Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label technology. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Changing the Source of Knowledge

     In my eyes, most teachers in my home country today are still laying the role of information provider. They are the person who give instructions to the whole class while students are required to follow what teachers teach. During my school life, teachers are mostly like leaders or monitors who lead and control student's learning and receiving of knowledge.  Hence, students seldom search for the knowledge they need by themselves but ask for teacher's help. Generally, teachers are more like the bridge that connects students with knowledge. Even though technology plays an essential role in most people's life, it is seldom invited to the filed of teaching. This does not mean that most people are unaware of the power of technology, while they just forget to make use of it in knowledge learning.
     According to Siemens' article, in the view of Behaviorism, Cognitivism and Constructivism, learning is a process that "occurs inside the body" and will change one's behavior because learning comes with interacting with society all fail to explain one's learning. This impressed me a lot since we always said learning is a construction of a person. Through learning, s/he learns knowledge, social rules in the community, social skills with interacting with people and finally internalize what s/he learned and is able to self-monitor or self-assess himself/herself. While Siemens here points out that all learning theories focus on the process of learning but neglect what is learned. Staying in a society, especially learning with technology and information varies rapidly, people should use other  theory to reconsider learning. Under the influence of technology, one's experience is no longer the only source of learning. A person should know how to learning with experiences, from both personal and public. This reminds me of the students in Taiwan. Most of them use blogs or other online communities to build up relationship with others. When having some problem about personal life or study, some of them will choose to find some help from people they do not know on the Internet. Through collecting what is useful or reasonable to them, they transform these information into their own and will use to same manner to solve problems. Teachers are not the only person who can offer help or share experiences anymore.
     In addition, as people in "The Changing Nature of Knowledge" points out, "the nature of knowledge power" is changing. When he's studying, his learning experiences are different from students nowadays. For instance, although students in that age have computers, they think it is not that convenient using a computer with study. However, there are more and more learning networks and databases now. The connection that learners build with learning is actually through these online information--"the network becomes learning." Further, as knowledge changes quickly, people cannot just stay at what they already learned or even just learned because it will probably change in the next few minutes. Hence, the model and manner of learning have to be "reflective." I agree that people need to "stay current" about knowledge since one will never know what you believe now is still true or right later. Learning is not merely reading books or following teacher's instructions. It can also be done just through a computer or a phone; therefore, keep staying current toward knowledge and making best use of technological tools to assist one's learning is what people need to consider in 21st century. Nonetheless, as Siemens asserts about Connectivism, "decisions are based on rapidly altering foundations. New information is continually being acquired. The ability to draw distinctions between important and unimportant information is vital." Consequently, choosing what one need to know and learn is identically important when receiving knowledge with technology. What one needs to do is keep staying current and knowing what kind of information they are receiving simultaneously. 

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Youtube Teachers!

YouTube Teachers - Ideas for Using Video in Your Classroom
     When seeing the title, I am really interested in what does "youtube teachers" mean since it is a term that I did not know before.
     In this article, the author introduce the new channel on YouTube which instructs teachers to use videos in their classrooms. On that channel, teachers are able to find various video-based classroom planning suggestion and even learn how to make their own videos for class. But, the author also points out a tremendous problem the channel has--it is unable to be accessed in every school. Hence, though some teachers discover this channel and plan to use it in class, they may fail to use this function.
     I like the primary idea of YouTube Teachers--combining technology with teaching, while I do not understand why it would be restricted in some schools. In addition, during my studying life in America, none of my teachers use this channel in class. I guess it still has long way to go to popularize this channel.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Some ideas I never think of

     Before watching this video, "Teaching in 21st Century," I kind of regard technology with teaching is an idea that move students from a real classroom to an online space where they can share ideas with classmates and teacher through the Internet. Honestly, I never think of the change of course content when the classroom is no longer there.
     One idea that influences me the most is that the video-maker firstly point out that teachers can no longer believe what they can provide are merely content, facts, formula or information since students actually are able to find all of these research or resources through blogs and other online resources. Previously, people may believe teacher is the major role who provides knowledge to the whole class. According to this video, what 21st-century teacher should be is not knowledge-transmitter but "filter" which means when students find the information online, teachers should instruct them how to handle these resources so as to select the one that can compromise their needs the most.
     Hence, the role of teacher and student in 21st-century classroom seem to be exchange. Teacher is no longer the information provider; contrastively, students need to find the information by themselves. Students are not the one who present questions anymore; on the contrary, teacher gives questions for student to think and get the information they need for the question. Also, in 21st-century classroom, the skills that teacher needs to learn are also different-- what they have to learn now is to use online resources through technical skills and be the filter to help students make the best use of online resources.