I have talked a lot about using digital media in the classroom so far in this blog. It was pretty obvious that it would be like that because that is the name of the course for which I created this blog. Well, this is the last post that I am required to add. It deals with our last project assignment that I created using Google Earth. Here it is:
http://www.googleearth.com/places/myplaces/lanocheviejacongoogleearth
The purpose of this project is for my students to see how New Year’s Eve is celebrated in several different Hispanic countries and to compare these celebrations to the typical celebration in the USA. I hope that they will see that in all these places New Year’s Eve is a popular holiday but that each local has its own traditions, some overlap but others are very different from the others.
I have had the wonderful opportunity to travel a great deal in my life. No matter where I have been, America, Europe, Asia or Africa, I have always been awed that people in all these places are all the same, but at the same time we are very different. I think it is very important for my students to learn this. The differences are what make life interesting and we all should learn to celebrate the differences and, at the same time, realize all the similarities. That is the goal of this project.
Howard Gardner in his book 5 Minds for the Future states that our students need to develop respectful minds and ethical minds. I believe that the message that I am trying to convey with this project will help them to achieve this; at least I hope so. Our world is shrinking. Never before has the saying “the world is a handkerchief” been more true. Thanks to the internet, we can communicate with people from anywhere on the planet. Our students do indeed need, more than ever, respectful minds and ethical minds.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
U07a1 - Digital Learning/Teaching: Hand-in-Hand They Promote Gardner’s 5 Minds
Considering the fact that wide-spread use of the “information super highway” began around 1994, I think it’s pretty clear that anyone over fifteen is a digital immigrant. Our youth today have more information at their fingertips than anyone previously could have imagined possible. It is our duty as educators to prepare our digital-native students to use everything available to them in a way that will both enrich their lives and create a world that will not self-annihilate. In order to do so, we must be adventurous digital immigrates, leading the way and teaching by example. As we teach we must also learn from our students. It is an important message to them that no one knows everything, so we/they should be anxious to learn whenever possible.
The five minds we should develop in ourselves and in our students are not achieved in a step-by-step process. Gardner does, however, feel that at different developmental stages, a certain “mind” is spotlighted. The “respectful mind” should be modeled at all times. I think we all agree that if we do not show respect, we will not receive respect. Our students need to see this behavior in us. As our students learn more and more, they should develop the “disciplined mind.” We should model this way of thinking by verbalizing our thought processes to our students whenever possible. The Reading Apprenticeship Framework is an example of a “disciplined mind”-approach to teaching reading.(http://www.wested.org/cs/sli/print/docs/sli/ra_framework.htm) After obtaining a “disciplined mind”, students are ready for the “synthesizing mind.” We can assist this development by creating interdisciplinary projects for our students so they can see the connections that exist between seemingly unconnected content areas. We can work with our colleagues in our school or with educators for anywhere in the world (using the internet) to create these projects. By doing so, not only will our students learn from the project, but they will have an example in us as we work with people of other disciplines. By working with diverse groups of people, students should learn valuable lessons of accepting differences and celebrating diversity, which lead to the “ethical mind.”(Gardner) Again, it is crucial for the teacher to model ethical behavior at all times. We cannot hope to teach using the old adage, “Do as I say, not as I do.”
So, how do we enhance our students’ minds to prepare them for their new world? We must first prepare ourselves by recognizing that we need to establish new paradigms in education. We cannot teach the way we were taught. We must be adventurous digital immigrates and encourage our students to be adventurous digital natives. In order to keep up with new digital tools, we can read blogs on new technology. The Discovery Educator Network Pennsylvania http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/pennsylvania/ is an up-to-date source for this purpose.
Gardner, Howard. 5 Minds for the Future. Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2008.
The five minds we should develop in ourselves and in our students are not achieved in a step-by-step process. Gardner does, however, feel that at different developmental stages, a certain “mind” is spotlighted. The “respectful mind” should be modeled at all times. I think we all agree that if we do not show respect, we will not receive respect. Our students need to see this behavior in us. As our students learn more and more, they should develop the “disciplined mind.” We should model this way of thinking by verbalizing our thought processes to our students whenever possible. The Reading Apprenticeship Framework is an example of a “disciplined mind”-approach to teaching reading.(http://www.wested.org/cs/sli/print/docs/sli/ra_framework.htm) After obtaining a “disciplined mind”, students are ready for the “synthesizing mind.” We can assist this development by creating interdisciplinary projects for our students so they can see the connections that exist between seemingly unconnected content areas. We can work with our colleagues in our school or with educators for anywhere in the world (using the internet) to create these projects. By doing so, not only will our students learn from the project, but they will have an example in us as we work with people of other disciplines. By working with diverse groups of people, students should learn valuable lessons of accepting differences and celebrating diversity, which lead to the “ethical mind.”(Gardner) Again, it is crucial for the teacher to model ethical behavior at all times. We cannot hope to teach using the old adage, “Do as I say, not as I do.”
So, how do we enhance our students’ minds to prepare them for their new world? We must first prepare ourselves by recognizing that we need to establish new paradigms in education. We cannot teach the way we were taught. We must be adventurous digital immigrates and encourage our students to be adventurous digital natives. In order to keep up with new digital tools, we can read blogs on new technology. The Discovery Educator Network Pennsylvania http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/pennsylvania/ is an up-to-date source for this purpose.
Gardner, Howard. 5 Minds for the Future. Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2008.
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