Week 2: I Didn't Know I Couldn't Do That

Do we have to use this geeky technology in our classrooms?  Will it make our kids smarter, work harder, learn more?  Technology is changing at a rapid pace.  Are we changing with it?  How do we prepare our students for an "unknown" world? 

“Will it make our kids smarter, work harder, learn more?”

I feel that these three statements are by-products of one concept...Good Teaching.  In her book Mindset: the New Psychology of Success Carolyn Dweck uses the phrase “Effective Effort.”  This is how I visualize this concept to my students.  “You can expend a lot of effort going around in a circle with your foot nailed to the floor.  It is not until you understand that using the other side of the hammer, that you can pull the nail and move forward.”  Grant Wiggins calls this “Self Adjustment,” in his article, Feedback: How Learning Occurs Wiggins talks about a practicing basketball player not being able to improve until they analyze their moves then self adjust their technique.  It is what we do everyday when driving, biking or working to work......or in our classrooms.  Our jobs as educators is to give our students the reflective abilities that lead to “Effective Effort“ or “Self Adjustment”

I liked the statistic in Did You Know 4.0. “Among larger U.S. companies, 17% have disciplined an employee for violating blog or message board policies.”

This brings to mind the ethics and/or morality in this digital age.  What are we doing to really educate ourselves and our students in the “ethics or moralities” of the 21st century?  These, like many things are evolving with rules that change constantly.  What are ethics, what does morality mean?  Was it ethical that Shepard Fairey altered an AP photo to use as artwork that was then used for the Obama 2008 election?  Should people be allowed to create and disseminate hate under the guise of “free speech” with no moral or legal accountability for the death of an overseas diplomat and US citizens?  

There was an interesting interview on XMPR with an Middle Eastern woman who said, “We don’t need less free speech but more.”   Her point was that the US has a culture that accepts free speech, the good and the bad.  The Middle East would greatly benefit from the opportunity of working through the good and the band aspects of free speech to see that differing opinions are not the end of a culture, faith or society. I hope we can figure this one out.