Blog Assignment 2

Hello again!

I have watched the video "Did You Know? 3.0 - A John Strange 2012 Version" by Mr. Strange and was pretty shocked at some of the facts he shared. Some of the ones that stood out the most were about India and the English speaking Chinese population. Personally, I am very intrigued by other countries. Some day I hope to live in another country for a while.
The facts about India's intelligence blew me away. Mr. Strange stated that "India has more K-12 honor students than all of the K-12 students in the United States." How crazy is that? Sometimes I feel like as an American I get lazy and get everything handed to me. For example, the people of India are so incredibly smart, and their academic structure and determination shows greatly on any scale.
Mr. Strange also stated that "It is estimated that 18 million Chinese speak English now and 300 million are 'learners'." He then stated that when the "learners" do in fact learn how to speak English then China will have more people who speak English than the United States. This to me is very eye opening. It amazes me how many people in other countries either take time on their own or are taught through their education systems how to speak our language, yet we hardly dedicate ourselves to learning one of the languages of the many countries that help keep America where we are today.

I also watched the "Mr. Winkle Wakes" video. It's a short fictional story about a man named Mr. Winkle who awakes after 100 years and is dumbfounded by all the technology used in the modern world. Yet, he is comforted when he visits a school and sees that nothing has changed.
This video really made me evaluate my daily school life and what kind of classroom I would like to have when teaching in the future. Classes these days really don't involve technology except for research or typing up papers, unless it's a class designated for computer learning like EDM 310. I would like to see that change during my generation.

The video of Ken Robinson speaking about education and creativity is by far my favorite in this assignment. Not only is he hilarious and quirky, he's right. The way the education world is structured is hazardous to our character. It stuffs our minds full of "knowledge" but it leaves our souls dry.
I understand that there are certain things we do need to know to make it in the real world on our own. What I don't understand is why those things have to continue to control what we do or how we do them. For example, the story of the famous ballerina, if she would've never been given the opportunity to attend a dance school she would've of greatly suffered. She would have suffered in school as well as her happiness and quality of life. Can you imagine never feeling like you fit anywhere or are not good at anything? These thoughts haunts some of the most talented people this world will never know.

Watching the video "A Vision for 21st Century Learning" made me question how I wanted to change my small piece of the education system. I think technology could be really useful in the learning process for children, but I am not sold on the idea of all of their education coming from a computer game.
The biggest reason I am hesitant towards this modern idea is because some of my greatest lessons in life didn't involve technology. They were taught by experiencing things and daily situations that happen in the classroom. I think the use of technology in schools is a huge must, but I think recess and crafts are just as important.

I really enjoyed watching "Harness Your Students' Digital Smarts" because the teacher didn't just teach her students about computers and software programs, just gave them freedom to be creative through their technology resources. At most schools these days every other website is blocked or forbidden, granted some inappropriate sites do indeed need to be blocked from students. But other sites that have education potential get blocked in the process.
It's hard for students to show their creative sides via technology in schools when they can't use the internet or certain programs to it's full potential. It limits their learning process to what's written in the syllabus, and if we all only learned the material given on our syllabi then we would all be fact driven robots.


This blog assignment really expanded my view on education theories and ways we can improve in the future.