Blog Post 10

John T. Spencer
The cartoon Adventures in Pencil Integration, is a mock of the personal computer versus the Apple computer. The author is using brands of pencils to make the comparison of the two computers. A Paper mate is the least expensive of the brands and the author say it breaks a lot. He states in the cartoon that the Ticonderoga is the most expensive. In this cartoon, the pc is the paper mate brand and the Mac is the Ticonderoga. It's true what the cartoon says a pc is the cheaper of the two and it does tend to get more viruses and malware than a Mac does.
Why were your kids playing games?, Mr. Spencer's post was a conversation with a principle and teacher. The principle was wondering why the teacher was allowing his students to play games. He referred back to the hangman fiasco and the teacher was defending himself by saying how it wasn't violent and the parents had no reason to complain. The principle insisted on him not using games in the classroom. I really enjoyed this dialogue because I feel that some teachers stray away from the easiest was to get children to learn and that is through interaction. I love how the teacher is creating games to keep the children engaged. What comes to mind when I think about this post is Randy Pausch's head fake. The students are learning without even knowing it, which is awesome because generally children don't like to do school work. Making school fun by creating games, allows children to learn what may be a challenging subject for them in a fun and exciting manner.
I chose to read a blog post from January,Avoid Social Networking. In this post, there is a teacher meeting to discuss social networking and how the teachers must avoid it. I feel that this post is directed toward the ignorance to what social networking really has to offer and how it can be used in the educational world. It is quite funny how the teachers are confused about how social networking is classified. I really enjoyed this post over all the others that I read because it made me laugh. I feel that the proper social networking site could link the students with their teacher at all times, for questions and group conversation. Before college I really couldn't see how a social networking site could be used educationally. My classes that were online and the ones that were hybrid used a forum that allowed us to discuss different topics, per the teacher's request. This allows students to interact with others which stimulates learning. I learned a lot in those classes because it focuses on group discussion and you to see the ideas of others.
Dr. Scott Mcleod
Dr. Scott McLeod is a known for many things in the educational technology world. He is an author, founding director of UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education (CASTLE) and co-creator of the video series; Did you know? (Shift Happens). Dr. McLeod is a regular blogger on this blog titled Dangerously Irrelevant.
I found his post on titled Don't teach your kids this stuff very true. We do live in a world that is scared of technology. I know that technology is growing, changing and that there are many cons to it. However, it is all something that we must embrace. I was in Wal-Mart and the woman on the same isle as me was complaining about not knowing how to use her phone and that her 9 year old daughter knew more about her phone than she did. This is the world we live in where the younger generation knows more about technology than the generations past. We don't have a choice but to embrace it with a smile. We need to learn more so that when we are faced with the unknown, it won't be so scary anymore.