Blog #9

This week, I watched a video called Little Kids...Big Potential, and it was made by a first grade teacher named Mrs. Kathy Cassidy. The video gives you a rundown of all different types of exciting technological mediums that her students use to learn! It is quite fantastic when you see the children get ahead in this world full of new things. The kids in the video use blogs, wikis, Skype, and other marvelous to learn about specific topics in their lessons for that week.

Dr. Strange had a three part Skype interview with her about four months ago to see how she goes about using technology in her classroom. Click the links to see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Her answers to his questions were astounding to me! She talked about how we as future teachers should not by any circumstances think for one second that we do not have to be technologically literate to teach a modern day class. Instead, we need to learn as much as we can before teaching in a classroom because the world is changing everyday and we need to change with it, whether we like it or not. Besides, the experience we get from learning something new will encourage our future students to do the same! The joy that children get when they come to school and they don't need to "power down" is a huge plus when it comes to getting them to focus. Technology is their world, and something that is familiar to them, so not going with the flow of the changing world will be not beneficial to yourself and your students.

I also liked how she talked about the blogs that the children do. If I were to pick a learning technique that Ms. Cassidy uses in her classroom, I would choose to encourage blogging. The children's reactions to the blogging is something I thought I'd never see from children. They absolutely love when they look at their view count to see how many people have already seen their blogs. It also helps them to write more effectively and creatively. That would benefit the kids in so many ways. They will be more eager to write, do their assignments, read, and learn more about technology and be more enthusiastic about it! Now, I understand that there will most likely be kids in my class who do not like to write or take time out to work on their blogs. The ways I'd address that is I'd show them what they'd be contributing to the world, and show them the view counts and comments that others have left. That should make them more eager to write and post their blogs.

Ms. Kathy Cassidy gave us some very insightful information on how to deal with the changing world and how to teach your students to adapt as well. Who knows, maybe our students will be the ones teaching US.