Challenge Based Learning

Challenge Based Learning is education with a clear purpose. It is engaging, meaningful, and relevant to our students and their lives. I really enjoyed reading and exploring about Challenge Based Learning and all of the opportunities it presents. I think the author made a good point about many of the assignments in a lot of curricula lacking real-world context or any real meaning for our students. Education is for the students, not the teachers, so it should be meaningful and engaging for them. What's the point of education if it does not mean anything for our students outside of the classroom? The different projects and ideas outlined in the article and on the websites seem applicable and relevant. If I were a high school student, I would have been so excited to learn in such a productive, exciting way. Students have the ability to make impacts on the world, and through Challenge Based Learning, they get to make amazing impacts while learning. The article says, "Challenge Based Learning applies what is known about the emerging learning styles of high school students and leverages the powerful new technologies that provide new opportunities to learn to provide an authentic learning process that challenges students to make a difference." I definitely think Challenge Based Learning is an excellent approach and tool in education.

Literacy with iPads

I keep hearing more and more about ipads in the classroom and I haven't quite decided how I feel about them. The article brought up many good points about the uses and advantages of using ipads. Some of the advantages for teaching literacy with ipads include typing or writing on top of printed text or backgrounds, recording audio for responses, adding pictures from the photo library, inserting symbols and stamps, graphically organizing responses in many ways, and capturing videos or photos on the spot for responses. I agree that these are all great tools. They are accessible and useful for many students and could be used to support students with a variety of needs. When I think of ipads from this perspective, I think they are great. However, I want to ensure that our students are receiving a balanced education. When they are not in school, or if they go to a school with different resources, not every student will have an ipad to work on. They will need to develop their skills using other tools and resources that are available. I do not think we should teach our students to expect ipads or other devices to always be there. They need to know how to do things when technology is not around. I do think ipads are great tools. We should use them to reach out to students and allow them to express themselves in a variety of ways. I also think we need to educate our students without constant available technology.

Keeping Students Safe Online

This article brings up really important issues with the way we use the internet. I think we have all heard about cyber bullying and predators on the internet. As teachers, we have a responsibility to educate our students about these things and to teach them how to protect themselves and others. I agree with all of the points the author of the article made. All of the tips and research outlined in it are valuable resources for teachers.

I also think our education system needs to put a higher value on health education. Mental and emotional health are so important and I do not think we spend enough time or effort teaching our students how to live a healthy lifestyle. If we focus more on the health and well-being of our students, I truly think we will see a reduction in the amount of bullying. The internet is here to stay and social media is an enormous part of most students' lives. If our students are educated about mental and emotional health at a young age and it continues as a core part of their education through their entire schooling, I think they will be more equipped to use the internet. It will improve the lives of the people doing the bullying as well as those being bullied. I even think the amount of predators will reduce if those who may become predators grow up with a better health education. I don't just mean we need another health unit sometime during school like the two months I got during my Freshman year in high school. I mean we need to make health education a central subject all throughout education. I realize this kind of shift will take time, but this way, the internet will be a safer place for everyone.

Transliteracy

Many people tend to take their reading skills for granted. When I read this article, it made me think how many times per day I read. I could not even count it. I read signs, books, articles, and everything covering the internet. When I stopped to think about it, I realized how amazing it is that we can read so many things in so many different forms and contexts without even thinking about it. It is crucial for our students to be transliterate so that they can be active members of society.

When I read the part about slogans to keep students focused, the one that really caught my attention was "We need to read, not speed." It said that students only spend two seconds to assess and decide whether an article or website is worth their time. I am definitely guilty of this! I cannot even say how many times I have glanced at a website, decided I didn't like it, and moved on without reading more than a sentence or two. This slogan is one that I am going to focus on.

I agree that education needs to change and evolve with our transliterate society. Not everything needs to be electronic or on the internet, but our students do need to learn skills so that they can be successful in those areas. I think it is a balancing act and education needs to teach skills in all areas of literacy.

I Can't Think!

Just like when I read many other articles, this one made me feel super overwhelmed with information! It made me think that maybe the author intended to overload the reader with information to make a point, but I am not entirely sure if it was intentional. Once I got past that, I found that I agree with many of the points in the article.

In our culture, we are constantly bombarded with information and opinions. People demand information, so that's exactly what we get. We can get reports, reviews, and anything else by the click of a button, and if our computers stall for a few seconds, or if our phones loose reception, we get irritated and stressed. This article did a great job discussing the various ways we receive information and the true problems they pose. I have thought about some negative implications of information-on-demand before, but I had never really thought about it effecting our decision making processes in depth before. When discussing the science of decision making, the author says, "... decisions requiring creativity benefit from letting the problem incubate below the level of awareness-- something that becomes ever more difficult when information never stops arriving".

Another point in the article is that decision making science shows that some of our best decisions are made through an unconscious process. This was very interesting to me, but it also made me wonder why I have never really heard about this before. Is it because we feel the need to make many quick decisions all the time? Do we choose to ignore the benefit of the unconscious decision making process?