the program. I only have one more class before I finish the MAT but am saddened that I didn't take this class earlier because there are so many technology applications I could have used during student teaching that I didn't even know existed. On the upside, though, I will start teaching in the fall and can use my newly developed skills then. Better late then never, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteI must disagree with you. This chapter was boring! I thought everything that was mentioned was an organized way to repeat the information. But I do agree with you in the sense that methods courses should have provided ways in which technology could be incorporated into our lessons. That would have been great!
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