we are supposed to be the land of opportunities, but we are falling behind

There are so many people talking about how we need to change everything about education in America. Why is it not happening?  I am scared for what it will be like when my kids are adults and living in the world we have created here.  American is falling behind because of the way we educate our people.  After reading the first passage in Linda Darling-Hammond’s book “The Flat World, Educational Inequality and America’s Future” It has made me think about the fact that other countries, even those less fortunate, are passing us by simply because they know how teach, they know how to learn, and we are talking about how we need to change, but nothing has been done.  As stated by The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, 2007, “The American standard of living will steadily fall relative to those nations, rich and poor, that are doing a better job,” (page 1) Simple little “patchwork” changes are not helping, something drastic seems to be the only thing that will get us back on track.  We need an educational make-over.

we live in the 21st century, let’s go to school in it.

I watched the interview with Heidi Hayes Jacobs about her book Curriculum 21 and I agree with almost all that she had to say. I loved the fact that she wants all new ideas and compared her idea for education to the idea of energy sources.  She doesn’t jus want to pick and choose things to improve on in education, she wants to change them all together so it’s more relevant with the world we live in today.  Heidi talked about the fact that it seems like when students go to school they are time traveling backwards, and once they leave school for they day they are back in the 21st century.  That is a really interesting thing to think about, because it makes complete sense.  When kids get home from school they go on the computer and go straight to their virtual communities.  If this is what kids are used to then why not figure out a way to incorporate it into their learning at school too?  We are living in the 21st century but we are still going to school like we’re in the 20th.  By creating new ideas about education and by incorporating the technology kids are using everyday anyway, maybe school will be an environment kids are more comfortable in, which in turn could create our kids to be better learners.

The one thing that challenged me about what Heidi was saying in her interview was the concept of kids possibly being able to do some of their schooling at home.  This scares me because I am going into the field of education for my job.  Less time at school for kids means less time at school for teachers which means less money in my pocket at the end of the week.  There are many reasons for me why I believe school should continue to stay on the five days a week schedule.  Many children go home after school to an empty house already until their parents get home from work for the day.  Just because students don’t have to go to school doesn’t mean parents don’t have to go to work with results with a lot of alone time for kids at home which I don’t really think is good for anyone.  This is something that I don’t even have other ideas on, it is crazy for me to think about.

we shaped our tools now our tools are shaping us

After watching Michael Wesch talk about how technology is changing us, it brought up the thought in my head about how far it will continue to go.  Media is effecting all of us whether we choose to engage in these new communities or not.  Wesch talked about the fact that there is a common mind-set that has been consistently “whatever” and hopefully can become “I care, let’s do something about it”.  I don’t know how exactly he hopes this can happen.  I like the idea that he talked about where there is a sort of freedom without the anxiety while making YouTube videos and so on.  No one can see you and you can’t see anyone if you choose while making a YouTube video or a blog post or a status on Facebook, until you post it..then it is seen by more people than you can even control.  It is a nice way to get what you have to say out there without having to deal with judgement or nerves.  I fully support this idea but also believes it takes away from one of the most important things in life, being social interaction. face to face.  I think in some ways these technological communities are shutting people off from other people.  By joining one of these communities you are sharing your ideas with many other people then you would have without the help of technology, but you are also making it less personal.  I would much rather have a conversation and talk to someone then watch them talk to me, or rather talk to their camera and then me watch it.

I liked the point Wesch brought up also about how we know ourselves through relationships with other and how this new media such as YouTube can maybe help us find new ways to get to know other people, and ultimately ourselves.  This is a very controversial thing for me because I don’t know whether I can fully support the idea of technology taking over.  If things keep improving, keep becoming more popular in the future, it could end up that people no longer go to school because everything is available online, people could eventually ultimately lose touch with face to face everything.  I don’t think I would want to live in a world like that.

virtual communities

The concept of virtual communities is a fairly new thing for me to wrap my head around.  Getting involved in so many new places on the web in such a short amount of time has been quite overwhelming. After more exploration I can tell things will definitely come together with time and experimenting.

Reading what Schwier has to say in his piece Pursuing the Elusive Metaphor of Community in Virtual Learning Environments about all of these communities was very interesting to me.  I agree with much of what he has to say.  I think that because technology allows us to do so many new things, and so many companies and things in our world now rely on technology it makes complete sense to teach students in schools how to be a part of this new world.  I also though think that students can not turn completely to technology and forget about interactions.  When communicating and portraying ideas only through the internet or through these virtual communities, something is lost.  I think that face to face interaction, when possible, is very important as well.  By becoming involved in the virtual world and not forgetting about creativity and expression in person, success is a sure thing.  By limiting students to their new virtual communities social interaction becomes less important which I believe is the most important thing to have in the world.  Taking the ideas that so many, including Schwier, have in the 21st century is a great idea.  As teachers we just need to be careful not to loose touch with the older methods of teaching and learning which help with overall human development.

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