Monika Gronich CIS 120 Fall,2008
Getting and Education from K thru 12 Today Education is good mainly for the fact that one of its main objectives was to educate the "whole child"--that is, to attend to physical and emotional, as well as intellectual, growth. In addition, this certain form of education is good simply because it needs to be changed and adjusted as society in general is changing. With the world growing more modern everyday, the children of today need to be educated modernly in order to be successful in the world tomorrow. (John Dewey) Information technologies are likely to have a substantial impact on the entire spectrum of education by affecting how we learn, what we know, and where we obtain knowledge and information. "Teaching students to surf safely and responsibly should begin in kindergarten," says Tammy Payton, a teacher at West Loogootee (Ind.) Elementary School. On those two short videos, an example of education for today and tomorrow.
1-A Vision of K-12 Students Today http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A-ZVCjfWf8
2-Education Today and Tomorrow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnh9q_cQcUE
A 1992 survey of elementary and high school principals indicates that the three most important reasons schools adopt computer technologies are to (1) give students the experience they will need with computers for the future, (2) keep the curriculum and teaching methods current, and (3) improve student achievement (Pelgrum, Janssen, and Plomp 1993).
There are, however, notable differences in the ways in which computers are actually used: the higher the school grade, the more computers are used for computer training and the less they are used for teaching academic content. At the fifth grade level, 58 percent of CBI time relates to subject matter, and only 32 percent relates to computer skills such as word processing and spreadsheets. By 11th grade, more CBI time is spent on computer skills (51 percent) than academics (43 percent); instructional use for math and English drops from 35 to 14 percent.[27]
The purpose of Education is to detect talent proactively. For this, it is essential that education has to be based on application and intelligence (with open book exams wherever necessary) instead of trying to test memory of knowledge. This is especially so in the era of internet where everybody can have the knowledge but it is only one's intelligence with which one can distinguish or differentiate oneself. Memory does not have that much significance since everything is there on the net- its application that should matter and be tested Online education maybe convenient but some personal attention from teacher is a must.
We are less convinced today that the Internet will provide an easy route to improved learning; we have come to believe that people-to-people connections and especially face-to-face communication play a central role in learning. On the other hand, we have become even more impressed by the power of the technology and remain convinced that this power will ultimately be harnessed for the improvement of education. While technology evolves quickly, however, the human ability to understand, shape, and incorporate these changes evolves slowly. Access to distant resources—experts, peers, teachers, texts, images, and data—is Rapidly becoming commonplace, but the understanding of how to make good use of these resources is only slowly emerging. The time required for the development, refinement, an adoption of appropriate new pedagogies may be a decade or more. (Network Science)
Public enthusiasm for getting schools on the Internet is currently based largely on the idea that students should have access to the vast information resources on the World Wide Web. This perception of great intellectual riches online has led to the belief that the Internet should become a central component of modern education—essential to preparing students for the demands of the 21st-century workplace and for keeping the nation competitive. The empirical and theoretical issues we raise in this study challenge educators to look past this broad and well-intentioned rhetoric to ask how access to this information can help deepen students’ understandings of math and science. Certainly, accessing information on the Web, viewing images and movies, and running simulations excite most students, at least initially. However, if students are to learn anything of significance from this information, their Excitement must eventually prompt thoughtful questions and reflection—and hard work. This is the sort of teaching and learning that an able teacher and inquisitive peers can help students undertake. Although there is strong evidence that the Internet can provide resources to support good teaching and learning, there is no evidence that it can replace the role of teacher and peers. Our research and experiences indicate the opposite: The universe of information has grown larger and more complex because of the extraordinary capabilities of new technologies. As a consequence, students need more than ever the guidance of experienced and skillful teachers to learn to their full potential. (TERC)
Children are learning to read and write with computer games instead of homemade flash cards. They are reading their bedtime stories online instead of in bed with their parents. Slowly traditions are being broken and the computer is becoming a child's learning tool. Many parents are buying computer learning games instead of board games and pop-up books. Parents are leaving the learning up to the computers and spending less quality time with their children. The most important learning step for children is interaction with others. If they are sitting in front of the screen all day, they do not learn to share, wait their turn, or even something as simples as manners. Children need to be in contact with other children, adults, and animals. They need to experience things first hand not off a computer screen.
When children log on to the computer their innocence is noticeable. Children are an easy target for adults who pose to be other children with similar interests. Sexual offenders often chat online with children and then make plans to meet them or slowly filter information about them. One benefit of the computer age is that children are becoming smarter. They are growing up computer literate and will have that as a huge advantage. Computer literacy is becoming a huge job qualification and feeling comfortable with one will put them a step ahead. Children will also be able to complete homework on line. In some places, if you miss school you can find out the assignments that you miss and catch up. This is very helpful if your child comes down with the flu, but do you want them to feel like it is okay to miss school because they can catch up with their computer? Computers are the wave of the future, but old fashioned learning techniques should not be forgotten. A child needs to interact physically with other people and not learn everything from computers.
The essence of the teaching-learning process is communication. "The classroom consists of the verbal and nonverbal transactions between teacher and students and among students." 13 The ability to learn in a world of expanding information and cultural diversity demands competence in communication. Communication competency is indispensable for successful participation in the world of work. The ability to communicate effectively will often determine a person's perceived over-all competency and level of success. The communication skills ranked as most important to job effectiveness include listening, persuading, advising, instructing, and small group problem solving.14 The study and practice of communication skills has been shown to reduce communication anxiety and to increase speaking and listening abilities. Media literacy can help individuals become more aware and discerning citizens and consumers of ideas and products. In an increasingly technological world, students need to learn to understand how communication changes when moving from one medium to another, to be able to process information critically, and to create messages that are appropriate for both the medium of transmission and for the audiences of those messages.
We should no more deprive our students of intentional, organized education in speaking, listening, and media literacy than we would deprive them of instruction in reading, writing, mathematics, or science.
References;[27]The President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology has recommended that the primary focus of computer-based instruction be content-oriented rather than skills training. See PCAST (1997). Pelgrum, W.J., R. Janssen, and T. Plomp, eds. 1993. Schools, Teachers, Students, and Computers: A Cross-National Perspective. International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement. Available from http://uttou2.to.utwente.nl/comped/fr2/contents.htm. Network Science, a Decade Later: The Internet and Classroom Learning. Contributors: Alan Feldman - author, Cliff Konold - author, Bob Coulter - author, Brian Conroy - author, Charles Hutchison - author, Nancy London - author. Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Place of Publication: Mahwah, NJ. Publication Year: 2000. Page Number: 131. The authors were researchers on the Testbed for Telecollaboration project at TERC. 1 National Education Goals Panel, Executive Summary: The National Education Goals Report-Building a Nation of Learners (Washington, D.C.: National Education Goals Panel, 1992). 2 The Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, What Work Requires of School-A SCANS Report for America 2000 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Labor, June 1991). 3 Association for Communication Administration, "A Definition of the Field of Communication Studies" (Annandale, Va.: Association for Communication Administration, 1995). 4 National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association, Standards for the English Language Arts (Urbana, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English and the International Reading Association, 1996). 5 Based on "An ILA Definition of Listening," ILA Listening Post 53 (April 1995): 4. 6 Marilyn F. Buckley, "Focus On Research: We Listen a Book a Day; We Speak a Book a Week: Learning From Walter Loban," Language Arts 69 (1992): 622-6. 7 Michael Cronin, "The Need for Required Oral Communication Education in the Undergraduate General Education Curriculum" (Radford, Va.: Department of Communication, Radford University, 1993, photocopy). 8 Anita L. Vangelisti and John A. Daly, "Correlates of Speaking Skills in the United States: A National Assessment," Communication Education 38 (1989): 123-43. 9 Virginia P. Richmond and James C. McCroskey, Communication: Apprehension, Avoidance, and Effectiveness (Scottsdale, Ariz.: Gorsuch Scarisbrick, 1995). 10 Unisys Corporation, "How Can We Expect Him [Her] to Learn When We Haven't Taught Him [Her] How to Listen," advertisement reproduced in Roy Berko, Andrew Wolvin, and Darlyn Wolvin, Communicating: A Social and Career Focus, 6th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995), 81. 11 Byron Reeves and Gina Garramone, "Children's Person Perception: The Generalization From Television People to Real People," Human Communication Research 8 (1982): 317-326. 12 Kathleen M. Galvin and Cassandra Book, Person to Person: An Introduction to Speech Communication, 5th ed. (Lincolnwood, Ill.: National Textbook Company, 1994), 455. 13 Pamela J. Cooper, Communication for Classroom Teachers, 5th ed. (Scottsdale, Ariz.: Gorsuch Scarisbrick, 1995), 1. 14 Dan B. Curtis, Jerry L. Winsor, and Ronald D. Stephens, "National Preferences in Business and Communication Education," Communication Education 38 (1989): 6. |