apsutte's blog

Bus. and Mark promotion

I found a podcast titled “Walt Mossberg’s Personal Technology” at the Wall Street Journal website http://online.wsj.com/public/page/podcast.html?mod=WSJ_footer .  This podcast discusses the latest gadgetry in consumer technology.  The most recent episode discussed mini cell phone towers that can be placed in one’s home to increase their cell phone coverage if they have poor reception in their homes.  As a business educator, I would personally be interested in listening to this blog so that I could perhaps find interesting new technologies to bring into my classroom.  I also was considering playing these podcasts for students in a marketing class and having them create sales projects or market research projects around these new technologies.

The educational podcast that I found for this assignment is titled  The Technology Teacher.  It can be found at http://www.podcastdirectory.com/podshows/4316869 .  This podcast was created by a technology teacher in California named Ron Kroetz.  I listened to episode 11 titled “Google for Educators”.  This podcast encouraged technology teachers to visit google.com/educators and mentioned several cool applications available from that site such as classroom posters, activity suggestions, along with links to helpful google products and how to use them in the classroom.  This podcast would be extremely helpful to me as an educator because it keeps up with new technologies and assists teachers with introducing these applications within their course of study.

Chapter four discusses the impact that technology is having on current school systems.  This chapter mentions the slow rate at which education changes and the lack of total and complete reformation incorporating technology into the full spectrum of education.  Despite the slow process to implement technology into the everyday experiences of students, there are several teachers and school systems who are making strides in classroom technology adaptation.  These teachers vary in their methods of adopting technology across several disciplines and as the impact of technology in schools grows, these instructors are sharing and communicating their ideas with one another in order to continue to learning new technology procedures.

I was really intrigued by the teachers who were incorporating pod casts and interviews into their teaching lessons.  I think that it is really important for students to gain perspective on the rapid rate with which things change and evolve throughout society.  As a business educator I would like to use pod casts to encourage my students to interview adults who were past the age of 65 and to discover some of the amazing changes that have taken place within their life span.  I would construct questions for the students to ask regarding technology, business practices, and other societal concerns which have dramatically changed within our country.  The students could use the information gathered from these interviews to create a research project.  Within the project the students would identify a unique characteristic from their interviews and discuss how this change has impacted business procedures since that time period. 

Pod casts and YouTube videos truly amaze me.  It is now possible for me to attempt to introductory skills in any subject matter my heart desires.  For example, I have always enjoyed making sushi but there is one type of roll that I never knew how to make.  So I simply searched for a video on YouTube and I found one instantly.  After watching the step by step training video and pausing it several times to take notes, I was able to successfully make the roll within the video that night for dinner.  I think businesses need to take advantage of the possibility of using YouTube and pod-casts as training tools.  These items are free and simple to use.  Training employees is a very expensive cost for businesses.  Especially those with a high turn over rate.  Frequently once the job applicant has completed the training they may being to search for another job and the money that was spent training that individual is forever lost once the employee leaves.  This is why I think that using these products for training or even a refresher course in safety training would be a great tool for thrifty businesses.

Chapter three discusses many new tools found on the Internet that are now available for classroom usage.  What is more interesting than the tools themselves is the innovative ways that teachers are using these tools within the classrooms.  Teachers are exploring the usage of free tools and limitless online communication to better serve their classrooms as their share their ideas.  These instructors then learn from each other and expand upon their personal knowledge to fulfill the needs of the students within their classrooms.  Blogs, Wiki’s, Podcasts, Video sharing and other innovative tools are all assisting current classrooms to communicate and perform at new capacities that were previously impossible for prior generations.

I think that educators must possess a love of learning and not be afraid to make mistakes.  When I first graduated from high school and started taking college courses, the university I attended had build a new building to serve the local school and community.  Many of the classrooms within this building were equipped with new computers and other learning devices.  It was most unfortunate that many of the campus professors were nervous about moving their classes over to the new building.  These instructors had been using overhead projectors for as long as they could remember and the idea of switching their presentations over to powerpoint or another method was really upsetting for them.  Perhaps this was acceptable within a small community college setting, but as a future high school technology and business teacher I have set much higher goals for myself.  I am a huge fan of pirating free and good ideas.  I will of course explore multiple tools available for my classroom and do my best to understand the features and applications for these online and interactive tools but perhaps what is more important to me is the concept of sharing and borrowing other ideas as well.  Many teachers make their interactive white board lessons available online and other teachers view them and change the content to fit the needs of their class.  This is the type of resourcefulness that teachers must posses. 

Businesses would stand to gain a lot from the notion of borrowing good ideas as well.  I believe that it is important for businesses to pay attention to the technology advancements that occur within their surrounding educational institutions.  It should be easier for local businesses to work with schools for research, community outreach, and promotional purposes.  Businesses need to open up a stronger line of communication to schools and schools would benefit to do the same.  As teachers learn from sharing ideas with each other so can corporations and schools learn from collaboration.

A. Chapter two continues the thoughts introduced in chapter one pertaining to continuously changing educational environments alongside technology growth and enhancement.  This chapter dissects the profile of a typical student learner of the 21st century.  The chapter labels these students as citizens of the customization generation.  The text mentions several examples of students manipulating the technological settings of their environment in order to assist their learning abilities or for sheer amusement purposes.  The chapter also discusses the evolution of our thoughts concerning learning processes.  Understanding learning and meta-cognitive ability is key to manipulating the educational environment which best suits the needs of the students.   However,  the text also heavily stresses that every brain, and student possessing that brain is vastly unique.  Thus, it is the individualized manipulation of preferences that makes changing learning techniques favorable.  In other words, not all processes will work for all students and the students should have the freedom to choose and control settings that help facilitate their learning processes.  The text further credits the increase in technical socialization skills as a large contributor to the changes of today’s students in comparison to the students of previous generations. 

B. I see a huge potential in technology individualization for assisting my future students.  Last week I was assisting a professor in a technology course and a female student was preoccupied with adjusting the settings on her computer during the course instructions.  This student had found a picture of a puppy and set it as the wallpaper on the school lab top that she was using during the lecture.  She was so preoccupied with adjusting her computer to meet her preferences that she missed several important steps that the instructor had provided.  I then had to assist her for the remainder of class as she struggled to catch up to her classmates’ progress.  It seems truly silly to me that adjusting a background would ever take top priority over listening to important instructions, but this experience helps me connect to the message this chapter conveys.  I believe that allowing students the opportunity to explore technology and personalize settings provides them with chances to have fun and indulge their imaginations.  While reading the chapter discussion concerning Bloom’s taxonomy I pictured students working through each of the levels of learning until the final stage of creation.  It became clear to me that the imagination is the first place where the entire learning process begins.  As students attempt to remember new information they conjure ideas and concepts which are already concrete for them.   They use their imagination to sort the new information and categorize it in a way that will help them permanently store this information.  For example, many people imagine or create nuemonic devices to help remember important information. 

This afirms my thoughts concerningproject based learning and it’s allowance for imaginative solutions.  Using project based learning assignments in my courses will not only assist students in learning but, it will engage their need to create personalized fruitions of their knowledge.  New technology will assist my students in manipulating the environment to meet their learning needs and the students will also adjust the settings of their technology devices to express their individuality.  I must allow my students to creatively solve problems geared towards obtaining mastery knowledge.  For where does creation (the highest level of Bloom’s taxonomy) begin but with the formation of an idea?

C. The chapter heavily stressed the importance of communication within today’s work place.  As students become more comfortable with using social networking devices within the classroom, they will become more likely to have successful communications with their future coworkers.  Stifling the technologically assisted social interactions of students may prohibit them from obtaining higher levels of achievement once they enter the work force.  The importance of networking is no secrete.  In order to advance within an organization, it is important for one to fit in and be viewed in a positive light.  Employees who use social networking to their advantage can positively influence their public image and perhaps make the right social connections to assist them in getting future promotions.

A. The first chapter within our text discusses the current state our our nation in several key areas.  These areas include the status of our business sector, our economy, employment, technology, and education and the  relationships between these topics.  The authors discuss the work of Thomas Friedman who is famous for his idea that the world is now flat.  Friedman argues that as technology continues to advance at an alarming rate, it becomes possible for people throughout the world to take advantage of these technologies and to maximize their efforts in productivity.  He speaks of companies who have offices on opposite sides of the world so that as one half of the world sleeps, the workers who are experiencing day light on the other side of the world can continue completing the tasks started by the other branch.  This continuous effort minimizes gaps in worker employment schedules and allows for continuous work flow for the parent company.  The authors express concern for these advances as the United States has thus far failed to apply the maximum amount of effort towards retooling our education system to be able to compete with the skills of foreign competitors. 

  B.  As a future business educator it is important for me to recognize gaps that exist in the skill levels of my future students in comparison to global students who will compete against them in the job market.  I must then prepare my students to be able to recognize their skill levels and develop meta-cognitive abilities.  Meta-cognitive intelligence will help the students discover how they learn best and it will help them apply this knowledge to improve their skill sets.  I believe that because technology is constantly evolving it is not important that I teach specific programs or skill sets to my students.  Instead, it is more important that I teach them to be comfortable with advancements in technology and not to fear technology. 

Previously, I read a book a few years ago titled Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson.  This book argues that as television show scripts become more complex and video games become more realistic, they assist children along the technological curve.  The author discusses how children are often able to program household devices more efficiently than their parents.  He also talks about how the average I.Q. score of Americans has slightly increased over time since the formation of this testing procedure.  Johnson credits this increase to the growing existence of television sets, computers, video games, and the Internet into the homes of Americans.  Johnson further argues that although these technologies appear to exist for primarily entertainment purposes, on a deeper level they actually contribute technology skill sets to children.  As an educator, I will use things that are entertaining to me and try to adapt these technologies so that they can teach my students proper technology skill sets. 

C.  Education and business are very heavily intertwined subject matters.  The more educated students are about the business world and all it has to offer, the better prepared they can become to meet the requirements of the business world.  As a future educator I will constantly apply my efforts into educating students in regards to how they can become technological assets to their perspective future employers.  I have heard several stories of new teachers who were hired because the school system who interviewed them was considering purchasing new forms of technology and the beginning teacher expressed possessing knowledge and skill sets for using that technology.  It will be my job as an educator to teach students how explore technologies and to be confident enough to express their skill levels in these technologies to future employers.