Education as a Student Teacher

While viewing this vodcast on mobile learning my mind wonder a little and began to think how “it’s not true that technology is used that much” so I thought a little harder and realised that I really do use technology ALL the time! When I’m not on the lap top my sister is, just today I received a picture on my phone of my boss’s baby born last week, I’m constantly email people from uni about assignments or group meetings, in my last job i used a PDA to send the information from different stores to the head office.

We really are totally immersed in technology so it makes sense to use it for educational purposes. Some of the points that the clip raised included increased concentration, self paced learning, children who work fast can do extra work on mobile technologies or ones who are struggling can do extra practice. Students are more likely to repeat work to get 100% on the mobile devices as opposed to paper work. Privacy in learning, students can learn about topics that often hard to learn about in a face to face situation, such as personal development.

After reading just a couple of articles about the Internet in general and how it can be used with children, I feel like I have a lot to learn in my e-Learning class. I am a strong believer in getting children outside and really learning about their world be being in it and exploring it. With the whole issue of obesity becoming more prevalent, it is even more important to get the children out of the classrooms, and off the couches.

However, after reading Three X’s by Idit Harel, I’m beginning to learn that the Internet is a great resource for children. Harel explains that children not only need their basic skills in reading and writing, but in the ever increasing technologically driven world, they need to learn eXploring, eXpressing and eXchanging ideas by using the new digital media.
Exploring comes naturally to children and they learn best when they discover for themselves as opposed to being told something. The Internet provides a great place for students to discover all sorts of things in all different areas of learning.
Expressing is made easy with the Internet. Children cannot just make things out of paper and glue or blocks or Lego, but they can actually make things “work” and “go”. Lights can actually turn on and cars can move with out being pushed by the child when using the Net!

The third X is exchanging. Harel believes that learning is increased in social situations where children can discuss and question and where learning is not just passive absorbing of information. The Internet opens up ways of connecting with people from all different areas.

I feel that even though the internet is an amazing resource for kids, a balance is needed and children should still be encouraged to explore their world immediately around them…