Technology is making memorization and human data retrieval obsolete

Last night I was hanging out with a friend. We were talking about an old friend from college and I said I thought his birthday was coming up in the next few days. She had no idea and turned immediately to her phone to look it up. I realized that I am becoming one of the few that still relies on my memory for this type of information.

I had a similar discussion with one of my colleagues recently. She wanted to make a phone call and had to use her phone to look up the number. She made a comment like "I don't remember any phone numbers anymore." Because cell phones have so many capabilities these days, people are using them as information retrieval systems and are letting their brains go to waste.

Please don't get me wrong. I am not being critical of my colleague or my friend here. All of the people in my department are very intelligent and they use their brains more than most people in society. (We are all college instructors - math in particular.) My friend also majored in mathematics in college, so she has good critical thinking abilities as well.

Anyway, so after thinking about these two instances, I began to realize something about my students. Because society has become so reliant on ALL technology, the newer generations have weaker abilities to memorize in general. If they aren't required to do it in school AND they see their parents turning to technology every time they need an answer to something, what do we expect?

One reason I am concerned is because this is severely hurting students mathematical abilities. Students never fully learn their multiplication tables and it puts them at a disadvantage when learning fractions, algebra, etc. If you never learn the basics, there is no way you can build on them. And, that is all mathematics is - building on previous concepts.

Another reason I am concerned is if society keeps going this way, we will be creating generations of NON-THINKERS. They will want the information to be given to them or to be immediately accessible. (Technology is also causing us to lose patience, which is a topic for another post.)

How are we going to continue to develop as a society if no one can think? This really concerns me.

I am proud of the fact that I do not rely on technology to remember birthdays and phone numbers, do basic data retrieval or basic calculations. I still balance my check book BY HAND. I think that is a great exercise for the brain.

I encourage anyone who reads this to put down the cell phone and USE YOUR BRAIN! Your brain is just like a muscle, if you don't exercise it, it loses its strength and power. A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE!!!

Adolescent Psychology

OK, so it is the start of the Fall 2009 semester and I just had my first class of Adolescent Psychology. Actually, I didn't even know that was the course I signed up for. The name in the course description was Theory, Research and Applications in Adolescent Development. Anyway, the teacher basically told us that we did not have to make the course focus on psychology - that we can discuss teaching methods and the underlying theme will be adolescent development. Everyone was on board with this idea because we would be learning material that is directly applicable to real life. I would probably hate the class if all it did was discuss theory. So, this was a plus.

Once the instructor got into his first lecture, I could tell that we had slightly different philosophies. For example: he said that if students were lazy and not doing work in your class that it is almost always the TEACHER'S fault. I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with this. Ok, SOMETIMES it might be the teacher's fault, but I know teachers that do everything they can think of to try and reach all their students (myself included) and sometimes it just doesn't work! There is such a thing as INTRINSIC motivation and you can't really teach that!!! Ugh...so that was a negative.

Then, he also said that, if he was observing and evaluating a teacher and he saw four students that weren't paying attention, he would give them a BAD evaluation! I don't think that is fair at all! As I said before, sometimes you do everything you can to reach out to students and it just doesn't work. Not to mention, no one is 100% all of the time. That is holding them to just too high of a standard. Now, if you've observed this teacher multiple times and it is always the same...then there may be some cause for concern. He just seemed to put a LOT of onus on the teacher and not too much on the student. Students need to be held responsible for their learning!!!

One thing that he said that I liked was that his philosophy is "Teach Less, Better." This means that teachers should be teaching less content but it a better way in order to reach more students. Beautiful concept! I thoroughly agree. But, what about all the pressure on the teachers with these standardized tests? If you can only get through 60% of the material, then they only have a chance of getting a 60% on the test IF they learned everything. Sorry, but the system doesn't work that way.

Basically, the teacher seems to be an idealist. In a perfect world, all the students would care, lessons would be well-received, teachers would have the time to tailor EVERYTHING, and there would be no testing or ranking of any kind. But, sadly, we don't live in a perfect world and it will be a LONG time before the educational system changes enough where these things will become the norm. (Oh, and he seemed to be against all types of competition because it makes the lower students feel stupid. OK, I can see that, but I always thought that a little competition was healthy - as long as the person is competent enough to participate.)

Now, one thing that he lectured about made total sense. He talked about how three things are needed in order to be successful - community, competence, and control. One needs to feel that they are a part of a team - that they belong. They need to know how to do the job (or at least believe that they can achieve at the task at hand). And they need to have control over the situation. This is all very logical. Think about it...when you are the most productive, don't you have all these things?

Anyway, that is how my first class went and I really just needed to vent some of my thoughts. I highly value education, which is why I am taking these classes in the first place, so I am always willing to try something new to reach my students. I just don't want anyone else to make me feel like it is MY fault when students fail. I do enough of that myself, but sometimes you have to BLAME the STUDENT!!! Yes, teaching should be student-centered, but so must LEARNING!!!!

Final Reflection on Nature of Schools

Well, we've come to the end of yet another five week summer course. I can't believe how fast the time flies! Over these past five weeks, we were supposed to achieve the following learning outcomes:
Knowledge of:
theories & philosophies of education
relevant history of American education
current issues impacting public schools
standards of professional conduct

Skills in:
applying theory to solve practical problems
analyzing social and philosophical forces shaping American education through research and grant writing
developing partnerships with colleagues, parents, administration
Independent learning and self-reflection

Professional attitudes related to:
critical self-reflection/examination
appreciating diverse learning styles
establishing a belief that all students can learn
developing a foundation for leadership

I would have to say that I have achieved everything on these three lists, except the grant writing. If this was an outcome of the class, we should have been given an assignment and guidance on how to write a grant. This was not explicitly stated in any of our project descriptions. I think this would have been a very useful outcome had it been taught.

This course has certainly made me think about my own personal teaching philosophy and how much that influences the education students receive. I have also done a lot of thinking about how students need to be taught in order to thrive in the 21st century.

I have always valued education. This is the reason that I became a teacher. I constantly evaluate what works and doesn't work in my classroom and make changes from semester to semester. I truly am an Agent of Change and will continue to advocate for new approaches in teaching our students.

Changing Paradigms

This is a video entitled Changing Paradigms. The "changing paradigms" being referred to are related to education. The first thing I did after watching the video was to find the exact definition of the word "paradigm." According to Dictionary.com, a paradigm is "a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing a reality for the community that shares them." So, in this case, we are talking about how the community views education. Here are some of the main points of the video:

• We need to do much more in education than is currently happening
• Every nation in the world is reforming public education. The major difference from past reforms is that they are doing it consistently and systematically.
• Reforms ae occurring for two main reasons - economic and cultural. How do we get our children to take their place in the 21st century? How do we pass on our cultural genes to the community while joining globalization?
• The problem is that people are operating on the premise that to reform education is to simply make it a better version from what it was - to improve on what is already there.
• What really needs to happen is a major overhaul - going fom an industrial model to an organic one.
• Industrial ---------> Organic

utililty --> vitality

linearity --> creativity

conformity --> diversity

standardization --> customization

I thought that this video was very informative. Most people that speak about educational reform are always suggesting legislations, new curricula, more resources, etc. One really doesn't hear anyone talk about the fact that education itself has to be completely restructured. What students need in the 21st century is very different from what they needed in the 20th century. This is not to say that there aren't some common strands that still need to be taught - of course there are. But, they can be approached in much different ways.

If you are a teacher, I hope this video and my post makes you think about how you run your classroom. Are you preparing your students to succeed in the 21st century?

Sample letter to the community regarding multiculturalism

One of our assignments in my Nature of Schools class was to write a letter to the community about a multicultural initiative taking place at the school. Here is the link to mine on my website. Enjoy!

Educational change...who controls it?

This week's topic in my Nature of Schools class is school change. Some of the things we were told to blog about were:

• The future in terms of the effects on human lives and the shape that schooling and education are likely to take


• The characteristics of a teacher in the new Informational era and the role of the process of professional career development.


• Predict the development of Education and Schooling in the future.


• How much does students’ education and school’s effectiveness depend on teachers?

Well, this is quite a topic! First, I will address these four required elements, but then I will share some of my favorite sites/tasks from the week and my insights on them.

I personally feel that education, at this moment, is not at its peak. Teaching at a community college, I see too many students come in with such apathy and an unwillingness to do any work or put in the necessary effort to succeed. I've taken quite a few education classes up to this point (I only have 4 left until I take my comprehensive exams to graduate) and I have yet to find an answer to why this is occurring. I have heard from high school teachers that they are seeing it also. Where is this coming from? At least, if we can pinpoint it, maybe we can CHANGE it. But, until we can figure out a way to change this, I don't see a very good future. We are telling students to go to college so that they can get a good job, but the truth is that there won't be enough jobs for the amount of students we are graduating. They come out of school in so much debt - because society TOLD them to - and now society can't help them pay it back. It seems like a cruel joke. I think many students are asking themselves "what am I going to school FOR?" and, because they aren't finding the answer, they don't take school seriously.

Probably the biggest change that education is going to see is in technology. To be a teacher in this new "Informational Era" requires innovation, creativity, and a willingness to try new things. Teachers need to seek out professional development if they want to "move with the times" and find new and interesting ways to reach and motivate their students. Unfortunately, funding is a major factor here as it is everywhere else, so many teachers will find themselves doing this on their own time with their own resources. This is why it takes real dedication to be a teacher.

In terms of future development, I think that education and schooling will move (slowly) towards more technology integration. I think that we will continue to see a push towards collaborative learning and learning by discovery (inquiry). As generations change, we need to find new ways to reach them, so education will constantly be in a state of flux (or, at least it should be).

No matter what the future brings, students' education and schools' effectiveness will always depend heavily on the quality of the teachers. No matter what your educational philosophy is, the bottom line has always been to make your students learn. We are the vessels through which learning takes place. Yes, we facilitate learning through our lessons, but we also serve as role models. Students learn from our example and so just our presence DOES make a difference.

So, now I will reflect on some of the things we were required to read/do this week. One of the first things we were asked to do (and again during our class meeting) was to define change, reform, and innovation. Now, I knew innovation had a different meaning from the other two terms, but I had always used reform and change interchangeably. Not so! According to dictionary.com, change is simply to make something different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone while reform is the improvement of what is wrong, corrupt or unsatisfactory. So, really reform is about fixing something. Change doesn't mean that anything was necessarily wrong with the way things were - we just need to adapt to our environments. So, reform and innovation are types of change. Or, as the professor put it, "Change is a result of reform or innovation." I had really never thought of this before, but it makes perfect sense.

The website that I found the most useful this week was http://www.mcrel.org/toolkit/. Here you will find the three domains of the school system - technical, personal, and organizational. You can also find the factors that are related to successful schools. It just takes some exploring on the site. This is a great resource for anyone that is interested in changing various aspects of education. Check it out!

I personally liked the definitions of the three domains. Again, it makes perfect sense, but we just don't think about it. The technical domain is all about what students learn, how they learn it, and how they are assessed. Basically, it is everything related to instruction. The personal domain contains issues related to attitudes, skills, and behaviors of people in the system. Basically, it is everything related to the school climate or culture. The organizational domain houses the resources and structures of the system, shich would include the external environment, government, resources, etc. Now, separating them out like this does allow one to come up with changes to each part, but they are all interconnected with each other. By changing one, we inevitably WILL change elements in the others, and we have to keep that in mind because it may not necessarily change for the better. The breakdown is helpful though because one can then make more focused action plans and really view change from either a top-down approach (organizational to technical), or a bottom-up approach (technical to organizational).

One thing that my instructor added to all of this during our class meeting this week was that reform was basically external and takes a top-down approach while innovation is internal and takes a bottom-up approach. When you link this with the domains, it really becomes clear!

By the way, my group made a really nice presentation on the differences between change, reform, and innovation. Enjoy!

This course has brought up some great, thought-provoking topics, especially this week. I hope you feel the same way!

Technology in the classroom

This week's topic in my Nature of Schools course is technology in schools. If you have read other entries in my blog, you would see that I just finished taking a course called Teaching with Technology, so I have already written quite a bit on this topic. However, some other interesting links were posted for us to explore.

First, we were to watch this video. It is about using the technologies that your students are already using in order to teach. They mention many of the technologies that are out there, but the one that they give an example for is texting. It suggests allowing the students to text someone outside of school and ask them what the weather is like where they are and a couple of other informational questions. I'm sorry, but I do not think that is an appropriate assignment to give in the classroom. If a student doesn't get a response, they may text someone else. Or, they may text a friend in the next classroom. Plus, some students don't have a cell phone, so now you have created a prejudice in your class!!! There is nothing better than pointing out how "uncool" a child is because they don't have the latest technology - what kind of message is that sending?!

It also states that there is a small percentage of students that think their schoolwork is meaningful or interesting. I don't necessarily think that technology is going to be a "cure all" for this. Let's say you decide you are going to make a podcast of your lesson. The student will have to care enough to download it and listen to it! I do think that using technology in the classroom can get more students engaged, but it is ridiculous to think that it is going to make everyone love school if they don't. The real fact is, there is a devaluing of education going on in this country. More and more students do not care about school and apathy is basically an epidemic among the younger generations. Technology will be an aid in tackling this, but it won't be a cure.

Technology certainly does have its place in education, but there is a wide range of beliefs as to how much it should be incorporated. One of the other links we were given was to a report on NPR about an all-technology school in Philadelphia where there is no more use of pencils and paper! I think this is way too much of an extreme. Yes, it is important for children to be accustomed to using various technologies for when they go into the workforce, but what job will use all technology all the time? There is still something to be said about thoughts flowing from your head down to pencil and paper. Penmanship and spelling are basically going to be a thing of the past! This particular school used tablet PCs, which means students were still writing, but I would still like to see how the math lessons were taught solely with technology. Yes, this is a very green alternative, but so are white boards! Also, technology updates every few years. It would be outrageously expensive to keep that school up to date! And, it is certainly not feasible to put this in schools all across the country. There is just no money for that. Talk about the digital divide! If we think there is inequality in education now due to the resources available, imagine if some of the wealthier schools went this route. The gap will just get wider and wider. If you'd like to read more about the digital divide, here is an article which was given to us in class.

I would like to end with a quote that was in one of the many things we were given to look at this week. "It's philosophy, not technology, that is going to make a difference in your classroom" (Dr. Allen Glenn, Dean of COE, University of Washington). This is basically my point. It will be up to YOU as a teacher to get your students involved. If you can create that culture, with or without technology, your classroom will be successful! But, in order to keep your lessons relevant and connected to the real world, it will be necessary to bring in some technology - but YOU be the judge on how integrated you want to make it.