Blog Post 10

Adventures in Pencil Integration

This picture is about two different brands of pencils. However I think the picture represents the two different brands in everything you can buy, for example a Mac or a PC. A Mac is going to cost more but it allows users to be able to use features that a PC doesn't have. While a PC will be cheaper but it might break more. Or another example could be when buying groceries. The off brand is going to be cheaper but it might not provide as many nutrients as the name brand items. Or fashion when people pay 50 dollars for a t-shirt, that t-shirt might be awesome but you can get a t-shirt that might rip a little easier for 10 dollars. So I think the Image just represents the choice between paying more or settling for less. 

Why were your kids playing games

In Why were you playing games it is a blog post that tries to show how schools are to worried about standardized tests scores and not actually learning. In the post he is in a scenario where his students are doing a simulation and having fun and learning. However, the principal calls him in and tells him that he thinks it is a game and he should stop. The teacher tries to explain that it is not a game like tic tac toe it is engaging the students and allowing them to learn and have fun at the same time. I think this post is a pretty comical way to address a real problem in the education system. In which all teachers and administrators care about is results on tests instead of the students. With little comical stories like why were your kids playing games, hopefully more and more school systems will try and adopt the student first not test scores first theory. 

The other post I read was Are Pencils making us narcissistic? In this post it is another story about how a teacher and his principal don't agree with how the teacher is teaching in the classroom. In the story the teacher is saying pencils but he really means the interenet. The principal is saying that he doesn't like the new way and that they should stick to the old way of doing stuff. The teacher however believes that it is better for the student to be producing for a larger audience. He finishes by saying it is essentially the same thing as when people used to write letters to their friends in the social network. The difference is this social network just allows students to write to more friends faster. 

Don't teach your kids this stuff. Please?

Scott McLeod has a PHD., which makes him a doctor, and currently works as the Director of Innovation for Prairie Lake Area Education Agency 8 in Iowa. Also he helped create the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education. His post is a sarcastic post that is about how he is telling teachers the disadvantages of teaching about computers. But he ends with saying go ahead don't teach your students but I will and we will compare where they are in ten to twenty years. I like the post because it stresses the importance of preparing our students by teaching them to be the most technologically literate they can be because we have no clue what will happen in the future.