Other Schools Using iPads

In south central Minnesota, the Gibbon-Fairfax-Winthrop High School introduced 375 new iPads into their classrooms. The are to be used as educational tools and to help them focus, the administration blocked Youtube. The goal was to help teach teachers and students to utilize the technology and learn about different ways to use them other than just toys. One thing they ran into was that students thought they could contact the teacher at anytime out of school and they expected the teachers to answer right away. The school had to set rules to make it so the teachers would not be on call all the time. The iPads were used to help reinforce what the students were learning. They watched videos and learned how to do new things such as better research. Even though there were 13 dropped and broken iPads and 9 lost or stolen ones, the insurance covered them and the school believes they were worth every penny. I think using technology in the classroom will start to catch on and every time it is done they will get better and better. People can learn from the mistakes of others and make it work the best that they can.

Gibson-Fairfax-Winthrop High School using iPads

Colleges Tracking Online "Chatter"

Colleges are now using the social medias everyone once hated to their advantage. The admissions offices are using websites such as Facebook to look at their prospects and get a real picture of them. What they are doing on the web can be the best representation of their interests, goals, and maybe even commitment to the school. Some people may this as an invasion of privacy and i can see this point of view, but they have to know that the internet is never private and it could be good incentive for people to be more careful about what they post. Colleges can also use these tools to interact with their prospect students. The schools can get in touch with the students in a way that is easy and comfortable to them. The world is always changing and getting more advanced. In order to keep up, the schools have to find away to accept the new ways, like Facebook, and use them for their own good.

A Vision of Students Today

Students today are still learning in the way that students a hundred years ago learned. We watched a video called, "A Vision of Students Today"about college students speaking out about their views on what is happening in school and what they are doing about it. We then decided to make a video of our own. The 21st Century is full of technology and new ways to do things, classrooms need to figure these out and begin to use them to the students advantages. With our video we are hoping to get across the message that we are a new type of student. We learn in different ways and we are interested in different things. We must find a way to teach based on the students and not necessarily by the books. Learning should not be so much about memorizing and repeating facts but about thinking and interacting with each other. Its about finding new ways to improve ourselves and take things with us that will be useful for the rest of our lives.