Jan 17th posts

The world is advancing faster than ever before and if your not keeping up with it you will wake up one day in a world that you don't recognize. In the Did you know video by Karl Wasch, he talks about how the world has changed and is continuing to in various aspects. From jobs to text messaging, companies are trying to keep up with large demands of the consumers. Basically, this means that we as future employers and employees will be plunged into this hectic progression rate so we must constantly be up on technological advances in order to keep up with competition.
I think that it is very important to be aware of the major changes that occur in the world market. For one reason, you need to know what's being improved. You need to know what opportunities are being created and what ones are being closed. With knowledge comes power, the power to control your future even more so than you could before. So understanding what jobs will be valued most, or how many people are using facebook and myspace can aid you in making future decisions.

The video "Mr. Winkle Wakes" by Matthew Needleman, is about a man waking up from a hundred year slumber into the 21st century modern age. It uses animation to show the school systems lack of usage of technology compared to other facilities. Mr. Winkle feels uncomfortable in the office at work, and in the hospital because of how heavily the use computers. But when he got to school near the end of the video he smiles after being in the classroom because it is still exactly how he remembers it. All lecturing and note taking with no technology being incorporated. He ends the video with a smile, glad that schools are still the same way he remembers it a hundred years ago.
Although the school Mr. Winkle went to didn't use any technology in their classroom, i would have to think that way of teaching is slowly but surly dieing out. In this past decade, i have experienced an increase in incorporating technology usage me teachers and classrooms. From computer classes teaching web design, to teachers writing math equations on smart boards. As technology improves and is assimilated into our daily world, schools have taken this into consideration and encouraged teachers and students to be familiar with them. Sorry Mr. Winkle, but i think you just picked the bad apple in the bunch.

After just listening to Ken Robinson's lecture on how school kills creativity, i want to point out the things i agree and disagree with. First off i do believe that the way the board of education is centralizing school teaching around test taking(especially in K-12) is strangling the creativity in children. And because of the unpredictability of the world we live in and the different obstacles that we face it would seem a child's creativity would come in handy more that their literacy skills. But literacy skills are just as important to me anyway so i don't think there's anything wrong with making sure kids on the right track in certain subjects. You just have to find that balance.
I always felt i was more creative than intelligent. Not that I'm dumb or anything, but that i was just that creative and innovative. But class never nurtured that really and since i realized that i wasn't ever going to be really using this creativity i kind of put it aside. And without the stimulation of my creativity i felt school became just a bore. So if we can find ways to nurture kids creativity better, maybe they would be more interested in going and staying in school.

"Harness your studnets' digital smarts" by Vicki Davis states that every student has the ability to learn. It's harder on them to when there's only paper and pencil though. In her classroom she tries to get her students to be comfortable with every form of technology. She encourages students to be thinkers and not rely no her to do or tell them all the answers. With the help of technology, her students are not only learning but putting what they're learning to use.
Watching this video, i will admit i was very jealous of her students. They seem to being doing things in their classrooms that I have never even seen before and i'm a sophmore in college. They're learning to interact with eachother and people over the world and i can gurantee that it will payoff for those students in the long-run. Only obstacle with getting more students and classrooms to incorporate technology is the cost and it's sad to because it could do wonders for kids.