Blog Post #10

John Spencer's Blog Adventures in Pencil Integration puts an interesting spin on the use of technology in the classroom. His post titled Why are your kids playing games? is a conversation between him and the principal at his school. The principal is strongly opposed to using games, or simulations in the classroom to teach. At least that is what I took from the conversation. His focus is on state testing and teaching the students in a traditional manner to make sure they are prepared for the test. It is unfortunate that a lot of us will be faced with this. I will be teaching in the Mobile County Public School System and as far as I can see they are still utilizing burp back education. I see this because I am currently a substitute teacher for MCPSS.
After reading Mr. Spencer's Navigation points and several of his other post. I think I am confused about his views. He describes his principal as someone with an open mind about technology. This is not what I took away from the various conversations he post in his blog. His constant references to pencils has me confused too. I think and this is a guess that for him it isn't so much about the use of technology in the classroom, but the use of creativity and play to get your students learn. If this incorporates technology then that is okay too. His sarcasm and use of metaphors is confusing to me.
Scott Mcleod
Scott McLeod, J.D., Ph.D., currently is serving as the Director of Innovation for Prairie Lakes Area Education Agency 8 in Iowa. He is on leave from his position as an Associate Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Kentucky. Dr. McLeod also is the Founding Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE), the nation’s only academic center dedicated to the technology needs of school administrators, and was a co-creator of the wildly popular video series, Did You Know? (Shift Happens). He has received numerous national awards for his technology leadership work, including recognition from the cable industry, Phi Delta Kappa, the National School Boards Association, and the Center for Digital Education. In Spring 2011 he was a Visiting Canterbury Fellow at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. Dr. McLeod blogs regularly about technology leadership issues at Dangerously Irrelevant and Education Recoded and occasionally at The Huffington Post. He also just completed his first book, What School Leaders Need to Know About Digital Technologies and Social Media.
Don't teach your kids this stuff. Please? is a post that he made to his blog. It is a post directed to anyone who is opposed to the use of the internet in the classroom. It is nothing but sarcasm as he tries to squash the idea that we should not equip our children to use this tool to learn. He addresses things like porn,sexual predators, and cyberbullying. It pretty much hit the nail on the head when it comes to some of the fears I still have about students using the internet in the classroom. I am sure that these are things that with time we will have an answer to. It may or may not be a problem when it comes to our students using the internet in the classroom. If it is a problem I am sure it will be resolved with time. There is an answer and a fix to everything with technology. We can not and should not try to keep technology from our students.