C4T #3

We Still Use Slates

The teacher that I have been reading about is John Spencer. His blog that I first read was titled “We Still Use Slates”. It is about taking technology out of the classroom for a minute and using good old slate. The students in his class were confused because they didn’t understand his reasoning for this. I, on the other hand, understand his reason for this completely. Technology is great and in a lot of ways students can’t go without using it, but sometimes students and even teachers need to learn from the standard way. Technology is wonderful but when it’s taken away, can the student still learn without?

Taking technology away every now and then is a good idea. I believe this is very important because students need to learn to not rely on it the way they do. Once taken away, can the students learn properly? Can the teacher teach properly? Technology is a blessing and it is used to help us, not hinder our learning ability. Taking it away helps everyone to think for themselves and to dig deep for the answers without finding them with the touch of a button.

How Will People See Us?

This blog left me puzzled even days after I read it. A student asked his teacher what our descendants would think of us if all they seen were our picture. This question can leave you with a million answers because it would all depend on the picture. The question here is “what would our descendants think of us if all they seen were a picture of us at school?” The picture that was taken of this class seemed like the students were very serious and not smiling much. This made them wonder if their descendants would think that they didn’t have fun in school and didn’t laugh much. I guess the answer would be left up to the person who was viewing the picture in the future.

This blog had me questioning myself when it can to my personal experience. If someone walked into my college class and snapped a picture of everyone, the picture would expose a sad truth. Our future descendants would think that were being tortured in class because there probably wouldn’t be smile on anyone’s face. Blank stares would fill the picture and there would be a power-point presentation on the board. This is caused when technology has gone bad. Students are memorizing the slides, spitting the answers out for the test, and then erasing them from their memory completely. It’s like an etch-a-sketch effect but with people. Technology has become a crutch for teachers and we need to remember what it is like to really teach. Human interactions and hands on experiences should be first taught because that is what makes education interesting. If some things would change, more pictures might have smiles on them instead of blank or serious stares.