What will teaching be like in the 21st Century?
I think that the central idea of the Mr. Dancealot video is that when you have class who is depending on you to teach them and you're just throwing ideas at them with no real instruction, there will be very little understanding and comprehension. The students in the class obviously suffered from not being able to practice the dance moves and completely see when the instructor was demonstrating them himself. I think the author shows a very good point in that a good classroom setting should allow students to practice what they are learning while receiving constructive feedback from the teacher. I very much agree with this, students need practice and assurance they are doing something correctly so they will not second guess themselves and panic when it comes time for an exam they are not nearly ready for.
To me, Rogers believes that teaching in the 21st century is more about applying things the students already knows to those that they may not know already. Social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all serve as more of a distraction to me rather than something that may help me in the long run. That is because I was raised to do everything with pen and paper, and it was all turned in during a class session. The younger generation of students are being raised around all kinds of technology and have access to it much earlier than I did myself. I will have to keep these things in mind and utilize these technological advances in the classroom-hopefully EDM310 will help me with that!
Drexler's video, The Networked Student, presents an interesting idea for me. Can students be fully educated online without any face-to-face contact with a teacher? With further consideration, I think yes they can. HOWEVER! Students needs time to meet and speak to other people in order to socialize and prepare themselves for the business world. I know for a fact if my classes were all online and required no physical meetings, I would never leave my house! This would put me far behind anyone else and hinder me in my future endeavors, but I wouldn't consider that until it was too late.
So. Who's Ahead in the Learning Race? Well, according to the video, it would be the 3rd graders. I do not think this video is fair at all though. Sure, these third graders have only had their Macs for two days and seem to be very advanced in comparison to the others referred in the video, but they are what is fondly talked about as the "Technology Generation". More than likely they have had a cell phone or tablet in their hands since they could grasp the object. Us older folks have not had that advantage and are having to teach ourselves every little thing about this technology. So in answer to the question, I think the leader in the race would be determined by who's perspective you're looking at it from.
I have never heard of this "flipping the classroom" but I think it is the worst idea in a public school setting. In my classroom, I would never rely on this strategy, ever! The parent's of students are just as lazy as the kids can be. Most of them work throughout the day and do not want to come home and be a teacher to their child. What about the parents who barely even feed and take care of their kids when they come home, the parents that may not even come home some nights? I know we don't want to think these people exist and we just want to believe that everything will turn out perfectly, but we cannot do that when education is involved. Private schools can enforce this rule, but public schools cannot. I do not think it will be fair to grade a student on something that will ultimately be their parent's responsibility.
