Journal #9: Are Schools Inhibiting 21st Century Learning

The article “Are Schools Inhibiting 21st Century Learning?” by Dave Nagel uses a number of different technology based surveys to examine whether or not schools and teachers are advancing technology skills or inhibiting them. Overall it seemed that (while the teachers, staff and parents thought "local schools are doing a good job preparing students for jobs and careers of the future,") many of the students felt that the teachers were in fact limiting their technology use.

The article also talked about how the different "education stakeholders" about different technology tools that can be used to enhance the students learning. Both teachers and students felt that electronic learning tools like educational games and online learning. But, even though both teacher and students expressed interest and acknowledged the benefit of these tools, only a small percent were actually using them (11% of teacher said they were presently using educational games and only 8% of students said that they had any experience with online learning.)

Questions:
1.) Q: How do you feel that this class has prepared you to deal with some of the issues addressed in this article?

A: I think that this class has not only introduced me to tools that I had never encountered before, but it has also made me more comfortable using the tools that I was already familiar with. It gave me more insight to using everyday applications like Word or PowerPoint and also introduced me to applications on the web that enhance my use of those tools.

2.) Q: What was one thing in this article that stuck out to you?

A: One thing that stuck out to me was that there were such big differences between the percent of teachers that thought the technology tool was useful and the percent that were actually using the tool. According to the article “65 percent [of teachers] indicated that they thought educational gaming would be an effective tool for students with different learning styles and would help engage students in coursework” but only 11% were actually using them in their lessons.