I hope you had a great summer! As teachers and parents one of our main jobs is to prepare our children for the future. A large component of that future is the ever-increasing role of technology in our as well as our children's daily lives. In the near future our technology will allow our children to do things we'd only dreamed about a few years earlier.
There are two very basic competing theories of learning. Objective learning and Constructive learning. In a nutshell objective learning (or direct instruction) very structured, rigid and directed by the teacher. Your standard college or high school lecture is a good example. "I the professor give out the information and you the student receive it." You then give very standardized objective tests to see what the students have learned. Constructive learning (or inquiry-based learning) is more of a journey together of both student and teacher. The teacher guides, but doesn't teach as directly. The idea is to introduce concepts to the students and let them kind of explore and play with them on their own. When done properly this tends to lead to a fuller, more practical knowledge of a subject. It does however have it's limitations. It works far better on things such as literature, history, social studies, the humanities then it does with things like math and science. Although constructive learning can be used quite effectively in math and sciences too. Directed learning tries to teach the students about the underlying logic, patterns and content of something, rather than just the basic facts themselves, so that the the information learned about one thing can be more easily applied to similar things. In my classroom as in most I use a combination of the two types of learning. Technology, computers especially excel at this. The Internet is basically the world's largest library that has information on every subject imaginable. It is not only a useful research tool, it also has tools and free software which allows students to express and transmit what they've learned in a personal, entertaining, and ultimately memorable way that hasn't been available before. It is therefore our role to not only teach our children how to use technology, but to teach them to use it in a wise, safe, and responsible way so that they can be masters of their own destiny!
In order to acquaint and teach your children how to use the technology of tomorrow as well as enhance the learning experience of today, we need certain tools. For instance our computers are many years out of date and it would cost more money to bring them even up to the lowest acceptable standard, as opposed to just buying new ones. The projector that we once used to project power point presentations and notes is on it's last legs and about to die. Additionally most of the software we have is so old, most of the versions we have will not run on newer computers.
My answer is simple a Dark Ages potluck dinner, and silent auction to raise funds to bring our
classroom from the dark ages into the modern age! It will be a potluck dinner and silent auction with a middle ages theme. Each family brings a dish to be determined alphabetically. Not only are the family invited, but friends of the family are invited as well. The silent auction will consist of items donated by parents, students, and local community businesses. All proceeds will go to buy new computers, software, hardware, etc. for our classroom. I haven't worked out all the details yet and would appreciate any input, help, or ideas. Right now the whole thing is just in the most basic of planning stages.
Remember the mastery of technology is one of the keys to our children's success in the future!
Tech. Saviness, success in business, and higher pay:
http://smallbiztrends.com/2007/08/to-grow-your-business-it-helps-to-be-a-geek.html
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2008/tc20080623_533491.htm?chan=search
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/2007/spring/art04.pdf
http://www.educationevolving.org/pdf/tech_savy_students.pdf
Objective Learning/ Directed Instruction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Instruction
Constructive Learning/ Inquiry-Based Learning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquiry-based_learning
DISCLAIMER: This blog is an assignment for an educational technology course at National University. It is not a real fundraising blog.
