Teaching Image

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