My Time with the natives

I have been with my niece and nephew for about a week now and it has been quite the learning experience for me. Did you know that on your phone that is GPS enabled you can find out exactly where you are and how fast you are going? Creepy I know. I was driving down to see a light house on the Outer Banks with Caden (5) and he asked to hold my phone. I told him no, he needed to enjoy the view of the ocean and sound. But he then informed me that he needed to find out where we were and how much farther it is until we get there. I handed him the phone and it was unreal. He told me his dad taught him how to do that with a phone and there it was our little blue triangle on highway 12 going just over the speed limit heading right towards the light house. It even could tell me how much longer until I passed a gas station or a place to eat… It is amazing what we can learn from kids who are so open to technology.

YOUTUBE!!!

I love YouTube. I could literally spend hours on YouTube just looking at videos and searching for things that interest me. There are a lot of really crazy videos out there but some of the best can also be very informative. You can look up a video on how to tie and tie and follow the instructions given to make that perfect Windsor knot. You can also look up what your cookbook means when they say they want you to sauté something… well at least for me that’s something I need. The more I play with YouTube the more excited about it I become!

Life-Long Learner

 I always have to giggle to myself when people working on higher education talk about how we should make sure that students want to be life-long learners. I can’t think of anything less appealing for a high school student than to suggest that they also become life-long learners. Don’t get me wrong. I feel it is VERY important to want to learn and have a thirst for knowledge. This keeps us moving forward as a group. But when we are working with students and young adults, we need to be very sure that we remember our audience. It wouldn’t do to call it life-long learners. This term appeals more towards the older generation.  

Media in the content area

I love love love when teachers take the time and plan out lesions that will require students to develop skills that they will need in the future. It seems so important to me that when a student graduates high school and leaves the public school system that they should be able to type a paper quickly, know how to conduct a basic search and conclude what information is important and what isn’t on the internet. I know of very few people who can honestly say that they never come into contact with a compter at work. When I was in high school working at a fast-food restaurant we had to type the orders into a computer… It seems like computer literacy is something that we cannot escape so we should embrace it in the classroom so we can have well rounded students!

Learning Styles

I know I am jumping back a lot in this blog post but it has been brought to my attention by some friends that I have a strange learning style. I prefer to buy a notebook and write everything out by hand before I go ahead and type a blog post or a blackboard discussion. Apparently this is not normal behavior. I have always thought of myself as digitally savvy but apparently I am harboring some seriously old school ways. I tried to defend myself by saying they were cool notebooks but I don’t think anyone was going to fall for my persuasion… I guess I am less of a digital immigrant than I thought I was...

The Literacy Rainbow

When I first sat down and took a look at literacy it dawned on me how crazy our world has become in the last 100 years. In 1911 not all that many people could read and write. But by 2011 we expect people to not only be able to read and write but we also want them to know the difference between RAM and a ram. It blows my mind to think about how far we have come in such a short amount of time. I can’t help but wonder what type of literacy we will have next… I guess for now only time will tell.

FACEBOOK!!!!

I’m a facebook addict. It is sad but true. I can’t stop myself I need to know the most trivial things that are going on in my friends (and sadly sometimes just people I met once or twice) lives. It is really getting out of hand. I check facebook first thing in the morning and then again at night before I go to bed. I also check it on my phone during the day. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t post too much to facebook, mostly because I don’t want people to think I am on facebook all day. Isn’t that just a little crazy? I think I am drowning in my own digital soup…