Week 3

Hello!

I just completed Week 3 of the MAT. It's seems like the weeks are going by so fast. The past week I've been learning a lot of new techniques I can use in my classroom. We are currently building a wiki for our technology class. It's very stressful, but interesting at the same time. For my other classes, the topics are the same, but we're looking at it in a more in-depth way.

For our technology class, we were assigned to watch a documentary named "Digital Nation". This is a very interesting film. I didn't realize how much people use technology until I watched this. One of the pieces of the film that caught my attention was the chapter that dealt with students in Korea and their gaming addictions. I had never heard of any students who were so addicted to gaming that they had to go to rehab, and their grades began to suffer. It was also funny how the students are taught how to use the computer, while they are learning to read. In my opinion, I feel that's too early to introduce students to intense computer use. I find it very funny that people don't see the new generation as being really smart because of their extensive use of technology. I feel that the students are still smart as the previous generations, they just know how to work around the system.

My last thought about this video deals with virtual reality. I think it's really weird for people to do office work in a virtual setting. I understand that it helps with cost, due to the current state of the economy, but it's just not personal. I feel that you have the chance to learn more from others when you have to make face to face interactions. By using a virtual world, you're taking that away. I almost think it's weird. People are loosing the basic communication skills because of the internet.

Well, that's all for this week!

Aterra