It is important to understand that the world is constantly changing, our children are learning every day new things that most adults arent able to keep up with. Technology is advancing at such a quick rate it is hard to keep track of what can and cannot be done in the classroom anymore. In many of the schools i have volunteered and shadowed in in the last couple years every one had white board or even smart boards instead of chalk boards, fully functioning computer projectors instead of the old overhead projectors that only showed translucent images. And now instead of having to go down to the AV department, order in advance a TV and VCR, have them wheeled into the room and then taken out after their use, we now have TVs and DVD players in every classroom or at least have DVD capability for the digital projectors.
We have come to an age where we have to embrace technology as a huge influence in our lives, imagine if tomorrow there was no cell phones, tv, digital cameras, or computers, we have seen it before, most of us grew up in a time where these things were just starting out or just taking on public consumption. But imagine if they were gone, we would be lost. We have adapted ourselves to a life with technology, we have weaved these devices into our everyday lives that we have become dependent on them.
So what should a teacher do in this new technologically dependent society? Refuse to change and teach through a book and nothing else. Or embrace ever advancing world and apply these new mediums of teaching into your curriculum. Here are some ways to use TV in a class.
For Language arts it is helpful to choose books that have a movie or tv show based off of it for the students to read. This way after they finish the book the students have a chance to reiterate the knowledge they gained from their reading and may even pick up on themes, plot devices, and certain kinds of character development that they didnt understand fully while reading.
In science it is important that students have a visual representation or demonstration of what they are learning. In this case it would be significantly helpful to have the students learn a couple lessons such as about th human anatomy from an episode of the magic schoolbus, it helps because then the students are getting the information orally and visually so that later when they go over the same information in the text they have a visual to help drive the point further in their mind.
It is our job as teachers to know our students, and teach them with the best of our and their abilities and this means giving them all the opportunities to learn that are available. We live in a world of technological dependence, it is about time we learn to embrace it and integrate it into our classrooms.
I understand your point about the need to utilize technology in the classroom, but I feel like TV might feel like old technology for many young students. The newest generation of students have been raised in a media culture that is based on participation and creation, not on passive TV viewing. Including those new technologies in the classroom will be more important than TV.
ReplyDeleteI like this post because it talks about the importance of techology in the classroom. I would have to say I remember being a child in grade school and feeling like teachers used the TV to show movies so they did not have to teach on "special days". This would be most common during a Friday afternoon before a big holiday weekend. I feel that since techology has advanced so dramatically, teachers are less inclined to use these tools as a crutch.
ReplyDeleteI like how you state that as teacher we should utilize the technology we have around us. I think it is important that we teach our students in a variety of ways and technology allows us to do this. However, I also feel that as teachers we should not take advantage of these tools in way that provide free time to us to do other things.
ReplyDeleteI'd be careful about having students read a book then watch a film based on the book. I may be old fashioned, but the book has many more details than the film. I guess the decision is contingent on learning objectives. What do we want students to learn from a book vs. its companion video?
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