Hayle Derderian
Multimedia Essay 2
December 7, 2015
Hayle Derderian
Multimedia Essay #2
December 7, 2015
Over the course of the second half of this semester, I have learned a number of different ways that digital learning is used in the classroom. It opened my eyes to many different tools and techniques that teachers use across the board today to help enhance students’ learning and adapt to different styles of learning. The first half of this semester was focused on different types of digital learning and ways that these types are implemented in the classroom. The second half of this semester was more focused on digital learning as a whole and how it is effecting classrooms as well as what the future holds for even more digital learning in classrooms, specifically lower-income school districts who may not be able to afford the resources now.
An overall gathering of my learnings with the most recent assignments and in-class readings includes that in order for students to learn effectively, teachers need to be more involved with how their students learn and what the students expect out of their curriculum. This not only has to do with the digital aspect of the classroom, but in a collective sense of how the class is run on a daily basis. I have learned that although some students may be visual learners, technology isn’t the only way that they can learn and therefore it shouldn’t play a crucial role in the classroom every single day.
The article that I learned the most from over the past month and a half was “Teaching Students to Ask Questions Instead of Answering Them,” by Matthew H. Bowker. This article surrounded the idea that if students aren’t able to ask questions to their teachers, they are not going to be able to have a balanced education because they are only getting fed the information that is handed to them without the ability to use their imaginations. Also, Bowker describes that students who do not ask questions are going to have a very narrow line of knowledge about a certain topic because they are unable to find out more without asking a question. Bowker says, “But we should recognize that teaching answers without questions deprives students of crucial learning experiences while inculcating a dangerous ideology. Imagine students of American history who have been taught only answers—perhaps several thousand historical facts. These students of “the pedagogy of the answer” would be incapable of generating interesting hypotheses, inferences, or questions about American history.” (Bowker, 128) This thought intrigued me so much because if you think about it, teachers are constantly throwing information at students on a daily basis because evidently, they are more knowledgeable on subjects than students are. Most teachers don’t waste time with asking the students if they have questions, but clearly there is a method to asking questions, and students will benefit intellectually and in their studies if they are allowed to ask more questions.
In addition to this reading, another reading I found interesting was “Paradoxical future of digital learning” by Mark Warschauer because it doesn’t focus on what is occurring now in the digital learning world, but it states an all-around prediction of what is to come. Warschauer explains that digital technologies will have just as much as an impact in literacy as the printing press did. (Warschauer, 42) Some of the advancements that are to come is that students will be able to fully understand the digital world and be able to apply concepts that they learn from online forums, databases, and applications to the real world and their studies. Since all of these multimedia tools are used in many job markets today, schools want to be able to implement in the classroom so that students are prepared for the “real world.”
My question with this is, does learning become too dependent on the digital way to do so and lose sight of the old-fashioned way of a pen and paper or printing press for example? In this article, I learned that this whole idea of digital learning can actually do some damage on the intelligence and IQ level of students in years to come. Warschauer describes an example of a young girl who engages more digital learning than the average student today and how she had difficulty searching for the mayor of New York due to the lack of understanding whether Buffalo was a part of New York City or the state of New York. This is an issue because students aren’t going to be able to know these simple facts that are very important to know, because they will depend on the internet for all of their information.
Finally, another important lesson that I have learned over the past month and a half in this course is the idea of podcasts and how they can be beneficial to students and what they are really all about. During this course we had to watch some videos about podcasts and learn what a good podcast is and the guidelines for how to make it effective. I thought it was most interesting to listen to our own choice of a podcast and answer some questions surrounding what the producer had to be aware of while producing it and what kind of mark he left on me as a listener. I think that overall podcasts can be extremely beneficial for students to engage in because they are able to let their thoughts flow freely and they are able to express themselves verbally about something that they are passionate about.
The podcast I watched was about the Newtown shooting and it mostly included stories of heroism of communities after this terrible tragedy and unique stories of how everyone came together. I was able to listen to the podcast and answer questions, and that is an assignment I have never done before in a class but I learned a lot from it. It showed me the importance of being in that digital/radio world where you are live and are allowing your words to just flow off right off your tongue without really being able to filter anything. A lot can be said and learned with this type of communication and I think that overall it would be a good practice for anyone in school to do.
In conclusion, I believe that there is a lot of information regarding digital learning that I had never even known about. Between the ideas and concepts behind it, and how it can be applied in the classroom on top of other technological advancements and the motives for them, I have been able to articulate how digital learning is effective and what the future has to hold in classrooms. I think it is most important to keep in mind the funding for these advancements and to allow all schools to have the access to them. If only some students are able to access these types of digital tools and learnings, it will not benefit society as a whole but only certain groups of students. I think this subject is extremely interesting and I am looking forward to doing more research on my own after this course to stay engaged in this topic.
Warschauer, M. (2007). Paradoxical Future of Digital Learning. Retrieved December 6, 2015, from http://gseweb.oit.uci.edu/person/warschauer_m/docs/paradox.pdf
Bowker, M. (n.d.). ERIC - Teaching Students to Ask Questions Instead of Answering Them, Thought & Action, 2010. Retrieved December 6, 2015, from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ929965
Please click above to see a similar podcast to the one I anaylzed for an assignment in Week 9 for a better understanding of what a podcast is. Sometimes podcasts are just audio, but this one is also a video that explains teens views on the Newtown shooting. This is associated with my Multimedia Essay since I think more students should speak up and use their voice in a podcast setting in orer to learn more communication and articulation skills.