Week 9: Educational Topic

The educational topic I choose to write about is home schooling. Most of us, as teachers don't really think about homeschooling because its something we will not have to face. I got started thinking about homeschooling because of a TV that I was watching. A sophomore in high school was not social, and wanted to be at home instead of in the normal social setting of a school. For the young girl homeschooling at first was a way to be isolated, which she enjoyed. She started asking her family for help on her assignments and when they were not willing to help her out (because they disagreed with the homeschooling situation) she began to relate her science project to her own personal life. It was evident that she read the material she needed to in order to complete the task and made it relevant to her life. I know this was just an episode from a TV show but it actually opened my eyes to the positive sides of homeschooling. I think it really can be beneficial for students who don't feel welcome in the social settings of the classroom. It can also make the material feel more relevant if they can connect it to their home/personal life. I think homeschooling could be beneficially for students who are consistently being bullied in school. Although I don't think homeschooling is all positive, the show made me see the good side to it, and made me feel more open to those who believe it is the best choice for them.

1 to 1 computing

I found this article very interesting and a little bit surprising. I have grown up with laptops being accessible in my classroom, and never found it to be a big deal. In high school we had several rooms with computers and of course the basic computer labs we could go to, but we also had laptops for the entire class that was delivered on the day that our teacher checked them out. I found the laptops to be useful; however this was at least six years ago so the technology wasn’t as great, or as fast. We did have problems with them but I think that was just because the concept was new. I’m sure they are more efficient now. The article stated that the study found “improvements on student engagement; however I am not fully sure I would agree with this statement. Yes, students are able to connect more with the material, but I also think having laptops can cause some students to become off topic while surfing around on the internet. Giving students laptops and more advanced technologies comes with both positives and negative aspects. It gives active learners a chance to become active while learning, but it can also distract those students who have trouble staying on task. Another important piece of the article that I really liked was that it said simply adding technologies and laptops into a classroom won’t do all the work; the way of instructing has to correlate with the technology in order for 1 to 1 computing to work to its full potential. I think 1 to 1 computing can work great in certain aspects, like research projects as they discussed in the article; however, I think it can also hinder different learning styles. I know personally I don’t learn as well from a computer, I need to hand write the material in order to soak it in. I have never brought my laptop to class to take notes on. It just doesn’t do anything for me. So if I had this program in my school all day, every day, it would not be beneficial for my learning. I would have to do more work outside of class to simple catch up to the day’s work that was done on the computer. I think laptops should be provided for those students who want them, but I don’t think it needs to be integrated into every subject, or project in the classroom. And I don’t believe it should be a mandatory program for schools. Furthermore, I think if schools want to incorporate 1 to 1 computing into their classrooms there needs to be a class or instructional course for teachers to learn how to properly design lessons around the technologies to get the most out of their lesson. I think having this program could cause some instructors to become lazy and think the students will teach themselves with the computers. This idea is something I fully disagree with. I think computers are a great tool, but don’t think they are a teacher, nor should be.