3 X’s mark the spot!

Idel Harel’s “The Three X’s” appeals to me because within this reading rather than disregarding every other tool for learning and saying that the Internet is useful device, she promotes the idea that the Internet is one of the best tools for learning that should be used with traditional strategies as well. I agreed with her point that children need to keep up with the fast pace at which the world is changing (technologically speaking), which she suggests is by obtaining the 3X’s (eXploring, eXchanging and eXpressing) through the use of new digital media. She has cleverly drawn from the traditional 3Rs (aRithmetic, Reading and wRiting) and suggested that both the 3Xs and 3Rs be used in conjunction to help develop different necessary skills within the children.

‘Exploring’ focuses on encouraging children’s innate sense of curiosity as well as making them in charge of their own learning by discovering things for themselves. ‘Expressing’ involves children using digital media to become ‘versatile and effective communicators of their ideas’”. And last but not least, ‘exchanging’ involves children sharing their own ideas in a creative and collaborative manner where their learning occurs in a social context. I honestly believe that children can grow and succeed in this technologically developing world if they are provided with the Internet, so that they can learn these 3 X’s.

If you wanna be my teacher!

In fellow blogger Jared’s post “If you wanna be my teacher” he comments on a video which consists of a bunch of primary school kids singing to Spice Girls lyrics about the need for a teacher to be “engaged in technology” by incorporating it into their learning. I think it really reflects the view of children in today’s society where there is a growing interest and need for the use of technology in everyday life. Naturally, the kids’ demands would have been stronger if they actually supplied more valuable reasoning for why they required the integration of technology in the classroom, rather than simply saying “that’s the world today”.

What I disliked about this video, was that at the start it portrayed traditional learning as dull, boring and useless. This was portrayed through the clichéd daunting music and strict, mean looking teacher who was whacking a ruler against a page whilst the kids all looked bored and drained of enthusiasm. Yes, I agree that technology can open up children to the big wide world by providing them with wide range of resources but at the same time I also believe that there are a lot of positive aspects of traditional teaching that can never really ever be replaced by piece of machinery.

Fact Monster: Interactive Kids’ Website

This is a vodcast I made on an interactive website which I thought was excellent for kids to use.

ashvodcast.mp4

Source: http://i.factmonster.com/images/FM-MediaKit-index_screen.png

Fictional Past Leads to Factual Future.

I found the piece of writing,  ”A Fairy Tale – Pencils Across the Curriculum“  to be not only comical but very crafty! It barely took two sentences of the first story for me to figure out that the pencils were in actual fact representing computers. I found the idolization of pencils to be comical, as I never thought something so mundane and ordinary could be viewed as a “rare and valuable” tool.

The comparison between the ways in which each school used the Pencil was clever in depicting the different methods of introducing students and teachers to new learning tools. Yes, the first method adopted by School A was unconventional, bizarre and just slightly eccentric, but I think it clearly demonstrated the saddening repercussions of not sharing a new technology across the curriculum, when it was obviously beneficial for the students. Because the students had such limited access to pencils in School A, the end result was that no one in the school ever used Pencils. School B, however, encouraged both students and teachers to use pencils without the need for training which enabled them to develop a natural ease of using them as well as create amazing work.

The aim of this story is to enlighten those who may be critical of using computers or experimenting with other new technologies. Naturally, learning to use a pencil is a far more simplistic task than learning to use a computer, yet the comparison of the two is ideal in showing the reader how beneficial it can be to education to embrace new technologies by making them more accessible and less intimidating.

Source: http://images.usatoday.com/tech/_photos/2006/07/17/chips472.jpg

My Passion: Travelling

My First Podcast

Source: http://www.glt.co.il/Media/Uploads/AAA_plane_sunset.jpg