Comments4Teachers 1

I was assigned to read blog posts by Daneah Galloway on her blog The Thinking Chick: Pondering by the Pool. She works as a school counselor in Bangkok, Thailand and is enrolled in a certificate program there. Her posts involve how technology has changed our lives, as well as those of our students.

My responses to her last three posts have not been approved through mediation yet so I have provided them here:

Magic Wand (5/6/10)

Hello Mrs. Galloway! My name is Rebecca Classic and I am following your blog as part of my EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. I am getting a second bachelor’s degree in Collaborative Education, 6-12. You can check out our class blog at EDM 310 Class Blog and my personal class blog at Rebecca Classic’s Blog

I also find myself nostalgic on occasion for my old technology. I even still hold onto some things for no reason at all. I continue to keep my landline, for instance. I worry that my cell phone won’t be charged and I will need the phone for an emergency so we waste $20 a month keeping it hooked up even though my husband continually tries to talk me into dropping it. I hold onto my videocassette tapes, also. When I bought a new DVD player last year, I had to get one with a VCR player in it. I actually watched one of my old videos the other day, even though I could have rented the movie on DVD at the library for $1 and viewed it with a better picture. It seems silly, but I just cannot quite let go. Just to age myself a little, let me tell you that I have a videocassette my friends and I recorded during the last few days of our senior year in high school and I had it converted to VHS from Beta a few years after we recorded it. Beta! Isn’t that funny! I guess I’m not the only one because, out of curiosity, I looked on E-bay and there are old Beta players for sale there. Change is hard for us old folks (I’m only 41, but it seems like by technology standards that makes me old).

I looked at the post, ”21Things That Will Be Obsolete in Education by 2020” and I have to agree that it is a little ambitious. Education definitely moves too slowly for all classrooms to look like that in 10 years. So many schools are without good technology resources so it would be impossible to carry off this vision. It is really interesting that the author feels the SAT test will become obsolete when, at least here in the United States, we have more standardized testing than ever before. Testing is too profitable to let go of its hold on our education system anytime soon. I enjoyed your post and look forward to reading more!

The Hole (5/6/10)

Hello Mrs. Galloway! I am still following your blog as part of my EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. You can check out our class blog at EDM 310 Class Blog and my personal class blog at Rebecca Classic’s Blog

I love your story about how technology allowed you to purchase and remodel your new home from so far away. It is amazing how technology has changed the way we do things. It sounds like you have a lot of support and it is great they are also technologically literate! I look forward to hearing how it all turned out.

Murky Waters (4/27/10)

Hello again Mrs. Galloway! I am still following your blog as part of my EDM 310 class at the University of South Alabama. You can check out our class blog at EDM 310 Class Blog and my personal class blog at Rebecca Classic’s Blog

Copyright is such a difficult issue. It is especially hard to explain what the rules are to children because the laws have not quite caught up to the rapid developments in technology. And then there are problems concerning the difficulty in passing international laws. It is great you are discussing it with your students and helping them become responsible digital citizens. This will be an important task for all teachers now that we live in the age of collaboration.