Week #2 Reflection Dale and Siegel

Week #2 Reflection
Scott Gardner

I hate to seem so easy going and say that I can agree with both articles again, but I see many similarities between both of these. Obviously they have different objectives that they are trying to explain, but to me they can be similar, in a way that they would like educators to have an open mind. If we as educators can realize that there are great discrepancies in the levels of our learners we can use many different sources to help our students reach academic goals. As the articles explain, there are many different ways we can help our students, as long as we understand what helps them realize or grasp the concept that is being presented.
One of my comments from last weeks’ articles was that, “Technology is really what we make of it in our teaching. Technology should be a tool to help students succeed.” Siegel has nearly the same quote early in his article when he states, “Perhaps the answer has less to do with the technologies themselves and more to do with how we use the technologies to achieve learning.” I completely agree with his ideas of online libraries being filled with boring, “I can’t wait for this to end” e-learning. I have been guilty of that in my classroom. I have found web-sites that I think would be a great asset in helping my students understand something, then after a couple of classes I am convinced that it was of little use to them at all. It really takes a great deal of researching and stumbling around numerous sites trying to find things of substance that would be of great use to me and the students.
I think both of these articles are tied into what we have been involved in with the first two weeks, which is very new to some of us. So far we have two new tools that could be used in the classroom to help with peer communicating. The blogs especially would be a great tool for students to communicate back and forth to help solve problems. The only real draw back I would see with the blogs is that you are sure students would be using this tool for the purpose you intended. If this just becomes a social tool without peer problem solving then I think you will have a great deal of wasted time. In this course alone we have 18-20 students and we only have to keep track of OUR classmates. Dr. Horvitz might have three sections and more reading and tracking then any of us would want in our daily work. The blog is a great tool in this instance and I’m sure it could be in many more, I would just have to do a great deal of communicating with peers that have used them in their work, before I attempted to use in my class.
So far for me I have enjoyed working with the blogs and the RSS reader, because it is new and I really enjoy reading the others opinions. I have already received help on questions that I have had, and have a few followers on my blog, which will be great for problem solving in this class.
I think the blogs and RSS reader touch on a couple of comparisons in Dale’s articles. If we didn’t have the first level (concrete firsthand experiences) we would not function in this class. I don’t mean the in the way he talks about the senses in this section, I am comparing this to our foundation of computer knowledge. If you didn’t have some first hand experiences with computers you wouldn’t be in this class. The section that I compare to the blog and RSS reader would be television and motion pictures. He talks about how the films can delete unimportant material and concentrate on selected key points. With our blog we find exactly what we want from a readers standpoint as well as with the RSS reader. We can just scan the titles and delete what is not important to us.
For me the computer imagination would be the blog. I feel more comfortable with the blogs we have so I read this more than the RSS. I think the blog is a perfect example for me of computer imagination because I seemed to get lost in the post others are making. So far in this experience I have found myself lost in reading others posts and information about themselves on their blogs. I do like the RSS because I have finally figured out how to connect to everyone’s blog and read from this thread. In time maybe the RSS reader will be more of a favorite.