The Digital Age is here. From the Internet to smart phones, and blogs
to podcasts, all generations are taking advantage of these technological tools;
there is no escaping it. Our young
people from the Net Generation, however, don’t want to escape and seem to
thrive on these discoveries much more than any other generation and so have
been tagged ‘Digital Natives’. Though
our children and students speak the “digital” language and seem to have no
trouble incorporating new technology into their daily repertoire/routine, they probably
lack the critical knowledge and wisdom they need to utilize this technology to
its fullest potential. And so it is my
responsibility as a future teacher to fill this gap by empowering students with
the critical knowledge and wisdom they lack.
It is essential to fill this gap in students,
but in order to do so I need to inspire and motivate them to be critical
thinkers. In my classroom I will
incorporate concepts from the Reconstructivism school of thought where I will
encourage and engage my students to get involved in our community, nation, and
world. This will enable them to practice
and become familiar with real world situations and problems where they will
apply new concepts, as well as, familiar concepts from the past. Connecting via a computer, video camera, and
microphone with a similar math class in a different country would provide
inspiration in a very real and tangible way.
The Internet has become an integral part of our lives, and having a
class web page is a must. Classroom
lessons, homework assignments, cool links, and questions from my students could
all be found on a class web site. Students will be introduced to Blogs and
Podcasts, utilize these e-technology tools and more fully understand their
potential. However, with class time limited
and certain curriculum mandated, real world projects and/or applications
involving technology can prove difficult and so the Realism school of thought rears
its head. It will prove difficult to not
fall back on the habits of the past. Standing
up at the front of the class, teaching the next math concept from the book,
assigning problems out of the book, and taking a test at the end of the chapter
might meet the most basic criteria of education, but would severely
disadvantage the students in this digital age.
I will challenge myself to erase these old schools of thought and step
outside this comfort zone in my classroom.
This will broaden my students' knowledge as well as my own and put us
all in a place for optimal advancement. This leads me into the school of
thought which I relate to the most which is Pragmatism.
I believe education is life. I believe we are always learning
and enriching our knowledge about the world around us, and we cannot do this
alone. We must collaborate with each other, mold our beliefs, problem solve,
and improve each and every day as educators and students. I believe this school of thought
allows the limits we have put on our education to fade. It allows me to teach
in a variety of ways, utilizing a variety of different tools and mediums. It is
necessary to change up my teaching styles and methods and think outside the box
in order to keep my students engaged and looking at problems from multiple
angles. We will solve math problems which we can relate to, learn cool math
tricks, engage with others outside the classroom walls, and incorporate
e-technology tools and applications to enhance our everyday learning skills and
knowledge. Technology can prove to be
more than just a tool we use to complete an assignment and our use of it can
grow beyond the minimal usages we initially learned on our own. I want to learn
and teach the new technology’s full capabilities and prove that it can empower
us, makes us smarter, more efficient and effective. In this way education will
begin to fill the gap between a basic utilization of technology and the ability
to exploit it to the fullest extent.
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