Blog Post 3

Michael Wesch: A Vision of Students Today

This video was made by a class at Kansas State University. I believe the purpose of this video was to show that kids are not interested in learning. It showed that kids are studying for a test and forgetting the material. They forget the material because they do not feel it is something that they will need to know in life. The teachers don’t know who they are and do not care if they pass or fail which is way different from when they were in high school, so some students don’t get motivated.

When students are not getting motivated they lose focus and start playing on their phones or doing other stuff and stop paying attention all together. A lot of kids just do not go to class, even though they are paying for it, because it is not required to make every class in some classes. In the video it shows how much time students spend on activities other than their school. Students are not getting motivated and they feel that schools are just trying to make money off the. One example is making students buy textbooks for a class and then not even using the books.

"It's Not About the Technology"

This article by Kelly Hines I found to very interesting. She has a very good point technology plays a big part in everyone’s everyday life but not everything is about technology. If you put the best technology in a bad teacher’s class then their teaching skills are not going to get any better, they are going to still be a bad teacher. Technology can make learning easier though if used in the right ways. Also technology is interesting and can make learning fun so that students will want to get involved.

Another good point that she had was if teachers are teaching lessons that their class is not grasping maybe it is not that the kids cannot learn, but they need to take a different approach to the matter. All students don’t learn the same either. Some students get bored just listening to lectures day after day and cannot stay focused and then don’t learn the material. The teacher could solve this problem by just doing hands on activities or just simply get the students involved in learning.

Karl Fisch: Is It Okay to Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher?

Do I believe that teachers can be technologically illiterate and it is okay? I think that the answer to this question is yes and no. Honestly I do not think it is and should be okay for teachers to technologically illiterate. I feel that teachers should know at least to a certain extent how to teach with technology. The simple fact that they don’t want to learn or don’t like technology is not an excuse because whether they like it or not technology is becoming used more and more every day.

The other side to this argument is simply this there are teachers all over the world that are technologically illiterate and nothing is being done about it. In my high school we had Smart Boards in every class. Now with that said I only used the Smart Board in maybe half of these classes. In some cases the teachers would use an old chalkboard right next to the Smart Board. Either they were afraid of breaking the new expensive equipment or they did not know how to use it. Regardless the point is nothing was being done to change the fact that the technology was not being used.

Gary Hayes Social Media Count



As you can see from the image above Technology is growing at a crazy fast rate. As a matter of fact faster than it has ever grown before. It makes you wander what the future has in store for us. I think that technology can be used to keep kids interested in learning and that it can be beneficial for both teachers and students. In this way students can be motivated to learn and for teachers it can be a easier way to teach if used in the right way.