BeBlogging x 4

One of the things I found quite useful this week was the Mindshift report, which gave the top 12 (I think 12?.. too lazy at the moment to go downstairs and check the actual number) tech trends to watch for in the upcoming year.  Relationships (just like Chris Penner said) are absolutely fundamental to creating a good community classroom.   They provide the foundation from which all other interactions between teacher and student, and student to student grow from, either productively or unproductively.  I am a firm believer in the power of relationships and as a teacher they are my first priority (not the curriculum!).  Anyways, a big part of relationships is respect, ideally mutual.  As teachers in a rapidly advancing technological world, we need to earn the students’ respect and a major part of this is to keep current with technology and other trends, and to be adept at working with all that is tech.  There may be little that is more degrading than a teacher fumbling with technology in the computer lab in a school, while the kids are snickering and drawing caricatures of the teacher in paint (not at all writing from personal experience).  We need to keep their interest and look cool and confident while doing so, however with the large workload involved with being a teacher this can be a difficult feat, especially when every day it seems as if there is a great new app that is awesome for classroom learning.  The Mindshift report may be an excellent resource to check back with annually to be kept abreast of what is happening in the electronic world.  Being able to keep up with the Mindshift trends is a far better strategy than using old and boring technology that will have the students yawning and playing solitaire behind your back. 

The Kaiser report on the other hand seemed fairly one sided.  While not overly surprised by the almost 8 hours of media exposure statistic, I was surprised by the one-sided descriptors used, namely “horrid”.  I think it can be too easy to jump to conclusions with stats like these that are presented in a purposefully negative light.  What percentage of this occurs within school? Kids often have computer lab times, or movies presented in class and I imagine this exposure would be viewed as less negative.  Additionally, perhaps there is research being done for homework online.  There is a lot that goes into a statistic like this, but the common conclusion to leap to is that it is all nasty television, Facebook, YouTube, and texting.  While this may make up the bulk of the 8 hours, it is not all bad, and every statistic should be looked at from both sides, which the Kaiser report presentation failed to do