Journal #4

"From Toy to Tool" by Liz Kolb

I really liked this article because it gives good insight to how we can use technology (Cell phones) in our schools to better our classroom experiences. Blogging, in present tense, is the wave of the future. Most teenagers have a MySpace which utilizes most of their day creating their own personal web URL. As this article was suggesting how we can use cell phones to conduct and post interviews via cell phone. The students will simply register on Gabcast (a site for uploading bloggers) and walk through the steeps to creating a quick, easy and technological savvy audioblog entry. This article also suggests a free service for students without cell phones. Skype is a free on-line service that allows the user to dial any where at any time for free. Any, if not all, of these suggestions in this article should be considered at every grade level.

Question 1: Should blogging be used more frequently in a classroom?

In my opinion, yes, it should be. Most students anyway already have an HTML creator, (MySpace) why not inform them of something different to put their mind and time into school related material. Basically EDUC 422 for the middle and high school levels.

Question 2: Is MySpace dim-witting our students?

Honestly, I feel like children living in the 21^st century have a small right to spend “a lot” of time on the computer. This time spent might not be on mathematics or history but it is spent learning the writing of the web (hypertext). Literally the computer sounds like a waste of time but no one can really say how far computers might leak into the school curriculum. If they ever do, children might have a better grasp on the material than the instructor.