Douglas Sharpe's EDM310 Blog Post #2

The central message of the video "Mr. Dancealot" is if your going to teach a dance class do not do your teaching behind a desk where the class cannot follow your instructions. The other message that this video is giving us is to always allow your students to ask questions and to give them positive feedback to allow them to understand what is being taught. The conclusion of the video allows us to witness what happens when a teacher does not do a good job explaining what he is trying to teach. I do agree with the authors conclusion because it gives us an example of what happens to the students when a teacher does not do his job correctly. The author Kevin Roberts of "Teaching in the 21st Century" thinks teaching in 21st century is about engaging and not entertainment. The idea of engaging yourself will teach you a lot more about the world we live in today and prepare you for the up's and down's of the real world. I agree with Robert's on his thesis of the way that teaching is changing in the 21st century. The teacher should incorporate all of the everyday tools that we use on a daily basis to better his/her students. as a future educator this will definitely change the way that the classroom will operate during school sessions. For example, the teacher must be well rounded to accomplish these goals in the classroom. This way is definitely more of a hands on approach with the technology that will be used in the classroom and I think this is brilliant the way educating students is headed. My reaction to "The Networked Student" by Wendy Drexler is quite simple. I do think that a student taking a online course or a blended course should always have direction by a teacher to better their learning experience from the class. The teacher should be there for a point of contact, to help the student better understand the task, inform the students if he is doing the course correctly and to also guide the student in the course. All of these are very important in the learning process and the way that technology is changing the way we live on a daily basis. It's very similar to an everyday job that most of us will have. Most jobs are technology based and instead of a teacher we will have a boss that will be our guide if we are stuck at a dead end road. I agree with this type of teaching in colleges and am very proud to take part in this type of learning method. In the video "Harness Your Student's Digital Smarts" by Vicki Davis her thesis is to engage your students in learning how to teach themselves. She said that she allows her students to teach the class and that even she has learned from her students. The key factor of this video to me is that no matter what your age or position you are you never sop learning. The teacher allows her students to communicate via blogging and has created her students with relationships all over the world. This way of learning I think actually makes the student want to learn because it seems to be a lot more exciting and different than the normal way of teaching by books, paper and pencils. The way that she allows the students to teach other students definitely grasped my attention and I think its a great idea. It allows the student to be an instructor and that allows them to be more interactive. This way of teaching definitely prepares the student for college and their future job. The Phrase "Flipping the Classroom" is definitely new to me and actually this the first time I have ever heard of this teaching method. I do think that this way of teaching could be useful to me because it offers the class to flow I believe. If a student incorporates the use of technology with homework I do believe that more students would complete their homework. With more students completing homework, I think it would benefit the teacher by students learning "how to do it on their own type of method." All in all, I think this is a great way of learning.