Click on the image above to see the details of the conference.
There will be people from all over the United States coming for the conference and I am sure also a nice vacation. There will be many bi-lingual teachers attending and teachers from other parts of the world that speak Spanish.
I was encouraged to teach a workshop in Spanish about the use of technology in the classroom to teach history. Well, under the encouragement of a professor, I did so and submitted a proposal to the NECC.
It got accepted! So those of us that might be coming to NECC stop by and/or look me up in the program…
......Title: El Uso de Tecnologîa en la Enseñanza de la Historia
......Category: Concurrent
......Status: ACCEPTED
Congratulations to the team!
This is really a word to the wise, isn't it?
What do you think?
There is something sad about this in some ways, many teachers do not use computer technology, no matter how accessible; in fact, they are afraid of this tool… if it is $100 or $10,000 it doesn’t make much difference to them. Unless a teacher finds value in the tool by himself or herself they will not use anything new. Their lack of vision hurts the students and themselves.
Those that will pick up the tools of the future are those that fulfill a key trait of highly effective teachers:
Openness to and enthusiasm for learning: can engage with a variety of educational ideas with an open mind and a sense of exploration; demonstrates passion for and metacognition of learning across the curriculum and within discipline areas; takes advantage of learning opportunities and seeks out additional opportunities for learning.
Here is a key links related to this topic:
What is teaching?
Is teaching the process of knowledge transfer between “master” and pupil?
We can first ask what is knowledge? Have you thought about it? How can you recognize it in yourself and in others? What does it mean to “know?”
The thesaurus diagram above helps a bit…look at the groupings for the word “know,” To know or to have knowledge of something means that you, 1) can recall/recollect/retrieve information, 2) understand, 3) are experienced, 4) are able to discern and differentiate, 5) are able to recognize and be aware. So if our students really know something – they are truly empowered!
But how do they “get it”? How do they get this “know”?
The pedagogical term cognition can help shed some light into this knowledge business. Cognition means to come to know (from the Latin cognoscere) You will notice how close the word is to “conocer” in Spanish which means: to know. So cognition is the outcome – it is the result of perception, and learning, and reasoning.
Well, is a teacher’s job then to pass on his or her knowledge to the student? This would be something akin to pouring facts and figures into a student’s head. Sure sounds like it would be easy but very boring! But is that how students learn to “know?”
Another term that might help shed light is metacognition. The prefix “meta” just means: about, higher or beyond. This is really the key for teachers.
Metacognition is the in-built skill of an explicit and conscious learning self-awareness; how one processes input through our senses, how one processes the information, how one makes connections with one’s own prior knowledge, how one gains and stores new insights, how one recognizes noise or deficiencies in one’s understanding and how one applies techniques to correct them. Doty, et. al. in Teaching Reading in Social Studies for example say, “Effective readers who have learned metacognitive skills can plan and monitor their comprehension, adapting and modifying their reading accordingly. Struggling readers need to be taught how to monitor their thinking as they read and how to select appropriate strategies to help them when needed.”
So what is a teacher supposed to do - really? If metacognition is student’s internal process of a learning self-awareness what is the teacher’s role? To enable the process of course!
I love the succinct teaching of Dr. Howard Hendricks, he says, “the way people learn determines how you teach” Wow – how simple and direct.
He says,
Teach students how to think
Teach people how to learn
Teach people how to work
The teacher must be a motivator; and the learner is primarily an investigator, a discoverer, and a doer. Teach to THINK, LEARN & WORK by helping students master:
Reading
Writing
Listening
Speaking
What is your take?
Well it was brought over from a company called National Cash Register (NCR) back in 1914 to a new company called Computer-Tabulating-Recording-Company by Thomas J. Watson. That company was the forerunner of today’s IBM.
Do you think it is an accident that they named their laptop computers: IBM Think Pad?
And now you know the rest of the story….
This is a first recording of Gene Autry’s signature song: “Back in the Saddle Again” I would have never thought I would own it! Pretty cool – huh? Then you start thinking about it – this would make a great lesson for the kids… This recording dates back to 1939 – just before World War II. A technique to trace history is to look at the life of one individual, so why not Gene Autry? You can learn a lot! Who was Gene Autry prior to 1939? What did he do after 1939? What was Texas, Oklahoma and California like when he lived there? How did it change during WWII? What did Gene Autry contribute to the war effort? You can even introduce some fun stuff like - can you trace “Back in the Saddle Again” in a new movie? (Sleepless in Seattle) Why was this particular record selected – was it important, why?
Great possibilities you have to admit – you can also engage the kids in the history of technology 10” 78 RPMs vs today’s CDs and podcasting. You can even create a project to “clean” up the sound of a 78 – and digitize it to a CD as a way of preserving history. Well – ? Yeah, it would work. Of course you would need one of these…
And yes – this record player has four speeds: 16, 33, 45, 78 RPMs– I bet most of you have never heard of a 16 rpm record?
What do you think if you had to take such a test? How would you do? If you have or are teaching kids, how would they do - no matter what grade they are in?
Check out the test on other subjects at Grandfather Education Report.
Check it out at:
