The main idea of Richard Culatta’s video, “Reimagining Learning,” is closing the gap of the digital divide in the United States. In the video, Culatta points out three challenges that students are facing in their schools and ways that those challenges can be solved. This video was both educating and entertaining. Culatta discussed ideas that I have thought about before, but that I have never really analyzed. He challenged me to think outside of the box on plans of how to enhance the use of technology in today’s classrooms. He stated that there are two kinds of educators: those who use technology in the classroom to reimagine learning, and those who use technology to digitize traditional learning practices. The visuals that Culatta used in the video were very relevant and made his concepts easy to understand. When he explained the two types of educators, he went into more detail about them, and I strongly agreed with his points. Some educators expect technology, such as eBooks and electronic note taking applications, to enhance learning. Those two things, however, are going to have the same effect on students that textbooks and paper have. On the other hand, there is an educator who uses the technology to do different things that students have never experienced before. Technology may be more expensive and more challenging at first, but the experiences that the learner will have makes it all worth it.
The three challenges mentioned in the video are treating all learners the same despite specific needs, holding the schedule constant without altering it to the learners, and trying to grade assignments that are submitted too late in the school year to be fixed. The first two listed here are similar because they alter things to learners’ needs. I could not agree more with Culatta on this topic. Not all students learn in the same way or at the same pace. We, as future teachers, should educate ourselves about the ways technology will help us help our students. Some will need a little extra time to grasp a concept. Some will need us to use a different technique to explain something. We cannot expect all students to learn the exact same way, and I think this video gave a lot of insight on how we can fix that. Technology can do great things in the world of education. It’s up to educators to make sure it is used to enhance students’ ability to learn.
The tools used by the universities that were mentioned in the video were very fascinating and informative. One tool showed how long a student hesitated on a multiple choice question before selecting an answer, and another tool could tell if students learned better early in the morning or later in the afternoon. Most likely, a teacher would not recognize those results without the use of technology. I would love to have tools like these to enhance students’ success in my future classroom. Overall, the video was enjoyable, and I would recommend it to any future and present educators. Thanks for reading!
– A Teacher in Training
Reimagining Education – Link to video reviewed above
ach1524@jagmail.southalabama.edu
a teacher on training wheels 
Think Like a Kindergartener
Recently, I have observed three different elementary classrooms. Those three classrooms being Kindergarten, Second grade, and Fifth grade. Kindergarten stood out to me like no other classroom ever has. I loved the age and the material that was being taught in the classroom. So, when I was told to find an article that pertained to the grade level I was interested in, Kindergarten was the first thing that came to mind. I simply typed “Kindergarten” into the search bar on Edutopia. Edutopia is a website that has a variety of educational tools. It has videos, articles, blogs, and discussions for hundreds of different topics. The website is meant to inform educators on ways to help improve learning for grades K-12.
The article that I chose is titled “Kindergarten Is the Model for Lifelong Learning” by Mitchell Resnick. The opening line reads, “Let’s keep teaching creativity throughout school and adulthood.” This line sets up the idea of the entire article. Resnick discusses that in the very first kind of Kindergarten classes, children were encouraged to learn, share, make friendships, and use their imagination to make up stories, paint, and build things. He says, “kindergarten is becoming more like the rest of school. Exactly the opposite needs to happen: We should make the rest of school more like kindergarten.” What Resnick means by that, is teachers should encourage students all throughout their school years to be creative and collaborative. By forcing students to think this way, they will form the ability to think creatively on their own and they will be more successful. Also, in kindergarten, the majority of students cannot wait to share their ideas and stories with their teachers and classmates. In the rest of school though, that majority turns into only half of the class wants to share their ideas and stories. If more students were encouraged to do so, great things could happen from collaboration. As students advance to high school and even college, they need different tools to be successful with the ideas that they have come up with.
For example, in the article the author describes a program that he created, along with his research group, called “Scratch”. Scratch is a digital learning approach where children can create stories, games, and share them with others on the website. Resnick continues to discuss a young girl who created a project using Scratch. It became very popular and the girl received a lot of positive feedback. Because of this, she continued on and created much more for the people who were loving her ideas. At the end the author says, “She is using Scratch to imagine, create, play, share, and reflect. In the process, she is refining her programming and artistic skills — and she’s developing as a creative thinker.” This, I believe, is the whole point of the article. It is to encourage older students to think like a kindergartner would. Don’t be afraid to share your ideas and stories with others because something great could come out of it! In the future, when I am a teacher, I hope to remember concepts like this in my own classroom. Whether I’m teaching Kindergarten or Sixth grade! Thanks for reading and don’t forget to check out the article!
-A Teacher in Training
Contact Me: ach1524@jagmail.southalabama.edu
Citation: Resnick, M., & Bedrosian, W. (2009, May 9). Kindergarten Is the Model for Lifelong Learning. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
Click here to view the article
Click here for instructions on how to make word collage