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Native Listening

Marc Prensky in his article Listen to the Natives makes some good points when he mentions that as educators we must engage our students, learn their interests and get feedback from them as to how to improve instruction. These are all very important for effective education. When we engage students, the students pay attention and they learn. When we know what interests them, we can lead our instruction in a way that will keep them focused. And when we hear from them, we have a perspective from the receiving end of instruction and we can make appropriate changes or improvements.
What troubles me about this article, however, is that life is not all fun and games, and learning is not all fun and games. Mr. Prensky says, "students could learn algebra far more quickly and effectively if instruction were available in game format." There may be some truth to what he says but there are many aspects of education that will just be hard work.
Our digital natives may know how to work their IPhones and manage their Facebook accounts, but will they know how to create the next generation IPhones or social media programs? Knowing how to use the digital toys, that someone else has made, is not as difficult as knowing how to make those digital toys. The making part requires hard work and lots of not so fun effort.

PowerPointlessness in Scoring Power Points

What the author means by "PowerPointlessness" may be defined by using the words in the second sentence of the article: a "glib and disappointing" multimedia presentation. In other words, it is a PowerPoint presentation that doesn't really help the speaker present a clear and convincing argument to his audience nor does it help the audience gain a better appreciation of what's being presented. Instead, the presentation is a distraction that obscures the point of the argument.

(This is a link for the Dilbert PowerPoint Poisoning cartoon [#8]: http://www.powerpointninja.com/for-fun/dilbert-on-powerpoint-presentations/)

According to Jamie McKenzie we can teach student to think and communicate thoughtfully with PowerPoint by teaching them to combine "presentation software with other forms of communication, writing and reporting to persuade, convince, inform and enlighten."

This means that we teach students that the creation of a PowerPoint presentation is not the end of it in itself. It is not about making the flashiest looking slides. The PowerPoint presentation is only to be used as a guide, a visual aid for the audience, which focuses the attention in the speaker. Therefore the presenter must dedicate a vast amount of time researching his presentation material so that he/she will be knowledgeable of it and present it with confidence. The PowerPoint presentation should not eliminate communication skills such as eye contact and eloquence but rather integrate them.

After reading this article I realize that many of the PowerPoint presentations I have ever witnessed and most of the ones I have created are PowerPointlessness! I guess before I can teach students how to make good PowerPoint presentations, I first have to learn to make them myself.

Technology and the HOTS (Higher Order Thinking Skills) and the PSS (Problem Solving Skills)

According to Teacher Tap (http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic69.htm), when we talk about higher order thinking skills, we are talking about the top three of the six levels of learning in Bloom's Taxonomy (explanations of the levels courtesy of http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/techtorial/techtorial011c.shtml):

1. Knowledge: What do you know?

2. Comprehension: What do you understand about what you know?

3. Application: How can you use what you know?

4. Analysis: What similarities, problems, parts, trends, do you see in what your know?

5. Synthesis: Can you combine what you know to develop a new idea?

6. Evaluation: How can you evaluate what you know? 

In my own words, it means that someone knows something, understands what that something is and can do something with that something that is relevant to the something. That is, an individual can gather information, process it and make use of it.

Problem solving skills are achieved when level three is reached because now the student can examine his present condition and take what he has learned to attempt to bring a resolution to his dilemma.

Technology can help in the development of higher order skills and problem solving skills because it can provide students access to an almost unlimited source of information (knowledge) with ease. Then, with the guidance of the teacher, the students can process the information (comprehension) they have collected and relate (application) it to their present circumstances.

I believe that an effective educator strives to achieve these three levels of learning with his students because otherwise his presence is unnecessary. In our present time, students can very easily obtain all kinds of information. It is then the educator's role to guide the students to learn how to process the information and how to put it to work in a way that is relevant to their lives or the lives of others.

First entry

Just a little bit...
I am an assistant editor for Spanish Bibles at Tyndale House Publishers. I am very glad to be part of a great project of publishing a new Spanish Bible version called Nueva Traducción Viviente, which we launched earlier this year. I enjoy playing all kinds of sports, particularly Ultimate Frisbee.

I want to be a teacher because I want to be a positive influence in the development of children.

I consider myself pretty proficient using technology and I am comfortable using it. I regularly use computers to write papers, do research, watch news and sports. I use my digital camera once in a while during celebrations and vacations. I use scanners, if available, instead of a copier whenever I need to copy research articles or portions of a book. I also use CD burners to back up music.

I expect to hopefully learn to use software and gadgets I have never used before.