As I was trying to figure out what I should do my blog on today, I found myself looking some of the websites that we have talked about in class. Then it dawned on me that I could do my blog on the importance of gaining knowledge through the presentations. The first few presentations that I have seen have been very informative and gave some really good insight on lessons that could be fun and engaging for students. Some of the lessons I liked but saw some ways that I would tweak them to work better in the type of school I would be teaching in.
I think that learning from others' creativeness (not sure if this is a word!) is highly valuable. As future teachers, we are expected to have some level of creativity within us and these lessons that we are seeing are great tools to refer to. I liked the idea of talking about Wikipedia and Facebook in class because these are things that are students are encountering weekly, maybe even daily. Instead of shunning these topics away (even though we all use them) we should show the proper ways to use Wikipedia and how to properly handle social networking sites such as Facebook. Some schools may not allow you to go over these in class but hey it's worth a shot! I think it is important to focus on topics students will want to learn about instead of topics that they are going to forget about by the end of the week.
Good point, Julie. I truly think that students are appreciative when they feel that teachers value their outside lives. I know that because I am into popular culture that I would sometimes find ways to incorporate that into the classroom, and the students really appreciated that.
ReplyDeleteMy only concern is that I wouldn't suggest using it as a hook. Students will see right through that and think "uh oh, this teacher is trying to be cool." I think, as we've been discussing both in and out of class, that the task/assignment should be use the digital tools in an authentic way.