On that note, this survey will help me find out:
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Another reason that this class may be more exciting is that technology continues to advance in significant ways, and the possibilities that many technologies portend for our classrooms are intriguing.
The principles are the same as they were a year ago, but what were previoulsy emerging technology and trends are now ubiquitous. Take this blog, for instance. Just five years ago, Blogger was a relative newcomer in the world of the web, and only recently acquired by Google. There were around 50 million blogs already, but today that number has tripled. In the last 24 hours, another million posts were published in the blogosphere.
Finally, as this technology permeates more aspects of our lives, the way we think, create, interact, and operate changes. A few ideas about how:
1. People think more quickly. Before the digital age, people thought more deliberately. Compared to what it took me to to type this sentence, it would have taken much more forethought to compose the same sentence by hand or typewriter. We think and write more concisely these days.
2. People are often less inclined to make face-to-face connections. In the era of Facebook and email, how easy is it to feel empowered to communicate behind your computer screen? 3. Folks are apt to think globally and less hierarchically. From the textbook to the hyperlink, we now see knowledge as more of a network than a linear collection of causes and effects.
How else has the digital age and its accompanying technologies affect how we think? How do those changes affect how students might learn, and how we should plan to teach them?
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15 comments:
The digital age and technology is changing how we think and learn in the classroom. With articles, blogs, sites, and books online and even textbooks on digital readers, like the Kindle, I think books will soon become extinct. These new technologies are so much more innovative than textbooks. Online we can edit and change stuff and bookmark it so we don't have to flip through many pages to find what we had once read. Knowing this, we should update the way we teach students. Kids these days should be up-to-date on the newest technology and this can start in the classroom.
I think for most students, Youtube, Google, and Wikipedia have become essential tools in helping them find out whatever they want to know. Additionally, watching a video on cats howling or a door falling on top of a little girl is much more funny and interesting than learning how to subtract double digit numbers. I think we, as teachers, should find ways to make our classrooms and lesson plans as engaging and relevant as the web.
What I hear most often from my parents and other people of their generation, is how much more convenient it is for us to write papers and gather information, having only to type keywords into the internet, and acquire an abundance of information in a matter of minutes. It seems that thinking is becoming easier - when on the internet, searchers are "thinkging" everytime they conduct a search, read information, and pursue a new or extended search. Similarly, could our thinking be less intelligent, since the web is influenced by anyone, including people with little knowledge or extreme prejudices publishing ideas that can influence so many people seeking information.
I think teachers should not rely fully on technological resources, but encourage students to learn from experience, go on field trips, view museums with factual documentation to learn history. I think teachers should also focus on the web and its influence on us and its role in society, while also instructing students proper ways to search and format Web 2.0 affecting their lives. Also, the written word should remain important to cultivate personal relations.
-Kelsey Silva
Although technology has its benefits, I notice that people tend to spend more time indoors behind a computer screen than physically interacting with people and experiencing the different things the world has to offer. In my neighborhood, I don't see kids playing outside anymore. In my high school, people interacted more with each other on facebook than they did online. Now that I'm in college, I don't even have to get out of my dorm to get books or buy food, because I can do that online. And as the Pixar's Wall E wonderfully illustrates, people aren't as physically active as they were before. As much as I love technology, the internet, ipods, etc., I must say that it also has its negatives.
Technology has expanded tremendously over the years and keeps expanding each day. It has really become a helpful tool to everyone around us. Everywhere you go new types of technologies are being portrayed. It has come to affect the way we think in a more intelligent way because we have so much more access to different technologies and links. Students now have an easier time learning the materials because there are different ways of showing what is being taught. Not all students learn the same, so instead of having text books all the time there are now new ways to show the information such as videos, powerpoints, ect. Technology is a very important tool when it comes to teaching because it allows your students to fully ingage in the information being taught.
Ali McMahon
Technology has had such an impact on the way we think, sometimes it is hard to think otherwise. I couldn't believe that my grandparents used to let my mom go out with her friends and not hear from her until she shows up back at home. In high school, if I were to go out with my friends, my parents wanted me to call or text them so they know where I was.
I think technology is definatly changing how students learn seeing as how my four year old cousin taught me how to use his Nintendo Wii the other night when I was babysitting him. Children are growing up with technology all around them now and they might expect to see it in the classroom as well. Kids are learning at younger and younger ages how to "find the easy way out" on the internet as opposed to actually looking something up in the library. As teachers, we will need to be ready to face these technological advances head on and be able to feel comfortable incorporating technology in the classroom, even though we might have not been taught that way.
The digital age has made so many changes to how we live it is overwhelming to think about. Even from when I was little everything has changed, including how we live and how we think. With the world of technology as it is today everything we ever could hope to know is at the tip of our fingertips. This has made everything faster and more accesible. It was created links to people and cultures all over the world. It has most definitely changed the way we communicate. For students technology can help to present information quicky, interestingly, and in an understandable format. Whether it's a powerpoint, google search engine, or a youtube video. Teachers need to find ways to present information through technolgy in an interesting and helpful manner. With this students today can be incorporated into a technological world ready to aid in their own learning.
Technology has affected how we think because we rely on technology to get information. Instead of looking at a book we choose to just look up information on the internet. It has become a faster way to think. Instead of trying to think of what an answer is it is easier to just look up the information. Since we rely on technology now students become more engaged with technology. It is an easier way for studnet to pay attention because they can relate to it. As technology advances we must adapt to what technology has become. Students today on the internet constantly and are on the computer all the time.
the digital age has changed how we think in many ways. now with the internet we don't try to think things through as much if we do not know the answer to something right away before we think about it or get a book we go right to the web. reaching in the library is becoming a lost art with so much information at are fingertips. this really changes how we must teach are students. in the past the focus was on how to research now we must teach how to tell what is good information not how to look for it. we must also change are perceptions of how knowledge is acquired. are students are not just learning in the classroom but can learn everywhere and any where and we can use that by changing are lessons we no longer just have to teach in the class room ether we can use the web and programs like second life to reach out in to the kids world and teach them in ways that make it interesting and relevant.
Anya Wasko
Technology is continually changing and becoming a major part of our society today. The world we live in is focused on the movement and increasing forward effort of computers, and all technology that goes along with it. The amazing part about technology is how it levels us all to be equal. We are all learning together and also teaching each other as newer and newer technologies unfold everyday. These tools have become almost mandatory to succeed in today's world, and if you choose not to learn, sadly, you will be left behind. It is our job to educate people, and also to not forget that we are also students of technology. We will never stop learning because technology will never stop expanding.
I feel as if the advances in technology and the digital age have both negative and positive aspects on our society and the way we think. As stated, the internet diminishes the sense, and in some way importance, of meeting a person face to face. This lack of being able to communicate in a way other than social networking causes individuals to become shy, usually keep to themselves, and evidently be left out of many social activities that involve verbal communication skills. However, social networking and the advances of the internet have also helped people gain knowledge and the ability to create many different identities. For example, an individual may present themselves differently on a variety of sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. This ability to create multiple identies may also allow the individual to express themself in a way they may not have felt comfortable doing otherwise. Moreover, the digital age constantly affects the way we think and the way we act. However, we are still responsible for our own actions and the way we allow social networking sites, databases, and other sources of information to affect our lives and the way we think, whether it be in a negative or positive sense.
The digital age and its accompanying technologies have also affected the way we think in a sense that people today are more open to their ideas and thoughts. For example, through blogs and personal webpages like Facebook, people can express their own beliefs and or emotions. There are millions, if not billions, of journals, papers, articles, etc. that various people can now post online. People are no longer limited to books and newspaper articles. Technology has opened a completely different world in terms of self expression. These changes affect postively on how students learn. Students can learn through ways in which they find more interesting rather than staring at a book (like blogging as a homework assignment!). Technology is known for its efficiency. It affects the way we teach students because it can cover a whole lot of information without necessarily the use of books.
-Romina Tayag
When I was in 1st grade the computer had really just made its way into public schools. We went a couple of times a year into the computer lab and played basic math games. Our favorite "treat" was when we got to use "Paint" to draw things with our little plastic mouses. Just three years later when my brother went through Elementary school the 3 or 4 times a year visits became monthly visits. They were required to learn to type and create a word document and even learned basic internet skills. This past year I volunteered at the same school and the first graders of today, just 10 years later, are learning to research on the web and turn their research into word documents. At the same time the kids were sneaking looking at pictures on google of puppies.
The technology of today has allowed students to gather information at a speed never before possible. This allows for more information in a shorter time. However, it has also allowed kids an easy alternative for entertainment in the form of funny videos and pictures instead of knowledge. As the technology age grasps our world more and more knowledge becomes available and it is important/ essential to teach children how it can be used as not only a form of entertainment but also a way to gain knowledge.
I think that the digital age is changing the way we edit our thoughts and opinions. In the past, we had to think before we spoke. Now, you can blurt what you want onto your computer, and then go back and edit. This tends to lead to more thoughtful opinions and responses, but doesn't let the brain do it. I think that it is very important to encourage both ways of thinking, because the more well rounded students are, the more tools they posses to process information.
Out of all the contributions technology has made in peoples lives, it certainly has made them better multitaskers. If people are occupied on their computer, more often than not they have several windows open, chatting with friends on AIM or facebook, while having their email open and/or working on a word document. People are not satisfied just doing one thing, they have this innate instinct to work on multiple tasks while they work on their computer. Although we can handle multiple tasks at once, the downside of it is that it has made us lazy people. Writing etiquette has diminished because it is faster to misspell and overlook grammar and syntax while instant messaging, which might be okay to family and friends, but lazy writing has carried into our emailing, making formal messages seem informal without notice. Therefore multitasking has diminished our ability to give our fullest attention on any given task, which makes us go about completing tasks in a mediocre fashion. Multitasking is easy to adapt to with today's techonology, but we must educate and inform to not let lazy writing and lazyiness in general get the best of us.
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