Day 3 "IT WORKS"

Oh Yeah...Oh Yeah...Oh Yeah...I did it.....I did it....I did it....Oh Yeah...Oh Yeah.

Right now you probably think I am a crazy 40 plus year old lunatic.  However, to all you people who I used to call a computer geek (I realise now that YOU are actually normal and I was the geek who didn't know).  I would like to say that I am just elated and so happy that something I have just done on a computer that was more than just words, numbers or printing actually worked.

Believe it or not, this is quite fun.  I am loving it.

Now that I have that out of my system, I need to address a more serious side to this blog with reflection to the articles in the learning materials and in particular by Prensky.

I agree with Prensky that the single biggest problem facing education today is that "our Digital Immigrant instructors," (Like Me - Mick Busby) "(who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age)," (Once again - currently like me - Mick Busby), "are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language."

I have a 9 year old child who wanted an itunes voucher for her birthday.  "Why not", thought my wife and I - how easy is that for a gift.  Until............ "Hey dad - can you help me download these songs that I want to buy and then put them on my ipod........PAUSE............Suddenly this gift became my headache for about 2 weeks whilst I made up excuses why I couldn't possibly do it as I always had something that was more important.  The truth was - I didn't know how. 

In reality I wasn't being fair and in all seriousness, if I don't look into learning this new language - by that, I mean a digital language (or at least improving my current knowledge of it), then I am not being fair to the students who I will teach. 

Sure, I know I would still have something to offer, but is that enough in today's society.  I don't think so.  I know I need to work on my "accent" as Prensky would put it and if I can, (I can...I can...I can), I believe I can be better accepted by these digitally native students of today and help them become better role models for the next and future generations of even further advanced digitally native students of tomorrow.

Prensky also commented, "Today's teachers have to learn to communicate in the language and style of their students."  Just like our own teachers have had to do with us. 

In reality what Prensky is preaching here is not entirely new.  Teachers have been adapting for years, however what I believe he is emphasising is that when it comes to today's technology its a bit like being on a bus a driving through the town of....say Comet....(to use as an example - no disrespect intended), blink and you will miss it.

If you fall behind it may just take a long time to catch back up.  I just hope I can catch it and then aim to always stay in front.

Day 3 Embedding.

OK.  I have watched some tutorial videos and I think Iam starting to get the hang of this, so I feel I am just about ready to embed a youtube clip onto my blog.

With regards to what I should put in (and lets hope I can do this) I have browsed youtube to try and find something that that was relevant to this course.

With this in mind, I also thought that "OK - if I am going to make this blog work for me then I want a resource that I can use in my career as a teacher when I have completed my course". 

Now without searching explicitly for the clip which I have chosen, I actually stumbled across a youtbe clip which was shown to us in our first Residential School at CQU. 

I liked this clip when I first saw it.  It appealed to me and I would like to have it in this blog to remind me of the the impact that technology has on teaching now and into the future.

So here goes - The Transformation of Teaching Through Technology.

Day 2

Wow..... It has just taken me ages to find out how to get back into my blog since learning how to create it yesterday.

The one positive - I somehow found it.

I wish my children were just that little bit older so they could show me all those little shortcuts and tricks that I know exist.

I will not be defeated though. Stay tuned to my blog page and hopefully it will improve dramatically. (I Hope).

Any help would be appreciated at this stage though.

Week 1

I am an IMMIGRANT - what will I be come week 12.