iSchool: The Way of the Future?

This week in my Technology in the Classroom class, I watched a Youtube video that discussed this potential new technology for schools called iSchool. The student in the video explained that iSchool could replace textbooks and become personal tools for the students. But can all of this really be the future for education? I think in a few years, but not right now. iSchool does sound like a good idea on paper, but how will the teachers and students react to this? iTouches and iPads are expensive and some students probably cannot afford to buy one. Even if the school pays for them personally, some students may not have used one before or they may not have internet access at home to do their schoolwork. All of this negativity makes it sound like I do not agree that iSchool is the future for education. I think that this technology is still too new and needs to go through some more development. When the technology is just right, then it can be used in classrooms. Since I am a fan of Apple's technology, I can get right into it and play around with it for me and my students. This idea is a good idea, but not for right now.

K-12 Online Classrooms

Listening to Beth Day talk about online classrooms for K-12 was interesting because of the things that an online classroom can do. This is a great way to use technology for the classroom because of the fact that these classes are on the computer. There are great benefits that she mentioned like organization, knowing the students better, and schedule flexibility. However, there were some disadvantages to online classrooms that she mentioned like classroom management and not being able to interact with the students face to face. I can relate to these advantages and disadvantages to online classes because I have taken some online classes for Cedarville. Some of the advantages for college online classes are that the classes are easier and I can work on homework from those classes at any time, but I cannot interact with my professor if I need help face to face and some professors are hard to reach. So I can see why online classrooms can and/or cannot work. But, it does seem like many classes will eventually be all online. Beth Day did answer this in her lecture and said that it may happen, but not in the near future. Overall, her lecture was an interesting one to listen to and I feel that she did a great job.

Default Culture vs. Culture of Possibility: Improving Student Achievement Through Technology

Sam Roberson made many good points in his article "Defying the Default Culture and Creating a Culture of Possibility". He states two opposing school cultures: default culture and culture of possibility. With default culture, he says that schools are bound and chained by teacher-centered classrooms, have rigid and often scripted curricula, and are narrowly focused on high stakes testing with a limited understanding and application of learning. With culture of possibility, he says that this is "characterized by student-centered classrooms, flexible and interdisciplinary curricula, formative and authentic assessments, and a generative understanding and application of learning," (p. 2). From these two sides, Roberson seems to be more in favor of culture of possibility. He goes more in detail with this side by listing characteristics and stating why this is better than default culture. After discussing both of these sides while favoring culture of possibility, he asks if default culture will remain or if culture of possibility will be adopted into schools. So how can this relate to technology improving student achievement? Well, a culture of possibility can relate to technology improving student achievement because this side of the debate is more engaged with student learning and improving students' knowledge, skills, and behavior.