So many facts! That was my first thought when I finished watching the video. It told all about populations in terms of babies being born within the time of the presentation as well as the number of honor students in the US and China. There were facts about the years it took for radios, iPods, the internet and television to reach a market audience of 50 million people, for some of those, I would never have guessed it took so little time. It also had facts about some discoveries that are to be made within the next three years, including a super computer.
I would never have thought that for some of this information, like the time for the market audience, that it would take so little time. I say little because not everyone can afford things like televisions, iPods, or even internet connection, and yet it took less than 5 years for the iPods and internet and 13 years for television. The most believable out of the group was 38 years for radio. The scariest part was the super computer since it will exceed the human brain, I mean, who wouldn't be scared by something being smarter than them?
Mr. Winkle Wakes
Mr. Winkle Wakes shows that technology has come a long way in 100 years. It is present everywhere now, including hospitals, offices, libraries, and school. In the video it says that school is just the way he remembered it with students sitting there taking notes while the teacher lectured on and on. But, to me that is just not the case anymore. While teachers do still make you take notes while they lecture they have also begun to make the classroom and interactive place.
The teachers in my high school were learning about the SMARTboard by my first semester of Junior year (2007) and by the second semester there were already SMARTboards being brought into our school for teachers to start using. And yes, while there were still some teachers that opposed it and thought that things should stay the same as they have always been, those same teachers were loving the ease at which they could lecture by the time my graduation rolled around in the spring of 2009. I think that this is the way schools should be now simply because they should stay with the times.
The Importance of Creativity
Sir Robinson wants everyone to know that the schools now a days are killing student creativity. All schools worry about are the "fundamentals" of Math, Science, Language Arts, and Social Studies. Everything outside of this, like dance and art, are pushed to the back and made to seem unimportant. He tells stories of his son and friends doing things that would be considered creative and how people are too scared to be creative in today's society since to be creative a lot of the times you have to be wrong.
I believe every word of what Sir Ken Robinson said about the schools pushing creavitity out and society being afraid to be wrong simply because I am the same way. I grew up as the quiet child that did nothing but study what the teachers told her to. I never played make believe games with my friends for real and always had a book in my hand. I see now that it was wrong for me to be like that and it killed the creative side of my childhood, but luckily I am making up for it in my life now.
Cecelia Gault
This video was just brilliant. The fact that Cecelia knows there should be a balance and that it is lacking in many schools amazed me. Her and Robinson discussed students in today's classrooms needing to be able to make better connections between the sciences and art curriculum. This is important because it will spark more creative ideas in our younger citizens. In the second half of her article she interveiwed Mr. Livermore, a senior research consultant at the Cultural Intelligence Center, and he said that for cultural intelligence to be increased that students should travel. This is a great idea since then the students would get first hand knowledge of how other cultures learn.
I think that Cecelia did a wonderful job overall and asked Robinson some amazing questions. To think that someone as young as her sees that things have to change for the better in the US is just mind boggling. That is because even some people in my generation and the generations above me refuse to see that anything is amiss with our education system.
Vicki Davis: Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts
Ms. Davis' class reminds me a lot of this class. The students are teaching her at the same time that they are teaching themselves and their class mates and it is all on the computer. They reach out to students all around the world, and if you remember, Dr. Strange showed us on the first day of class that people from all around the world have looked at our class blog and student blogs.
I think that Ms. Davis' idea of having everything online is a good thing and that it is teaching the students how to learn things on their own, and that it will be their responsibility and their mistake if the work isn't done on time or correctly, although she does still offer them some help and advice.
Hey Jeni!
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing wrong with being the quiet child who always had a book in her hand! I was the same way. I think there is more wrong on the side of the adults and teachers who didn't try or care enough to engage us and completely ignored that we were missing something in our school day: creativity. I think Sir Ken Robinson's video does a fabulous job of pointing out the way our society singles out those who are good at following the rules and knowing what's acceptable, and those who are lost in translation. We see a child like Gillian Lynne, the dancer he mentions, and think that there is no way that she can be successful because she just can't sit still! I think teachers like Vicki Davis help those students by testing them not just on their ability to pay attention and follow the rules, but on what they are able to learn and create and in turn, teach her also. Great post, Jeni!