Blog Post # 14

Teacher Knows If You Have Done the E-Reading

Summary

This article is about online books that tell the teacher how much the student actually reads of the book. The way it works is the book is online and every time a student reads it documents it. It also documents how many times a student highlights something or if they skip pages and how much time they took on each page. The theory is that this will give direct feedback to the book and the teachers on what the students are reading in the textbook and what ideas the students think are important. The theory is this will also show teachers how much time and effort students are willing to put in to their class. With this technology of being able to keep track of how much homework students are actually doing it should give the teachers valuable feedback on what they need to change in their teaching, and what students are actually putting in effort.

Thoughts as a Teacher

My thoughts as a teacher is that I like this idea because it allows me to see which students of mine are putting in the effort, and whether or not students grades directly correlate with how much they read. I also like this idea because it not only encourages my students to read but it also forces them to analyze and highlight what they feel is important information. So, as a teacher I absolutely love this idea it allows me to be able to show that if a student is doing bad it's because he is not doing the reading, it teaches my students how to read critically, and it shows me who is actually dedicated to learning the material.

Thoughts as a Student

As a student I absolutely hate this idea. The reason being is because what does it matter how much I read as long as I do well. In the article it talks about how if students are doing well without reading then maybe the teachers should toughen up, how is that fair for me as a student. It doesn't matter how many times I have to open the book to learn it, could be once could be 25 times, as long as I learn it, it shouldn't matter the time I put in to it. As a student I also don't like this idea because I think that teachers will hold biases towards students who don't read and highlight as much as other students, which isn't fair to the student. If someone is naturally smarter than someone else they shouldn't be penalized for it.

Questions for Teachers

My first question would be, how do you prevent kids from just opening the book to make it look like they read when they could be playing video games? I think this is an important question to address because as a concern for all schooling cheating is a major problem. The next question I would ask is, would it matter to them if a student was doing well but the report showed that they were not reading? I think this also is an important question because it shows whether the teachers actually care about the students or just the grades.

Questions for Students

I think the main question I would ask the students is , do you think that with this system it is taking away their freedom as college students? College students pay theirs and their parent's money to be at college. Which is an environment that teaches young adults how to be responsible with all of their freedoms and in choosing whether or not they want to do something. I would also ask that if students thought that this style is leading back to high school learning where every one checks to make sure you do your work? Being in college teaches students how to get things done for themselves and with this technology it is allowing the teacher to check up on them daily to see if they are doing their work.

Comment

My comment would be I both like and dislike this strategy. I think this is a wonderful strategy and allows teachers to actually see how much work students are putting in, but at the same time I think that it is taking away some of the valuable life lessons that college kids learn through independence. So I think that this is a fantastic idea for middle school and high school but not such a good idea for college.