Blog Post #8

“This Is How We Dream Parts 1 and 2” - by Richard Miller

Dr. Richard Miller is a professor in the Humanities Department at Rutgers University. He prepared this video because he believes that educators must change the way we teach writing because of the vast changes in society due to the fast-paced ever changing advancements of technology. Miller states that the future of printed materials, such as books, magazines, and newspapers, is in jeopardy. Libraries will eventually become a thing of the past. All the materials that students need for research will be found on the web. Paper and pencil will also become unnecessary. Writing documents with word processing programs will be replaced with documents that not only include text but also audio and video. Teachers will have to teach writing in a totally different way. Their approach to teaching writing will have to involve multimedia. They will be teaching students how to compose digitally in this age of technology.
Dr. Miller proves his point when he discusses the success of this video. His video received over 9,000 hits, was embedded in numerous blogs, and became a source of discussion for many interested viewers. He explained if he had only posted his views in text format, it would have taken years to receive as much attention, but because he used audio and video, people were naturally more responsive. Writing is headed in a direction where simple text documents will not be enough. People in the future will acquire their information by not only reading but also listening and watching. So the future of writing will inevitably change, and teachers need to be ready for this change.
Writing is very dear to my heart because I teach it to middle school students. I do understand that I will have to change my way of teaching it, and I am looking forward to the challenge. Using multimedia in our future writing projects is very exciting to me. Unfortunately, at this time, my school doesn’t have the resources to do this kind of teaching. We have a computer lab and the students go once a week, but to do this kind of teaching properly, each student needs a computer to use in each class. I can, however, still assign writing projects that include audio and video, but they will have to be done on the students’ home computers. The future of writing is going to be very interesting indeed.

“Blog Post #12” - by Carly Pugh

Carly Pugh’s EDM Blog Post #12 was very interesting. She obviously put a lot of time and effort into this post. Her blog post assignment required students to “create a You Tube playlist of ten videos that describe your teaching philosophy and relate to things you have learned in this class.” Then she also wanted students to respond to the question, “What could you do with them in your teaching environment?”.
Carly Pugh, like a good teacher who teaches by example, prepared her own blog post using these instructions. She included links to several short videos that helped describe her teaching philosophy. Some were inspirational, like “Disability Means Possibility” and “The Schools Children Deserve”. Others were focused on encouraging creativity, like “Think Different” and “Creativity to the Rescue”. Then there were some that were humorous, like “The Teacher’s Rap” and “Leave Your Mark”. I do think her blog post would have impressed Dr. Miller. This is what he was referring to concerning the future of writing. Including video and audio with text makes for a more interesting “read”. This is the kind of information that people are searching for. I think Carly Pugh did a great job with her assignment.

“The Chipper Series” and “EDM 310 for Dummies”

“The Chipper Series” and “EDM 310 for Dummies” were two creative videos that highlight some of the main points we as students in EDM 310 encounter. “The Chipper Series” was a sarcastic video that demonstrates how serious you have to be to succeed in EDM 310. Poor Chipper could never seem to ever get things right, and Dr. Strange had an immense amount of patience for this poor student. Procrastination, constant excuses, and lack of time management skills are all examples of elements that will only hinder your performance in EDM 310 or life in general. “EDM 310 for Dummies” is another humorous video showing us that there is no easy way out of EDM 310. This magic book does not exist, so students in this class will have to do the research required themselves to figure out the different software and programs needed to be successful in this class. There is no easy fix. You have to be an independent learner and teach yourself sometimes.
I am sure there have been some really great videos made for the EDM 310. I would like to create a video using some of my students using technology in the classroom in response to Mr. Winkle Wakes. I think I could show that times are changing in the classroom, and though the change may not be as drastic as it should be, technology is being used in schools. You could also do a humorous video called “EDM 310 Intervention”. This video could have university students going into public school classrooms and teaching the teachers some of this technology we have learned. We could take away their paper and pencils and force them to use the various forms of technology to teach their students. I think that would be entertaining.

"Learn to Change, Change to Learn"

This video begins with some very disturbing information. In a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Commerce, our nation’s schools ranked 55th out of a total of 55 industries when rated by level of technology intensiveness. Schools came in last place in this study. The industry of coalmining was ahead of schools when it came to technology. That seems very scary to me. We need to change our way of looking at education.
Education must join the rest of world when it comes to technology. We are not giving our students what they need to succeed in life. Technology has changed the world, and we must become globally connected to order to teach what we need to teach. Technology has created a whole new environment, and it doesn’t help that most schools are scared to let it in. I particularly liked the comment about standardized testing. One educator on the video said that we are preparing our students for testing, but the future jobs that technology has invented do not require the “right answer vending machine approach”. Our students need to be creative thinkers, and all the preparation for testing that our schools are doing is not preparing our students for life after school. It seems that is process is taking too long. I know many people are scared of change, but the time has come. We cannot pretend that this technology does not exist or that it will just go away. It is here to stay and it needs to be embraced. We have to allow it into schools and prepare our students for the future.