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There was a lot in the video that I guess I knew generally, but I did not know some of the exact facts and figures that were presented. The information presented was eye opening, and the way in which it was presented (the music, the graphics etc.) made it seem that much more important. It gives me a whole new perspective in terms of thinking about what education means for this country. The things we know as commonplace today, and what we see as normal...will be so vastly different from the norm of the students that we are teaching. The video pointed out a huge obstacle for us as teachers, the information and technologies that our students will have access to, are going to be ones yet to be invented. That is eye opening, however, I was left feel overwhelmed by this information, because the video did not offer any tips or helpful hints about what to do about the fact that technology is changing as fast as ever, and there is so much information floating around out on the internet nowadays. I am glad to know it, but what do I do about it now that I do?

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My first computer, I had to beg for…I asked every Christmas and birthday from kindergarten on for a computer. I had access to computers at school, and it seemed like all my friends had them in their homes, but by dad steadfastly refused. He has always seen technology as a means to get work done, but never a means to entertain. He fought tooth and nail about getting my sister and me iPods this past year. He claims that smart phones purpose is to write and read emails, go over presentations for work, and communicate with the people you work with. He wanted a phone that could store a ton of data, because apparently he keeps thousands of work files and emails and needs access to them always. I understand that, but my whole life, he has been blind to the aspects of technology that are for socialization, or entertainment. I did finally get that computer that I had begged for, after a neighbor of ours was getting a new one, she gave me her old ‘Macintosh’, and I was finally able to enjoy Kid Pix, which was the only reason I wanted the computer. Years later, when I was in fourth grade, my mom started needing a computer for work, and I was being required to type my portfolio pieces for school. Again, my dad gave in, and we even got internet at our house. He was ahead of the curve at this point, but only because he was tired of typing everything on the typewriter sitting on our dining room table and his company was sending him to technology conferences and meetings. In elementary school, having access to the computer meant educational games for the most part—games that taught us how to type correctly, games that taught multiplication, and games that helped us to memorize the state capitals. Of course Mrs. Lehocky was attempting to teach us how to type correctly but that never went quite as planned and we ended up playing the games we had access to, and taking home pencils if we weren’t too chatty during class. In middle school, we did more work off of the computers than on them in in Option 2000 with Mr. Crawford. We did cross word puzzles, and occasionally made PowerPoint presentations while socializing with friends. High school was a bit more serious, with Mr. Jay requiring that we actually all learn to type, make a spreadsheet, a PowerPoint, a resume etc. Mr. Jay would walk around with a clipboard making sure we were sitting in alphabetical order, and doing what we were supposed to be doing. As we completed a project, we were to raise our hand and he would come over and grade it. On Fridays, he would walk around while we were playing our typing game and cover our hands with his clipboard so that we could not see the keys as we typed. He then graded that for accuracy and words per minute, and gave us a weekly grade. His way may have been strict and dated but I still type the correct way thanks to him. I feel pretty competent in my ability to use technology; I have yet to be completely stumped as to finding programs and using them. Occasionally it takes me a minute to figure out, but I am fairly proficient with technology, and if I do not know how to do something, I just look it up on Google. I can work a GPS, I can handle internet, and digital cameras, and smart phones. I feel fairly proficient at handling all the technology I have come across thus far in my career as a student. I believe that all students should have access to a computer in the classroom. I always did, and I know that my mom, who teaches fifth grade at Zachary Taylor, has her kids using the computers in her classroom on a daily basis. They are not just for playing games anymore, or learning to type correctly. Her students are writing, they are researching, and creating with them and they thrive with them. Computers have more information contained in them through the internet than a single teacher or text book ever could and if we want our students to be well versed in our content area, then we need to give them access to all the facts. I think all classrooms, K-12 should have computers, and mine always did when I was in school. Kids are comfortable around technology, they can navigate it practically in their sleep, and because they are around it constantly at home, I do not see why we would deny them use of it in the classroom when it can be so beneficial to their learning. This is the way they want to learn, this is the way they know how to…it is almost programmed into their brains, and as educators we may as well give in and let them learn the best way, they know how.

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Knowing that internet is unpredictable by nature, being that it is utilized and run by the collective millions, means that you never know what is going to take off and become popular online. It could be a YouTube video that goes viral, or a cause that would have otherwise gone unheard, as was the case in this video. We often take advantage of the internet, for its purposes of entertainment. We use it to socialize, to share pictures, find recipes, to watch television shows or play computer games…but what we forget is that the community of people out there socializing and posting videos, and playing Halo all have the ability to come together and back a particular cause if they so feel like it. So the internet is not just a means to keep ourselves occupied during our free time, it can also be a means to reaching out and saving a whale or two everyone once in a while. Therefore, we should keep that in mind next time have a cause that we are trying to fight, or we need some community outreach and support for a particular project or cause.

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The idea of sixth sense is fascinating, and also seems like something that will never actually catch on in this country because of how public, bulky and obvious it is. This generation and this country have become accustomed to having everything they want and need not just in the palm of their hand, but also in one single, easy to store and readily portable device. I feel that the sixth sense, while it has some advantages over your already existing smart phones, it lacks portability and ease of concealment. No one appreciates people knowing their business, which is another downside to this device. What we appreciate about the iPhone is that we can look something up, even something embarrassing and not have everyone else around us knowing. We can even snap pictures or doodle without anyone around us knowing what we are taking pictures of, or what we are looking at. We are also rather lazy, and we prefer to move our fingers back and forth over the surface area of our phone screens, but moving our arms around not only looks ridiculous for those who do not know about the technology, it also is more tiring than wiggling one finger. The sixth sense does not have that luxury of immense privacy that we expect with our technology. While it seems fun to play with, it seems too bulky to wear; and you cannot hide what you are doing while using it.

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Sarah Jones did a wonderful job entertaining during her Ted talk; it was fascinating to watch her change right in front of your eyes. She altered her physical appearance; she changed her posture, her voice, and her attitude. It was wonderfully composed and performed on her part, and she even made a few brilliant points during her talk, including “We in a global society are never as different as the appearances may suggest”. She is right, for as different as we all may look physically, we are a lot more alike than we tend to remember. That is until you sit down to have a conversation with someone who looks nothing like you, who grew up in a different country under completely different circumstances and yet there are usually more things you can find in common with this stranger than you would have ever thought. She also said, “For every word intended to render us deaf to one another there is always a lyric connecting ears and hearts across the continents in rhyme and I pray that this is the way we will self-invent in time”. This was another enlightening point to make as she wrapped up her talk, that there would always be something present in our society that connects us on the base level of humanity. Something simple, but that connection is what makes it possible for us to communicate and understand others, even if we do not speak their language, or believe in their god. There is something deeper out there connecting us than most of us ever take the time to realize.

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This was the most influential of the Ted talks that I watched for this assignment. I am a firm believer in experiential learning, because I do believe that you cannot just give a kid a book and have them get personal meaning from it, or tell them to write a poem and have them take personal ownership of their work. You have to make it mean something to them. The old ways of teaching were the ways I was taught, but what I am learning by taking the necessary classes to get my MAT is that the ways in which I were taught were not the most beneficial to the student. We have to let the ways of the past stay in the past and work with what we have now, which is what she called “an information surplus”. We know they have access to tons of information, they are going to school, they have internet access, and it is all at their fingertips. What we need to be doing is guiding them and asking them what they can do once they have acquired all this information that they are being subjected to at school, at home, and on the computer. I love her concept of giving students opportunity to fail, as part of the learning process, I was that student in school who was too afraid to go out of the box, try too hard, or mess up on an assignment. Therefore, I took the easy route, and I got good grades, but it was never very fulfilling, and I do not remember what it is I learned in school because our teachers are telling us that if we are wrong, then we fail, so never be wrong. We should be giving them room to fail, a period to evaluate their failure and process where things went wrong, so that they can learn from it because failure is an instructional activity and we need to be reminding kids that there is not going to be simply one right answer to everything life. Like the video said, life is not one big standardized test, there is room to” learn, and play and inquire” and we should be allowing students access to experiential learning and allowing them to fail in a way that gives them an opportunity to learn from their mistakes.