Education Nation Chapter 3

The third edge is the technology edge. Chen offers some very moving ideas on why technology is important for kids and how they learn. I could not agree more, computers are just the first step, smart boards, tablets, etc. All of these things put technology in the hands of kids who use more technology than most teachers. I feel that technology is a good way to keep today's children interested in education. But technology is more than just in the class room things that we think about. But online learning is just as important and this enhances another point collaboration. I feel that we can use all of these technologies to enhance the way we educate our children. We can even use games to help teach kids. I think that all of these things can really help the classroom.

Education Nation: Chapter 2

The second chapter or edge as it is called in the book is about curriculum. This is a very important edge due to the fact that this is what we teach our children and how we assess them. Something that I read about and I whole heatedly agree with is project based learning. I think this is a great way to enhance critical thinking. Also collaboration can really be seen through project learning. Also you can see that there is a way to teach without forcing memorization. I feel that you need to learn not memorize. How many doctors just say, "that's is cancer." They usually have to look at their books to make sure. You can learn without memorizing everything. Another point made in the chapter is that we should like high school, college and your career. I think this is really important because we can get kids interesting in things so that they will not drop out and will be excited to go to school. This book just keeps getting better.

Speaking in Tongues

I liked this video and I like idea of an immersion program. Some of the things that interest me about this program is the fact that it forms students into world citizens and also gives them more options for choices after high school. These are some great reasons to have an immersion program. Also I found it very interesting that it is easier for Spanish speaking students to learn English through a immersion program. This is a great reason to have an immersion program. I do not think the modern day ESL programs work great but this is a much better thing to have. I wish I could get involved in a program like this, very cool.

Tony Wagner Video

I found this to be very interesting. After looking at the seven skills in the video that kids should be learning to be successful in today's world. I really think that the most important skill is critical thinking. I think this is a great one to learn. Kids need to learn that and the more they know how to critically think the better they will be able to compete in the world economy. Also I think that kids need to learn good oral and written communication. Tony Wagner seems like a very smart man and that we can learn a lot by him. I really enjoyed watching this video and I hope as a whole our education system can work to reach these goals.

Atomic Learning

I learned about Atomic Learning and it was great. I think this is a great thing to know about so that I can learn how to use some technology that I have not used before. This is good stuff for when I start to teach. I now can use a smart board or many other things on Atomic Learning. Also there is stuff about using exel. Exel can be a great program if you can figure it out now I can. It is a great thing.

IDI Reflection

After looking at my IDI I know that I am actually in the Minimization orientation. Which means that I look at the similarities between cultures and may forget some key cultural differences. So I feel that I can work on this over the semester by learning and reading about cultures and looking at key differences because we may have things in common but it is good to know what we have as differences so we can learn more about the people we live with. I am going to read and learn more so I have a better understanding.

Presentation One

This was a great presentation they were talking about what culture was and educating all the other people in the United States. I found this to be interesting because I really did not know the difference between Culture and Society and all the different terms that are involved in this area I thought the presenters did a great job and were very interesting. They even had a Jeopardy Game and it was a good way to go over the key point of their presentation. They also had discussion a video I thought they did a great job for the first group to go.