Wednesday the boys from Manitoba Education came in to blow our minds with a couple money presentations on ICT in education...kind of been our theme. Before these presentations I certainly knew that I had some strides to make if I was going to be keeping up with technology. Darren explained the benefit and necessity of going one step further. We need to be preparing students for the future, the world of tomorrow...Today! Sorry, that was quite lame. Moving on...Darren further stressed the need for fluency in ICT rather that simply being literate. We are in a new age and technology is literally changing everyday. Teachers need to stop trying to control the use of technology and start embracing it, because it is not going anywhere anytime soon. This also plays into differentiated instruction and promoting critical thinking instead of rote memorization of facts and figures. Students need to be able to take the knowledge that they've learned and be able to think on their feet and adapt, integrate, and develop new ideas.
I also want to talk about Wolfram Alpha. Man do I wish I knew about this when I was in Real Analysis with Chenkuan Li...."where is a Dan?"...well he's on Wolfram Alpha getting some proofs! But seriously, what a great tool this thing is! However it also raises a problem like Darren said, students can find the answer to any problem you give them. So rather than ask the students for the answers we must ask for interpretations and explanations. I'm starting to realize that writing in my math class may actually have to happen..lol. I plan to use things like learning logs, blogs, or other forms of reflection in my math class. It seems like the best way for my students to regulate their learning and for me to get a real glimpse into their thought process. Metacognitive abilities are very important in my opinion and students need to be exercising their abilities in this area to have the greatest acheivement and success.
All in all a great couple presentations to cap off a great semester of Internet for Educators.
Shout out to Big Mike!
Peace,
Dan
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Hey Dan, great post. I agree that we need to get away from rote memorization of facts and head toward deeper learning, where as you say students discuss their interpretations and explanations. If students are able to find the required information for a simple fact using Wolfram Alpha or any other tool, more power to them.
ReplyDeleteI think that these tools are part of the learning network for students. More and more in the future students will use these tools, so there is no need for us to keep them as a secret but rather they should use it to look up facts. The work that students will do is explaining their answer.
In the real world you don't hand something into your boss and ask 'is this right?', the onus is on you to show why your answer is right and provide meaningful insights.
Wolfrsm Alpha,
ReplyDeleteI agree this would have been utilized much earlier if we knew about it. The one thing that I think this can be used for is backward thinking. I truly think this is novel and it will make a huge impression on not only your students but, hopefully on your peers.