Ted Talk: A school in the cloud

Lit Review

I watched a ted talk on the future of schools. Sugata Mitra started a study using hole in the wall computers. He left these computers in a wall, in poor areas

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that did not have computers. These kids had no idea how to use computers. He left them for 9 months and when he came back they were browsing the internet and understood the computer. He then left a speech to text technology system, he had them practice their English accents. They needed to say the sentence until the speech to text device had scribed for them properly.

His results favored self-directed learning, this is what are schools should move towards. He said “Learning is a product of self-organization. If you allow the brain to self-organize, Learning emerges. It’s not about making learning happen, it’s about letting it happen”. The teacher should simply ask the questions, and encourage them, then stand back while they get the answer. I like his idea of a “school in the clouds” as Sugata Mitra calls it. Students are capable of learning so much, technology is a key to learning anything they want to know and more.

This TED talk is about the future of schools, and the future of technology. Although this is similar to virtual schools and online classes, I think this is a little different. I like the idea of self-directed learning. The students will learn what they want to know and what they need to know in life. Some of the questions he posed were:

To a 9 year old: say, if a meteorite was headed towards the earth, how would you find out if it will hit or not? If they say, how would you know? You say, its one magical word, a tangent of an angle. Then you leave them alone.

As teachers, with the internet around, we have an amazing resource. It makes learning interesting. Also, when you research something because you want to know, it tends to stick in your brain longer. I learned we should have prompting questions for the students to do their own research. My go to line is “I’m not sure, google it”. They end up with the right answer, and they came up with it themselves. But, I like if more in depth prompt for self-directed research.

Bibliography:

Build a School in the Cloud (Sugata Mitra:)

https://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud#t-1130209

                                                                                

The Furture of Technology

In my future technology classroom, if I worked for a school district with bottomless pockets. Every student would get a pair of Google glasses. They wouldn’t have the ability to connect to social media. There would be a block somehow, that only permitted school related inquiries. I work in a High School Now, and the student’s ability to have a cell phone and have constant communication with their friends is sometimes an issue. The great thing about everyone having a cell phone now, is that we can research in class without having to go to the computer lab. If a few students are still doing research and most of the students are done in the computer lab, we can usually just have to kids do the remainder of research on their phones.

I think Smart Boards will stick around for a while. So, of course I have to add a smart board in my future classroom.  Smart Boards are great for Notes, Class Participation, Movies, Class Research, and Presentations (by a student or a teacher). Smart Boards are also good for basically being a projectors replacement. Instead of dry erase markers and a clear paper for the projector. We can use Smart Boards. They allow you to use your finger or a stylus to write as you would with a dry erase marker.

I do think in my classroom I will have a t.v. on a cart with wheels. That is one bit of a past life that I don’t think we should do without. I feel this way because nothing compared to the joy a class felt when they saw a t.v. on wheels at the front of the classroom. They were going to watch a movie! We just watched a movie in one of my classes, and the students just used it as an opportunity to use their phones. I think if the movies were still rolled in on wheels, maybe the excitement would make a difference. However, this is the future of technology, so the t.v could be a forty inch flat screen that is attached to a stand on wheels.

I will have touch screens in the larger tables. They will be used for interactive learning, group projects, or one on one working with the teacher. Tables with touch screens could be used in so many ways, In the future I can see all classrooms having some variation of this.

I will have “Beats, by Dre” head phones for anyone. It would be helpful for students who are auditory learners. They can be used if a student wants to listen to books on tape. They can also be used for work on the computer. This is a simple technology that might help the students who get distracted easily and need to focus. I could have a microphone that hooks up to their head phones. This way all they hear is my voice, not the kid three seats over that is tapping his pencil.

I will have a microphone hooked up to me; it will have advanced Dragon technology. It will scribe my lessons. This will be good for students who are out sick, students who have trouble with their handwriting, etcetera. It will also be helpful for me when I am trying to come up with lessons the following year. Technology is available to assist students as well as faculty. Technology is a tool, we should utilize. We would be silly not to.

All of my students will have some sort of tablet that they use for all of their classes. The tablets will have an e-textbook for every class. Goodbye, back problems. All of their notes could also be collected and shared with their classmates on their tablet. And they could set deadline reminders for assignments. They will also somehow have to be indestructible and un-loose able.  This is my vision of a classroom in the not too distant future.