Not just a gym procedure

After reading "Do Your Teachers Need a Personal Trainer?" by Aileen M. Owens, it seems that straying away from the train-the-teacher method of training teachers is going to be extinct like the dinosaurs. The new method of training teachers is something that you might see put to practice in a gym or with fitness. The article suggests the "personal trainer" method of bringing teachers up to speed with technology would be far more beneficial than sending a group of teachers to a training.

The article suggests that sending a group of students to a school, and to work as a mentor/tech coach would be more beneficial for everyone. In the article this idea was put to practice in various districts near Duquesne University, where student interns volunteers to personally train teachers and students during class hours. There was a very strong success rate in training these teachers, especially when working with new forms of computer programming, and technology.

The only problem I see posed with this method, lies within the pride of the teachers. A number of teachers might be opposed to this because they wouldn’t want students who aren’t teachers yet to impose on their classrooms. I think the counter argument to that would be that if it is beneficial to ensure that students receive the best education possible, the teachers should put pride aside. I also think that this personal trainer method of bringing teachers up to speed, versus sending teachers to conferences is a good idea. My reasoning behind this is because conferences are often very large groups with a lecturer, where the personal trainer method is one on one and there is the ability to ask questions when problems arise. Overall I think this article was beneficial and I think the Personal trainer should not only be a gym technique, but one that can also be in a classroom.

too cool for school?i think not!

After reading the article "too cool for school? No way!" by Punya Mishra and Matthew Koehler. I have found that in order to teach with technology we have to know how to properly know how to bring it into our classrooms. The authors of this article explain to the readers that in order to teach the proper use of technology one has to be highly trained in the technology and not just someone who has enough knowlegde to get by. The authors use the example of a highly trained mathematician, becoming a elementary school teacher and that really he is more than qualified to teach the material, but he might not be a successful teacher because he doesn't know how to properly teacher it. I think this is very true when bringing technologies into class rooms because one must know the ins and outs of every program, the pros and cons before they can successfully incorporate it into an educational lesson. The extremely good example that i found interesting was a classroom teacher who brought in a DJ programing system and had his students use the program to learn math such as percentages, decimals and fractions. Really I believe that if a classroom teacher could incorporate technologies such as DJ software the lesson learned would not only be handy when using math skills, but also when computer programing. In order to use the DJ software, one must understand and comprehend some basic skills and on top of that they are learning and enjoying math. I think that when being taught with hands on equipment, the students will grasp concepts and retain the information more. I 100% agree with the ideas that are being suggested in this article and look forward to hopefully some day having an idea as genius as bringing in DJ software to teach a math lesson.

Great idea!

In our first online reading, I thought that the author made a number of excellent points about how technology can bring a school together as well as increase the learning for both students and staff. I believe that bringing computers closer to the students, especially in this era where knowing how to work technology is so vital, it would definitely increase the students ability to learn as well as his/hers excitement to learn. I say this because as we know computers are such a helpful tool and as the author points out, a way to communicate. The idea to start of chat rooms where students can come in contact with some of the authors that they read in class is genius. I say this because when one reads and can almost relate to a book because they know a little something about the author, such as why he started writing, it can help the students be excited to read. I also think that these educational chat rooms can be beneficial because they can ask for help from others. Some students do not always understand a particular part of a homework assignment or reading, so when this happens they might be able to hop online and receive the help they need. I also see however, that bringing such technology might be difficult because of cost, and the means of monitoring what is said in such chat rooms but with every will there is a way. I believe that it would be a step in the right direction and be extremely beneficial to the students not to mention the educators and staff.

i did it.

finished.