After watching Brian Crosby’s Back to the Future video, I was amazed that the statistics of students that are not aware of what is going on, were so low. I completely agree with him that it is because they are not involved enough with the outside world. They have been in a structured environment and have not be involved. He talked about how his class does experiments and works with blogging and wikis. He tells the students to write stories and to imagine if they were the balloons and discuss their experience. He tells them to remember they are a balloon and summarize their experience which allows them to think outside the box. After, they learn how to post these stories to the blog and embed it to YouTube. The students become amazed when they realize that people actually look at their blogs and comment on them. They start to understand what is going on in the world because students from other countries are beginning to comment on their blogs. They also learned how to use Google maps and learned how to find the location and time of the air balloon falling. The kids were so excited to open their laptops and write their reactions on this experiment. Other classes across the countries were jealous and wanted to do the project. The classes got to Skype them and explain to them how to achieve this project. These activities allowed them to be more connected globally and understand their surroundings. It allows them to be able to learn on their own and collaborate in the room and outside. I found this video very motivating and interesting to see how technology can enable these students to be so involved. They are enjoying learning and being able to teach other students and involving them in the learning process.
A Vision of Students Today
After watching the video, “A Vision of Students Today”, I was very touched because it was different and something that I have never seen before. I have sat in class and wondered the same thing, “What is the point of this?” I do not use my book in majority of my classes and as the teacher just lectures, I zone out. I feel like this is a different message being sent. This video is very realistic.
Throughout the video, students are holding up signs and writing statements on them. The statements are stating facts like how many hours they spend on the internet, the issues in the world, and the amount of times they read books, etc. I feel like the statements being written are very powerful. They are trying to send a message to the teachers and the university. They are trying to get out the message that sitting in a classroom with a lecture and not interacting is not catching their interest. They are using technology almost the whole time during class anyways so they need to incorporate it into learning. With students just sitting in a classroom, they are not being involved in the world. Textbooks will not solve all the students’ problems and they need to learn how to face their problems and figure out how to fix them. The world is becoming so advanced and I feel like teaching is not advancing with the world. Teachers are sticking to their old ways and it is only harming the students in the long run. I know from experience that when a teacher starts lecturing, I start wondering off and getting on my phone. If teachers start using these resources that students understand the most, then they will not get distracted and be able to apply what they learn.
I think that this video had a major impact through the silence of the students. I enjoyed how they wrote it all down and did not speak. It is scary to think about all the problems in the world and learning is one of them. Students are starting to lose interest because teachers are not changing their methods of teaching. Students are starting to learn differently and teachers need to understand that and change their ways. I really enjoyed the message and it really got to me.
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