How does this reading impact your thinking about technology's role in teaching and learning?
What will you do differently as a future teacher as a direct result of this new thinking?
Education until the mid 1800s was largely done by apprenticeships. They learned valuable workforce skills from their family and close peers. Then we started to switch to a universal schooling system where most children attended school daily and learned information from classroom teachers. The push for universal education was pushed along due to 4 reasons, the invention of the printing press, the Reformation, the American Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution. We are still in this system of universal schooling but I feel we are experiencing a transition today as we know it. Although teachers are still very important, I think that schooling is moving away from such a teacher centered system. It is moving in the direction which will require a unique mixture of student, teacher, and technology involvement where the student has a choice in what they want to learn and the teacher helps guide the most effective venue for them.
Just as the invention of the printing press allowed for the explosion of information distribution, the internet and technology are having the same effect today. Information can travel from coast to coast and continent to continent in a split second. Currently it is the most popular way for news and information to travel and students, particularly science students, should be proficient in using these technologies to expand their knowledge. Back then, Horace Mann argued that universal education was needed for social cohesion to connect the diverse family cultures immigrating from around the globe. Now, technology education is needed for social cohesion to help student develop the social skills needed to communicate in this globalizing world which seems to be getting smaller every day. Educators cannot ignore the demand for the technology communication skills needed to drive a student’s success once they enter the workforce.
From the perspective of a young person, such as me, the current structure of k-12 education seems to model the way it has always been. If we step back and look at the system for the past 100 years there have been many additions and changes to the “k-12” system. These changes have occurred to fix problems and make some things better, such as high schools that focus closer on more specific subject areas. If we project into the future, and imagine how technology actually will or will not play out in the school system, what will it look like? However it turns out, students will probably feel that it is the same as it has always been.
Many of these transitions have been driven by the increased flow and transfer of information. When a new technology is first introduced it is often accepted, for a while. It reaches a point where resistance to change begins. That resistance grows until something gives way. I think we are currently in the beginning stages of resistance to change.
I want to help my students develop useful kills which will help them in this fast changing, shrinking, and technological world.
Peer discussion Ch 4. ReTh. notes
ReplyDeleteAmerican Revolution. Educated people= wiser government decisions.
Page 60, Evolution of school system.
Comprehensive High schools created to meet the needs of a variety of students.
Does seat time directly correlate to learning?(compulsatory attendance) maybe not, quality vs. quantity.
Hard cover textbooks- cost! expensive,do not allow for electronic assitive technologies. Is it going to move to less and less paper text to more online text.