NJCCCS/NETS

In observing the NJCCCS and NETS I am seeing a major evolution in education that I really never paid a whole lot of attention to until now. As a P.E. and Health teacher I have not changed a whole lot in my teaching practices over my 10 years of teaching and this class is starting to open my eyes! I do believe teachers need to evolve with this movement to ensure a quality education for these digital natives. Many teachers still live in fear of technology and hide behind lectures, busy work and videos. The challenge for administrators is how to get proper training for teachers and encourage and or force teachers to utilize technology. I am pretty sure that all new hires must be throughly in tune with educational technology. That is one way to improve a school building is to hire better teachers! So many teachers lack the knowledge necessary and are dead set in their ways. I hear all of the time from veteran teachers "I've been doing this for over 20 years, I am not changing now!" I have personally become pretty adept at using the computer and am looking for more ways to incorportate technology in my classes. I do have two research projects already set up for my health classes, and am currently evaluating my lessons and looking for ways to change and better reach these 21st century learners.

Jukes article

I really found the article "DK (Digital Kids) Learning in the New Digital Landscape very interesting. I definitely consider myself a "digital immigrant", learning to survive in this new digital world. As a high school teacher, I often see the way kids act, interact with others and respond to teachers and authority figures and often wonder to myself, "What is wrong with them?" This article really made me step back and think and start to realize why! They have been brought up in a totally different world, then I did growing up in the 80's. I grew up with Atari, a controller that had a joystick and 1 button to fire! I did evolve to Nintendo but once I reached college and Playstation came about I hit my limit. The Playstation remote with 8 buttons blew my mind! I take my students to a computer lab to do a research project and in 10 minutes they have printed out more information then I would have gathered in 3 night long trips to the library when I went to college! It would have taken me more than 10 minutes to figure out how to hook up the damn microfilm just to find one article! How about cell phones? What would kids do with out them? Have you ever taken one away from a student? They are like crack babies without them! They shake and shiver and cry until they get it back. It took me long enough but I finally have learned to text message! It is a different world now and it was interesting contrast to learning styles and opened my eyes more to my students and hopefully how to get through to them better.

My First Blog

This is my first blog for my Computers in Curriculum class. I just want to send this out to make sure I know what I am doing and feel comfortable acessing this. This is my first on-line class and am trying to familiarize my self with "Blogging" as well as utilizing the "Blackboard". It should be an interesting learning experience and am eager to get started!