Blog Assignment #10

I'm a Papermate. I'm a Ticonderoga.

In John T. Spencer's blog, Adventures in Pencil Integration, he posts a cartoon called I'm a Papermate. I'm a Ticonderoga.

The cartoon is mocking the I'm a PC, I'm a Mac commercials. Like the PC, Papermate is the more inexpensive of the two options and is still reliable; while like the Mac, the Ticonderoga is just as good, in some opinions better, and more expensive. I personally own a PC, my second PC to be exact. The ones I have owned are very reliable as long as you take care of them. I think that the Mac has great features and qualities that the PC does not but when I was purchasing my PC, looking at buying a Mac was not an option with my budget. The cartoon was funny and great mockery of the I'm a PC, I'm a Mac commercials.

Why Were Your Kids Playing Games? By John T. Spencer

This blog post by John T. Spencer was called, Why Were Your Kids Playing Games?, was a set of dialogue about being called into the Principal's office. He gets in trouble for playing games with his students. The Principal scolds him saying that games cannot properly be used for educational purposes. This Principal believed in just feeding students information and have them focus on the memorization of that information and just spitting it out on the test and then moving on to the next topic.

I think that this Principal was wrong. Students need a way to connect what they learn to their own lives. They need hands on experiences, and yes even games, to bring the subject matter to life in a way that engages them. The fact of the matter is that at some point in our future teaching careers we are going to encounter teacher, administration, and principals that believe in this "Burp Back Education" (as Dr. Strange says). This is the method I was talking about previously about feeding students information and simply focusing on the memorization and then have the students burp it back up onto the test. This kind of teaching is not effective. This is not the form of teaching I will use when I start teaching. I plan to incorporate hands on learning in my classroom.

Avoid Social Networking By John T. Spencer

In this post by John T. Spencer called, Avoid Social Networking, is another dialogue but this one is written about an HR representative telling them that they cannot interact social with students outside of the classroom. Reading this made me laugh quite a bit. To a degree socializing with students outside of the classroom is appropriate. Students need to be given attention and shown that there is a sense of care from their teachers. The points made that were brought up by the teachers were outrageous, such as what if we see a student at the grocery store? and the response of the HR representative was to just smile and wave and don't speak to them. That just seems absurd to me. Parents even want to know that their kid's teacher is kind and caring.

Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff Please? By Scott McLeod

This post by Scott McLeod, Don't Teach Your Kids This Stuff?, is his sarcastic way of saying to go ahead and keep your kids away from new technologies but he is going to teach his students to use them and they will have a great advantage over yours. I love his way of putting that students need to stay up to date on the new technologies today. Technology is a gate way for students to learn, create, and communicate. It is a good idea for parents to monitor the sites and views of their children. The internet is a great place for learning but it also holds things that children do not need to see, so parents need to monitor that. To educate their kids about the internet, parents also need to be technology literate as well.