Blog Post #1

It is crazy to think that the future of the world could be nothing but self taught individuals.  During this video of Mr. Sugata Mitra, he basically has proven that the only element that is needed in the education process of a child's learning development is encouragement. He put computers with English information in different areas of poverty stricken countries. Then he would monitor every month or so to see if the children were learning anything. The children did not understand the English at first but then they taught their selves how to read and comprehend it. He was blown away by this because they had self-taught themselves. Basically after many months of different kinds of experiments he has proven in fact that the only thing children need is encouragement to learn. The children taught themselves with the help of a woman boosting their confidence along the way. I love the way he states, "Is knowing obsolete?" Is this the case of our future society? If this is the case, we as teachers may be jobless in the future unless we change the way of learning. There is a part of our brain called the reptilian, here this certain part shuts down the ability to learn when it senses threats. Punishment and examinations are both seen as threats, we give our children threats then we shut there brains down and make them "preform". We need to shift the threat back to pleasure.

What do you want your students to know?
I want my students to know basically how to self organize there educational experience. I want to provide the basic tools of course reading, writing, and comprehension. But I want my students to know that they can teach themselves, by doing this they learn and have fun while learning.

What do you want your students to be able to do?
I want my students to be able to sit down and figure out how to teach themselves. I want to make them be hungry for learning. If I provide the tools, for example centers and or computers I want my students to be able to take these tools and dive into a world of learning that they will love and enjoy. They will also be able to create there own blogs on blogger and we can communicate with other classes around the world. How awesome would this be especially if we were learning about different cultures or environments. Some of these children will never be able to travel across the world but by allowing the students to Skype they can have a first hand feel of other nationalities.

What will be your primary way of teaching your students what you want them to know and do?
The methods that I will take to my students will not be a passing grade on a test confirms what they have all learned. I do not agree with this method. Mostly because half of the passing grades you see the students are doing nothing but memorizing and then later forgetting the material. I want my students to learn by experience, you never forget great experiences they last lifetimes.

What Tools will you use in your classroom?
Of course this is a tricky question because the tools I would like to use are probably not in any kind of budget for the schools around my area. I would like for every student to have an ipad or Mac Book at there desk at all times. This way no student will need any pens, paper, or school supplies. There are some great learning tools on the internet as well. I went to http://www.palmbeachschools.org/learning_tools/4kids/ and they have tons of different learning activities.

What role will students play in your classroom, i.e. how will they participate in the learning process?
The students will play the mane roll in my classroom, they will be the ones that are hands on the entire time. I will basically monitor the classroom but let the children learn with their technologic tools. This is a great way to learn because the class will never be bored. They will always be interested because what they are doing is apart of their generation and its not just the teacher standing in the front of the classroom lecturing. I think that by allowing the students to become the teacher role themselves for themselves will be very rewarding in the end.