BP1_2009101_Anti-Teaching

Anti-Teaching

The article "Anti-Teaching" by Michael Wesch reflects on his experience on the challenge of teaching as it is currently done within classrooms with lectures and test preparation. Asking the question are students learning? Are we creating the proper learning environment for our students. He sets out to learning how to impact the students learning, and redesigns the classroom and creates a world inside the classroom and requires his students to define that world by gaining knowledge of "the last 500 years of world history" and create and edit videos as a class. The challenge of getting students to ask questions and discover the answers using PLE.

Connectivism:

This video allowed me to understand the desired affect and idea of the ETC course.  The information we seek is out there in cyberspace, we just have to search and refine to use it.  Using iGoogle as a one stop connection to that information is brilliant, at first I was asking myself what is the purpose and how was this going to be used, but after viewing the video on Connectivism, I am ready to move forward.

PLE:

By creating our site in iGoogle I have now developed my own Personal Learning Environment (PLE). The video on PLE again reinforces the connection to learning information and utilizing it on iGoogle to build and develop a site for my Action Research project. Both videos fall in line with my study of what teachers on my campus are using technology, how are they using it in and out of the classroom to improve the students development and is it working? The other part of the my AR is to study the teachers not using technology in and out of the classroom to enhance the students learning and see it's impact on the student.

I find that not a school districts share the these concepts and push teachers in the direction of really challenging and teaching the student. We focus on tests, quotas and ratings that is the goal in education. Are students really being educated? From the opening of the PLE video we are creating factory workers, and I've always felt that way. I had experiences when teachers in grade school would say "if you don't get A's and B's you can't get a job."  I would respond, "but I don't want to work for anybody. I want my own business."  I thought beyond the classroom, but I knew what I wanted to do in life and studied outside of the classroom. I guess that's why I rarely did my homework, it wasn't relevant to me.  I realize to become a better learner I had to make learning relevant to me. I began to do that in high school and college. What about the our kids like me that didn't think like I did? How much suffering through lectures and testing did they endure? What impact did it have on their career and life decisions?
Was the factory concept of education more damaging than we can imagine?

If everyone watched this video would they agree, would the teachers change their methods of teaching?

I have a lot of questions? Maybe as a part of my AR I could show teachers these articles and videos, and get their response? Then see if they would change or continue to use the same methods and conditioning  passed on.