The world has become more technologically advanced as humanity has progressed. "Education Today and Tomorrow", the video I have chosen, describes the classroom as being outdated. The video contrasts the changing in language by stating that William Shakespeare's modern-day English consisted of around 24,000 words while Eminem (popular rap artist) has 1.2 Million words at his disposal. This example shows that the landscape of the world is everchanging.As society and technology become more interconnected, so must the classroom become more interconnected with technology. We, teacher candidates, must experience an education that prepares us to lead classrooms that incorporate all the many "e-_____'s" that we have available to us today. Beryl C. McEwen, Ph.D (Chair, Department of Business Education, North Carolina A&T State University) says, "we are preparing students for a new type of classroom, one that is quite different from the one in which we were educated" (McEwen, 2008). There are truths that we must face: 1) The world will continue to become increasingly technologically integrated 2) Teacher education must include training that enables teacher candidates to integrate the many electronic resources available and finally, 3) Students must be prepared to enter a world that requires that they are abreast of the latest advances in technology. Most of this technology has not been created yet. Therefore, we should strive to give students, at the very least, exposure to technology if not complete emersion.
Response Video
Many students (K-12 & College aged) possess the items that are shown in my voice thread picture presentation. The items are an iPod, a laptop, and a cellular phone. They are evidence of the technology that students come across everyday. Students will only become comfortable with technology when they are exposed to it more often. By implementing technology more often into the classroom, students will become a part of the classroom environment instead of observers. According to Ormrod (2006),Jean Piaget believed "that children do not just passively observe and remember the things they see and hear. Instead, they are naturally curious about the world and actively seek out information to help them understand and make since of it" (p. 25). The "world" that they are curious about will likely be appealing because of the technologies that are available to them. As a future English educator I would implement technology by showing students on-line videos of plays, or showing students on-line models of The Globe Theater when instructing a unit on Shakespeare. Also, students could perform a scene from a play and post the footage on YouTube or Teacher Tube. Through the internet the classroom becomes global. It becomes open to opinions from educators from around the nation and the globe.
As children become more mature, so do schemes that they create. Ormrod (2006) makes Piaget's theory more clear by explaining ways in which children organize things they learn. Schemes are "similar actions or thoughts" that become grouped together over time
(p. 25). Students who are uninterested in the classroom atmosphere become accustomed to simply observing the classroom. They have become accustomed, from past classroom experiences, to coursework being out-dated, uninteresting, and irrelevant. Students interest will more likely be captivated by computers than overhead projectors. The new classrooms that new educators will create are will contrast the the out-dated methods of learning that plague education today. Schemes will change as students see technology implemented in classroom. Fun and excitement will now be associated with Education and learning.
Overtime, students will become conditioned to be excited about the learning process. If a student constantly experiences a pleasurable educational experience, then he or she will likely begin to relate pleasure with education. If technology can be implemented in a manner that makes understanding material more fluid, then learning switches from a passive process (on the part of the student) to a more active process. Ormrod (2006) defines B.F. Skinner's theory of Operant Conditioning as a "Form of learning in which a response increases in frequency as a result of its being followed by reinforcement" (p. 301). The reinforcement will be found in the positive experiences from class to class, grade to grade in new schemas that children will form.
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