What a Great Class!!

The final for our class was so wonderful! I think that everyone's projects really addressed how technology can help our students learn. I am so glad that we did a "display" type class so that I could look at each technology and get ideas from them. I'm just SO EXCITED to use all of these new toys in my classroom!

I've always felt that most of my students don't like writing. There are a few students that love it, but it seems that most of them just groan when I say that it's writing time. I think that most of these techs could REALLY help my students become excited to write and present their writing!

So many ideas are running through my head! I can definitely say that technology has helped my own cognition! I just keep thinking and thinking and trying to come up with new ideas and new ways to engage my students and improve their learning and my own teaching.

I'm rambling a bit...I'm just SO EXCITED!!

Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better

I FINALLY finished my book and I LOVED it!

I feel that Clive Thompson has the same point of view that I do about technology. He understands that it has it downfalls, but he sees the amazing things it's capable of too! From the very beginning with his explanation of Centaurs, he had me hooked! I've always loved chess...I'm terrible at it, but I still think it's fascinating. I remember watching Searching for Bobby Fischer as a kid and I thought it was such a good movie. I'm a little surprised that I didn't already know about Centaurs, but they totally make sense. Having a machine perform the logical moves while you employ the creative side is genius! 

The book certainly made me think. It gave me ideas for my students and for collaborating with my team. It helped me become more aware of what's going on in the world as well. One of my favorite stories that Thompson relayed was about Ahmed Abulhassan. It was incredible how one Twitter account could supply several hospitals in Egypt with needed supplies!

The last point I want to make is that it was really great how Thompson spoke of technology throughout history. When he explained that Socrates was worried about the written word eroding human memory, all I could think was YES! This is exactly what people say about our current technology. While Socrates' worries were partially well-founded because there was some memory lost, just think of where our world would be now without writing!

And now for the favorite quote...

How should you respond when you get powerful new tools for finding answers? Think of harder questions.

Reference
Thompson, Clive (2013). Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better. Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition. 

Thank you Technology!!

Running is not my favorite thing. I do it because I love to participate in triathlons...and for some reason running is part of it. I guess that's why they call them TRIathlons. 

Anyway....I was running the other day and I felt like I was going to die! I didn't want to run anymore, but I still needed to run another mile to meet my goal for the day!

Thanks to the two items below, I made it! 

I even finished STRONG!!

The water was fantastic, but the shuffle is what really got me through that run. While I was dying and wishing that I could just stop, a song started to play on my shuffle. I hadn't actually heard it before, and I know that's weird cause it's on my shuffle, but a lot of my music is actually my brother's. SHHHHH I listened to the song about three times just on that one run.

What does this have to do with technology in the classroom? Well, I think that there are times when my students feel that they are dying and that they just can't keep up. They feel overwhelmed or they feel bored with school. Technology can save them! I just have to remember that it doesn't always have to be a complicated form of technology. Sometimes the simpler the better. Just like one song inspired me to run, a simple technology can inspire my students to learn.

Just in case your curious...here's that song.

The Way of Kings

"I would not have you studying this if there were no point to it," Jasnah said, opening up another of her own books. "Too many scholars think of research as purely a cerebral pursuit. If we do nothing with the knowledge we gain, then we have wasted our study. Books can store information better than we can - what we do that books cannot is interpret. So if one is not going to draw conclusion, then one might as well just leave the information in the texts."
~Brandon Sanderson The Way of Kings~

So...I've been reading this book. (I've also been reading my EdTech book too, just so you know.) It's a ginormous book, but I was SO excited when I read this quote. All I could think was, "This goes with what we've been talking about in EdTech! :) I completely agree with the quote by the way. I have loved learning, theorizing, and discussing the affects of technology on our brains and society. I feel that we are coming to the point where it's time to start doing something about it. Yet, I know that we will continue to pursue more information. It's a circle; read, study, theorize, interpret, do, and repeat.

Actually, now that I think about it more, it's not really a circle. I think we are doing several of the steps at once on many different levels. Although, when we really want to understand one thing in particular we'll use those steps. 

Anyway, when we initially started this class, I was honestly a little disappointed. I thought we would be getting straight into doing projects with technology, learning new technology tools, and figuring out how to use technology in the classroom. I'm glad that we started where we did though. You have to have a foundation first. Study the topic and then do something with it. :)