Technology and You

Today, for many, was the second "first day" of school. We can thank the block scheduling for that, because it's made things so that today was the first class for your second set of classes. I'm freakishly tired so if I'm making no sense, that's why. Two days in and I'm suffering from the grind. This is what my schedule is like:

I have classes everyday from 8-12 noon. Then I got home, eat lunch, watch family guy, and get to work by 1:00 pm. I have work until 5 pm. Right there, I'm busy almost non-stop from 8 to 5 EVERY DAY M-Th. On Friday my classes are only 10-10:50 am. Then in the evenings I've got Ju Jitsu on Tuesdays&Thursdays from 7-9, on either Monday or Friday I like to hit the gym after work until 7 unless I have something to do, in which case I make up for it Hence, the grind.

Anyway, about the classes today. My spiel today is about where I think education is taking technology, based on the short time I've spent here at Footy. Oh and at the end I'll probably tell you why I deleted my long bio blog.



TECHNOLOGY AND YOU (the student)

Now that I've seen all my classes, I've noticed (and you've probably noticed too) that more and more classes are incorporating the internet in their regular course work. I've heard from some that certain teachers even use online resources as the cornerstone of a physical class. I think that extreme defeats the purpose of being able to choose between physical and online classes, but I personally like the advancement since I'm forced to be around a computer for four hours a day.

I'm talking about the Aplia program for econ. Or the online Etudes study guide for Bio. These classes offer questions/quizzes/information all online. It's neat because you can access it from any computer, anywhere in the world. It's also nice to keep track of your scores, I know that I lose pieces of paper left and right. Some teachers seem to have this problem as well, and it might help them out there. One class that didnt use online stuff was my Honors Poetry class, maybe some of you are in it? Anyway, we're supposed to turn in Daily Journals, and at the end of the class submit a Portfolio, so of course I thought, "Dude! That's something I could totally use this ePortfolio thing for!" How great to have my poetry portfolio online. We have to share it with the class anyway, this way peopel could peruse my stuff at their leisure. We would also be able to submit the journals easily every day, and my teacher (who seems like the kind of person to lose stuff) would be able to access assignments and portfolios and journals we turn in from any computer. Hopefully in the future he'll make it an option, I might bring it up with him at some point but I dont' want to come across as a wise guy douche bag.

My projection for where technology will go in the classroom is pretty far, and seems drastic at this point. Then again, at the rate things are moving maybe not. Look at me, I'm an average dude with a less-than-brilliant grasp of how to use the computer. I dont' know what "ram" is, or what those weird symbols ending in z stand for (like Mhz and GHz). I do know how to put a CD in the computer, how to use e-mail, and how to type. And with those really simple skills, this entire world is opened up to me. I even have a blog. Uh... I forgot where I was going with this. Oh yeah. I think in the future, textbooks will be entirely online. Maybe they'll make you pay a fee or something, but they could have an application where there's an online textbook that lets you have a personal account where you can type things in your margin, highlight stuff, book mark pages, underline etc. It's not so farfetched if you think about the fact that all these abilities exist in something as common as Word. I think all assignments and portfolios will definately be submitted online. How convenient to be able to see the exact time something was submitted, and to have a permanent copy accessible from any computer.

There's probably a lot more stuff that could be done, but that's what I came up with just sitting bored in class. It seems like a really obvious step people are starting to take. With the proliferation of computers becoming a priority in a lot of places, a take over is invariable. Get with it.