Thoughts on Class #2

VIDEO from NB D of E:

Well, my thoughts on the you tube video developed by the NB Dept of Ed can be summed up in one word: "WOW". How powerful and how thought provoking this clip was. One of the points made that has stayed with me was that the top 10 jobs in the workplace today, didn't exist back in 2004. This blows my mind! This means to me: the things we're teaching our students must be constantly changing to keep up with the changes in our society. But is it?? It would appear to me that we are much too slow to demonstrate this change in our classrooms. Are we preparing our students for the 'real world' out there? Sure, we might be teaching them to read and write and do their basic math skills, but is this enough??

Let's think about literacy skills and how that's changed in very recent years. Students might rarely read books; instead they are probably reading facebook, msn, text messages, the web and blogs. Students might not be writing thank-you letters to their grandparents, but they might be texting them, or emailing or sending some other form of electronic message. These 'new' types of literacy skills must be recognized as being valid forms of reading and writing in the 'new society'. And in recognizing this - school learning, educational tasks and projects, as well as assessments, must incorporate these new technological literacy forms. It is really necessary for our classrooms to incorporate technology into all aspects of learning.

BRAIN VIDEO: I also want to comment on the video about the Brain (Discovery Channel DVDs?). It always amazes me to stop and really reflect on the incredible power of the brain. To really think about what it takes to learn to read and to communicate is incredible. It truly is amazing that so many of us accomplish these tasks with seemingly little effort. However, when we think about our students who experience challenges with the reading process, the 'breakdown' might occur in a multitude of places in the neurology.

This made me think about my friend Chris who, at 43, suffered a brain 'bleed' and is now, 8 months later, in a wheelchair with total left side paralysis and with a variety of brain damage related issues. He is able to 'read' but is not enjoying it at all, due to the effort and attention that it requires. He's totally frustrated with it, but at this point, he'd rather engage in conversation with anyone rather than attempt to read on his own. Interestingly, he doesn't enjoy being read to either - again, he relates this to his inability to attend to the seemingly 'rambling on of words' (as Chris puts it). Clearly, there's been neurological damage such that reading and comprehending of text is an issue. When I watched the video on the Brain in class - I realized Chris is lucky to have as many intact skills as he does!

And finally, I must add that I enjoyed learning about the zacbrowser - I was not previously familiar with it. I know there are several students in my schools who would benefit from using this browser - I can't wait to share this information with those teachers/educational assistants! I have enjoyed exploring that 'site' today at home. I have also enjoyed exploring the udltechtoolkit site - LOADS of links and information there!

I will spend some time playing with Kurzweil this week and I look forward to 'seeing' Barb's presentation next weekend. Cheers!