Monday, November 28, 2011

Challenges for 21st cetnury learning skills

  Many people are exited about new ways of learning and teaching to improve a students education. Lots of learning methods have already changed since say the 1800s, but we don't realise how hard it is  to improve the learning skills. In this blog I will be talking about some challenges we may face in developing 21st century learning skills.

Abuse of technology is a big issue. A students should be given the opportunity to explore the amazing world of technology for things like projects and reaserch, but there is always the chance that there is going to be that there is going to be that one group of kids in the back of the classroom that arn't doing what they're supposed to do and instead are checking their email or looking at something innapropreate and that group of students ruin it for the rest of the class.

$MONEY$ we never want to admit it, but we all want money. Money is a big issue for some people and it can  also be for schools. I don't just mean that a school can't afford an extra smart bord. I'm talking about the schools who can afford all these new fancy ways of learning and what impact it has on the schools who can't. Even young children know that it's not fair if one kid gets a cookie and the other kid does not, it's like that with schools. Poorer schools may be unhappy with the schools that can afford the things needed for the 21st century classroom.

My last issue is teachers. Shouldn't teachers be the ones who encourage their students to try new things? Well there can be some teachers who want to teach their students how they were taught and think that is the only affective way. It can bother students when they have to use a pencil, textbook and notebook while the other classes get to use fun gadgets like smart bords and netbooks, but thats they way their teacher wants to teach them.

There are going to be many chalenges in 21st century learning, more than I have talked about in this blog, but eventually we will overcome these chalenges and there will be more chalenges to come.We all hpoe we will have a bright future for education and hopefully for everything else as well, but the only way we can do that is by making a good impact on the future with our knowlage.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

21st century learning

                  21st Century Learning
We all wonder about the future; what we'll be, what we'll look like and who will be in our lives. We all hope the future is bright for us and that the rest of our lives will be everything we've hoped for, but what we don't think about allot for the future is education. What will students learn? How will they use that knowledge? What will they do to use that knowledge for our future? In this blog I will talk about a specific part of 21st century learning which is, curiosity and imagination.

I think that curiosity and imagination are very important because the most amazing inventions in life and well everything in life were made by those two very important learning skills. Being curious can mean just wondering about things, like how can we improve education in the future? Why is education how it is now? Is education working the way it is now? Being imaginative can mean that you are good at coming up with new ideas. These two  learning skills are important for students to have and help so much with reading, writing and arts. I think a way to encourage curiosity and imagination in a 21st century classroom is to have something called an " Input bin" students can put their questions or ideas in the input pin and their teacher can answer their questions or try to add their ideas into their lessons.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Pros and cons of teachers and students being facebook friends

I think almost everyone knows what facebook is; a social networking site that gives you the ability to communicate with your friends. With having facebook you may have to face problems like cyber bullyng and you may witness posts that may not be appropreate, but what if teachers were involved? Could that stop most facebook problems, or just make them worse?

Pros of having your teacher/ student on facebook could be, teachers can stop and report things like, cyber bullying, susides, murders and other problems students may incounter. Oh no, you forgot what page your science homework was, well don't worry because thanks to facebook you have your science teacher as a friend. Facebook can help you ask your teachers about school work when your not even in school! Facebook can also help a teacher reach out and build a better relationship with their students in a way that they can use and understand.

Now here are some reasons why teachers and students shouldn't be facebook friends and ways you can resolve those problems. School is like work, would you really want to be facebookwith your boss or employee? It would be unprofessinal and strange. Students and teachers have their own lives out of school and they shouldn"t need to worry about eachother outside of school. Another reason why teachers and students shouln't friend eachother on facebook is because they could start bothering eachother and it could even turn into herassment. If you spend 5 days a week and about 10 monthes a year with that teacher/ student the last thing you would want is to be almost scared of that person. A way to resolve these problems is to have a class facebook page that everyone in the class has acsess to and their parents as well, this would make everyone feel safer.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

The new way of dealing with bullying

Bullying....I bet bullying has been a problem ever since the start of thime...the big guy picking on the small guy. Again ever since the start of time there has been the same form of punishment, which is if you do something wrong there are concquences. Just like Adam and Eve they were punished for eating the fruit out of the tree that god told them not to. Why would we change the way we've been doing things for so long just because there is a new way of dealing with it? As you can see I do not agree with the new way of dealing with bullying and in the next few paragraphs I will explain to you why.

 We have been using the same method for dealing with bullys for so long, so why would we change it? I think punishing bullys is very effective way of dealing with them, it teaches them that what they're doing is wrong and it shall not be done again. I know for a fact that if I did something wrong and I was punished I would think twice before doing it again, so why change it? I bet there are another million ways with dealing with bullying, but I think this is the most effective. Imagne if you hit someone and you got detention, would you really go and hit someone else, or would you realise that what you did was wrong the first time and if you do it again you'll just get in more trouble.

No blame....is this actually serious? Yes, of corse a bully should be very well blamed for what they did. There is no reason what so ever that they should not be blamed...I mean they did it in the first place. If a bully was not blamed for what they've done they'll just think they can get away with it again. I honestley don't thinkthat it matters what their personal issues are, a bully is a bully. This may sound harsh, but I don't think bullying should be sugar coated with a cherry on top, it should be taken seriously because it is a serious matter. Kids need to know what they've done is wrong and face the concequences that apply to their bullying problem.

How would the People who were bullyed feel? I know if I was bullyed I wouldn't want the person who bullyed me to just get a talking to or get help with their personal problems, I would want to be helped with my problems which in that case would be the bully. I don't think it would be fair to the person who was bullyed to have the person who bullyed them just get away with it. I would be scared about being bullyed again if the bully just got away with it because it would make the bully think because they didn't get in trouble the first time they probably will continue bullying because they think they won't get in trouble.

To end off my blog I would like to say that there are many ways of dealing with bullys, some more effective than others, but I think the key to dealing with bullys is to make sure that they will not bully again. I do think that the method that we are using for dealing with bullying at the moment is a good method and we should continue to use it until it becomes uneffective. Lastly, I would like to say that bullying is a serious issue and it should be delt with seriously.