Blog Assignment 12

For this weeks blog post, we were supposed to come up with our own assignment and complete it. This is the assignment I chose to do:

Watch Room for Improvement. Discuss ways to get America back on top in the educational world.

Room for Improvement:
The Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, discusses how we need to get back to being the America we used to be. We need to take charge and push our citizens and test their potential. He mentions that he wants America to be the number one country that has college graduates, again. He also mentions that technology is another area where America has been passed up. Schools in other countries have implemented technology in their ways of teachings, and it has amazing results. Sure, there are schools in the United States that use different forms of technology, but we are nowhere close to the schools overseas. We are extremely capable of getting computers in every school and really taking advantage of all the different forms of technology.

We have watched several different videos and read numerous blog posts on how technology is becoming a necessity in schools. Sure, there are teachers who rather teach the way they've been teaching for years, and they don't do well with change. Unfortunately, times are changing and we have to get up to date with the different forms of technology and how we can benefit from them. Blogging helps students learn about different cultures, improves their grammar, and gives them the opportunity to interact with other students from other schools. Podcasts allow the students to get their ideas out there. The upside to podcasting is that it can be uploaded automatically and you don't have to tune in weekly. There are different forms of technology that intrigue different types of students and their interests. I've learned so much about technology and how to properly use it in the school setting, and I have every intention of implementing them in my classroom.


Watch School? There’s an app for That! Discuss the advantages that come with cell phones and how we can use them in the classroom.

School? There's an app for That!
Arne Duncan was dead on when he said students lose lots of things, but never their cell phones. We are growing up in a generation where we are dependent on cell phones. It’s hard to imagine how people survived without them. Children of all ages own a cell phone. Since they are going to use them anyways, why not make them beneficial in the classroom? This goes along with the iSchool video we had to watch a few weeks back. We can set up applications students can use at home and in the classroom. They can upload their homework assignments, view classroom lectures when they’re absent, view study guides, and so many other things. Instead of trying to find a way to keep cell phones out of the school, let’s try and find a way to use them!