Tuesday, October 23, 2007

PLN: Week 7- Post 13

I read a recent article written by Jeff Utech titled, "I'm Struggling with Tech Standards Again...". in this article Jeff talks about how he feels like it is unnecessary for people to have standards or skills that we need to assess when using technology. He thinks that because technology is a tool that we use, in classrooms and offices, we don't need to have strict standards for our use.

This post relates to me in the very first paragraph when he brings up the idea of using technology in the classroom. As a student I use the computer a ton in school, whether its to check my grades or do an assignment, I use technology as a tool everyday. I agree with Jeff in that if we use the technology properly as a tool then there isn't any particular standard that we need to live up to as far as how we use it. Sure there are skills that teachers teach their students in the classroom as far as technology goes, but why is it necessary for us to have standards? I see what Jeff means. He also brings up the question of, what is so exciting about visiting websites? Is it the use of technology, or the content that is important? If we are using the technology we should be excited about the content in what we are leaning not what we use to learn it. We have tools today that allow us as students to share what we learn with global audiences and a teacher is not going to grade us on whether or not we use our tools, (a.k.a the computer) they are going to grade us on the content put in.

This article relates not only to the student, but also to the teacher. How will they grade us? As I said before, the teacher will grade on our content and what we learn, not how we use the tool of technology, therefore why are standards needed? Teachers should keep this in mind as they grade their students on future assignments where the students will use their tools.

1 comment:

Jeff said...

Thanks for your thoughts on this topic. It's an interesting approach as what I think we need to do is rethink what we are teaching students. The revised Bloom's Taxonomy of 2001 states that Highest Order Thinking Skill is now create.

We need to teach students how to create knowledge. How to find information, make sense of it, and then create new meaning out of what they have learned. This focuses on the learning process and not really the content that is being learned. We need to teach students to learn, not to memorize and not how to click a mouse. They already know how to click a mouse, and memorizing information is great as long as you stay in a school system the rest of your life. :0

Thanks for the conversation,

Jeff