Chapter 2 - Understanding Educational Technology Issues and Trends

When it comes to technology, it is easy to see that it is growing and changing at an exponential rate. People may cycle through new phones, apps, software for computers, and a number of other things that just seem to keep changing. We have even made some new phrases that did not exist just 20 years ago such as,"Theres an app for that". With all of the change going on it is important that we ourselves as teachers change with the technology learning more about how we can use it to benefit the next generation. Most children today love games, they cant seem to get enough of them. Sitting in front of TV screens for hours not moving a muscle. How can we aim their creative minds toward something that they love, and help them to learn at the same time? One way is by teaching them how to create apps. Here is a short video of a 12 year old that is in love with making apps and wants other students his age to learn to love it as well.

                                           Video Credit to Ted Talks on YouTube
While watching the video I realized that this young man had so much confidence in front of such a large audience. He stayed on topic and even near the end gave a list of set goals, unbelievable! Imagine if we could get all of our students this passionate about learning and spreading that knowledge to others.

Thomas mentions that, "some students can teach their teachers" and I agree, because the internet provides so may tools that allow us to challenge students. In the text Transforming Learning with New Technologies chapter 2 discusses Web 2.0 tools that assist students by using technology as a tool. Using these types of tools leads to a new way of thinking for teachers called Web 2.0 Knowledge, which is defined as," democratically derived consensus driven ideas and information that differ dramatically from the theoretical knowledge created by experts and elites" (Malory,Verock-O Loughlin, Woolf, & Edwards, 2014).  Everything thing seems to come full circle as teachers we are trying to open up the minds of students, helping them use their creativity, but we also need to be creative in how we teach them.

References

Malory R.W., Verock-O'Loughlin R.E., Edwards S.A., & Woolf B.P.(2014).Transforming learning with new technologies.Pearson,2,24