For this blog post, watch the following videos and write two or more paragraphs describing your reaction to the videos.
When I Become a Teacher
Are You Paying Attention
The first video, "When I Become a Teacher", shows clips of a number of teachers making statements about how they don't care, they can't wait to quit, they're not going to change, etc. If this were the way a majority of teachers were, our education system would be in even worse shape than it is.
I have never met any teachers who would say they felt this way and I really believe the great majority of teachers really care about their students and do their best to teach them. I do think most teachers are somewhat resistant to change, but so are most other people in the world.
The second video, "Are You Paying Attention", takes another look at many things we have seen before. Statistics about how many hours students have spent playing games, talking on the phone, etc. I realize that students can entertain themselves with electronics and technology, but can they be disciplined enough to learn meaningful subject matter with technology. I guess I'm like the administrator in the pencil story; from what I have seen when I substitute for tech teachers about 70-80% of the class either play games, watch NFL or NBA highlights, or shop online. Only a very few actually do their assigned work or spend the time expanding their knowledge of the world like every one seems to think they will do. Anyway, this video does mention an approach a little different. It suggests using cell phones to teach in the classroom which might possibly be feasible since most students (at some ages) carry cell phones to school. The biggest advantage to this would be they already have the phones. The biggest drawback that I can see is how to monitor what the students are actually doing and making sure they are not playing Hangman
You are aware - from the search page which reads
ReplyDeleteTeacherTube Videos - When I become a teacher Oct 14, 2007 – Several Apple distinguished educators made this spoof in summer 2001.
and the scrolling credits at the end (Apple University and 2001) - that this is a spoof by a group of what Apple calls Apple Distinguished Educators, correct?
Neither link in your post works. Both links contains two http references: one to your blog, one to the Teacher Tube video. How did I know this? Just put your cursor over the link and look in the lower left corner of the Safari window. There you will see the target URL. In your case the URLs are incorrect and will not work. This link does work: When I Become A Teacher.
Now lets take a look at your second link what you call Are You Paying Attention (I can tell from the ID number which appears in Safari when I hover over the link).
TeacherTube Videos - Pay Attention
Apr 4, 2007 – teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?title=Pay_Attention&video_id=448
Labeled Videos Audios Documents Photos
http://tinyurl.com/69hou9a
In the video Pay Attention (which I may use even though it is dated) one slide reports that "there are over 2.7 billion searches performed on Google each month." The data are from April 2006. I wondered what the number is 4 3/4 years later. So I looked up the latest figures (as of January 2011 according to Hayes) on the Gary Hayes Media Counter. There are 2.03 billion Google searches a day! And in a month that would be 62.8 billion a month. Think about that! Thirty times as many just 4 3/4 years later.
You say that cellphones being used as part of the instructional activities "might possibly be feasible…". But you worry about making sure the students "are not playing Hangman." The answer to this issue is in the video: Engage Them!
I may assign the second video in this way: The data in this video are from 2002-2006. Bring the data up to date and revise the messages in the video appropriately based on the new data.
That would be fun. And maybe even enlightening!