Warlick’s Shift

Warlick’s reprioritization of education takes into account how new technologies are affecting curriculum while also placing curriculum above how effective a teacher is in the classroom. This is a much more logical progression in my mind where, as he said, “the how and the how well” will fall into place. It gives teachers the opportunity to step back from what they are currently doing, access how they can integrate their classrooms to better suit their students, and utilize the motivating factor that technology has on students.

It appears that teaching student to use what they already know and apply it in the classroom is a much smaller challenge compared to having teachers initially learn how to use new technologies, but once mastered it can be a very powerful tool. The focus then for us, as fledgling educators, is to meld the exploration of virtual education with how the information can be applied to the “basics.” An example would be having an English teacher send a student a link to a site that explains on ever occurring grammatical error so they would correct their mistakes and learning correct usage.

I think that the most important question facing ELA educators is how to teach the both sides to different students in the same classroom. By both sides, I mean the technology (to those who do not have access to it at home) and the course content. I feel that his is of utmost importance because we will all be encountering different types of students from different backgrounds in school districts with various levels of funding.

The potential of the Weblog arena

The posting of self-constructed content on the web is, without argument, a great motivator for the students of teachers who employ these technologies in their classrooms. This foundation has been laid relatively quickly and currently most teachers are playing catch up with their students.

What can be built from this base seems very impressive. Not only are social networking skills improving, but the desire to seek information outside of their current curriculum is increasing as well. The rate in which the “information consumer” is ingesting increases along side of the content in which they are creating. For me this says a lot for the potential of the human mind.

I am not sure if they exist, but “subject based” tutorial blogs could help students struggling with their understanding of a concept, to such an extent that over the course of one night they could exceed the lesson plan for the following week or weeks. That type of information sharing is getting me excited about becoming a teacher!!!

In Will Richards 2nd video clip, he referred to blog years. At first, that concept seemed ridiculous; maybe he was trying to coin the next “buzzword.” However, as I continued to read the time references stood out in my mind. The intellectual clock is speeding up and students are now able to learn more in a shorter amount of time. The rapid student teacher interaction greatly reduces the time that it takes for students to understand the concepts that they are having difficulty with. THIS excited me as a life-long leaner!!! By finding the right blog sites one could teach themselves virtually anything without the looming threat of tuition bills which could impede the educational process.

NCATE Standards

After reading the NCATE Standards, I am left wondering how long these seven points have been in effect. The experience that I have had encountering these standards is exclusive to my college career. When I was in high school, hi-tech was considered a video, I am not very that old, but I went to an underfunded school in the nineties.

At my previous college BCC, there was a greater awareness of the role that technology played in the class room but nothing that was aimed and teaching larval teachers how to use it or implement it in the class room. However, here at Cortland there is a strong push to make future teachers aware of this... if there wasn' t, we wouldn't be here.

I am not sure were how these standards will effect me in the future, but it seems in these every changing times that their implementation is something that cannot be over looked.
(that seemed a little pretentious and ambiguous)

The First

This is the first time, my toes have ever dipped into electric waters. There was no grand transition into this new stage of being. There were no deafening trumpets, for this is truly a simple step. The only limits before me are my imagination and ability to manifest myself correctly in this dimension of "off" and "on" switches.

All are welcome, please post and all of us can see what is really going on out there.